"Most of the time, I feel bad about myself after ordering delivery."
A phenomenon known as "delivery guilt" is spreading among young Americans, who enjoy the convenience of food delivery apps but are left with regret over the fees piled onto their bills and over their own spending habits.
Use of delivery apps such as Uber Eats became routine after the COVID-19 pandemic, and guilt surrounding delivery spending has grown among young Americans, according to British daily The Guardian and other foreign media outlets on the 17th.
Caroline Baldry, 24, is a nanny in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has used delivery apps almost daily since college, and when she wants something to eat, she orders instead of cooking. But she often blames herself afterward. She spends about $75 a week on delivery.
Baldry said that having any dish she wants from any restaurant brought to her door is like a dream, but that she then thinks, "Wow, I really am a lazy piece of garbage," and feels ashamed. Nine times out of 10, she said, she ends up blaming herself.
Baldry is not alone. A survey by marketing firm FinanceBuzz and Bank of America found that 30% of Americans ordered delivery at least once a week. Gen Z — those born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s — ranked highest among all generations, with 39% saying they order delivery at least once a week.
Among Gen Z respondents, 45% said they had felt embarrassed about how much they spent on delivery. Another 27% said they had hidden an order from roommates or family, or understated what they actually spent.
Experts point to the gap between the satisfaction delivery provides and the costs hidden behind it. Joy Lu, an assistant professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon University, described delivery as an "affordable luxury" that satisfies people without a large outlay, but noted that app fees add up and the final charge can come as a surprise.
Lu said many people do not know how much they spend on delivery, and that many deliberately avoid checking. "A lot of people don't want to look at their total spending in the app," she said. "It's so easy to spend a little bit at a time."
The Guardian linked such guilt to a social climate that blames young people's financial struggles on their personal spending habits. Millennials were once criticized for being unable to buy a home because of avocado toast and daily lattes, the paper noted, and now Gen Z's delivery spending has become the target of similar censure.
Others argue that delivery spending alone cannot explain the burden of living costs. Economist Mike Konczal, citing 2024 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, noted that groceries account for a larger share of U.S. household food spending than dining out. Households, in other words, are spending considerable sums on cooking at home as well as on restaurants and delivery.