Welcome to The Receipt, a series documenting how Bon Appétit readers eat and what they spend doing it. Each food diary follows one anonymous reader’s week of expenses related to groceries, restaurant meals, coffee runs, and every bite in between. In this time of rising food costs, The Receipt reveals how folks—from different cities, with different incomes, on different schedules—are figuring out their food budgets.
In today’s Receipt, a 20-year-old college senior eats pizza and fries while working late nights on the student newspaper, makes penne alla vodka for his friends (and seven housemates), and tries to enjoy food from the dining hall. Keep reading for his receipts.
Jump ahead:
The finances
What are your pronouns? He/him/his
What is your occupation? I’m a full-time student studying English and American Studies—and an even fuller-time editor at my university’s daily student newspaper. This semester, I am also interning at a publishing company (in a desperate attempt to be hireable following graduation) and holding several odd jobs around campus.
How old are you? 20
What city and state do you live in? Providence, Rhode Island
What is your annual salary, if you have one? I hold part-time, minimum-wage jobs year-round—they average about $15 per hour. In the past few years, I’ve worked at Dunkin’, several publishing houses, and the writing center at my university.
How much is one paycheck, after taxes? Around $500. My current internship pays $15 per hour and I work 18-hour weeks.
How often are you paid? (e.g. weekly) Every two weeks.
How much money do you have in savings? No savings, but I do have a trusty credit card that I am able to pay off with the leftover budget in my university scholarship. (In case they ask: The funds are used exclusively for academic purposes.)
What are your approximate fixed monthly expenses beyond food? (i.e. rent, subscriptions, bills)
- Rent: $585, which is far cheaper than what other seniors at my school are paying but far too expensive considering my house’s moth problem. I live with seven housemates—most of them my best friends that I made during freshman year—in an eight-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. Most of the windows in the house don’t open, the kitchen oven is almost impossible to turn off after use, and we’re convinced the upstairs hallway is haunted, but there’s a balcony and two refrigerators—what more could college students ask for!
- Utilities: $85, including Wi-Fi that only works in the living room
- Streaming services: $24.25, including a Spotify family plan that I share with my hometown best friends and a Max account that an unfathomable number of friends, acquaintances, and their respective family members have access to.
- Total: $694.25
The diet
Do you follow a certain diet or have dietary restrictions? I don’t eat chicken—I’m not vegetarian, just scared. Throughout elementary and middle school, I almost exclusively ate chewy (almost rubbery) spicy chicken sandwiches for lunch and now even the thought of a tender brings me back to those dark times. I try to stay away from most meat in general, with the only exceptions being Shake Shack burgers and salami, the latter of which is far too good with some cheese and crackers to give up.
What are the grocery staples you always buy, if any? Kimchi’s a must, as are avocados, eggs, and oat milk. Pasta—particularly penne—is really the only food I know how to make, so that’s always in the cart. And so are rice, red kidney beans and sazón seasoning. (I’m on a never-ending journey learning how to make rice and beans as well as my hometown best friend’s dad does.)
How often in a week do you dine out versus cook at home? I have a bad habit of dining out for a majority of my meals, and my credit score is suffering the consequences.
How often in a week did you dine out while growing up? I didn’t. Growing up, my siblings and I used to guilt our parents for making us attend Saturday church services by begging them to take us to McDonald’s afterwards. It rarely worked.
How often in a week did your parents or guardians cook at home? We were a big leftover household. My mom would cook dinner one night and it would typically last us two to three days.
The expenses
- Week’s total: $200.92
- Restaurants and cafés total: $107.60
- Groceries total: $93.32
- Most-expensive meal or purchase: Buffalo chicken pizza (no chicken) from Pizza Pie-er, $14.04
- Least-expensive meal or purchase: Garlic cloves from Whole Foods, $1.15
- Number of restaurant and café meals: 8
- Number of grocery trips: 1
The diary
11:22 a.m. Classes start in two days, and work for the school paper has already kicked into high gear. I’m worried I’ve overbooked myself this semester (yet again), so I’m treating myself to a plain bagel with egg, avocado, and hot sauce ($6.33) from Bagel Gourmet, my favorite bagel shop near campus. The bagels are a bit too tiny for my liking and, by this time of day, they typically have already started to lose that fresh-baked softness, but the workers here always greet me so enthusiastically that my delusional self thinks they recognize me. I know they don’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep coming back. I also grab a Coca-Cola bottle ($3.10), a much-needed caffeine and endorphin boost if I’m expected to get through the rest of my day.
11:46 a.m. I’m in the newspaper office now, bundled up in sweatpants, a sweater, and blanket to combat the A/C that’s been blasting all summer (I don’t know how to turn it off). The cold Coke isn’t helping the situation, but I need my morning fix! I worked at a movie theater in high school, meaning most of my meals were composed of popcorn and Coca Cola—give or take a peanut M&M—and the habit’s been hard to kick. My bagel tastes good enough, but somehow the dough has absorbed all of the hot sauce, making for a pretty soggy eating experience.
6:14 p.m. I’ve spent the last six hours catching up on work for the newspaper and now I’m grouchy and hungry as I make dinner. Tonight, one of my best friends and I are having some friends over for dinner. Most seniors at my school live off campus, which means we’ve been hosting and attending a lot of dinner parties and housewarmings recently. Tonight, we’re making penne alla vodka with sautéed mushrooms, as well as a nice serving of garlic (but mostly butter) bread. I ate this meal for most of my breakfasts, lunches, and dinners last semester because it’s one of the few meals I can actually cook, and adding a heavy hand of red pepper flakes always helps.
The ingredients for the pasta, purchased at Whole Foods by my roommate and split evenly between us, include: penne pasta ($1.69), tomato paste ($2.19), heavy cream ($4.29), yellow onion ($3.97), mushrooms ($5.98), garlic ($1.15), bread ($6.99).
6:23 p.m. We’re eating our meal with a cocktail my housemate brewed in a defunct Brita—she became a master cocktail mixer over the summer. The drink is a mix of Deep Eddy’s lemonade vodka, several High Noon seltzers, cranberry juice, and pink lemonade (all previously purchased). The lemonade vodka doesn’t need any chaser, but the cranberry juice and pink lemonade are so overpowering you can barely taste the alcohol. You still manage to get the same effects, thankfully.
The pasta, hot in both its temperature and spice level, is making the temperature in the apartment slightly unbearable. But not as unbearable as hearing my friend talk about all the money she made at her summer banking job.
10:32 p.m. My friends and I are going to a housewarming party down the block from our apartment, which is a rarity because few fellow seniors choose to live as far from campus as we do. The short walk is very welcomed considering the suffocating summer heat (you would think the Ocean State gets a nice breeze every once in a while). All three of us are eating mint chip ice cream sandwiches while walking over, previously purchased by another one of my housemates. I usually hate mint-flavored sweet treats, but the coldness of the ice cream almost stifles the flavor so it’s not too bad.
11:23 p.m. Drinking a cold beer felt like a smart decision when we first got to the party. But, within minutes, it’s already gotten warm and started tasting like what it really is: gross.
Monday total: $22.56
Tuesday
8:52 a.m. My remote internship starts today so I’m getting breakfast with my boyfriend before I have to spend five hours scrolling through TikTok at my desk and checking Teams notifications every so often. One of the perks of being an orientation leader at my school is that we get several complimentary meal swipes, so we’re at the closest dining hall to my house. I have a plate of scrambled eggs (with a heavy serving of hot sauce), home fries, and the most delicious veggie sausage (complimentary, but $9.25 normally). These veggie sausages are the only dining hall food I ever find myself craving, mainly because they taste nothing like actual sausages. There’s something so artificial about their flavor—not a hint of vegetables at all—and they’re always cooked so dry it’s almost a fun challenge trying to bite into the patties.
I also have my morning glass of iced Coke, which somehow always tastes better coming from a soda machine—that much sweeter and more carbonated.
1:44 p.m. Taking a brief break from work (I’ve moved on from TikToks to Instagram Reels) because I’m desperately craving something sweet. I go for another mint chip ice cream sandwich but try to take my time eating it this time (to avoid having to go back to Instagram Reels). The cold ice cream makes my teeth hurt.
2:44 p.m. I desperately need to eat lunch but haven’t gone grocery shopping in weeks and don’t plan to do so any time in the near future. Luckily, my housemates and I have been following a system where we each cook something for the rest of the house one night out of the week—a way of making sure we all get at least one hearty meal per day as school starts to get busy. That is to say, there’s always an abundance of leftovers in our fridge! One of my housemates made chana masala, cauliflower curry, and golden rice for a group dinner the other night (I can’t remember how long ago and frankly don’t care), so I add some white rice, heat everything up in the microwave, and it tastes almost as good as the first night.
4:23 p.m. I’m seeing the new movie Bottoms at Providence Place Mall—famously the largest carpeted mall in America—so my friend and I share a medium popcorn doused in movie theater butter (which happens to be vegan for anyone wondering) and a medium Coke ($10.82). It feels like I’m back in high school.
8:42 p.m. I like to eat my dinners late because I hate going to bed hungry—and waking up even hungrier. I get pizza from my favorite pizzeria near campus, Pizza Pie-er. It’s my usual order: white pizza with buffalo sauce ($14.04). Sometimes I say, “Buffalo chicken pizza, no chicken,” but that almost always leads to a lot of clarifying questions from the cashier. Pizza Pie-er makes it best (trust me, I’ve searched far-and-wide for a worthy competitor in New Jersey, where I’m from). It’s incredibly filling, which convinced me to look beyond the gag-inducing smell of blue cheese, and spicy in the Hot Cheetos type of way, where your nose is constantly running.
9:43 p.m. In the same way that I’m addicted to regular Coca-Cola, one of my best friends is addicted to Diet Coke. I have a couple of sips from her bottle. It’s not nearly as good as the real deal. I can always taste the artificial sweetener (which doesn’t give me the same sugar rush that regular Coke does) and Diet Coke is never carbonated enough (I like my Coke so bubbly it almost hurts to drink it).
Tuesday total: $24.86
Wednesday
8:43 a.m. It’s the first day of classes and everyone is up in a hurry trying to get a house photo before we go our separate ways—it’s that senior-year nostalgia kicking in. I’m eating Activia strawberry yogurt (left over from orientation training) because making a real breakfast seemed too emotionally taxing this morning. I can already feel my body revolting against the dairy but I can’t risk going through my first day of classes hangry.
1:07 p.m. I just rushed home from my last class of the day to hop on a work call. My favorite thing about Zoom meetings is that you can keep your mic and camera off while inhumanely chowing down leftover buffalo pizza and no one would ever know. I don’t bother heating the pizza up because I always over-microwave it and then have to use a knife and fork (and subsequently wash the knife and fork).
1:15 p.m. I’m having another mint chip ice cream sandwich. It’s dawning on me that I’m going to have to buy my roommate more ice cream to make up for my leeching.
5:37 p.m. I just found out that I still have complimentary meal swipes left over from orientation, so I’m at the diner-esque dining hall on campus that just underwent renovations (there’s now bright green, ivy wallpaper and it’s absolutely hideous). They didn’t have Impossible burgers tonight so I’m just making do with a salad. The unfortunate thing is I don’t eat salads often— or vegetables more generally—so I never know what combo is actually going to taste good. And this amalgamation of lettuce, carrots, banana peppers, cucumbers, black beans, chickpeas, cheese, and ranch dressing simply does not.
11:01 p.m. I’m in the newspaper office working on getting tomorrow’s paper out the door. I’m munching on some fries that one of my friends got me from the dining hall (they forgot the dining hall’s signature spicy sauce and I’m devastated) and indulging in a couple of sips from my friend’s Coke Zero. Again, it doesn’t compare to the original.
Wednesday total: $0
Thursday
10:46 a.m. I had a meeting early in the morning today for my job at the university’s writing center. It was so difficult to get up in the morning that I’m now severely rethinking whether or not taking a 9 a.m. class this semester is actually a good idea. But to treat myself for being brave enough to leave the house, I’m getting another bagel from Bagel Gourmet. This time, I’m doing something simpler and cheaper: everything bagel with cream cheese, never toasted ($3.72).
11:02 a.m. As soon as I get into my apartment, I settle in my dining room, one of the few rooms in the house with an A/C, and dig into the bagel. It’s insanely hot so I’m eating as quickly as possible to avoid the cream cheese getting funky. The bagel’s overflowing with seasoning (one thing about me is that I love anything seasoned with garlic and onion) and cream cheese oozes out of the bagel hole. The meal is over far too quickly.
4:17 p.m. Classes are done for the day, and I have an hour before production for the newspaper starts, so I’m catching up with a friend over sushi. My freshman year (during an unfortunate COVID summer where the entire class of 2024 had to be on campus), I ordered sushi for dinner nearly every day (funded by the very generous U.S. Department of Labor Unemployment). My favorite place near campus is DaDaruki and I always get the same three rolls: California ($7.25), Boston ($7.95), and Avocado Cucumber ($6.00). I also always make sure to eat my rolls with the full-sodium soy sauce—I tell myself I’m deficient. The sushi tastes perfectly fresh—the cucumber has a satisfying crunch to it and there’s no browning avocado, thank god (which I’ve found surprisingly hard to come by). It’s almost as good as my friend’s romantic drama.
9:13 p.m. Every Thursday, we have an all-staff meeting at the newspaper where we order pizza from Flatbread, a local pizzeria, and give each other props for a week well done. It’s a nice tradition only made possible by the fact that the pizza is free due to some long-standing agreement we have with the pizzeria. Tonight’s pizza toppings include plain, mushroom, and pineapple (the last of which I personally hate but it’s always the pie to go first). I’m already digging into a plain slice. The pizza tastes good enough—the cheese has a sharpness to it I haven’t found at other pizzerias—but I wish it had more crust. This one is incredibly thin.
Thursday total: $24.92
Friday
12:41 p.m. I’m having an off day and cooking food for myself feels overwhelming. So I’m at McDonald’s with my boyfriend. Today’s breakfast is two medium fries ($6.98) and a medium Coke ($1.29), which is my usual fast-food order. McDonald’s undoubtedly has the best fry quality out of all fast-food chains—they are thin, crispy, greasy, and taste almost nothing like potatoes, which is exactly what I want with fries—but it’s rarely my first option because the sauces are lackluster. Wendy’s, with its ghost pepper ranch and the now-discontinued creamy Sriracha, has my heart. But McDonald’s is closer to campus, and it’s close to the liquor store that never seems to care how fake your fake ID looks, so here we are!
8:35 p.m. I’ve been rotting at home all day—switching between watching Jersey Shore and Desperate Housewives with my housemates and taking hour-long, beyond sweaty naps in my room. But now it’s time to go to our newspaper’s Barbie-themed happy hour to kick off the semester. I wanted to get Shake Shack beforehand (as a way of motivating myself to actually show up) but online ordering wasn’t working and ordering in person takes forever. Instead, I’m getting mozzarella sticks ($10.00) and french fries ($7.50) from Bajas Tex Mex, one of the two Bajas restaurants right in the middle of campus. I know it’s an odd order from a Mexican restaurant, but I also know that I’ll have to be at happy hour for several hours and can’t afford the devastation that nachos or a burrito bowl would bring to my bowels.
8:52 p.m. The office is dark except for our twinkling string lights and some pink mood lighting (in honor of Barbie). I’m watching Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse on one of the computers as I’m eating my food. The fries have some cajun seasoning that I don’t usually taste on them and they managed to get soggy in the 10-minute walk to the office, but the meal is tasty enough. I doubt I’ll end up finishing it all but I can already feel one of my friends eyeing the mozzarella sticks so no food will go to waste!
11:46 p.m. We’re at a study abroad-themed house party now (I unfortunately didn’t get to go abroad so I’m going through severe FOMO) and I’m munching on some pretzels from a communal bowl. The pretzels are good, the non-air conditioned apartment is detrimental.
Friday total: $25.77
Saturday
11:29 a.m. I’m at a new bagel shop with my boyfriend, Rebelle Artisan Bagels. Their menu is a little overwhelming (being artisan and all) but I’m eating a sandwich called the “Vegan Dream” ($11.88), which has a cashew spread, cucumbers, carrots, avocado smash, jalapeños, and onion. Honestly, it tastes like a garden, in the sense that all of the vegetables are fresh and crunchy enough but they’re as flavorful as water. At least I’m feeling full. We also share a s’mores Pop-Tart, paid for by my boyfriend because he’s studying business economics and will probably end up working for a bank or consulting firm while I’ve spent the last four years of my college career reading books for a grade.
2:57 p.m. I’m desperately craving something painfully spicy, so I make myself Buldak artificial spicy chicken ramen noodles with two poached eggs and some kimchi on the side (all purchased previously). Unfortunately, I overcook the noodles and there’s barely any broth left (which I always eat with white rice after the noodles are done) and the ramen itself isn’t unbearably spicy. Store-bought ramen also never seems to taste as good as I think it’s going to.
6:23 p.m. For dinner tonight my housemate made angel hair spaghetti with roasted tomatoes and Tuscan herb olive oil and sautéed kale and onions with red pepper. The extravagant and hearty meal is very much welcome after yesterday’s double french-fry moment. There’s also a baguette with some sort of brie-like cheese from the farmer’s market that I use to soak up all of the pasta sauce.
10:23 p.m. I’m at a friend’s birthday party and someone brought an entire pizza from their work event (minus the one slice that has a mystery bite taken out of it). It’s an odd-flavored pizza with goat cheese, onions, and honey drizzled on top. I usually hate it when savory meals have a surprise sweet kick to them (i.e. kettle corn, chocolate-covered pretzels, etc), but I’m already on my third slice. I picked off all of the onions on my pizza to avoid having to spend the rest of the night talking to people with rancid breath.
10:33 p.m. There’s a plate of watermelons on the living room table and I’m ravenously making my way through a slice. It’s very thin and has the softest hint of sweetness to it—think about how flavorful La Croix are and subtract 50% of that—but I’m just too hungry to stop. I even eat the rind (I do this a lot with fruit peels, especially limes). Honestly, the crunch is just too satisfying and it kind of tastes like cucumber to me.
Saturday total: $11.88
Sunday
12:36 p.m. My housemates are all going grocery shopping at Stop & Shop, so I’ve decided to join them and actually start cooking myself meals at home (as opposed to leeching off of others and abusing my credit card). I am, however, shopping for a month’s worth of groceries because I don’t intend on being back here for several weeks. My haul ($80.19) includes:
- Sourdough bread ($5.99)
- Boursin garlic & herb cheese ($7.99)
- Heavy cream ($5.49)
- Eggs ($5.19)
- Salami ($4.49)
- Dr. Praeger's California veggie burgers ($5.99)
- Quorn chicken nuggets ($5.99)
- Pop Tarts ($7.98)
- Goya red kidney beans ($3.18)
- Tomato paste ($3.38)
- Sazón seasoning ($1.99)
- Baby arugula ($3.99)
- Mushrooms ($2.49)
- Avocados ($8.30)
- Yellow onions ($1.77)
- Annie’s mac & cheese ($5.98)
2:26 p.m. My housemate just opened a fresh jar of pickles and we’re digging in. Last year I was absolutely obsessed with pickles and went through a phase of just drinking straight pickle juice. But I’m convinced that all the extra sodium caused my first panic attack (this isn’t medically supported at all, just my personal experience) so I’ve backed off since then.
2:38 p.m. I’m having Annie’s white cheddar mac & cheese for lunch, arguably the best mac and cheese you can get from the grocery store. Somehow the shells are always perfectly al dente and the cheese is just bland enough that no matter what you’re in the mood for, Annie’s will be fine enough. I’m adding the “grocery store” qualifier because nothing beats the vegan mac & cheese from Beatnic, with its slightly nutty flavor from the cashew-based cheese and accompanying fried-to-a-crisp shiitake bacon. I think I diluted it with a bit too much milk though, because the cheese doesn’t taste nearly as sharp as it usually does. I still have no inhibitions about finishing the whole box by myself.
7:45 p.m. I’m at the newspaper (are you seeing a sad trend?) and eating an Impossible burger and fries courtesy of my boyfriend’s dining hall meal plan. I think he’s trying to play a sick joke though because the burger has no toppings except for pickles. It’s still delicious—just the right amount of fake meat and chemical flavor. There’s also a random mozzarella stick hidden under the pile of fries but the dining hall mozzarella sticks always smell like intense body odor to me so I’m holding back.
Sunday total: $80.19