Retirees get creative to eat cheap at restaurants, but what about health care costs?

If my basic math is accurate, the average retiree spends $1,553.65 a year eating out or $3,107.3 for a couple. I guess you can consider that “affordable .” 😛

You see, affordable is all a matter of perception and how we choose to spend our money. I don’t begrudge seniors eating out, I enjoy that myself although I don’t think it’s 193 meals a year and it’s definitely not mostly fast food places.

On the other hand, such discretionary income does not appear to square with the need for other “free” stuff like:

Medicare Benefits Expanded

The ACA expanded Medicare benefits, resulting in more savings for seniors. Medicare beneficiaries will save, on average, about $5,000 over the next 10 years due to lower drug costs, free preventive services and reductions in the growth of health spending. Since passage of the ACA, more than 7.9 million people with Medicare saved over $9.9 billion on prescription drugs.

Preventive Services and Annual Wellness Visit

Medicare beneficiaries are eligible to receive many preventive services with no out-of-pocket costs. These include flu shots, tobacco cessation counseling, as well as no-cost screenings for cancer, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Seniors can also get an annual wellness visit so they can talk to their doctor about any health concerns. Because of the ACA, over 37 million seniors have received at least one of these preventive services with no out-of-pocket costs in 2013.

So it appears when it comes to spending money on pleasurable things money can be found, but when it means paying a co-payment for health care, it’s unaffordable. Exactly how does that work? Perhaps fewer meals in fast food places would mean less money for certain health care. 🍎 I wonder if the politicians checked on this before expanding Medicare❓Just sayin‼️

Retirees over the age of 65 bought an average of 193 meals at a restaurant last year up from 171 meals in 2009

Marie Langworthy, 68, and her husband, Bob, 75, of Columbia, Conn., love to dine out and usually do so at least twice a week, often for dinner or a late lunch.

Marie hates to cook and tries to avoid it at all costs. “My husband prefers anything to my cooking,” she says. “The surest way to get your husband to take you out to eat is to be a lousy cook.”

“We always spend more than we’d like to or anticipate, because Bob enjoys wine or hard liquor with his meal, and I always opt for dessert,” says Marie, a retired school administrator and co-author of Shifting Gears to Your Life and Work After Retirement.

She says they could probably “save a bundle” if they ate more meals at home, but they have no plans to cut back on dining out anytime soon. “First of all, eating out has become a great American social pastime. Secondly, it allows each of us to pick and choose what we want without our needing to plan and prepare meals in advance.”

Retirees over the age of 65 bought an average of 193 meals each at restaurants last year up from 171 in 2009, according to the latest data from the NPD Group, a market research firm that tracks eating trends. That’s slightly less than adults over age 18 who bought an average of 203 meals at restaurants last year, down from 222 meals in 2009.

“In an industry that is suffering, retirees are a bright spot,” says Harry Balzer, NPD chief industry analyst. The average restaurant check for a retiree is $8.05, vs. $7.33 for other adults.

Retirees frequent fast-food places 63% of the time; 37% of the time they go to places with waiters and waitresses, he says.

via Retirees get creative to eat cheap at restaurants.

All this is nothing new of course and it’s certainly not limited to seniors. I wonder how much women who need “free” contraceptives spend eating out? Ha, better not go there again.

It’s just human nature, we don’t like spending money on health care, we are conditioned to think some obscure entity should be paying whether it’s our employer, insurance company or government. Politicians play on this notion rather than approaching it logically, but who can blame them, logical solutions don’t get you re-elected.

P.S somebody tell me where I can end up with a “restaurant” check for $8.05, I mean a place where they actually come to your table.