Wow...some impressive numbers being thrown around...

Toilet paper? I use the one square per flush rule... :haha: :haha: makes that 1ply roll of generic tp go a long ways :D

2 people...i shop deals and live near a large grocery store...on avg about $70/month...I also freeze veggies/buy a lot when things are cheap/have almost unlimited supply of Buffalo(hint:steaks are like jerky!--burger is excellent)...and were both calorie counters...Do splurge on lots of fresh fruit!

We average about $350 a month for everything, cat food, paper and cleaning products, hair and skin care, etc. That's for a family of 2 adults, a 9 year old child, and 3 cats. My garden didn't produce much last year and I was too busy to do any canning, so our grocery bills are a bit higher than usual right now. I have found a good deal for organic veggies though, and they deliver! I get approx. 30 lbs of produce every 2 weeks for $25. We've been buying roast chickens from our neighbour at $1.75/lb, and eggs from another neighbour at $2 a dozen. Hopefully in the next year we will be supplying ourselves with chickens, eggs, dairy and produce.

My budget is 440 american dollars for 2 adults and 2 children. We eat pretty well. We get some goat milk and all the eggs we can eat. I raise a large garden and have the beginnings of an orchard. I still have corn, green beans and peas to feed the family from last year's garden and canned peaches. I've also got a bunch of pickles left. I hade a 10 gallon crock of kosher dills last year and 25 quarts of lime pickle. We hunt deer, but didn't get one this year. We raise beef, but don't butcher our own. I do butcher a chicken now and again. I haven't tried to eat a goat. They are like pets to me. The 440 dolars goes for anything I buy for the house. Dog or cat food, paper products, soap products and sometimes medicines. And food of course. We live in a small town 30 miles from any other town and groceries are higher here. I refuse to buy a better car and drive 30 miles to save 10 cents on a can or box of something. I cut my losses. We spend substantially more money on prescription medicine, medical bills and insurance. That's just on me.

For us it depends on what season it is.

Right now, in the winter months I have been averaging $100-$125/week for a family of 5, 9 cats, 3 dogs, and 1 bird - that also includes toiletries and such.

Summertime, when the garden is in bloom it's about $60-$75/week.

We purchase a quarter of a cow for about $330 every 9 months, but the meat would actually last us for one solid year - I just don't like getting down to a completely empty freezer! :D

I think the wife spends about $125 a week, but I'm pretty sure that includes cat food, litter and paper products. There are 4 humans and 6 cats in our household. It seems we also contribute a few free meals to at least 5 or 6 neighborhood cats on a regular basis.


Nomad

Let's see...$300 on the humans (two adults and 4 kids all the time and one adult usually one meal a day.) And around $100 on the animals. Right now we are getting very few eggs but about a gallon of milk a day. Only herbs from the garden but I work one morning a week at an organic farm for a few extra dollars and organic greens. Husband takes all his lunches and we eat-out about 3 times a month. I am trying to get it to where so the end of the food and the paycheck line up a little closer :haha:

It depends on whether myself of my wife does the shopping. no kidding she says you got all that for how much ? and we have things to cook for a couple weeks on $50..... she goes and $50 dont hardly get dinner made for 5 of us sometimes.... but thats life..... not really food what she buys sometimes but in all we have cut back from $400 per month to about $125 - 150 for the 5 of us, milk is the biggest culprit at times, I know i should have bought a milk cow 4 years ago, would have probably paid for my place by now with all the milk we have gone thru and the extra we would have sold.....

While it isnt the best advice in the world for everyone, what Kurt Saxon writes about in his Survival foods webpages will get a person thinking about what can be accomplished when you stop eating the processed foods and start cooking the ingrediants and making really GOOD edible food for pennies on the dollar of what a person used to spend.

Like buying wheatberries instead of flour, and grinding fresh what you are gonna use....takes a few minutes but the nutrition factor raises enough to make the small amount of time worthwhile [a corona knockoff hand corn/grain mill on ebay is selling for about $16 plus $12 shipping]

If you drink soda then you should look into making your own, you can purchase different flavors from various beer and wine making suppliers, as well as the yeast required to make them, takes aboout 5 days to make 5 gallons, and can be stored in those 2 litre bottles you purchased already.....

If you drink beer and/or wine and dont make your own, well you are spending way to much on it, yeah it takes a little up fornt cost to get going, but once you do, you have more than enough to go around with any occasion. and the entertainment you get from feeding the mash to your hogs will be enough to fill several funniest home video shows.... the birds get drunk too on the mash.

A family dont have to give up eating well to be frugal. ive been showing my wife that all along, sometimes it takes getting used to making a product a few times before you perfect your recipe, but once done to your tastes then it usually is WAY better and dont really take much extra time in preparing..... ok i admit ive been a closet cooker for several years..... i started in 4-H at age 9, mom wanted her sons to be able not to burn water.

William

My wife keeps pretty close track and she says we average $140-160/month for the two of us in winter and about $80-100/month in summer when we have more fresh produce. This includes going out to eat at a local cafe about twice a month (usually somewhere between $8 and $12 for the two of us each time), and what we get from the Schwan's man but doesn't include seeds, canning supplies, and things like detergent, dish soap, paper products. Guess we won't win the frugality contest, but I enjoy what we eat. It's been over twenty years since the kids were here, so I don't know what our expense were with 4 kids as well.

We raise all of our own beef, pork and chicken, milk, butter and eggs, and my wife cans and freezes quite a bit from our garden and our berries and apples. I shoot a few pheasants and Hun partridge and I usually take a deer in the fall as well. My wife bakes all of our breads and other baked goods from scratch.

Biggest grocery items are seafood, which is expensive. We have that at least twice a week. We don't make our own cheese, so that's another expense. In winter, we get citrus fruit from the store and green leafy vegetables, but those fresh vegetables aren't too bad. We'll drink a couple cans of pop (Coke or Mountain Dew or a local kind) each week as well.

I could eat beef roast and pork roast every day, but my wife likes variety and she likes to try new repices. It's hard to get quality seafood in the stores around here, so we get unbreaded fish fillets, shrimp and once in a while the lobster chunks from the Schwan's man. Get an ice cream from him as well.

To me, my wife is the best cook, and she runs a heckuva kitchen. At twice the expense it'd be worth it because every meal is complete and you never push away hungry. We give away some beef, pork and garden produce to neighbor farmer and his uncle who don't have any livestock, but he helps me out in return.

Well we spend $200.00 a month and that includes toiletries, dog food, cat food and rabbit food.

We do not have a garden, pigs, chickens etc so we buy everything...soon we will have rabbits to eat and a garden....but I think we do pretty good on $200

We have 6 in the family, 2 dogs, 4-5 cats & 15 rabbits

So in my opinion I think $350 is rather high, but it depends on what you buy and where you live I suppose.

Our budget is $500 for 2 adults, 3 teens, one child. That includes most paper products and cat food. I can spend much less, but that's the comfortable amount - with that I can buy organic meat, some quality convenience foods, and lots of fruit. My gang can eat fruit!

I cut way back when necessary - our income fluxuates - but it's a trade-off. More time cooking and baking completely from scratch competes with other things we like to do. It's a season of life thing.. with 3 teens I'd rather spend a little more, eat well, have plenty for the friends, keep the trans-fattys out, etc.

And about the welfare queens...
As a foster parent I see my fair share of people sucking the system dry, and have a natural tendency to gripe. Amy Dacyzyn wrote an essay in one of the Tightwad newsletters that helped change my view. She argued that not everyone is given the same skills when it comes to frugality - some people were raised to get their needs met by filling up materially, and some of us (like me) were raised to look at frugality as a fun challenge. Ok, maybe not ALWAYS fun, but definitely a challenge in the good sense! It's a big sliding scale - our frugality is opulence to some cultures. I'm of the opinion that it's the system that needs to change - give someone $30 for a family, for a week, and a rice and beans cookbook. They won't starve!

$200 a month, less in summer. Two adults, one dog, two cats. Figure includes household, cleaning and paper products, pet food and eating out (one night a week).

We spend about $225 each month for 2 people. But we eat very well as I like good food, which includes 1/2 of a beef once a year for the freezer. But in reality-my sweetie spends more as she is on the road for work and they pay on those days for her meals then. She is forced to eat out when she is away from home about 5 nights/days a week. Sometimes he goes grocery shopping for fruit/veggies and then gets the base rate in reimbursement.

Wow, this is interesting. I cannot stand the price of groceries these days. Does anyone else have this prob(I saw alot of things about their husbands snacking alot) but mine works construction, and he eats the oddest things. His big kick is stuff like spam, vienna sausages etc. potted or pickled stuff(gagging) he loves to put it in his lunch box. He'll eat sandwhiches but that's some more nasty stuff, P&P loaf? I don't know. Also a big Little Debbie fan, when I go grocery shopping I spent most of the money on his lunch/snack stuff. Grantid he does each fruit cups, applesauce, dried fruit, stuff like that, but our bill is mainly his stuff. I spend on average $130.00, in about a week he's complaining he's running out of stuff and by week 2 he's out, so back to the grocery store I go mainly to get his stuff about $70.00! Drives me crazy, there's plenty of stuff I like but I don't get because I can't afford it! He also comes from a family that lives on steak. Every time we go over for dinner it's either steak, london broil, or a roast. I've had pork chops on 2 occasions and chicken BBQ every year on my husbands B-day. We're still setting our little homestead up, so the beef, chicken and pork has a little while before it's ready for the table. I cannot afford the steak prices in the amounts he likes to eat it. So he's content with hamburger helper type meals*l* So you're looking at $200.00 a month for 2 people. My meals are free here during day and evening shift when the college is in, so when I work midnights is when I bring something from home, and I rarely eat breakfast. So there you have my issue with the grocery bill. Anyone else have big issues with a hungry hubby? The sad thing is with all the boy eats he's skinny as a rail :no: I give up. Sams Club here I come!

WE average $350 per month for the 4 of us. Have to agree with Terri being Diabetic it seems stuff cost more. During the Summer it's a lot cheaper per month. It's amazing how well you can eat on Tomatoes, Corn and squash. Ymmm

grocery bill is about 200-250.00 per month , we dont buy milk , we dont buy much meat , we eat a lot of"basic" food, beans rice potatoes... i buy very little processed foods to begin with , the exception is cereal
get milk/cheese/yogurt from the goats , rabbit from the rabbits( go figure) have a butchered goat in the freezer

our chickens are starting to come up to butcher age, and the hens to laying
as well as our pigs are ready to butcher too ....

now, if you add in my feed store bill to that, which i kind of do cause its part of our cost of food produced, then you have to tack on another 100.00 for the month
thats for 2 adults, and 2 children , and that includes the fact that i am a post op gastric bypass and do have a few special food needs , plus pregnant on that too :D


how do i do it ?

i shop loss leaders , and stock up , loss leaders is when the store adverts. soemthing ridiculously cheap so you come and do all your shoppign there,
i just dont do all my shopping there, i shop for some foods at a discount scratch and dent grocer, , i go to a bakery outlet for our breads, about every month and a half or so , and we freeze the bread ...
i buy basic foods, flour sugar rice dried beans , but only when on sale, sugar goes on sale monthly ,for 99cents a bag, i have about 3 bags on hand at all times, spaghetti sauce in a can goes on sale for 89 cents or less regularly, so i stock up when i see it , its cheaper than canned tomato sauce, and i can adapt if for anything from , gasp spaghetti to chili to homemade bbq sauce ... ketchup is always on sale, so you dont need to "stock up" but i keep extra on hand, same with mayo , i hate to run out of stuff ..... .i buy mac and cheese cause i have kids and they like it , but i get the store brand and they have it by the case, its 12 to a case for 3.00 ( do the math) , my kids like ramen noodles, so we always have some, and they are always cheap , throw some frozen veggies and an egg in there when you make them and its actually a good meal ,

when frozen veggies are on sale i stock up 10 bags of veggies at 69cents is less than 7.00 for 10 lbs of frozen veggies ...., cheap meats .crockpots help on this , we dont eat much beef cause its expensive ,

we will be raising a cow soon , but thats different isnt it ... anyhow, just some things we do, and how much we spend for food, yes it can vary greatly depending on how you eat .

FYI , in summer when we have the other 3 children here, our meal bill goes up by only about 50-75.00 a month , this year will be even less, since we are on the farm , and have a huge garden , and etc ....
Beth

Looks like I'm part of the counter culter in this thread, I spend aprox 10 bucks a day

30 days= 300 bucks for ONE person
I eat out alot at Arby's and Subway:eek:

Wow, that's fantastic! I used to do pretty well with $200 a month until my boys started to eat like adults :) They are 10 and 8 now and it is amazing how much food they can put down!!

Isn't that the truth Leah!!! My kids are from 11- 18, the three oldest are girls and they are all so thin, but they can put away the food!!!! I try to have things like boiled eggs, potatoes, and plenty of bread and peanut butter, and items for grilled cheese on hand. They like fruit, but when they are hungry, they want something solid. We also have a pool and in the summer when they are done swimming, I always have a big snack ready for them. I think they could eat an elephant when they get out of the pool.

One thing I have found that is really filling and can be very cheap is homemade muffins. We picked a lot of blueberries last summer and I can make a batch of blueberry muffins pretty cheaply and they are fast. I only use wheat flour and honey to sweeten, so they are basically healthy.

My husband works construction too and he gets really hungry during the day. I fix a lot of things like ham, chicken and turkey salad. I stretch it by adding a lot of vegetables, wheat germ and dry oats. A few of these sandwiches on wheat bread are very filling. I make him muffins, granola bars, and quick breads and fill the rest of his lunchbox with fruits, especially bananas, apples and oranges.

As to other expenses, I spend $60 a month for animal feed. This is for the two horses, two rabbits, 28 chickens, one dog, six cats, and two birds. We put up our own hay.

I spend about $10 a week on all of the misc household supplies, this includes paper products, cleaning supplies, laundry supplies and any other misc expenses like first aid items, light bulbs etc... I find that by consistently spending $10 a week, I am always stocked up on everything. This week I will spend the whole $10 on laundry soap. Krogers has the kind I use on sale 4 for $10 which will last me for about 6 months.

LOL...get some kids! It will expand your imagination quite a bit. We spend around $100 per week to feed 5. There are some things I could make from scratch that would bring the price down, but that takes time too.
Sylvar

We spend about 100$ every three months, on flour, honey, paper goods , sugar. we grow every thing else. we can, dry, and freeze all of our veggies, neat, fruit. we have our own eggs, milk, butter , cheese, is all made here, and so is all of our soap.

"I understand where you're coming from, but come on now...don't you think that's maybe just a little bit harsh?"

I think she was right on!

Ed

Spending 350 on a family of 5 is very good! This family of 5 spends, at the very least 400 a month, but closer to 500+ some months. It varies from month to month here. I also think it really depends on where you live. I stock up on loss leaders, combine coupons and sales (my stores double and triple coupon values). Stop by the bread store for cheap goodies, purchase from local gardeners/farmers as much as possible. No doubt, we eat well and we do splurge on junk food alot, not to mention my sons and all their friends who can wipe out my pantry easily on the weekends, LOL. But I am comfortable with our budget. I applaud those who can budget much smaller amounts on larger families, well done!

Cheryl

Well I feel like we're living on another planet.
We were spending an embarrassing amount for 2 adults and that does not count eating out - which we do a lot. I have to learn to stop doing "projects" early enough in the day to have time and energy for making dinner.

We don't eat many processed foods, but we do try to spring for the healthy stuff.
Sometimes I just can't do it though -
Last week I had to pay over $4.00 for a SMALL jar of raw honey! I thought my head was going to explode or spin off.
I can't tell how much is inflation and how much has to do with moving to a new state- but prices are just unbelievable lately.

I have to admit our bills have gone down considerably over the last few months, but I haven't really been able to come up with a new monthly average.
This past fall we butchered a lamb and hubby shot a deer for us. We took one roadkill deer and butchered it for the dogs. A few wild turkeys and pheasants are in the freezer, also.

Because we were moving over the summer, we didn't have a garden this year, I know that's one of the problems. We didn't have chickens for eggs and I've had to buy all the dairy, as well. We are big time cheese eaters and that's been an amazing drain on our budget. We only eat really good cheese.

Another drain is learning a new way to cook. I've been trying to teach myself to bake bread, and there have been MANY failures. Ditto with canning , pickling, sausage making, yogurt, and Pima.

I've mentioned it before and I'll say it again - you folks who have these skills should seriously consider teaching or mentoring the newbies. You're knowledge is very valuable! :worship: If I could pay you just a fraction of the money I've wasted via trial and error - I'd have paid your food bills for many moons.....

Well, HERE is something that took me decades to figure out! :o

Stopping a project to put dinner on is just plain impossible. The trick is to set up dinner jsut before you leave the house. It IS possible to leave a project for just a few minutes!

For example: Take out chicken and place it to thaw in whatever pan you will cook it in. Work on project. Come in after the chicken is thawed and take out giblets and prepare it for dinner. Put it in the oven and work on project. Come in to a hot meal.

And, in a pinch, put a frozen lasagna in to cook. The grocery stores have them ready-made so it only takes 5 minutes at most. Work on project. IF you have the time and the energy you can fix a salad and a dessert, but in a pinch lasagna is a balanced meal (the tomato sauce counts as a vegetable).

Very true Dave. I have found that the more basic I get in my buying the more versatile I can be in my cooking. I could spend less but I buy some things that are more expensive like cold pressed virgin olive oil, lots of honey, brown rice, whole wheat flour, and other items that are a little more costly than their cheaper counterparts.

We do eat a large variety of food and we have a lot of company and give a lot of things away too. I am always sending meals to the neighbors as well as baking and canning to give away. Food is a really big part of our life and the kids love to cook and bake too. I consider it sort of a fun challenge to see how low we can go and still eat an interesting variety of foods. I still hope to go even lower as I grow more and more food here on the place. Every year I plant more food-producing trees, bushes and plants. Eventually I hope to raise about 75% of our food.

HAH! We're living the high life! We have a THREE SQUARES PER FLUSH rule!

I'm feeling flush now! (pun intended!!!)
:haha: :haha:

Tracy

I often wonder....

Things like baking bread... Is it worth it?

I understand if you like home baked bread, but if you are doing it to save money, I'm not so sure. We buy a loaf of decent bread for 89 cents. How can you make it for that?

What about growing potatoes? Last week a 10 lb bag was also 89 cents. I wouldn't even dig them up for that!

Canning vegies? Just the seal on the jar cost you 10 cents. What about the electricity and seeds and time? A can of corn or bean can be had for well under a dollar.

I find we can save money on meat, eggs and milk. No milking cow for me yet, but I sure like having my own pork, deer and eggs. We eat like kings.

Pete

hi pete,

i hear you about time versus cost. i think that the difference comes in when you factor in the value of knowing the quality of your food, and how it was processed.

regarding your comment about the potatoes being 89 cents for a ten pound bag, did you know that to be able to harvest the potatoes all at the same time that growers spray the tops of potatoes with some kind of chemical that kills the part of the plant that's above ground, and the chemicals do something to the potatoes to simulate like when the plant dies back naturally when the potatoes are ready.

i don't know, but i don't like the idea of all that stuff leaching down onto my potatoes, whether it's to hurry them along in growth, or the fact that there is a residue of something there that killed the top of the plant. it sounds like a poisened potatoe any way you look at it.

and when it comes to baking bread, you just can't compare the nutritional value that is in a loaf of ground-from-wheatberries bread. none of the stuff in the store is that wholesome.

i guess in the end, if you want the convenience and you don't place a personal value on quality, then store bought can be more economical. but if you analyze what you are eating, and know what happened to it before it comes to you, it might make it worth the effort to plant potatoes or bake bread.

debbie

I've noticed that many of the food suggestions here are heavy on starches. We can't eat starches (no noodles, no pasta, rarely even a potato... I even have to limit things like carrots or parsnips) which means the average meal at my house is, on average, going to cost more, made from scratch or no.

I've also noticed a fair amount of what I'd consider "false economy." The lamb I raise, while lovely stuff, is easily as expensive per pound as the stuff in the grocery store, which I walk by because I'd "never" pay that much for lamb. My eggs easily rival in cost what I'd pay for organic eggs... they are not "cash saving" by any stretch of the imagination. And the garden? In New England there are very few things you can grow in a garden that don't require a boatload of "stuff" to make them mature on schedule... or to store them so they'll be edible 3 months hence. At least by today's standards. I clearly remember my grandmother skimming mold off things and then plunking them on the table.

And sailors ate biscuits with weavils in them... but we don't do that today.

I've given up on the "food economy" thing and have moved into other areas of our life instead. If I really look at what I'm paying for chicken, eggs, lamb, and produce from my garden I'll run shrieking into the night!

I've given up on the "food economy" thing and have moved into other areas of our life instead. If I really look at what I'm paying for chicken, eggs, lamb, and produce from my garden I'll run shrieking into the night!

***
I gave up on my food budget a long time ago :)

MY family likes to eat. Plain and simple. They won't eat beans at every meal nor will they eat pasta at every meal. Yes , these things are cheap but if it's not going to be enjoyed by my family , then to me it's a waste of money. We love seafood..we will buy seafood all year long. I have it sent up from family in Florida, right off the boat.

I'm picky about the food I eat. I won't buy a cheap cut of beef because I know I can cook it to death and feed my family for $2. It's goes back to enjoying the meal. Actually, I don't buy beef in the store. We get 1/2 a cow once a year. I buy only organic chicken that I know hasn't been shot up with anitbiotics and growth hormones. I buy as much fruit and veggies from the farmers we know instead of going to the stores. In the winter I have no choice but to buy from the store.

We sit down every evening and have a family meal. I like to see and know that my dh and children are really enjoying the food that is in front of them. I don't want to sit there and say "too bad you don't like it..it was cheap".

If I ever needed to trim my household budget, my food budget would be the last thing I'd even think about changing. You can sit in the dark and you can haul water and you can even use an outhouse..but when you have a good tasty homecooked meal in front of you and you really enjoy it..the rest just doesn't matter.


kppop

Same here. My husband doesn't eat any wheat products or any sugar at all, so it is hard to save money in some areas. We will begin raising our own meat this spring, and though it won't save us much money, it will be MUCH healthier than what we are eating now.

I'm allergic to wheat. Here is the recipe I use as a wheat flour substitute:

2 parts white rice flour
2/3 part potato starch flour (NOT potato flour)
1/3 part tapioca flour

Have you thought about a grain grinder? That might cut your costs some.

I really think most people spend a lot of money eating out and on "junk" food. (Not necessarily on this thread, but the average American.) Just by eliminating these two items you can afford to buy much better quality foods. I am about 90% fanatical about buying wholesome foods. Fortunately none of us have any food allergies or health problems, so we don't have to watch for those kinds of things. Over the years I have developed certain standards of things I will buy: we use mostly honey, maple syrup, and natural sugar for sweetening, we use whole wheat flour, lots of wheat germ, oat bran, and oats for baking, we use only natural peanut butter, real butter, only whole wheat pasta, most of our meat is from hunting, fishing, or trading with those we know who raise it in a wholesome way. We rarely eat beef, maybe 3-4 times a year. We are so used to deer meat, that beef doesn't even taste right to us.

Our garden is so cheap to raise. I rarely spend more than $20 for everything, the lettuce I raise more than pays for everything I grow. We eat fresh lettuce, spinach, and other greens for about 8 months of the year. I can grow potatoes for free as I save the best ones each year to replant. I grow them in raised beds, so digging them is very easy and simple. Growing herbs is a really big moneysaver. After the initial cost, they are so carefree. I have a lot of herbs that I paid only 10 cents for the package of seeds. If you plant 10 cents worth of dill and let some of it reseed, you will never have to plant it again. As far as canning, comparing a quart of home canned green beans to a can from the store, doesn't even equate for me! They don't even taste like the same food. You really save money when you can things like salsa, spaghetti sauce, pickles and relishes, even the cheapest ones are not cheaper than homecanned. I buy lids through an Amish friend for about 50 cents a dozen. That is cheaper than a candy bar and I can have 12 jars of really good food.

I have 28 chickens and spend about $15 a month for feed. I sell about $40-50 worth of eggs a month and we eat all we want. Eggs are profitable for us.

A lot of the things we do to save money on food are also are hobbies. I love to work in the garden, my kids love to pick berries, apples, and other fruits. We enjoy having the chickens, Cale loves to hunt and they all like to fish. We really don't count our time in doing all of this as they are things we would do anyways.

I don't think spending less means deprivation at all. When we have friends over for dinner they are thrilled. The kids friends love to come here to eat. Good food is a gift and when you raise as much of it as possible, then it can be inexpensive, healthy and full of variety.

I love working with numbers and figuring out ways to do things with less money and still have a good result. We don't want to spend much of our time earning money, so any way we can decrease our expenses is a good thing.

I love that philosophy! :)