Liberals might identify another category of privilege as growing up in a home in which you can learn the skills to manage this sort of grocery budget (which is displayed by a lower reliance on the fast food options).
Fair enough. I grew up eating home cooked meals around the family table, and I was taught to cook dried beans, etc. Everyone didn't learn those lessons as a child -- but no one's forced to continue to live in ignorance. Information on how to cook is widely available.
It's a matter of habit and failing to realize that it's possible to live differently.
I've mentioned my no-good cousin on this board before. When he's working, on payday he takes his family to Golden Corral, where they stuff themselves ... and his wife takes her big purse so they can steal fried chicken and rolls. For the next couple days they eat fast food value meals. Once their weekly money's gone,
they don't eat. Even the children, though the older two get free breakfast and lunch at school now. Before our grandmother died, they'd show up at her house at mealtime in hopes of food. Both my grandmother and I
offered to teach them to budget their food dollar and to cook inexpensive meals -- they would not hear of it: Beans and cornbread are for poor people. It's too much trouble. The kids don't like that kind of food. They didn't want to learn.
