One big reason Americans are broke and overweight

Author: Catey Hill

We're making this major money mistake around food.

Chew on this. 

More than half of Americans confessed to making a financial mistake when pursuing their financial goals this year — and the most common mistake had to do with dining out.

One in four Americans confessed that they dined out too much last year, according to a survey of more than 2,000 people released Thursday by financial company Fidelity. What’s more, the No. 1 thing Americans bust their budget on is dining out, according to research released by financial company Principal this year. Nearly one in three Americans (29%, up from 26% last year) said that this was this year’s top budget buster for them, followed closely by food/groceries (27%).

One problem: People who eat out a lot tend to underestimate what this will cost them, according to a study released in 2017 from researchers at Penn State. The researchers asked the participants what they thought they would spend eating out at the beginning of a two-week period and then in the middle of that period; participants upped their average budget from a little under $18 in week one to about $55 in week two.
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