Where Do You Spend Your Food Budget, At Home Or Dining Out?

Starting April of 2022, people spent more on food service than grocery stores.

Food and Beverage Stores vs Food Service

• Food and Beverage Stores: 85,526

• Food Service: 103,555

• Total: 189,081

Percentage Breakdown

• Food and Beverage Stores: 45.23 percent

• Food Service: 54.77 percent

Where the BLS Says You Spend Your Money

• Food total: 13.522 percent

• Food at Home: 8.231 percent

• Food Away from Home: 5.290 percent

Corrected BLS Weights

• Food total: 13.522 percent

• Food at Home: 6.116 percent

• Food Away from Home: 7.406 percent

Retail data updates every month, providing a highly accurate snapshot of current spending habits. In contrast, the BLS relies on the Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE) to build its CPI weights. This process calculates weights based on multi-year trailing averages. While consumers have rapidly accelerated their spending on convenience and experiential dining since 2022, the rigid CPI basket updates much slower, leaving it structurally behind real-time shifts.

CPI Year-Over-Year Percent Change

CPI Year-Over-Year Percent Change Food Percent Change

• Food at Home: 2.7 percent

• Food and Beverage: 2.9 percent

• Food Away from Home: 3.4 percent

Since April 2022, the BLS has been underreporting food inflation. In addition, the BLS totally ignores home prices, property taxes, and homeowners insurance. It treats all three as capital expenses, not consumer expenses, as if capital expenses don’t matter.

Inflation Matters

Inflation matters, not just the Fed's and BLS's measures of “consumer inflation.” People see their property taxes and homeowner’s insurance soar and they know they are paying more for food and medical expenses than the BLS says. Kevin Warsh wants more timely market measures, but what we really need is a total overhaul of these calculations, not more timely nonsense.

Homeowner’s insurance is a very big deal and totally ignored. Yet, economists tell people real wages are rising. They aren’t in any practical sense, and it shows in every poll. The BLS says shelter is 35.473 percent of the CPI. Of that, tenants’ and household insurance is allegedly 0.414 percent. If you own a home, what percent of your income is spent on your homeowners’ insurance? It’s time to put a complete end to this nonsense. We need to scrap the CPI and start all over with where consumers really spend their money.