MAYBE MILLENNIALS DON’T EAT CEREAL BECAUSE IT’S TOO DAMN EXPENSIVE

$5.50 a box? For WHAT?

As you may recall, I’m more pregnant than an elephant, which means I waddle around, exhausted, crying over children’s cartoons, and dealing with various food cravings. One thing I find I reliably want: cereal. I dream of easy comfort food in a bowl that I can eat with my fingers — I’ve never been one to sully cereal with milk — in an action that reminds me of being a kid myself and getting taken care of instead of having to do the care-taking.

There is, however, no cereal in my pantry right now. Is it because I’m yet another lazy-ass millennial who think cereal is “inconvenient” and can’t be bothered to wash a dish, as the media would have you believe?

NO. It’s because, around me, cereal is ridiculously overpriced. The cereal I like best, the one I grew up with and which has such a calming effect on me that my grandparents would stock it for when I stayed with them and my mom would send me boxes at summer camp, is Kellogg’s Product 19, and I don’t know what those various 19 products are but one of them must be uranium because it costs nearly $6 a box at the supermarket closest to me.

At the 2nd closest supermarket, it’s $5.50. WHAT A STEAL.

Cereal is made of wheat, corn, oats, and rice, all ingredients the USDA subsidizes like crazy as part of the Farm Bill instead of fresh fruits and vegetables, and then it’s padded with wood shavings and topped with more corn in the form of HFCS. It is not exactly a gourmet food experience. Why then is Kellogg’s charging me more than it would cost to buy a dozen free-range organic eggs?

Maybe this is my fault for having high-brow taste in cereal. If I were content with Froot Loops, I could follow my nose to Target or to the drug store, where cereal can often be found at a markdown. (Fun fact: each individual froot loop tastes exactly the same, regardless of color.) The great Lindsey Weber broke down this for us some years ago.

Save On Cereal With This One Weird Old Tip – The Billfold

But, because I’m no longer six, I prefer seemingly wholesome and more filling stuff like Barbara’s, and look! Even on the Internet, it’s expensive.

Why should a box of Puffins cost almost $6? I’ve gotten shoes for $6.

The only place left that carries good, filling, and seemingly wholesome cereal for reasonable prices is Trader Joe’s. I wonder whether their sales are steady, even among the younger generations. I would bet they are. Because maybe Millennials aren’t lazy; maybe we’re just either broke or too smart to get taken in by the idea that $5.50 for a box of government-supported agriculture, hamster cage shavings, and sugar is a good deal.

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