Feeding a family for 100.00 per week..see article

to truly be HONEST and fair to this woman, you guys need to be including all of your food costs which you are NOT.

you raise your own food, meat and eggs? then you need to include in your weekly grocery budget the costs of feed, electricity for your freezers and extra large fridges. electricity to can your foods and wash the cans and lids. gas for your tiller to till the garden and to go get your feed. costs and depreciation of the tiller. and if you don't use a tiller then costs/depreciation of your tools, horses, whatever the hay you use.

now, you include all of your REAL costs and lets see some honest numbers to compare to hers.

I know prices are extrememly variable throughout the country, but even if I add up my entire electric bill, all the money I spend on feed and gas, and my entire grocery budget, it doesn't come to $250 a week!

I do have a nice-sized garden, but take a very frugal approach to gardening, no tiller, raised beds, and save lots of seeds. I probably don't spend more than $20 a year on the garden. The chickens cost me about $20 a month, but I sell eggs for $2 a dozen and actually show a profit there, my freezer is about $7 a month, and most of my canning jars and supplies were free. Canning lids are about 10 cents each.

As with most things though, experience really helps. Trying to cut the budget in half instantly would be difficult if you weren't used to doing all the things it takes to spend less. I worry that articles like this make people feel it isn't possible. It would be nice to see a story with a more postive focus.

We're a family of 10, including three teenagers, and spend $525 monthly on food (don't use disposable dishes, diapers, and buy the health and beauty stuff at drastically reduced sale prices, so the other stuff isn't more than another $20 monthly). That includes our preps, which aren't nearly as extensive as I would like because I have to stay within the budget I have. I started a garden this year, but don't yet have any veggies from there, and we live in the city, so we don't raise chickens or other animals. We always have plenty of food and eat well in quantity and quality, and that's been the result of using a variety of different strategies when shopping.

There are plenty of ways to save money on food except for raising your own, but it does mean looking at things differently than most people. You have to be willing to buy what's affordable and use that when you have it. I've seen too often that some people who spend more would rather discount the advice of those who have been successful in getting their food budget low, rather than change what they're doing and get their own budgets lower. It's easier to poo poo someone else and say it's totally unrealistic or point out other reasons that it wouldn't work than find ways to make changes yourself.

Cooking from scratch isn't such a radical idea, and it doesn't need to take a lot of time. As a busy homeschooling mom of 8 I don't have lots of excess time to spend in the kitchen, but there are a lot of strategies to do things efficiently (eg buy and cook in bulk). A person who keeps their mind open can learn alot of new strategies.

I think it is wise to stock up so you can get thru bad times. I think it is wise to teach your family to eat whatever is put in front of them. It's wise to teach them NO you can't have ... It's wise to teach ourselves NO too. Hopefully we will never face food shortages in this country, but it could happen. There are no reserves to speak of except what individuals have stocked in their personal pantries. We'd be wise to learn to eat frugally so if we are ever faced with having to do so, we won't starve because "we won't eat that". I don't mean to do without the treats you can afford. However, we should eat meals of beans and rice and learn to enjoy them the same as the steak and potatoes meals. That way if it comes down to all there is to eat is beans and rice you won't starve.

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I have just spent over a week driving in a motor home with 4 adults and 6 children, then living on an island with that for 2 weeks with that same group plus another 10 adults for one of those weeks. Island living meant that shopping trips were only whenever someone with a big boat was going to town. (We only shop weekly at home, but we shop for fewer people and have large storage cupboards and freezers to back us up.)

My oldest daughter and I were the chief cooks. We decided the meals, which included mostly food made from scratch, some of it brought from our own garden, fresh or canned. For the remainder, we had to shop at unfamiliar, expensive, northern Ontario grocery stores.

I found that the hardest part was keeping control of the food stocks. People kept requesting snacks, which we had somewhat built in, and wanting desserts, which we seldom eat, but had planned for some meals. They raided our food stores, leaving us to be very creative. They/we also ate at unusual hours again making planning and control difficult.

Changing food habits on a short term basis, especially when it is the conscious decision of only the food purchaser/cook, is a very difficult proposition. I applaud the writer of the article on her success.

$60 a week myself and two teenagers. Probably 20% more than a few years ago due to the inflation of food prices. We eat well. I buy virtually no pre-processed, junk food, box/frozen meals, etc. The basics are cheap compared to that junk. We don't eat a lot of beans and rice either. I'm making pot roast today.

I have seen these discussions on several forums. It's a popular topic the past year with the economy and inflation as it is. I'm amazed sometimes how much some spend on food. It surprises me even more when people say fruits and veggies are expensive. Well, not if you buy the right ones. Cabbage, carrots, potatoes, apples, oranges, and many more are a very good deal $ per pound all things considered.

edited to add for mel - no garden, no canning or livestock/chickens.

Well, $250 for a family of 4 is less than $3 per person per meal. Considering a storebought apple or tomato sells for around $1 nowadays, I don't think that's too extravagent!

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

So what do you consider a frugal amount to spend per person per meal?

$1 breakfast, $2 lunch, $3 dinner?

Or are you frugal byt the meal instead of by the person?

We need a frugal menu thread, with everyone using common foods and being very specific, i.e.

1 pound of chicken thighs
1 can of chicken broth
1 cup of rice
1 cup of sliced carrots
1 half cup of diced onions

Then the total cost of the meal divided by how many servings = cost per person. Better yet, post the follow-up menus for any leftovers and cut the cost per person even further.

If each of us contributed only one recipe, we would still probably have enough to get us through a month. It would give us a start on our shopping lists, plus help remind us of the produce in season (and therefore cheaper).

With our pantries stocked with the necessary items plus items from the garden or farmers market, we could all benefit from having the posts in a loose leaf notebook which would keep us on budget.

Then we could have a challenge to see who could stick to just those menus for one month (maybe one week would be more realistic) and it would be a win/win situation, because we would be posting to encourage each other and coming up with tips and hints on how to stretch the budget even further. By the end of the challenge, we would be very experienced at frugal menus.

we spend about 75$ a week, two adults, two teen boys, plus about 75-100$ a month for meat. We buy beef and bacon(no nitrite) from a local meat packer, it's the same high quality meat that goes to high end restaraunts around here. We buy the whole slab of sirloin and cut it into steaks(this makes it cheap as hamburger) and also slice the bacon slab up ourselves. The fish is part of the weekly 75$ and the chicken is separate from the weekly 75$(just because we get it at a different store). The 75$ amount also includes paper, shampoo etc and cleaning supplies.

I try to keep up a varied pantry(as well as as much stocks I can sneak past the husband--for some reason having 3 packs of toilet paper ticks him off). Having the pantry gives a helpful cush--for instance this week we had some unplanned expenses, so I figured out all we need to buy for groceries this week was eggs (2$ for 18) and milk (4 gallons for 10$), leaving 63$ to use for soemthing else--with rationing I could use what we had on hand. Which meant a few suppers of bean burritos or BBQ bean with bacon and cornbread--not horrible at all, but it was funny how a little money magically got freed up for more food. My kids love beans, I love beans, but it's funny how my husband thinks if you're eating beans/no meat for the main dish you're not eating right and you're trash. BUT it made me think how being prepped and buying ahead a tad on the fresh stuff can enable you to free up that grocery money for something else. If it were just me I'd be making soup or chili or a bean and veggie salad I could eat on for a few day until it's gone. I'd love not cooking something different every night--my family is big on "variety".

But yeah, I buy stuff on sale, or the cheapest store brand. I take a list to the store, but if what I "need" is not on sale I push it to another week, substitute, or change to what's on sale. Be flexible.

I do get frustrated when I have to include the 12$ box of beer only my husband drinks in the weekly budget every couple weeks tho, that takes a chunk.

We have a cheap grocery store in town where we mostly shop at, but dont' buy meat there because it's skanky old meat. I know if I had to shop at the regular Safeway or Albertson's our bill would be 50$ more.

whoops! I need to make clear that "old" meat isn't bad(we age the beef we get from the packer) BUT it's skanky when it's green or foul...