Found a wild detail about book club food budgets that blew my mind

Tbh I was looking through our book club's old expense logs from last year because we're arguing about whether to raise the snack fund. Turns out we spent $847 on cheese and crackers alone over 12 meetings. That is insane when you think about it. I found the breakdown in a spreadsheet our treasurer kept, and it showed we averaged 3.2 blocks of cheddar per gathering. Nobody even noticed we were going through that much cheese because we always just grabbed random packs from Costco. Has anyone else ever checked what their book club actually spends on food versus books? I bet the numbers would shock most people.

3 comments

3 Comments

simon7171mo ago

Hold up, $847 on cheese sounds like money well spent to me honestly. If someone's hosting a book club and people are showing up, that's a win. The whole point is getting together and talking, not just speed-reading through a stack of novels. I'd rather have decent snacks and actually enjoy the conversation than sit in silence munching on plain saltines while someone gives a book report. Besides, you probably got some good entertainment value out of those meetings even if you didn't finish every single book. A night out at a bar costs way more than a few blocks of cheddar, right?

blair_dixon1mo ago

My friend Sarah's mystery book club did an audit like this last spring. She told me they tallied up $632 on wine and $178 on crackers over just 6 months. The craziest part was that they only finished 4 books in that whole time because everyone was too busy chatting and refilling glasses. She said the treasurer made a pie chart showing 80% of their budget went to snacks and drinks, not books. Her text to me was literally "we are a wine club that pretends to read." That cheese number you posted is honestly pretty reasonable compared to her group's spending.

west.henry1mo ago

$632 on wine? That's insane. I spend maybe $40 a month on whiskey for my own reading sessions. Can't even picture $632 in six months. Four books is brutal too. Might as well just call it happy hour at that point.