$pent Millennial

Dear Reader,

I am a work in progress.

Last weekend, I spent some time drafting ideas for a potential Spent Millennial cookbook. Not anything fancy. Quite the opposite, actually.

No glossy photos. No complicated recipes. No expensive ingredients you have to hunt down at three different specialty stores.

Just “good-enough” meals.

The kinds of meals that stretch a grocery budget. The kinds of meals that get food on the table after a long day. The kinds of meals that are not perfectly balanced, organic, farm-to-table masterpieces — but still feed people.

Because for a long time now, one of the ways I have kept myself financially afloat has been by being incredibly careful with groceries.

I have noticed lately that more and more people are talking about grocery prices. About shrinking budgets. About standing in the aisle doing math in their heads. About putting things back. About trying to make ingredients stretch just a little further.

And I thought maybe there was room for honesty there.

Not aspirational cooking content. Not “clean eating.” Not perfection.

Just transparency.

Meals built around what is affordable. Frozen vegetables. Store brands. Pasta. Canned sauce. Processed cheese. Frozen fries. Whatever works. Whatever fits the budget. Whatever helps get through the week.

So I shared a grocery haul online.

And the post did surprisingly well. Lots of likes. Shares. Engagement.

Then I saw one comment.

“Imagine buying all that processed crap.”

And in the spirit of being honest? It hurt.

Most of the time, comments like that -from nameless, faceless critics- roll right off my back.

But this one pressed on a bruise.

Not because I thought the comment was entirely wrong. But because I knew it was right– or at least accurate. Because it hit something tender in me.

The truth is, I do want to eat fresher foods. I want more whole foods. More healthy meals. More fresh ingredients.

But wanting something and consistently being able to afford, access, prepare, and sustain it are not always the same thing.

Especially right now.

Because fresh, whole food is the most expensive food (in both time and money), and recently it has been becoming harder and harder to find fresh fruits and vegetables that are worth the cost.  

Just when it feels like, maybe, I am finally getting to a place financially where healthier choices should become easier, the cost of everything keeps rising. Work and income feel less stable than they used to. And, once again, there is no time, money, energy, or mental bandwidth to make the “right” choices. 

The truth – my truth – is sometimes survival looks less like homemade organic meals and more like making sure there is enough food in the house to get through the week.

I think that is why the comment stayed with me.

Not because a stranger on the internet suddenly changed my opinion of myself, but because it touched an area where I already feel insecure. An area where I already wish I were doing better.

The shame, self-disappointment, and discouragement I felt from that one comment weighed on me for the entire day- and then some. It had me second-guessing myself. And scrapping my processed-food, good-enough meals, food-at-home cookbook. 

But, maybe that’s exactly why people need it. 

It’s not that people need me to tell them how to simmer up a Hamburger Helper enchilada box, wrap it in a tortilla and serve it with leftover pico and guac, or to encourage them to throw leftover chicken into a box of penne with a can of sauce and call it chicken parm. 

Maybe what people need is the permission. The solidarity. The understanding that what we put on the table does not define us. It is not a moral yardstick to measure ourselves against. It is just dinner. And some nights all it needs to be is good enough. 

That has been the whole point all along. Not to inspire people with perfection, but to reflect back to them the reality that I am living. So that if they see themselves in it maybe they don’t feel so alone. 

Spent Millennial has always been and has always been meant to be about the messy middle. Figuring it out and doing our best with what we have. 

It isn’t perfection. And it isn’t rage bait. It is just life. 

Maybe part of being a work in progress is learning how to hold that truth with a little more grace.

To acknowledge where I want to grow without using it as evidence that I am failing.

To understand that doing the best you can in one season of life may look different than in another.

To offer myself the same grace that I would extend to anyone else, recognizing that shame has never been a particularly effective ingredient in growth anyway.

So yes — I am a work in progress.

In the meals I make.
In the way I care for myself.
In the way I let other people’s words affect me.
In the way I balance my ideals with reality.

But then again, I think we all are.

And maybe there is something beautiful- or at least real- about refusing to wait until we are perfected to be honest about where we are.

Until next week — take care & keep growing,

Everett