Economy testing how little we can spend on food

Consumers cut food spending almost 4% between Q3 and Q4 of 2008, the steepest decline in the 60+ years government has tracked this metric.

Assuming that we aren't eating any less, some experts believe that this data reflects people essentially eating what's already in their freezers and pantries. If that's the case, this sharp decline isn't sustainable... but I don't think it's realistic to credit much decline to this theory. 4% of a quarter of a year is almost four days. I don't believe a huge portion of the American population is organized enough to replace four days' worth of food they would they would have bought with food they have in their homes already.

I think it's much more feasible to think that people are truly buying less expensive food - eating in instead of eating out, and paying attention to the price of what they're putting in their carts. These two trends, taken to a reasonable extreme, have the potential to trim a lot more than 4% from most people's budgets, and I think we'll see the metric continue to fall.

An additional thought to consider is that people may truly be eating LESS - which would be great for our country, on the whole. If someone who usually gets a mid-morning donut, or after-dinner ice cream, skips the indulgence entirely, all the better.

Weirdly, Q4 did see a 5% drop in pet food purchases. Hopefully we're not putting our pets on diets.

You can read more here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123448606475780133.html