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Two buses, three hours and 13 miles: how Americans in ‘transit deserts’ get groceries without cars
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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Poor tax
$35 of groceries is 4 to 8 meals, not to mention hygiene and household items. One person would spend much more than that weekly if they're not dining out.
Or are hungry.
$35 is a lot of oatmeal, bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, beans, and frozen veg. Maybe some raisins for fruit. No, it’s not fun, but you eat miserable food when you live in a food desert and have no money. Also, the passage says at least, not only. She’s probably spending more.
that's my point, spending $35 to avoid the extra fee is not really a problem, because one can easily do that with everyday food for one person per week. In fact it'd be really hard to spend less than that on food.
If it’s making it so that she can only order groceries every 2 weeks, I’d consider that a problem. The fee itself isn’t the root cause, but it’s another barrier. I don’t believe for a second that your quality of life wouldn’t be impacted if you only ordered groceries every 2 weeks.
That’s Walmart. And their competitor to Amazon Prime.
Is that supposed to sound bad? That doesn't sound bad to me.
It’s not “supposed to sound bad” It IS bad.
$7 a month is $3.50 per delivery. That's like the cost of a round trip bus ticket. And someone is spending the time and effort shopping for you. And $35 is not a burdensome minimum for 2 weeks of groceries.
To steelman the article, the real cost comes in with the fact they sneak in markups on the prices of the items.
It doesn’t say she only spends $35, it says $35 is the minimum she has to spend to avoid the charge.
Yes, I understand. You misunderstood me just now. If anyone else misunderstood my previous comment, please downvote this so I know.
🙄