Anyone who has seen the show The Gilmore Girls knows that they love to eat junk food and drink coffee, and what’s almost as annoying as how they never really seem to gain weight from all that eating, is that they seem to have an unlimited junk food budget…

So, in honor of Gilmore Girls: a Year in The Life (the reunion special premiering on netflix this month) I did the research (aka rewatching all seven seasons) to bring to you the answer to a question that has been haunting me ever since I first watched the show.

HOW DO THE GILMORE GIRLS AFFORD ALL THAT FOOD AND COFFEE?!?!

Don’t get me wrong, I for sure drink an above-average amount of coffee, and I love not cooking food for myself just as much as anyone. But ya girl is on a budget. Anyway, as a dutiful writer I took upon myself the responsibility to break down the Gilmore girls spending habits into just the staples, coffee and pizza.

Okay, so first things first. The Coffee.

Those ladies drank an obscene amount of coffee, almost always buying it from Luke’s (of course) or some other coffee shop. Based on my estimation, Lorelai and Rory probably average 5 cups of coffee a day. Each.

We can go ahead and estimate each cup at about $2. (A venti coffee at Starbucks is $2.67 but Luke, ever the antiestablishmentarian, would simply never charge that much.)

SO $2 x 5 x 2 (Lorelai and Rory) is $20 a day, 365 days for seven years is $51,100! It’s safe to assume that Luke didn’t always charge the Girls for coffee, and that sometimes they drank those 5 cups at home, so let's go ahead and knock off around $10,000 (about 20% of our ridiculous estimated total). That still leaves us with a total of $41,100 just on coffee over seven years, or approximately $5,871.42 per year.

Second things second, the pizza.

Same principle applies here, the Gilmore Girls probably prove that woman can indeed exist on pizza alone (that’s the old adage, right?) Anyway, by my estimation they order probably 3 pizzas a week and according to some dialogue between Lorelai and the Pizza delivery guy in season 1 episode 7 one pizza, by delivery, in Star’s Hollow is $15.

SO, three pizzas at $15 each every week for seven years comes to a grand total of $16,380. Not surprising that the Gilmores spent more on coffee than they did on food.

Anyway, none of this is even taking into account the candy and snacks the girls routinely bought from Doose’s Market or Luke’s, or even on-campus at Yale and Chilton. And the very frequent meals at Luke’s and Al’s Pancake World ($16 for both of them, 6 or 7 times a week, 52 weeks a year… you get the picture)

So how much does it cost to be a Gilmore Girl? Let’s just say, I could sooner join Emily and Richard’s country club than keep up with Rory and Lorelai’s eating habits.