Comments on: Food Budget: Eating on a Shoestring

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:14:07 +0000

I've been on $25/week for years now (I'm a single household), and in grad school it was $80 a month for a while. It means memorizing sale periods and prices (anyone in the mid-Atlantic share my joy about the Can-Can sale at SHop-Rite?) and a little careful planning, but I enjoy knowing I can cook well and save money! (On second read, that sounds a little sad)

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By: Cady

Cady — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:02:19 +0000

I budget $40 a week for groceries, but due to a temporary financial crunch I limited myself to $20 for the past month or so. It wasn't too hard because I know how much things tend to cost, and because I've been planning my meals for long enough that I can easily pick out the things that are cheap for me to make. So I can keep buying a lot of organic ingredients and free-range/sustainably raised meat even in tight times. I was surprised to learn that I was spending less on food than I would get from food stamps! Even when I am budgeting $40 a week for myself, I often find that my groceries end up being a little above or below $30. Before I made weekly meal plans, I had a much higher food budget and I tended to buy more food than I needed because I didn't have clarity about how long it would take to eat it all. And before that, I didn't even have a budget and I spent even more and yet I ate very unhealthily because I didn't really have a sense of what was going on with my money or my food! Now I've started a blog, $40 a Week, where I write about weekly meal planning and how to eat well (even lavishly) for $40. It seems weird to me (living in the Bay Area, where there is a lot of great food but also a very high cost of living) that Eric Gioia had trouble eating healthily on $28 a week. But when you only have that much to feed your whole family....

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By: Paula G

Paula G — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:54:10 +0000

We really make every thing we buy stretch...making multiple meals & freezing leftovers for lunch, etc. However I can't say we come close to this whole $100 a week thing. Kim is the grocery maven in the house, but we try to buy a lot of organic & local organic which gets pricey. Especially the meats and seafood (obviously not local seafood in Phila).... She's thrilled if we can scratch by around $150 or so a week. That being said we do make a lot of interesting and involved recipes.

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By: William Boscowitz-Steiger

William Boscowitz-Steiger — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:13:28 +0000

When buying food, I never sacrifice quality, and I typically buy what I want. Food is not something on which I'm willing to economize. Even so, I do follow the following rules: 1. I always shop the outside isles of the supermarket, which allows me to avoid purchasing processed foods. I make exceptions for tuna, sardines, baking supplies, vinegar, oils, and canned beans (kidney, black, etc), or frozen vegetables. If the budget is tight, I substitute dry-aged, organic ground beef for more expensive cuts, and bluefish and haddock for swordfish or halibut. I rarely if ever buy soda, candy, cookies, store bakery junk, frozen dinners, canned meals, or similar. I think I spend around $200 / week to feed myself.

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By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:28:29 +0000

I have a family of 3, but soon to be 4, and my groceries usually run about $200-$250 monthly. I budget for about $50 weekly, but sometimes (depending on meat or if there's a special event we're planning for) I'll go a little over. I'm a SAHM and we only have one income. We rarely go out and I love to cook so that helps a ton. When my son was younger I would make his babyfood too.

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By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 00:45:54 +0000

Well I'm kind of surprised that Liz suggested one person can "survive" on $100-150/mth. Just for the sake of comparison, I live by myself and spend $70-80/mth, and I don't even try very hard. And of course there are families who do even better. I don't really budget now, but I did challenge myself for a few months to spend less and less, and I think my starting point was about $140/mth. My groceries consist mainly of some staple foods like bread/bagels, yogurt, and oatmeal, and then lots of produce, which I buy according to price the day I'm in the store. For example, grapes keep showing up for $.99/lb so I've been eating a lot of grapes, but when they're $2.99/lb I'll pass and go for different fruits. Bananas are always $.29/lb at my store so those are a staple fruit. I also don't buy much prepackaged food, and definitely don't buy ready-made meals. I've been making more stuff myself, like bread, and recently, crackers. Took me 20 minutes to make about 2 boxes worth of wheat crackers. Cost me the price of 3 cups of flour, some oil, and a bit of salt--Less than $1, I'm sure. Oh, I guess I also don't buy meat. This isn't something I ever think about because I grew up without meat in the house, but I guess it does make a difference in my grocery budget. I do buy fish, but frozen, and in a store brand "club pack."

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By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 20:29:39 +0000

We are a family of four. I do all of the shopping as well as the lion's share of the cooking. An average month for us is right arond $400-$450. 2-3 times a month we eat fast food but more for me to have the break (my wife works until after dinner) from the cook and serve routine than for any other reason. I shop usually at at least three crefully planned stores for our weeks worth of groceries. The trick for me was to figure out who was going to sell me what for the best price and find an efficient way of getting there.Between the dollar store (pantry stuff-foil plastic wrap) and the discount store and 2 Local supermarkets I have reallocated alot of money in our budget. Always trying to save another few pennies though. It is not much more effort to eat well for less.

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By: Brent

Brent — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:49:21 +0000

For a family of 6 we spend ~$600 a month. My daughters have celiac so that pushes our cost up as a result, otherwise we could trim that down another $50-$100 depending on the month. We don't eat out much, I kept track one month when we ate out about 4 times and it was a half months worth of food at the grocery store. Even McDonalds which is cheaper still costs to much for us when I can do the same at home for 1/4 the price.

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By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:34:30 +0000

Well, I feed a family of four on about $400 a month. I've found that if I'm willing to make things myself, I can save a lot of money. Rather than buying bread, I buy whole wheat flour, some ten grain mix and some flax seeds and make my own bread (I have a bread maker). It costs about the same as a loaf of white bread, but it's so much healthier. I also shred my own cheese rather that buying pre-shredded and buy whole veggies and cut them up rather than buying pre-cut. If your time is really valuable then this might not be the solution for you, but I stay home so I have plenty of time to do take care of things. I also use cloth diapers and wipes, and I breastfeed, all of which are cheap ways to take care of babies!

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By: The Simple Dollar » The Simple Dollar Morning Roundup: Farewell To A Friend Edition

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:32:36 +0000

[...] Food Budget: Eating On A Shoestring Good advice here if you’re feeling some desperate budget pinching. (@ queercents) [...]

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