re: Family budget question re: groceries/food/consumables

Hopefully this isn't anchored -

Just curious how everyone is doing in this department now. Anyone improve their budget?

this reminds me that I need to get back on the beans n rice rotation!

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Wife and I can't get below $900.

This is usually 500-550 on groceries and 350-400 eating out.

We cook mostly at home and it's typically fresh ingredients. We probably due 2-3 "large meals" (jambalaya, red beans, etc) a month.

I include wine, beer, and other expendables from Costco in those expenses too.

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Same with us. And our budget doesn't include her work lunches that come off her paycheck.

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Anyone improve their budget?

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Wife and I tried to improve on our $1200 per month for our family of 4 and quickly realized it wasn't really possible. We already rarely eat out for lunch or dinner, and most of the meat we eat is deer meat her father us. There's just nowhere else to cut unless we lowered our food tastes, which isn't going to happen. I need my Blue Bell and Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the summer, dammit.

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Wife and I tried to improve on our $1200 per month for our family of 4 and quickly realized it wasn't really possible. We already rarely eat out for lunch or dinner, and most of the meat we eat is deer meat her father us. There's just nowhere else to cut unless we lowered our food tastes, which isn't going to happen. I need my Blue Bell and Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the summer, dammit.

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I worry about this. We've gone from $1500/month to $1200 to $1000.

I'm looking to make a big jump soon. I want to get our budget to $500/month by Christmas.

I can do it. I don't think my wife can. We'll probably meet in the middle at $750. But my wife grew up always eating very balanced meals.

Breakfast isn't just eggs. It's eggs, toast, and fruit.

Lunch isn't just a sandwich. It's a sandwich, chips, and fruit.

Dinner usually has to be seen as a meat and two/three even if it's a casserole or something. Lasagna with a meat sauce? Needs a salad. Friday night frozen pizza night? Needs a salad or some other veggie on the side.

I'm all for healthy, but I feel like we'd save a lot of money if we could simplify our meals.

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Breakfast isn't just eggs. It's eggs, toast, and fruit.

Lunch isn't just a sandwich. It's a sandwich, chips, and fruit.

Dinner usually has to be seen as a meat and two/three even if it's a casserole or something. Lasagna with a meat sauce? Needs a salad. Friday night frozen pizza night? Needs a salad or some other veggie on the side.

I'm all for healthy, but I feel like we'd save a lot of money if we could simplify our meals.

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Listen to your wife (in part). Balanced, veggie-filled meals will keep you healthy, which is cheaper than diabetes & heart disease (esp in retirement). The care you take of your body in the first 2/3 of life will largely determine the quality of the final 1/3 of your life. Plus, without those sides, everyone will be eating more of the meat-centric main dish, which drives up the overall meal cost.

But you're missing the opportunity to reduce costs on the most expensive part of your food budget: meat. Swap cheaper proteins for the meat at least 2-3 x a week, and you'll save big. Like Taco Tuesdays? So make them black bean tacos instead of ground beef. Soak & cook your own beans rather than using canned, and you'll rack up huge savings.

Semi-vegetarianism makes lots of economic sense. Pocket pita sandwiches filled w/salad & chickpeas (instead of a beef or chicken kebab), red beans & rice (skip the sausage except as a seasoning), lentils, white beans & kale, etc etc.

Eating seasonally is another important way to save money--as is buying what's on sale. Get out of your big name chain supermarkets & into ethnic markets, which usually have better prices on produce. For example, Ideal supermarket in Metairie has small avocadoes 3/$1, and mangoes 4/$1. The Whole Foods less than 3 miles away wants $2.50/ea for mangoes and 99 cents apiece for avocadoes.

Cookbook author Leanne Brown wrote "Good & Cheap: Eat Well on $4/day" to help recipients of food aid make the most of their $$$. It is full of good ideas & recipes for maximizing your food budget, complete w/shopping tips. Her website: LINK You can download a free PDF of the book.

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Our biggest problem is we get in ruts where we struggle coming up with dinner ideas. It can be painstaking to sit down and make the weekly grocery list and agree on dinner for each night. So we'll just plan 3 nights, leaving 4 nights open

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1)Who says you have to have an endlessly creative meal rotation? If you like tuna casserole, there's nothing wrong w/eating it every Tuesday night. My mother worked late on Tuesdays for more than a decade; we happily ate her tuna casserole every Tuesday. What you see as repetition, your children may come to love as tradition. Find five or six meals you really, really like; repeat them often.

2)One way out of this trap is to cook double quantities of every entree your family likes that freezes well. So every time you cook, you're stashing half in the freezer for a future desperation dinner. Pasta sauce, soups, stews, chili, gumbo, some casseroles, etc in appropriate portion sizes, stored in containers that can go directly into the oven or microwave (Pyrex makes glass storage containers w/airtight lids). This makes life much easier on the cook, who can whip up a pan of corn muffins & toss a salad while the chili defrosts in the microwave.

I think FoodTV has negatively impacted many home cooks. Not every meal has to be camera-worthy, exotic, or novel. Good plain cooking is satisfying, healthy, and the backbone of family life all over the world. It doesn't have to be "cheffy" to be good.

Another suggestion is to involve Mr/Miss Child Picky Eater in the meal preparation. Some kids will try all sorts of things if they've had a hand in making them.

The key to Publix shopping is their sale items. Once you shop there for a while, you kind of figure out their rotation of Buy One Get One Free items, and their other sale items. Then just try to plan buying your staples when they're on sale and stock up.

For example, they regularly put Pomeiian Olive Oil on sale buy one get one free once every month or so. Buy two bottles when they're on sale, and you're good for a couple of months. Just this week they had 6 packs of Deer Creek water on sale 10 for $10. I grabbed 10 even though I didn't really need bottled water now. I'm good on bottled water for a few months, at least.

If you just go in with a list of what you need at that time, you're going to pay more than you would anywhere else. They're weekly specials are better than any other store in my area though. I don't have a Kroger here. Just Publix, Winn Dixie, and Walmart.


ETA: They also have digital coupons on their app, so you don't have to cut coupons and hand them over at the register. Just put your phone number into the keypad. We average saving $30-$40 every Publix trip by hitting the sale items hard.