Pre-covid, I probably would spend around $100-200 a month in eating out with my wife and I. Post Covid it's like $50 a month in the occasional take out.
I am looking at the credit card bills and I'm looking at around $500-700 a month on household goods and groceries for for 2 adults and a 2 year old. This doesn't seem like it has changed significantly other than buying things in bulk. Bulk buying savings are also just being completely lost in increase in snack purchases and it looks like it's essentially balancing out.
The spiking of meat prices has been noticeable, but my wife and I just tinkered around with some of our recipes to pad them and account for slightly less meat. For instance potato levels went up in something like a Shepard's pie. That was partly mashed potatoes as a thickener to the meats, but I even crushed some older bags of chips into the meat mix so that I could justify buying more chips on the next grocery run. Ground meats in pasta sauces have been replaced by things like mushrooms, eggplant, squash and olives (If you guys are complaining about meat prices spiking, Eggplants are look worse to me ratio wise). I seem to be buying a larger variety of vegetables and mincing them into foods to use them up as well.
I have also been noticing an overall chipping in towards my parents groceries and my wife and I also eat with my parents as well (cohort families as my mom is our child care option). This is further extending our grocery costs by having more bulk buying and meal prep. Sometimes we make larger batches and drop food off to them and vice versa.
|