History Main / ImprobableFoodBudget

** Ron [=DeLite=] notes his wife loves the finest things in life, including food, [[spoiler:thus his need to become Mask*DeMasque.]]

With this trope, the characters have absolutely no right affording the quality and amount of food they eat based on their visible income. It's like FriendsRentControl, only for food rather than living space. In addition, the quality of the food never seems to have an effect on the characters, either: They can eat all the junk food they want and not once worry about their waistlines.

* There is the lasagna that ''{{Garfield}}'' seems to consume by the metric ton

** Even the subversion is Lampshaded sometimes:
--->'''Marge''': Homer, I have to go out to pick up something for dinner.\\
'''Homer''': Steak?\\
'''Marge''': Money's too tight for steak.\\
'''Homer''': Steak?\\
'''Marge''': Eh, suuure... steak.

* In ''MalcolmInTheMiddle'', Hal and Lois are able to make and ruin three lavish evenings (including a limo ride, a roast dinner, and dinner at a fancy restaunt) in three nights in a row. Yet other episodes clearly show Hal resorting to blackmailing his in-laws to afford a new refrigerator (it was a CrowningMomentOfAwesome) and Hal and Lois' cars were ([[ProductPlacement oddly for television]]) both over ten years old throughout the series.
** Driving old cars and blackmailing people for refrigerators may be a ''direct result'' of their tendency to blow money on things like limo rides, roast dinners, and fancy restaurants.
*** Actually confirmed in one episode - due to a urinary tract infection, Hal and Lois were unable to have sex for a month. Literally every aspect of the families lives vastly improve...then they start having sex again. All of the problems they face are because they spend nearly all of their time and energy on their sex life.

* Jon Arbuckle, ''{{Garfield}}'s'' owner, doesn't have any visible source of income, yet Garfield certainly doesn't look like he's missed too many meals. He's a cartoonist, but this doesn't come up except in the first strip in the comics and only rarely in the animated series -- though a few episodes did revolve around it and revealed he mostly draws kids' comics with fuzzy forest animal friends.
** Also note that while Jon is sometimes seen cooking, the most commonly seen food prop is a standardized meal of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, peas and gravy which you never see him make. It creates the impression that they simply appear from nowhere or are delivered to his house.
** There is the lasagna that Garfield seems to consume by the metric ton...

* The GilmoreGirls never seem to cook and eat out constantly and in large amounts, even though Lorelei probably isn't making tons of money running the inn. What's more, they aren't carrying any extra weight. Lorelei probably weighs 120 soaking wet. Lauren Graham soaking wet... I'll be in my bunk.

* Inverted in ''{{Firefly}}'', where the crew's state of PerpetualPoverty has them mostly relying on processed protein in various, equally inedible flavors.

** A stop-motion version dealt with the issue of clean plates and cups, at least. The dormouse slithered out of the teapot and licked them clean.

* {{Buffy}} Season 7. How did they pay for food for all the Potentials? What about... other things? I pity Xander and Spike for having to deal with that many women for months, which means a lot of [=PMSing=] women who are learning to kill.
* The gang of ''{{Friends}}'' is the living embodiment of this trope.

* In ''{{The Big Bang Theory}}'' the group is shown to either eat out at or order in from the same restaurant each day of the week. This is noted several times throughout the series as being attributed to Sheldon's obsessive behavior ("I think this could be my new Tuesday restaurant!"). This example stands out as particularly odd, as Sheldon has a phobia of other people touching his food yet never seems to cook anything for himself.
** Otoh Averted as the 4 men all have decent paying jobs at Cal Tech, although they seem to never teach even a token class. Penny, though, has her budget be a continuous issue due to how volatile being a waitress is, and her being generally bad with money.
* The ''BeverlyHills90210'' kids were almost always at The Peach Pit. But they live in Beverly Hills, and with their parents, so presumably they had either good allowances or good-paying jobs.
* The {{Scrubs}} cast's ability to regularly visit bars may not seem so unlikely, till JD claims they're so far they have to sneak one another into movie theaters in backpacks.
** Maybe it's because they spend all that money going to the bar.

* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] (or is it maybe a TakeThat at this very concept?) in ''RaidouKuzunohaVsTheSoullessArmy''. Narumi loves to eat out at the fancy restaurant Ryugu, but it's made very clear he owes the owner quite a bit of money... He owes his landlady a little more than a half-year's rent, too, only getting out of paying it by being very helpful to her (His alternate universe self however seemed to have been evicted). In the second game, it makes it very clear he's living beyond his means, Ryugu was NOT the only place he had large running tabs.
* Played with in the AceAttorney series. Gumshoe's salary is so low that he can only afford the cheapest of instant noodles despite being a police detective. Justified as he's often incompetent, though one suspects Edgeworth would never actually let him get too poor, and that his moments of competence are generously rewarded.

** Edgeworth and Franziska have pretty much always lived in wealth, but note that the courtroom vending machines seriously over charge.
** Ron DeLite notes his wife loves the finest things in life, including food [[spoiler: thus his need to become Mask*DeMasque.]]

* In {{Questionable Content}}, Marten works at a college library and Faye and Dora work at a coffeeshop, yet they go out to eat (and to the bar) all the time. Plus, Marten and Faye's apartment is really nice.

** Plus it's a college town, so many of the businesses probably cater to people on low income.
-->" 'Us?' No no no, I'm a ''small business owner. You're'' [[http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1509 the underachieving peon.]]"

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] on ''TheSimpsons''
** Where Frank Grimes points out that someone of Homer's status shouldn't be able to afford to eat lobster. Something of a subversion, since the lobster is specifically meant to impress Grimes, and the family normally eats TV dinners and meatloaf.

-->'''Marge''': Homer, I have to go out to pick up something for dinner.
-->'''Homer''': Steak?
-->'''Marge''': Money's too tight for steak.
-->'''Homer''': Steak?
-->'''Marge''': Eh, suuure... steak.
* One long-standing question in the {{Gargoyles}} fandom is how Elisa manages to feed six monsters (and her cat) on her policewoman's salary.
** [[StochasticOoze This troper]] never imagined she did. I just assumed the gargoyles "acquired" food while they were on patrol and considered it their just payment for protecting the city. This is even shown once or twice: Broadway ate a "cartful" of something-or-other in the pilot (I can't remember what at the moment) and in "Deadly Force" he ate popcorn that was in the storage area of the theater.
** Also, WordOfGod has it that the Gargoyles don't really need to eat, they absorb energy from the sun while they're sleeping in statue form during the day. The younger ones just eat because they like the taste of people food.

* I'm surprised no one's mentioned ScoobyDoo yet. Scooby and Shaggy eat copious amounts of food; it's practically their defining trait. Yet the gang doesn't appear to actually have any flow of income at all. It doesn't appear that they're paid for solving the mysteries, and none of them actually have a job.

** Granted for the first four seasons Angel's eat-in options were limited to three or four at most.
** Actually angel was rich and paid there salary out of his own pocket as they almost never got paid. its how he bought a whole hotel for them to work in, and its not like he needs a huge food budget so he most likely buys his friends food when they work

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* In the {{Anime}} and {{Manga}} OnePiece:
** Nami (and by extension the rest of the Straw Hat crew) often complain that the majority of the loot they acquire is blown keeping Luffy fed. Granted, Zoro, Chopper, and Usopp can be complete pigs themselves, but they need to be starving before they resort to a Luffy-esque food binge.
** Sanji, the ship's cook, admits straight up that he puts less effort in preparing Luffy's food, compared to what he makes for the rest of the crew, especially Nami and Robin.
** This trope is pretty much thrown out the window whenever someone is treating the Straw Hats to free food. For example, at the end of the Alabasta arc, Vivi has a banquet held for the crew (she had promised a feast to Luffy is he managed to defeat Crocodile and saved her country) the crew engage in a chow-down that would have made the cast of Slayers blanch.
* In the ''{{Slayers}}'' anime series:
** Lina & Gourry have [[BigEater bottomless appetites]]. While they frequently rob bandits of large amounts of wealth, they somehow often seem unable to afford their meals and try to stick the other with the bill as a running gag.
*** In ''Slayers Try'' this is because they are in a foreign country and don't have any local currency.
** Judging from an episode in ''Slayers Next'', Lina is a millionaire if the market value of the loot she carries around is taken for granted, but in practice finding actual buyers for most of the stuff isn't very simple, and inns only accept currency, or immediately recognisable valuables, like jewels.
* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in an episode of ''{{Dragonball}}'', where Goku ends up spending all of his tournament winnings (three million yen worth, if I recall correctly) on a single meal. It still doesn't explain how he feeds himself, and, later on, his family, considering he doesn't hold a steady job and his wife doesn't work either, and his son eats as much as him.
** Chichi inherited her father's vast fortune, and it was noted in the TournamentArc of the Buu saga that it was running out and they needed the tournament prize to get money. After that they became close friends with Mr. Satan, and Gohan married his daughter, not to mention that Goku was once shown catching, cooking and eating a wolf, has noodled fish larger than himself and lives in a world where dinosaurs still exist.
** Parodied in an episode where Majin Buu overpays for his food, which was the ''entire'' store.
* The ''{{Pokemon}}'' gang can somehow afford fresh ingredients for Brock to cook most of their meals. Is he just mooching off of his dad back at the Pewter City Gym?
** No, no, you get half of a trainer's money every time you beat them in a battle. Anyone who has played the games knows this.
*** Except that this isn't true after Fire Red and Leaf Green. After this, they made the player pay money out just like any other trainer - following some strange formula.
** On the other hand, it's averted with Team Rocket, whose schemes are often to get money for food.
*** Well that's clearly because they never win battles.
**** And yet they have the cash to get a new giant robot every couple episodes.
***** Where do you think their money goes?
* Handled oddly (moreso in the anime than the manga) in ''RurouniKenshin''. Sanosuke puts all his meals at the Akabeko on a tab, yet never shows any indication that he's going to pay for them. Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that he does things to earn his keep: he's shown taking care of disorderly customers several times, and [[spoiler: defends the Akabeko from Enishi's gang at the start of the final arc in the manga]].
* WordOfGod says that creator Rumiko Takahashi plotted out Godai's food budget while she was creating MaisonIkkoku. Godai's meals are exercises in thriftiness (and lack of any discernible cooking talent). One of the reasons he keeps sweet little Kozue on the hook so long (besides spinelessness) is that it's worth a couple of free meals a month.
* In {{Vandread}}: one wonders how Misty and Dita are able to get away with feeding Hibiki those large and extravagant meals given that they are on a ship that is lost in space and (to hear them talk) constantly short on supplies.
** Why do you ''think'' they're short on supplies, hmm?
* Inverted in most episodes of CowboyBebop, where even an ice cream cone is a rare treat over instant noodles (and sometimes even those are a treasured prize).

* {{Buffy}} Season 7. How did they pay for food for all the Potentials? What about... other things? I pity Xander and Spike for having to deal with that many women for months, which means alot of PMSing women who are learning to kill.