[refurb]

It’s wild what Singaporeans spend on food. Many people don’t prepare meals regularly at home. Kitchens are small and super basic.

It’s pretty common to eat out for most meals. The plethora of options and low cost is obviously a big driver, but it’s getting hard to find meals for under $5 now.

So 150 meals a month times $5 is $750 for food. And that’s eating super cheap. The more hearty hawker meals are more like $6-8.

Of course not everyone eats every meal out and there are people that cook at home a lot (seems to be more common with Malay), but when this 25 year old colleague making $5,000 per month told me they spend $1,000 per month on meals I was surprised.

When I was in the Bay Area our family of 4 spent $600 per month on food (all prepared at home). That was shopping at Costco and Asians markets and not really counting dollars while doing it.