Daniel Neman: A poll reveals the high cost of nonessential living

May 15-- May 15--A poll that received national attention last week made quite a stir: According to its figures, the average American spends $18,000 each year on nonessential items such as impulse purchases, rideshares and something called "subscription boxes."

The type of stir that the poll made was largely negative. Millennials, in particular, disparaged it because of what it considered "nonessential." The first several items on the list, for instance, all related to eating: restaurant meals, takeout or delivery, buying lunch and the like.

"Eating isn't essential. Good to know," tweeted one tweeter.

Other items that earned some scorn included personal grooming (another tweeter tweeted "Was this study performed by the Bowl Cut/Trim Your Own Bangs Foundation?").

I even scoffed a little, non-Millennially, myself. I looked at the results and thought there is no way this is an actual, serious poll.

I find it hard to believe that the average American spends $96 a month on rideshares when vast swaths of the country are without rideshare programs (we're talking Uber and Lyft), and that a lot of people own cars in the parts of the country that do have them.

And what is this about the average American spending $93.96 on subscription boxes? I looked it up, and subscription boxes turn out to be companies that send a box of goods every month, such as the Fruit-of-the-Month Club or the Dollar Shave Club or FabFitFun, which specializes in beauty products. These boxes tend to cost in the $30-$40 range per month.

I was also made suspicious by the reported details of the poll: Exactly 2,000 people took the survey over just two days. You'd need a small army to call that many people or go door-to-door in that short a time.

I called the company that ran the survey, OnePoll, and asked how they did it. OnePoll is a marketing research company that sends surveys out to people who have signed up to take them (they get compensated for their time, but payments are apparently fairly minimal).

So their polls are not exactly scientific. They are not given completely at random; it is a self-selected group that takes them. The people who take them have access to a computer, time to take a lot of surveys and the desire to make a little extra money by taking them.

On the other hand, 2,000 people is a large sample, even if they are self-selected. So it is presumably at least vaguely accurate, though the man I spoke to at the company admitted that their participants skew somewhat older than the nation's demographics would indicate.

The poll was commissioned by the Ladder life insurance company. Their point was that people spend so much money on non-essential items that they claim they don't have money left over for essential things such as life insurance.

But I'm not here today to talk about life insurance. I want to talk about the money that people are spending on food.

Because if the survey is correct, it shows that the average American spends $787.28 a month to dine out. At the very least, it shows that the average person taking this survey spends that much.

And yes, you can tweet sarcastically that eating isn't essential and be very funny about it, but here's the thing: Eating is essential, but eating out is not.

Obviously, a lot of people can afford to spend $787.28 a month in dinners at Al's and Tony's and Vicia and a daily half-skinny, half-decaf vente latte with a twist of lemon. And that's great.

The problem comes when the people who can't afford it do it anyway. Then they withhold money on things that are perhaps more essential, such as paying down debt or saving to buy a house or, yes, even life insurance.

Eating is essential, but if you're spending too much at restaurants and coffee shops, a great way to save money is to try cooking for yourself.

You might even like it.

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