What's your food budget?

[Sylvanfan]

Last week Superstore had ice cream on sale for $2.98 for a Breyers 1.66 litre tub. I bought 60 of them. So the next two months cost me $178.20 and I likely wont be around to worry about day 61.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Last week Superstore had ice cream on sale for $2.98 for a Breyers 1.66 litre tub. I bought 60 of them. So the next two months cost me $178.20 and I likely wont be around to worry about day 61.

Is it ice cream or frozen dessert?

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Last week Superstore had ice cream on sale for $2.98 for a Breyers 1.66 litre tub. I bought 60 of them. So the next two months cost me $178.20 and I likely wont be around to worry about day 61.

It would be awesome to see someone eat a tub of ice cream per day. I would be impressed.

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by Reaper

Is it ice cream or frozen dessert?

A critical distinction.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Peanut

A critical distinction.

One melts; one doesn't.

[Lubicon]

$1000-1100 / month groceries plus probably $100 or so at restaurants. Family of 4 and dining out usually consists of Subway or something similar when we are on a road trip and not at home for dinner or lunch. I drink the office swill for coffee and bring my own lunch.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think you can meat your caloric needs at $100 per month.

The secret is Potatoes. At 50 cents per pound and 77 calories per 100 grams gives you 7 calories per penny. So at 2000 Calories per day it's $2.85 worth of Potatoes. That leaves you with about $14 per month to spend on things other that Potatoes. Now if you can find Potatoes at 30 cents a pound which you can occasionally do and things start look okay because then you are only spending $50 per month on Potatoes and have $50 for other things.

I ate like this for a month to see if I could do it and I was full. I got Carrots Apples and a jar of peanut butter and some bread in addition to the potatoes to spice it up a bit. I also spent on butter

I did something similar. $4/day or $2 per meal seems more realistic looking back. I'm quite sure I wasn't actually at $3 a day or around $100 per month because I'd splurge on something random. I didn't do this for an entire month though and often did this due to laziness. I'd cook in volume cheaply and just spoon leftovers for the week.

Spoiler!

Essentially I bought:

Sacks of potatoes $6
Stick of butter $3
Mayonaise $4
Eggs $2 x 2
Hot dogs $8
Big bag of regular Ruffles chips $6

= $31

IIRC, this lasted a little over a week.

Foods made:
Potato and Egg salad
Mashed potatoes
Mashed potato chip dip

Hotdogs and chips generally consumed on their own. I don't think I consumed potato and egg on their own.

Another variation of this was feeding 3 guys 1 meal a day 5 days a week while we were doing study break. I did this 2 times.

Spoiler!

Bought
"Cheese" slices $6 for 24 slices or something?
Bread $2 x 2
Ham $5
Garlic salt $3
Hot dogs $1.5 x 2
Condiments $3
Butter $3
Drink crystals $3

= $30

This produced 1 meal for 3 guys a day for 5 days = 15 meals or about 2 meals a day for a week for an individual. We repeated meals. We'd have multiple grilled cheese or hot dog each day. Not bare bones eating. We were full.

Made:

Hot dog wrapped in bread.
Grilled cheese w/ ham + ketchup

The week after we just went full on grilled cheese. I believe that week it was down to $24 bucks for the 5 days.

Other recipes I think can sit around the $2 per meal range if done in volume:

Perogie sauce on rice:

Spoiler!

(Caramelized onions, milk and can of mushroom soup) Should last 3-4 meals, perhaps more if the sauce is stretched. Rice is rice.
Large Onion $1.5
Milk $1.5
Soup can $1.5
Rice $1.5?
= $12 or $3 per meal, but you'd probably have onion and milk left over for another 3-4 meal batch. To splurge, you can chop up some meat finely and add to sauce.

Chili on rice - 10 servings?

Spoiler!

Ground beef: $10
Large Onion: $1.5 /leftover from above
Canned assorted beans $3
Spices... you have? or just salt and pepper from McDs
Rice $1.5 x 3

= $19 or probably $2 a meal? Splurge add canned mushrooms $1 a can of no named. Pour it over mashed potatoes perhaps...

Corn sauce on rice - w/ or w/o meat

Spoiler!

Corn soup $1.5
Rice $1.5
Ground pork $4

Cook pork, add water and corn soup. Allow to boil, turn off, pour on cooked rice.

$10. Probably serve 3-4 meals.

Spicy cream ramen rice

Spoiler!

Shin Ramyun ramen $1
Milk $1.5 (whatever is leftover from other meals) or little wedge of butter
Rice $1.5

=$5 for all the items... but the milk/rice part can be form other meals = fixed cost. Theoretically you could lower the number to $2 for the meal. Above makes 1 meal.

Make ramen, add milk/butter at the end to make a creamy spicy ramen. When noodles consumed, add rice and spoon it into soup. Consume soup I personally think it's somewhat similar

KD on occasion can be acquired for a buck a box. If a box or two can fill you up, it's a nice change on occasion. $1-2 per meal

A huge problem with the cost per meal part is that it doesn't take into account how much a person actually eats. You could eat two meals in one go on occasion. Above also doesn't take into account "vitamins and nutrition needs" but at that price point... it's hard.

[FlamingHomer]

Deer balls are very inexpensive. They're under a buck.

[GreenLantern]

We used to spend I bet north of $300 a month eating out before we started using YNAB. Then when you see it start adding up 50 here, 60 there, 120 there... you realize what is going on. I will never go back to not using some form of budgeting software, it just removes so much of the leg work.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by FlamingHomer

Deer balls are very inexpensive. They're under a buck.

Your joke is bad and you should feel bad, Dad.

[Redliner]

If we're careful we can keep it around $1200/month for our family of 5, including 2 teenaged boys. We don't buy crap (I want my kids to form good eating habits and of course anything that is good for you costs twice as much as the junk food equivalent) but we meal plan and don't eat in restaurants very often. Seems like food prices never stop going up though, (can't wait to see what the carbon tax does) and it adds up in a big hurry.

[DoubleF]

I'm curious on what % waste some of you would say your monthly groceries entail. The reason I ask this, is because I had a conversation with someone the other day about how he and his wife don't ever do left overs and how cooking at home likely wasn't much cheaper than eating out due to this habit, and I just wondered. Are some families who purchase $1k actually only consuming $700-800 food per month?

For instance $500-600 a month probably has 1-5% waste at most for the wife and I (usually a small portion of a packet of veggies we didn't get to in time, or a small tub of yogurt I forgot I had). That puts me out between $10 to $30 in wasted food per month or effectively consuming $490 to $570 in actual food consumed.

This exercise helped my wife and I adjust and save money. Sure, bulk might give better cost per unit, but if units are thrown out, take cost per unit x units thrown out and that's money wasted. Smaller packages might not be that calculation in terms of money saved, but even a few bucks here and there long term add up. (plus that poor kid in Africa comment the parents keep making.. no guilt because I'm not wasting food)

We even do it for eating out now. No upsizing of combos if we think we will just chuck out that last bit of pop or fries or buying small/med beverages that end up being poured out or thrown out when it melts/gets cold vs "best value" large or XL. Lower calorie intake and if saving a a bit here and there, it'll add up in the long run in other ways.

[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.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I'm curious on what % waste some of you would say your monthly groceries entail. The reason I ask this, is because I had a conversation with someone the other day about how he and his wife don't ever do left overs and how cooking at home likely wasn't much cheaper than eating out due to this habit, and I just wondered. Are some families who purchase $1k actually only consuming $700-800 food per month?

Probably 15% waste. We eat leftovers and do bag lunches. However, my wife buys enormous amounts of fresh produce, and much of it goes to waste. Basically, if our fridge isn't stuffed to overflowing with carrots, tomatoes, melons, eggplants, cucumber, asparagus, peppers, avocadoes, grapes, lemons, oranges, apples, blueberries, and kiwi fruit, she loses her mind. Feels our children are going to get scurvy or something.

Her way to economize is to buy in bulk, which means a lot of it goes bad before we eat. I've tried to explain that paying 70 per cent per orange when bought in a box of 15 versus bought individually doesn't really save us any money if we throw 6 of the oranges out. As I noted earlier, I took over buying groceries for a while, but when she looked in the fridge and all she saw was peppers, carrots, some lettuce, apples, and grapes, she would have a panic attack. So I relented. It is what it is.

[peter12]

Any uneaten fresh produce in danger of going to waste should go into the freezer for future transformation into soup stock or banana bread.

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I'm curious on what % waste some of you would say your monthly groceries entail. .

[jammies]

About $400/mo on groceries and another $250-$300 on eating out, just for me. 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?

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Leeman4Gilmour

CP members often are statistical outliers.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by jammies

About $400/mo on groceries and another $250-$300 on eating out, just for me. 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 buy lunch once a week, an $8 schwarma or something, and count that in my eating out budget.

[Weitz]

The downturn hurt my budgeting. Probably had 3-4 free lunches a week now I am down to 1