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 we follow a 27-year-old designer who makes $70,000 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Keep reading for her receipts.
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The finances
What are your pronouns? She/her
What is your occupation? Designer
How old are you? 27
What city and state do you live in? Las Vegas, Nevada
What is your annual salary, if you have one? Because of freelance work, my income varies by year. This year it’s set to be approximately $70,000. Last year it was $80,000.
How much is one paycheck, after taxes? I have a part-time job that pays about $1,000 per paycheck.
How often are you paid? (e.g., weekly) My part-time job pays twice a month. Some freelance clients pay upon receiving final deliverables; others pay “net 30,” meaning they process payment within 30 days of receiving an invoice from me.
How much money do you have in savings? I have around $15,000 in savings.
What are your approximate fixed monthly expenses beyond food? (i.e., rent, subscriptions, bills)
- Housing: $0. (I thankfully live with my parents.)
- Car: $250
- Wi-Fi: $150
- Phone: $50
- Gym membership: $80
- Total: $530
The diet
Do you follow a certain diet or have dietary restrictions? As a teenager I struggled with restrictive eating—I avoided full meals and spent long stretches of time without food. Now I eat for pleasure. Instead of avoiding the feeling, I eat when hungry, looking for a variety of products and lots of flavors.
What are the grocery staples you always buy, if any? My grocery runs are different every time. I tend to purchase groceries to try new dishes or satisfy cravings. Once a month I shop for “safe” freezer foods, or things I can eat in a pinch when I’m too tired. These safe foods are typically soup dumplings, salmon filets, and mozzarella sticks.
How often in a week do you dine out versus cook at home? I eat most of my meals out and about. My weeks revolve around the local coffee shop where I sit to do freelance work. Once the workday is over, I typically have a meal in one of the many restaurants around the neighborhood before making my way home.
How often in a week did you dine out while growing up? My parents and I ate most of our meals together at home. We dined out a couple times a month for special occasions, to spend time with friends, or to try new restaurants.
How often in a week did your parents or guardians cook at home? My father cooked almost every single meal I had growing up. My diet consisted of Argentine chorizo, all kinds of pasta with cheese and butter, broccoli cream soup, tortellini with pesto, mountains of tomatoes, and grilled meat. We often hosted dinner parties where my father would spend hours making elaborate dishes to fit the occasion.
The expenses
- Week’s total: $374.81
- Restaurant and cafés total: $343.28
- Groceries total: $31.53
- Most-expensive meal or purchase: Dinner at Toddy Shop, $92.22
- Least-expensive meal or purchase: Thai banana, $0.43
- Number of restaurant and café meals: 10
- Number of grocery trips: 3
The diary
10:45 a.m. I have plans to see a friend, O, tomorrow; she has made ice cream from scratch. To share in the delight, I go by the local grocery store, Smith’s, to pick up a box of waffle cones. While there, I run to the dairy aisle for a single serving of yogurt. They are out of La Fermiere, my usual choice, so I grab the vanilla and chocolate flavor of Yoplait’s Oui. The chocolate shavings in each bite are worth the $1.79. With the waffle cones, I spend a grand total of $5.08.
11:45 a.m. I’m working in the local coffee shop, Vesta, which lists a tres leches in its specials today. After confirming it is indeed a slice of cake and not a latte, I order a slice ($8) plus a ham and cheese croissant ($7). When the slice of cake arrives, a mix of milks is pooling at the bottom, three edible flowers on top of the whipped cream. The first bite is enchanting; it’s hard to stop. With a $3.25 tip, the meal comes out to $19.51.
2:00 p.m. I’m with my mother who is stuck at work—her car won’t start. While we wait for the tow truck to arrive, I buy an agua fresca from Superior Grocers. A large cup of jamaica seems like a strong contender to fight against the Las Vegas heat. When the cashier asks if I’d like to add boba, I say yes without thinking. The pearls swirl in my mouth, keeping me entertained. ($4.48)
5:30 p.m. On our way home my mom and I stop by the local Chicken Shack. I’ve had many, many meals alone in its parking lot after long days. Today it seems fitting to come back and get the usual. The #4 combo ($13.99) comes with three wings and three fingers, a side of fries, and a regular drink. I ask for a side of blue cheese ($0.89) and a side of honey mustard ($0.89), almost by reflex. With tip, we pay $20.52 for the meal. The cashiers offers my mom a cup for water. As we fill up our drinks, we make the decision to take the food to go. I eat all the food in bed, exhausted. (My mother, dealing with the stress of car repairs, felt too nauseous too eat.)
10:00 a.m. I have been at Vesta, my coffee shop of choice, for quite some time but have yet to place an order amidst the morning rush. In hopes to find something as good as the tres leches from yesterday I try something new, the shop’s Street Corn Cobb Salad ($13.00). To drink, I order my current favorite from the seasonal menu, the Yuzu Matcha Soda ($6.50), a concoction of yuzu, matcha, ginger, and sparkling water topped with a shiso leaf. Most days that I have the soda, I drink it within a few minutes. Today I choose to take it slowly, to savor its sweet gingery flavor. The total comes out to $22.82.
1:15 p.m. At O’s place, I bring out the waffle cones. Surprisingly, they’ve survived my driving around the city, hitting the sides of my car multiple times with no flaws in sight. O defrosts some of the ice cream and scoops a perfectly round serving of guava ice cream into a cone for me. It smells of the guava trees in my hometown. I eat some of the ice cream with my eyes closed.
2:40 p.m. When I pick up my nephew L from preschool, he asks that I take him to the restaurant, for pizza. He asks with such tenderness and I know exactly what place he means. At Old School Pizzeria, one of the best pizza places in town, L finds his favorite booth and waits for me to place our order. The pizza maker recognizes us but still asks, “What can I get for you today?” I get us a regular pizza, half Calabrese, half cheese only. I ask for a jar of the grilled rosemary lemonade. At the table, L insists on shaking piles and piles of Parmesan onto his cheese pizza. He asks to taste the lemonade, all the black things, he tells me. He savors every sip with all the theatrics of a four-year-old child. ($34.68 total)
10:00 a.m. For the third time this week, I’ve done some work on an empty stomach. I’m home today and decide to put together a smoothie. Years back, I used to frequent a smoothie shop with rich, complex smoothie recipes. The place has now closed, so I tried to replicate one from memory. In the blender I put together half a fresh mango, one long-frozen and perhaps freezer-burnt banana, spinach, chia seeds, a spoonful of peanut butter, almond milk, and a single date. Once it’s mixed together, I add some spices I remember the original concoction having: cinnamon and turmeric. The end result is not quite right, but it satisfies the craving.
1:00 p.m. At the back of the fridge I find a small black container with a label from Superior Grocers. The label says it contains four flautas, but I open the box to find what resembles three and a half fried quesadillas made of potatoes and shredded chicken. I try to put together a classic flauta dish but fail miserably. There’s no lettuce, tomato, or fresh cheese in the fridge. I put all the quesadillas in a plate, even the half-bitten one, and warm them up in the microwave. Inside each one, I drizzle a bit of Central American cream and hot sauce.
5:00 p.m. I reach my friend H’s place, where I’ll be taking care of her sweet dog while she’s out for a few hours. H has made a beautiful salad from all the stuff in her fridge. It’s a giant bed of arugula with cherry tomatoes, sunflower seeds, walnuts, black olives, and hearts of palms. I serve myself a bowl and retreat to the couch. The hearts of palms remind me of old meals with my dad.
9:00 p.m. I raid the pantry to find Sprouts brand raw Fancy Cashews. A good source of iron, the bag says, so I shove a fistful of them into my mouth. I know for sure H won’t mind.
8 a.m. Before I formally start work, I drink what is leftover from yesterday’s smoothie. The taste hasn’t changed dramatically, but one of the ingredients has certainly soured. I down it in three big gulps, only savoring some of the mango and cinnamon.
10 a.m. At Vesta, I venture for a pastry. The need for something sweet and crunchy has taken over my brain, so I order its version of a churro cruffin, should such a thing really exist. The pastry is twisted into the size of a giant muffin, drizzled with cinnamon sugar and filled with pastry cream. With a cup of black tea, the order comes out to $14.95, including tip. At my table, I rip apart pieces of the pastry and dip them into the cream. The mixture is sweet, not overwhelming. I dip some of the pastry in the cup of tea too. It’s something I would normally do with sweet bread and hot chocolate. The cruffin provides similar comfort—and the tea is now slightly sweet.
2:00 p.m. Another friend, also H, and I have formed a ritual: We spend Thursdays together working side by side on our computers. Then we walk around the corner to Esther’s, where our friend J bartends, and sit for a long meal. It’s always the same: Esther’s housemade radiatori dish with added chicken. Shaped like little tentacles, the pasta comes seasoned with a cream of black garlic, lemon, and chives. A few weeks into this tradition, the taste of the radiatore is familiar and comforting. It’s a mixture of tang and savory, acidic in all the ways that matter. J makes us passionfruit drinks, a mocktail for me and one of the menu specials for H. I leave $60 in cash.
1:00 p.m. For the past month I’ve carried around a craving for fresh spring roll without doing too much about it. On this day off, I drive the 20 minutes to Seafood City, the local Filipino market, to pick up some ingredients. Cabbage, tofu, Sriracha, rice vinegar, wood ear mushrooms, and rice paper are all I need, yet I wander around the store, staring into every fridge and freezer with nothing in mind. I spot a Thai banana, a type I loved eating as a kid. I cut two up from a bunch, to eat in the car, I tell myself. ($21.97 total)
At the till, the cashier marvels at the bright purple cabbage. “Hopefully, I remember the code,” she says. I tell her my mother is a cashier too. “She had to learn I think 200 codes,” I say. “Way more than that,” she says.
Back home I try some mise en place, washing and placing all the ingredients in various dishes. I sauté the wood ear mushrooms and sprinkle them with sea salt. From the pantry, I pull out an old pack of vermicelli noodles and bring a pot of water to a boil. I do the whole ritual, removing the pan from the heat and dropping in the noodles. I try to remember them in five minutes but I obviously forget. They come out overcooked, a little slimy. There’s no soy sauce in the house—I finished it weeks ago and forgot to replace it—so my attempt at a peanut sauce is abysmal. By sheer luck there’s a bottle of Jugo Maggi still in the fridge. It’s a few years out of date, but it adds the right flavor notes to an otherwise dull concoction.
When the time comes to put the spring rolls together, I panic. Some rolls come out far too full, and some toward the end of the assembly line are missing two or three ingredients. The final array reflects my lack of dexterity, but I find myself feeling incredibly at peace with the time I spent in the kitchen.
7:00 p.m. My friends H, N, and I meet up at Toddy Shop, a once-a-week pop-up at a downtown coffee shop. We ask the staff for help ordering enough for three people. They suggest a bucket of the tandoori fried chicken, a bucket of three wings, the beef curry special, and a side of lemon rice. The items arrive one by one, and we attack them without much grace. The pieces of tandoori chicken, fried and drizzled with a thin hot sauce, are incredible. We eat with our fingers, praising every bite. H wishes Las Vegas had more places like this, and I agree. The beef special lands at last. It’s three or four fried plantains, a scoop of the beef and curry in the middle, all laid delicately over a bright green leaf. We eat as much as we can, slowly realizing how spicy it is. I eat some of the plantain ends, bare.
The chef comes by to introduce the dessert pudding, a mango phirni, presented in a beautiful clay pot. He tells us of the cardamon and sliced almonds inside. When we are done, I hold onto the clay pot for a bit. It’s incredibly cold. When it’s time to step outside I’ll remember its touch. The mild heat of Las Vegas in May greets us at the door. ($92.22)
7:30 a.m. I wake up from a long night out, gather some fruit from the fridge, and head back to bed. The platter is really just a mountain of watermelon cubes cut up earlier in the week. The fruit has lost some of its sweetness, so I focus mostly on the slices of mango, picking them up with my bare fingers like a feral creature. As soon as the fruit has disappeared, I fall back asleep, begging my body for a full rest.
1:45 p.m. When I feel human, I head out to O’s place. We’d made plans to check out a new smoothie spot—a good one, she tells me. We drive down only with O’s instincts—she can’t remember the name of the place, but knows more or less where to find it in her memory. It’s in a classic Las Vegas strip mall, but Smoothology is a stand-alone structure, submarine-like, made of concrete that’s painted orange and yellow. Today is its grand opening. We stand by the human-sized menu board and pore over every ingredient in the smoothie options. O asks about the taste of jackfruit; I try a peanut butter blueberry mixture to help decide. We end up ordering a smoothie called Cacao-abunga, a blend of bananas, medjool dates, almond butter, cacao, sea salt, housemade almond milk; and the Vitamin Sea, a bright-blue smoothie made with passionfruit, mango, blue spirulina, lime, and agave. Each of the smoothies comes with a choice of two toppings. The person taking our order waits patiently as we rattle off ideas. We choose cacao nibs and fresh bananas for the Cacao-abunga, along with chia pudding and coconut-based whipped cream for the Vitamin Sea. We take the smoothies back to the car. We share a few scoops of each, taking time to crunch on the cacao nibs. The chocolate base of the Cacao-abunga is comforting while the sour Vitamin Sea keeps me alert. It’s like sucking on a lime popsicle on a sunny day. I keep making faces, pretending I made the perfect choice for the day. ($21.81)
3:00 p.m. Earlier in the week my dad had fried some milanesas, a classic dish in my upbringing. I serve myself a piece and douse it in lime juice—perhaps an unorthodox way of eating it but a force of habit in this household. A few leaves of cabbage (leftover from the spring rolls) seasoned with oil and salt make the best companion. This is a meal I’ve had a million times in my life; I know what to expect with every bite.
7:00 p.m. Before it’s time to tuck myself in for the night, I slice a chunk of store-bought Bundt cake as well as some strawberries. On one of my favorite plates—a Goodwill-found dessert plate with details of a van Gogh blooming landscape—I stack the slices of cake with layers of strawberries in between. It’s only upon the first bite that I realize the sponge is lemon-flavored, artificial but sweet enough to play with the strawberries. I often end my days like this, in the quiet of my combination bedroom and home office, eating off a gaudy plate the few ingredients I’ve put together to consider a comfort, perhaps a meal.
8:30 a.m. I have plans to meet up with J (the bartender) for breakfast at one of our favorite places, PublicUS. It’s a brunchy, trendy coffee shop and the site of our first meeting. In line, we chat over the food we are about to eat and our favorite things on the menu. At the till, I order the house waffles with whipped cream and berries on top as well as an iced matcha with lime named the Lemon Lime Matcha Green Tea. J doesn’t let me pay for their order of a steak and eggs plate with chimichurri, a dark mocha latte, and another green tea. We sit outside to sip on our drinks until the sun is too overwhelming. Inside, we find “our” table, hidden away in a corner. When the plate of waffles arrives and I cut the first bite, I realize just how hungry I am. I’ve ordered the exact dish a dozen times before, and today is the first time I leave the plate clean. ($25.68 with tip)
3:00 p.m. After the visit to O’s, she sent me home with some gummy candies from Trader Joe’s. I eat them in bed, the bagful, in between afternoon naps.
8:10 p.m. The week ends with a dogsit for one of my favorite clients—an overly eager rescue with some sight issues. When hunger calls, I do the usual when dogsitting: downloading Uber Eats and placing an order for a sudden craving. This time, the app suggests Sweet Poké, a place half an hour away from my client’s home. I choose a burrito with white rice and a sprinkle of mixed greens. For proteins, I add tempura shrimp, tofu, and eel. At random, I choose yum yum sauce and eel sauce. When it’s time to check out, the app suggests I add something else. I cave in as I always do and choose some edamame. With all the fees and tip, the meal comes out to $31.09.
An hour later, the burrito arrives, a little too warm for pleasure. I rate the driver positively and delete the app. It’s the Vegas heat, I tell myself. I devour the burrito on the couch while the kind dog naps at my feet. Trashy television plays on but I don’t pay it much mind.