Trends in consumer installment credit over the period 1970 to 1989 are discussed and an empirical model developed to identify and assess the impact of installment credit on food expenditures. Real per capita food expenditures are modeled as a function of the real price of food, real per capita personal disposable income, seasonality, and a measure of the level of consumer installment credit entered as a polynomial distributed lag to determine its effect over time. Results indicate that installment credit has a positive effect on food expenditures in the short-run, a negative effect in the long-run, and little effect overall. Results from separate models of the 1970s and 1980s provide evidence of structural change taking place between the two time periods.