A Reddit user recently got a lot of people talking after describing how they lost 20 kilograms by sticking to what they call the “millennial diet.”
The concept? Cut every cost possible to save for a home deposit, even if it means barely eating.
In a post shared on r/Millennials, the user wrote, “So, essentially, you start with wanting to buy a house. And then you figure out how much money you have to put aside each week to afford the deposit in the time frame you want. And then you use whatever is left after paying your rent, internet, electricity, water, phone, petrol, insurance, etc, bills on whatever food you want.”
Their daily meal plan? An egg for breakfast and half a cup of soup for dinner. Lunch isn’t even mentioned.
After a few months on this strict budget, the user claimed, “I’ve already lost 20kgs. Don’t let anyone tell you home ownership is out of reach for us millennials.”
The Egg Becomes a Symbol
The post got tons of comments, most people joked around, but you could tell they were also pretty frustrated.
Many joked about how even a single egg now feels like a luxury. One wrote, “An egg?! In this economy?!” Another added, “A whole egg? What are you, a Rockefeller?”
One person replied to one of the jokes, saying, “Not to rub it in further, but sometimes I’ll also throw in half a hash brown.”
Someone else said, “I don’t have egg money bro,” while another quipped, “Dinner: soup. Soup is not a meal, Jerry.”
A Mix of Satire and Harsh Truths
While many comments were tongue-in-cheek, plenty of others shared how financial stress or emotional hardship had caused them to lose weight unintentionally.
One wrote, “When I was about 27, I lost 30 pounds pretty quickly. People asked me how I did it. ‘Well, my fiance left me, and I didn’t feel much like eating for a while.'”
Another echoed the sentiment: “I lost 20 lbs in several months after my husband asked for a divorce… People would say to me ‘you look great!!’ and I would just say ‘divorce.'”
Some even offered budget “tips,” like stretching four servings of food into eight or adding water to soup to make it go further.
“If you add half a cup of water to half a cup of soup, you have a full cup of soup. You can have as much soup as you want! You’re welcome,” one person joked.
Inflation, Shrinkflation, and the Cost of Survival
The post tapped into a broader frustration about modern economics.
One person noted, “You used to buy a bag with 20 oz of chips, now you get 14.4 oz and pay $2 more than you did 5 years ago. Fun!”
Another said, “I called this the inflation diet. You buy less food ’cause you don’t want to eat all your money.”
Someone else added, “By the time you have the deposit, the house will be more expensive and you will not have a deposit.”
Underneath the Laughs, Real Frustration
The original poster admitted that while the post was framed as satire, the experience is real.
“I actually am saving money and losing weight by significantly reducing the amount of food I eat. Not that I was terribly overweight, but I went from 110kg to 90kg in four months by having a small breakfast, skipping lunch, and reducing the portion sizes I was having at dinner,” the person wrote.
They continued, “It’s just kind of f***ed up that people our age have to do this. Older generations could afford to eat well and buy a house. They didn’t have to choose one or the other.”
Whether taken as a joke or a quiet indictment of the times, the post resonated.
As one person put it: “Nothing tastes as good as home ownership feels.”
But for many millennials, even that might be up for debate. For a lot of people, the trade-off between health and housing just doesn’t seem worth it.