What's your food budget?

[lazypucker]

Why don't we just go line up at the Drop In Center and get a free meal every day?

[rubecube]

On another note, holy hell do I spend a lot on liquor.

[V]

I'm really surprised so many people know what they spend. Considering so many people are terrible at budgeting, I wouldn't expect people to know.

I've got YNAB, and that's the only reason I know what we spend.

[Johnny199r]

Food is the only area where I don't really watch what I spend.

[puffnstuff]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

I would estimate about 0.001% waste. Every now and then we forget about something in the fridge or the bread goes moldy but that's a rare event. Left overs become my lunch but with two teenagers in the house there are not many leftovers anymore either.

This. Dont want leftovers? Have your teenagers and their friends just walk by your fridge. I think one of them even tried to eat the light bulb...

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Reaper

Is it ice cream or frozen dessert?

It is Frozen Dessert. Better put a clause in my will to check my Freezer.

[SeeGeeWhy]

What are people's favourite places for value meals when eating out? As in a good balance of quality, portion and price?

[Trailer Fire]

We honestly don't really budget for our groceries. We just throw everything into the cart that we need for the next weeks meals, plus a bunch of stuff that can be frozen.

Actually, I retract my previous statement. I don't budget, but my wife probably does. I only know how much money is being brought in. I let her deal with the particulars.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

What are people's favourite places for value meals when eating out? As in a good balance of quality, portion and price?

Soup and sandwich at Tim Horton's, of course!

[sun]

I'm switching to an all Soylent all the time diet. Less than a couple bucks per meal.

www.soylent.com

Seriously, I recently got some of this stuff and it is awesome. I kinda hate food and everything about it, so this is like manna from above.

Been consuming it for maybe two meals/day since I got it. It's great. Wife isn't really on board, but she likes "variety" and food with "flavour" phfft.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

What are people's favourite places for value meals when eating out? As in a good balance of quality, portion and price?

Nothing beats Viet for taste/value.

[GomerPile]

In order to cut down on waste, I started shopping every other day on the way home. Don't buy a lot in bulk, except dry goods. I find waste is a much bigger issue then the savings you get at Costco. In the summer we grill more meat (Which I buy in bulk from farmers) but we garden, so I believe that kind of just averages out the cost over the course of the year.

$30.00 every other day = ~$450.00 a month for 90% of the meals we eat in a month. Every 5-6 weeks, you can tack on a $100.00 for a dry goods, household goods run. Also my wife is a carcinogen in cleaners maniac. So, we use scalding hot water and vinegar for our cleaners which has cut down on a lot of cost too. It comes in at around 550 bucks a month. The weird budgetary thing we do. If we decide to host, love cooking big meals, we take 70% of that cost from entertainment and 30% from our groceries.

We do go out for drinks- A LOT, but have essentially stopped eating bar food. We don't consume any more beers, so even though we end up spending a lot on a night out. We save 40-50 bucks now by not eating when we go out. We just eat some left overs or something quick at home before going out.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by V

I'm really surprised so many people know what they spend. Considering so many people are terrible at budgeting, I wouldn't expect people to know.

I've got YNAB, and that's the only reason I know what we spend.

This is a big topic among our circle of friends. People are (generally) lousy at estimating....plus, what do you include/exclude?

One couple insisted that they spent ~$75 a week but admitted that they didn't keep track. After convincing them to actually track it for a 6 weeks, it came out to almost $160 (Those multiple $5, $6, $7 purchases each week add up.....and what about that Costco trip last week?).

I keep a decent set of books for the household, and the last time I ran the numbers, my significantly-better-half and I spent $187.07/wk (over a 9-week period).

This includes anything required to operate that household....food, personal care, cleaning products, etc. The weekly grocery store receipt is about $130, and bulk purchases at Costco add an extra $50 or so (we go every 6-8 weeks).

We definitely host a lot of meals/gatherings as well, which drives up costs (who penny pinches when hosting friends and family?!?!?)/. But that WELL offset by the dollars we've cut out of the Restaraunt budget.....but that's a whole other story!

[CliffFletcher]

We don't use a dedicated budgeting tool, but once every few months we go over our debit and credit card transaction history. That will give you a rough idea of where the money is going.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Nothing beats Viet for taste/value.

The only issue is you are hungry a couple hours later.

[PaperBagger'14]

I'm an odd case here as I work out of town very frequently. If its just me (in town) and the girlfriend, I'd guess $800-900 a month. The company I'm with let's us expense all meals and coffee when we're out so we are usually a lot less.

[DownhillGoat]

Over the last two years (for just me):

$277/mo : Fast food/Restaurants
$436/mo : Groceries

~$713/mo combined

Although that includes some household items as well.

And out of curiosity since it was mentioned, $293/mo in liquor.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

We're admittedly terrible at budgeting, but this was an interesting exercise to figure out.

For a family of 4 (1 toddler, 1 infant on formula), we're looking at about $1000 in groceries and dry goods, and a $500 / month dine out. $12 a day / per person if you want to think of it that way. I used to live the bachelor diet of $200 / month in groceries + ramen (hell I never even used the oven once in my apartment) but the wife demands better. Locally sourced, ethical, blah, blah....

Dine out consists of
- me buying lunches at work
- weekly $40 Viet dinner 1x a week

Not exactly precise as I guesstimated the Costco spend as 75% groceries / dry goods, as there's things like clothes and car batteries in that spend.

That's actually less than I would have guessed - but with the age of our kids we aren't eating out nearly as much as we used to.

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by jammies

Lunch today was $30, for example, I don't know how couples are going out multiple times a month and spending $150. Are you eating kid's meals at a fast food restaurant?

I would counter that spending $30 on lunch for one person is pretty excessive. Not all of us are getting appetizers and booze and dessert every time we go out.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

I would counter that spending $30 on lunch for one person is pretty excessive. Not all of us are getting appetizers and booze and dessert every time we go out.

Still. Once a week eating out for four people at $150/month is $37 a meal. Not possible