A recent viral tweet suggested that the “true measure of wealth” isn’t your private equity portfolio. It’s what’s in your grocery cart — it’s buying Vital Farms eggs, Rao's marinara sauce, and Kerrygold pure Irish butter. Basically, if you can purchase very expensive name brand versions of everyday grocery items, you must be flush with cash. But can the contents of your fridge really shed light on your financial situation?
Of course, someone could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and still buy fancy butter. On the face of it, purchasing $8 marinara sauce says nothing about your personal financial situation. But it does say a lot about your life.
Even having the ability to go to Whole Foods and purchase Kerrygold garlic butter already means someone is doing pretty well, on a global scale. It means they have access to transportation and live relatively close to a well-stocked grocery store (AKA not a dollar store). And if someone feels confident purchasing Vital Farms eggs (which run for over $9 a dozen at my local Publix), it probably means they have at least a bit of discretionary spending money.
People who opt for $9 eggs when $2 eggs are available may do so for a wide variety of reasons — ethical, health, or otherwise. Perhaps they don’t have a lot of money, but they value good food and are willing to invest in it. Maybe they skimp in other areas — makeup, clothes, travel — so that they can splurge on groceries. We all have different financial priorities. As one commenter put it “I buy these and I’m poor so what does that mean,” to which OP responded “Living life to the fullest 😤.”
It’s sort of like the phenomenon of the “sweet little treat.” Why not enjoy delicious butter in the midst of this craziness we call life? But I would also argue, if someone can buy $9 eggs without breaking the bank, they are probably not really in dire financial straits. Even if you are thousands of dollars in debt (and many people are), being comfortable spending extra money on things that aren’t absolutely necessary is a sign of wealth.
What is wealth, really?
Financial wealth isn’t the only kind of wealth — there’s also social wealth, time wealth, and physical wealth. Social wealth relates to our status in society and our ability to build and maintain connections with others. And even knowing which kind of eggs, marinara sauce, and butter rich people buy is a sign of social wealth, as illustrated by this TikTok created in response to the original tweet.
I hate to bring up Donald Trump, but in the 2003 documentary Born Rich (which I watched in middle school before…everything), Ivanka Trump recalls walking down 5th avenue with her dad, when he pointed to a homeless person and said “that guy has $8 billion more than me.” He was (is?) in such extreme debt that this may have been true, in a sense. But he obviously had a lot of social wealth, which allowed, well, you know the rest.
So, what does your fridge say about you?
I wouldn’t bet money on anyone’s net worth based on the contents of their pantry, but it’s still undeniably fascinating to analyze other people’s groceries. In fact, there’s an entire subreddit for it — r/fridgedetective, “where you post a picture of what is in your refrigerator and people deduce things about you and your life based on your fridge.” It’s quite wonderful, and highly addictive.
The comedian Dan Ahdoot also hosts an entire podcast where he interrogates the contents of famous people’s fridges, and posts them on social media. (An image of Matt Rife’s fridge is publicly available on the internet…you’re welcome.)
At the end of the day, your preferred brand of pasta sauce probably doesn’t reveal as much about your financial situation as your private equity portfolio (or the fact that you even have a private equity portfolio in the first place), but it can say a lot about your life, your values, and your cultural background. And I’m not gonna lie, Kerrygold butter is totally worth the investment.