Call me extravagant or old-fashioned, but I consider food a necessity. I don’t quite know when it happened, but whether I make my meals at home or I go out to eat, food prices are, in a word, bananas — a bunch of which cost 65 cents a pound at the moment, according to my Safeway app.

Now there’s an app I resisted getting until the last few months, when necessity forced my hand. I have always been a convenience shopper. Sure, I’d enter my phone number and use the $10 off coupon after I got a flu shot, but otherwise, I just paid full price. When coworkers told horror stories about spending a chunk of their Saturday going to this store and that, I did my best to hide my revulsion. That meant enduring the frequent chorus of “I can’t believe you have a family and don’t belong to Costco,” but it was a price I was willing to pay. Plus, I live walking distance from Safeway.

Cents and sensibility

Now, sense finally having forced its way into the equation, I have my phone in hand as I shop, clipping deals as I go.

But my problem goes a step beyond groceries, as I also consider occasionally eating in restaurants a necessity. Besides the fact that editing Janay Wright’s food stories makes me hungry, going out to eat one or two meals a week helps solve the age-old dilemma that Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin once described as the biggest challenge she faces: “Just trying to figure out what to cook for dinner nightly, you know, just night after night.”

I also find that going to restaurants saves me the trouble of doing dishes, a problem that seems inexorably linked to figuring out what to cook night after interminable night.

The problem is that it is becoming unaffordable to go out to eat, and by “becoming,” I mean, “already become.”

It takes a lot of high-dollar prices for me to pause, take notice and adjust accordingly. Not because I am a big earner — ha! — but because I have a tendency to look away from disasters. I certainly read the grumblings on Reddit. I’ve done the quick math when dining out and figuring out the 20 percent tip, then quickly looked away before it really registered.

Also, I may have gray hair and be old enough to recycle every drop of literature I get from the AARP, but I’m not what you’d call a real adult. My wife pays the bills in more ways than one. I’m not really sure why she keeps me around. I think maybe she likes skaters.

I can hear the anti-avocado toast set screaming over their bowl of Metamucil about my lack of thrift as someone who likes to occasionally dine out: “There’s your problem! You probably like to buy mochas once in a while, too! Harumph!”

True on both accounts, but I don’t have some extravagant lifestyle I need to rein in. I’m one of the least materialistic people I’m acquainted with. I mean, yes, you can cut out trips. Lord knows I have! You can wear the same old clothes forever. I certainly do! My wardrobe full of 10-to-20-year-old button-up shirts attests to my lack of acquisitiveness. Many of the T-shirts I own were given to me or sold cheaply by people I know in bands or who own skate companies, thank God. Drive a beater vehicle? I do! My wife and I own three cars, but they’re all long paid off. The oldest is a 2001, the newest a 2011. None were bought new. Two of them need new struts, to hear Les Schwab tell it.

I do have some lines I haven’t crossed. I now have the Safeway app, but I don’t yet drive across town to grocery shop (my struts are going).

Nobody’s foodie

My slowly dawning realization that I can no longer justify eating out a couple of meals a week was hastened when I paid $12.40 for a chicken sandwich and large fries from Wendy’s one night. Say what you will about my tastes, I don’t care. I am nobody’s foodie. Sometimes I get done skateboarding and fast food is — or was — the affordable option.

No wonder a few of my coworkers gently scoffed when, a month or two back, I suggested Janay write about where you can still find a $10 lunch in this town. “Maybe a $15 lunch” was the consensus. They weren’t kidding. When music writer Ben Salmon and I had lunch a while back at Five Guys, he pointed out that his burger, fries and soft drink were over $20 after tipping.

I don’t know what we’re supposed to do when food is exorbitantly priced whether you’re eating at home or dining out. I also don’t know what’s going to change, other than my diet.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a peanut butter and jam sandwich to make for lunch, minus the jam — it’s $6 for an 18-ounce jar, according to my app.