Ask the Readers: Tips and Tricks to Save on Food?

I spent 100 / week feeding just myself in college…. my dad paid my expenses so i didnt appreciate it as much; but I also was able to get on food stamps by working 20 / hours a week and being a full time student (even with my parents footing my bills)

Food Stamps gave my parents a tax refund (My parents paid more in taxes than 3-4 families at the median income in my state since he was a physician, who managed to retire with 2 kids in college by being frugal and prudently investing) of 250 dollars a month! Which I could use on food, drink mixers and other great things….

BTW This is one of 70 or so blogs I RSS to and its definately one of my favorites now that I pay for my own stuff.

My fiance and I are unable to spend our alloted $300 a month in grocery money (and as it’s government-alloted money, it doesn’t go toward eating out, so we don’t).

First off, he barely eats. If he ate as much as I do, we’d still have money left over from our budget, and if I ate as much as I should be we’d have a lot less waste.

I actually spend about $150 on food just for me.

I cut my grocery budget in half by not eating sugar and carbs. Sure, I don’t have “staples” like pasta and rice and beans, I eat red meat and chicken with a side of shrimp (which is exaggerating but still). Frozen veggies last a lot longer and so I can have a variety and don’t have to eat broccoli 5 days in a row just to use up the head of it. I buy chicken when it’s buy-one-get-one-free, shrimp when it’s BOG-2-free, ground beef when it’s 70% off, ground turkey at 50-60% off, and steaks about every other week when they’re on sale AND 40% off because they have to sell it or chuck it (I only get those when I want them that day, though). Don’t eat as much fish as I’d like, but I get that when it’s on sale for 40% or more off.

I could cut my budget a lot more by buying local, but the farmer’s markets don’t take food stamps so technically it would actually INCREASE my budget to do that.

But my health is a LOT better–since cutting carbs and sugars, my LDL went down 20pts, my HDL went up about 50, I have more stamina, I eat a lot more, and I can afford all my food.

One thing I’ve noticed is that sugar-free foods that are naturally SF and don’t have added sweeteners (like, PB) are cheaper than their HFCS counterparts. I pay $1 for a big jar of my PB, and $3 for the same size jar of sugary-grossness PB. Bacon with sugar is twice as expensive as the stuff without, which also actually has FLAVOR compared to the sugared stuff. Whole grain unsweetened cereal is half the price or even cheaper.

The writer asked about going to different stores… I could. But it’s so darn difficult to find things without added fillers at the really cheap stores, that I barely shop there anymore because the added time and strain on my body is not worth the very little savings.

OTOH, if we want something for dinner, and are missing ingredients no matter what we cook, we just pick whatever store is on the way home or least out of our way to save time and gas, we aren’t limited to shopping at the one store I usually go to just because that’s where I like to shop. A lot of the “discount” stores are even more expensive than my “higher grade” store (and no I don’t shop at whole foods, usually).

Holy crap! $3 pp for for pasta?! I hope that’s a typo. I buy whole wheat pasta in bulk and in the box. It usually runs roughly $1-$2 a pound, far more than one person can eat at a sitting. Otherwise, we (two adults) budget $200 per month for groceries – and neither of us is close to starving! We rarely eat out, and when we do, we use money from our entertainment budget ($50 a month). That definitely helps us stay in line, and it makes going out very special. We mostly shop at Costco and grocery stores that offer bulk options and lower cost produce, which we buy a lot of, and good quality meat that goes on sale often. We use coupons, but frankly, they don’t make a huge dent in the budget. And we ALWAYS shop with a list to prevent impulse buys and extra trips to the store for forgotten items. And we NEVER shop hungry or thirsty. Also, we’re both healthy weight (re: another commenter’s question).

> I pay $9-10 for a single package of 2 locally produced free-range chicken breasts.

Whoa that’s expensive! Not all of use can spring for that kind of luxury. I bought 6 breasts from chickens that were store branded, caged, and shipped from the moon for $3.83 last saturday. I’ve also found butcher specials on whole frozen fryers, store brand for .36¢ a pound. That’s about $2 for a whole chicken. Compared to your 9 for two breasts.

Trust me. If your discover yourself without money you’ll find a whole lot of ways to slash your food budget and you find that a $2 chicken is dang yummy.

Beth, I have food allergies as well and spend about $120 a month. I can’t have anything with corn in it, so a lot of prepared and frozen foods are out. I buy produce at an Asian market quite inexpensively, and eat a lot of chicken, rice, pasta and salads. I make soup a lot too.

Food is one of those very individual and cultural things. I know people who live in NYC and eat out every night because it’s easy and means they can have a smaller/cheaper apartment. A coworker in Singapore does not have a kitchen in his apartment at all. This is common in Singapore. Then there are people who don’t eat out at all, or who eat no/low carb, vegetarians, vegans, Hindus, those who keep kosher or hallal, the gourmets and the gourmands. I have one friend who won’t eat meat off the bone; he eats meat, mind, but not if there’s a bone in it. Arroz con pollo is fine, KFC ain’t. Another controls his IBS by eating 20 grams or less of fat a day.

Dunno if this is helpful, just musing about the variations involved. I do think if you’re going to compare food bills you should not count shampoo/soap/paper products. But that’s the only really helpful thing

We spend close to $1,000 per month for a family of four because we are not willing to compromise the quality of our food to save money. This amount also includes vitamin supplements like probiotics, fish oils and vitamin c, and supplemental herbs.

I cook everything from scratch, including grinding flour, rolling oats, making all condiments, as well as a lot of canning from the garden. This way I can ensure that my children do not eat artificial ingredients, hydrogenated or trans fats, white flour / rice/ sugar, or MSG to name a few unhealthy ingredients.

I did not see anyone mention buying organic, locally grown produce; grass-fed, locally raised animal products (meat, eggs, and dairy); and wild-harvested seafood from sustainable marine populations. Saving money is a good thing, but keeping toxins out of your diet and out of our fields, as well as supporting responsible harvesting of the world’s resources ranks up there just as importantly as far as I and my family are concerned.

Hi All,
We have the good fortune here of having several salvage stores in the area. And man, do we load up! Just last week, we bought a carload of groceries and dry goods, such as 50 lbs. oats and 50 lbs. of popcorn, and it cost less than $150.00. (They have a lot of regular sized stuff too). We get big bags of real cheese for less than $2.00 each, etc. etc. We keep the extra dry goods in the basement in sealed buckets, and I keep a smaller amount in coffee cans in the kitchen cabinets.
We also have a bread store here, where we get loaves of bread very cheaply. However, they have junk too, so I make my husband stay in the car, lol.
Each year, we grow a huge garden, and get so much, even without using pesticides or chemicals, that we fill three big chest freezers, and give a lot of stuff away to the local homeless shelter and unsuspecting elderly neighbors.
This may be something you can try-Each year, we buy two hogs from a farmer, who raises them on pasture, and have them taken to the butcher shop. He doesn’t use hormones or anything else on them. He has lean hogs, and we get them cut lean. And we still pay only about $1.00 per pound, even counting the butchering fee. Same with beef, which we split with someone else.
And here’s the good part-When we go out to eat, it’s free. I’m a mystery shopper, so I get paid to eat out.
We have a Mill located close by, so we can get whole wheat pasta, etc. there, when we drive past. They also give out samples if we want to try something before buying.
We are also avid hunters and fishers, and just having these skills sometimes made the difference, at least early in our marriage, between eating and starving.
We also keep a few very spoiled chickens for the eggs, and they love to eat our scraps, so our garbage never stinks.
So now, when we do go to the grocery store, it’s just to get coffe (fair trade), citrus fruits, olive oil etc.
This may seem like it takes a long time, but in less time than it takes to walk thru the grocery store, you can save thousands of dollars a year by following the above suggestions just once a month!

Hello everyone, I’m the person who asked the question from the post.

I’d like to point out that I was off on my estimate of $3 per person for pasta, but not by much. It comes out to around $1.50 if I make a larger batch. I also make the sauce from scratch, no jarred sauces… that means fresh tomatoes, and tomatoes are expensive. The basil from the supermarket was 2 dollars alone. So yes, we do need to start spending smarter, but I also don’t think that the fresh and from-scratch pasta is a part of the problem.

Wow… where to start, 67 responses so far. in response to #21 (Christine), I did not blame the prices in Davis, I implied the culprit was eating out since the prices in Davis obviously aren’t 2-3x more expensive than other cities.

After getting responses from so many varying sources, I do believe that the eating out is the main culprit. Other problems we have: inefficiently using our ingredients, wasting some, and not growing our own herbs.

We do shop at the farmers market whenever we can and try to stock up for as many days as the produce will stay good. However, we are often too busy or tired to go to the Wednesday one.

We went to the Co-op once, but found that the prices were actually more expensive(?). What is this $15 dollars for joining the Co-op you speak of? Also, I am not a student.

I also agree with the responses that canned and jarred sauces/soups are not things I wish to eat regularly. I try to eat as much fresh and natural vegetables and meat as possible.

That said, we have cut back on our portions after receiving a lot of good advice on the forums. I realized that we were often stuffing ourselves for no reason. Although I don’t consider us fat (135lbs, 5’8″), we definitely eat more than we should.

Thanks for all the responses, it helped us gain more perspective on our spending habits and how to cut back without sacrificing quality.

There is a line to be drawn between eating healthy/varied/good tasting meals and eating as cheap as you can. I have serious doubts about some people’s claims on how little they spend for high quality varied foods….I have seen enough people or families who are soo proud of how little they spend and the stuff they eat is often just terrible.

my health is important to me and I make it a point to eat higher quality varied meals that actually taste great. I still don’t spend a ton and only eat out every once in a while. Sure I could pinch pennies and eat for a couple hundred cheaper than I do but my food budget is the last place in my budget where I look for savings

Family of 4.
Monthly food budget: $500.

I feed my family mostly organic food and try to eat as locally and ethically as possible.

I can further break it down:

$100 per month for dairy. We get 4 bottles of milk, 1 cheddar, 1 mozza and 1 lb butter delivered to our door from a local dairy each week, at about $25/week.

$100 per month on produce and beef. I get it all at the famers’ market budgeting $25 per week (normally $5 for beef, $20 for veggies). We only get beef because it’s the only local meat I’ve been able to find, so we eat beef once per week.

$26 per month on coffee. Every two weeks, I get 1 lb of shade-grown, organic, fair trade coffee at a locally owned coffee shop for $13 per lb. Since we never buy coffee out and always bring our own or drink it at home, it’s totally worth it.

$21 per month on eggs. Every two weeks, I get 3 dozen eggs which come from local, happy chickens at a cost of $3.50 per dozen.

$100 monthly buying club order. I started a buying club with a few neighbours; we order organic food from a co-op; it gets delivered to our house; my husband sorts it all and the neighbours come and pick up their order. I normally get flours, baking supplies, grains, nuts, dried legumes/beans, condiments, cereals, all organic.

$150 other. Juice, non-local fruit (kids and husband get tired of the same things if I only buy local ones in season) and citrus, chips and ice cream from the regular grocery store; pita bread from a local bakery; nitrate-free sandwich meat and bacon from a local butcher; bagels from the bagel-shop, take-out pizza.

It sounds like alot of running around but we actually do it all by foot or bike (we have no car) and the coop order and dairy gets delivered to our door. The market is a weekly family outing (we ride our bikes there), fun times.

The only bread product we purchase is pita bread, I bake everything else. We also never buy store-bought sweets and treats, I make all of that. In recent months, we also stopped buying pasta, making it instead when we want to eat it. I also make yogurt (ridiculously easy), which I use as sour cream and cream cheese by adjusting the consistency.

We’ve been buying extra and freezing and canning a bit over the summer. I plan on storing root crops and apples for the winter, and I’ll be purchasing beef in bulk before the end of the farmer’s market.

We spend a lot of time thinking about and preparing food. I view food as both physical nourishment and occasion to connect and share with my family. It definitely helps that my husband is a trained cook, so I’m not shouldering all the cooking.

I do all the planning, he does most of the cooking, I do most of the baking.

It’s obvious that everyone has different budgets and different abilities to spend on food. For some people, it has to be bare bones. For others, there’s more room to indulge. Yes, we could all live (sort of) on rice and beans and spaghetti, or on ramen. And some people have to. But some people are able to prioritize differently. Some folks spend more for convenience or luxury, some for health, some for environmental concerns.

This thread of comments has been incredibly interesting to me, the way it combines concerns of budget, health, and environmental impact, the three factors that influence my food buying choices. (Taste, too.) For example, I choose to pay almost $4 for a dozen eggs, twice as much as I have to, because I decided that it’s worth it to know that the chickens are free-range, fed and treated well, and for the difference that makes in the quality of what I’m eating. For vegetables, I can’t afford to buy organic, so I buy local when I can (not sure how the winter will go), but I prioritize eating vegetables at all over shopping entirely organic. (There are some great thoughts on prioritizing organic purchases here: http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2007/08/08/buyingorganic/index.html.) I cut out most processed foods and grains for health reasons, but it makes me more able to spend money on more vegetables and other healthy foods. (My $4 dozen eggs plus a $.99 box of frozen spinach are almost a week’s breakfasts – cheaper, actually, than a big box of cereal, and better for me, too.)

I’m really glad this discussion got going – I’m still in the process of revising my eating & shopping habits, for better impact on my wallet, body, and environment, and this conversation has gotten me thinking in fantastic ways.

Agree with all previous posters — this thread is fascinating.

We save quite a bit by cutting out meat from our diet. I am not a vegeterian per se, but I went to the Ralph’s this week and chicken was $7/pound (not for the free-range stuff either, just plain old chicken breasts). So I went and bought a package of tofu, ($1.19) — that plus green beans, rice, and peanut sauce makes a meal for 4 people and leftovers for lunch the next day. I’m crazy into leftovers

We also never buy bottled drinks, and try to buy in bulk whenever possible using ad trackers like the Grocery Game. Still and all, we spend $75-100 a week for food in the Los Angeles metro area. Some of you may say “Food isn’t more expensive in [insert city],” but we moved to LA from Utah and food IS more expensive here (along with everything else, sigh). So some people’s low food costs are related to their geographical area. I felt for the poster from Manhattan with his $8 cereal

I’m surprised to see some entries accuse people of lying about their budgets. I think it is rash to say that people are lying just because you don’t know how they do it. Although I do not do this now, I did live on $15 a week for food in the early 1990s. This was helped by the fact that my workplace fed me 5 meals a week, but I was still carrying the weight of 16 additional meals (for slightly less than a dollar per meal).

Let me say: this was not easy or comfortable to do (I did it by necessity), but I believe it could still be done for $20/week in most parts of the country. Also, while I was satisfied at the time, the fare was probably a bit more spartan than most would willingly eat.

Here is some of what I did:

1. Never allow leftovers to go bad. I would cook one or two major meals per week (sometimes this was a full-sized lasagna, sometimes fish that was on sale, sometimes a big pot of homemade spaghetti sauce or soup with lots of fresh vegetables added. It always included a big salad). This big meal would feed me dinners (and some lunches) for five or six days and I could not afford to throw any of it away. I would eat leftovers almost every day. Every ounce of it was eaten over the course of the week.

2. Supplement with inexpensive foods. Many will say this is unhealthy (it would have been if it had been all that I ate), but I definitely ate a lot of Ramen and macaroni and cheese. These were bought when on sale (Ramen 7 for $1, a deal I’ve seen as recently as last week; and Mac & Cheese for 3 for $1. I also could get canned tuna 3 for $1 easily and once or twice a year as a loss leader for 5 for $1) Poor man’s tuna casserole was a staple and would feed me for two or three meals: 1 package of mac & cheese with 1 can tuna mixed in.

3. Shop in the produce aisle. This sounds counter intuitive, because everyone “knows” that produce is expensive. But I would shop for the inexpensive produce (which tended to be seasonal). Potatoes, carrots, celery, lettuce, tomatoes (sometimes), oranges (sometimes), cabbage, etc. These all make great food and provide snacks that generally don’t spike your blood sugar like factory-made snacks do. Also, this may be obvious, but I would eat fruit in season. For example, apples were plentiful in the fall: I could get a bag for about $1 and would get one or two bags for the week. I would have apples with everything (and for snacks). Again, I could not afford to throw out a single apple, so I ate them all. And at that time of year, making an apple pie was in the budget too

4. Never eat out. I couldn’t have bought more than 4 or 5 meals for my $15 weekly food budget (here I’m assuming the cheap breakfast place that had meals for $2.95 a plate). I needed to get at least 16 meals out of that $15, so there was no room for the luxury of eating out.

5. Have substantial cereals for breakfast. Oatmeal and Grapenuts were keys to my success. They both filled me up and kept me filled up for much of the day. A single container of oatmeal (not the flavored packages, which are expensive and insubstantial, but the big boxes of loose Old Fashioned Oatmeal) would last slightly longer than a week, even if I ate it every day. At the time this cost about $1.99 per container. You can get it today easily for $2.99 per container.

6. Avoid junk food. Not one candy bar, bag of chips, pre-made peanut butter cracker, store-bought cookie, “breakfast bar”, or pack of gum could be afforded. This didn’t mean I didn’t have snacks: a bag of popcorn cost about $1 and if I had the money available, I would get one. Also, I had flour, sugar, water, eggs (usually), oil, and oatmeal, so sometimes I would make oatmeal cookies (with raisins if I was splurging). Sometimes saltines were on sale and I would usually have peanut butter on the shelf, so I could make peanut butter crackers if I wanted.

7. Avoid pre-cooked foods. Frozen dinners, deli-made quiche, store-roasted chicken, all of these cost too much per serving. If I wanted quiche, I had to make it from scratch (the ingredients were in my budget and on my shelves). If I wanted chicken, I waited until it was on sale for $0.39/lb and roasted it myself (and ate it for 6-8 meals before chucking the bones into a pot to make chicken soup and having that for another 6-8 meals).

8. Buy a basic paperback cookbook. Because I had to make most things from scratch, I bought a paperback copy of what is often called “The Plaid Cookbook”: Better Homes and Gardens The New Cookbook. I think it cost $6 at that time, and was not part of my food budget, but it paid itself back many times over. If I wanted to make lasagna, it told me how. Did I manage to buy a roast beef on sale? The cookbook told me how to avoid ruining it in the oven. Pumpkin pie? apple pie? quiche? roast chicken? all was explained, and often within my budget because I could make it from standard, inexpensive ingredients.

There may have been other tricks that I’ve forgotten, but with only $15 to spend per week I had to think long and hard about buying anything that cost more than $1. Was it going to sustain me? I did not buy soda, or water, or coffee, or tea, or any beverage other than milk (which was reserved for my breakfasts, and only on weeks when I was having boxed cereal).

It was much harder when I started this radical budget, because I started from nothing. But over time, it got easier, in part because some items lasted longer than a week. For example, pantry items like a bag of sugar, a bag of flour, a bottle of oil, and a bag of brown sugar would generally last longer than a week. In the first weeks I had to buy a lot of these things and they used up a lot of my $15, but immediately they became the “money in the bank” that allowed me to buy other staples that might not last that long.

So yes: it is possible to eat without spending a fortune, and the lower figures in this comment section are not necessarily lies. Again, my food budget was radical by necessity, but the principles would still work today. I think $15/wk might not be enough now, but I think $20/wk would work, and I know that $30/wk would be fairly easy for a single person. For reference: $15/wk per person = $65/month for one and $260/month for a family of four. $30/wk per person = $130/month for one and $520/month for a family of four (which is about what my family spends on food now, and we don’t eat anywhere near the way I did back in the ’90s).
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Wishing you a prosperous future,
Daiko

I’m the one spending $9 for two chicken breasts.

Yes, I know quite well that I can get cheaper chicken. However, this chicken is free-range and is raised, butchered and processed in my own city.

The taste is substantially better, the quality of the chicken is substantially better. I refuse to buy chicken from normal producers, knowing the conditions under which those chickens are raised.

There is only one choice for me each week — buy this chicken that I trust, or buy no chicken at all.

It is very important to me to eat organic, free-range food. So the extra money is worth it.

And relatively speaking — I buy one package of these breasts and I can use that chicken for 2 or more meals.

It really comes down to quality of food. I would rather spend more money and get higher quality of food. I’d rather eat less food and eat a better quality of food.

I don’t think there is any advantage to slashing my food budget but ending up eating a lot of ramen and mac and cheese (things I never eat).

I am trying to figure out how Bellen gets an entire salad (lettuce, tomato, black olives, carrot, onions, mushrooms) for $1. Even living in a relatively cheap-grocery place like Texas, I could not have done that.

For those who live in really pricey areas like NYC, you might want to consider groceries on Amazon.com. I like to buy my cereal there b/c, with a little care, I can get cereal for much cheaper than in the grocery stores by me. Same with tea. And, if you spend more than $25 (or something like that) a lot of times you can get super saver shipping.

I don’t buy from Amazon on a weekly basis, more like every couple of months to stock up.

Someone mentioned oatmeal. I eat the stuff almost every morning! I get the steel-cut oats (none of that rolled-oats stuff like Quaker!)

My favorite is the McCan’s, but Flavahan’s is exactly the same for less. Bob’s Red Mill is okay, and even cheaper. 1 cup of dried oats makes *4* cups of oatmeal! That’s 4 meals!

I make that on a friday evening and let sit over night and the 4 of us have breakfast with leftovers on Saturday morning. I even bring it to work and re-heat it for breakfast there so I don’t need to go out.

Yes, I reheat oatmeal. If you’ve never had steel-cut oats, you’re probably thinking *yuck!*, but I tell you, this stuff is awesome! I mix mine with a little bit of brown sugar and add raisins and milk. 1 cup of this stuff (cooked) is enough to last me through until well after noon time!

It costs 4.29 for a 1Kg package of Flavahan’s. Which yields about 4-5 cups of dry measure. At a 4:1 water:oats that’s about 20 servings, that’s about $.21/serving.
The raisins cost about $.50lb (I get the really big bags at the food club) and brown sugar is also dirt cheap. My daily breakfast probably comes out to between $.30 and $.40 a day. I drink free coffee and OJ at work with my oatmeal too. So that helps. The same meal on weekends costs a little more since I have then have to pay for my own coffee, milk, cream and OJ

But still, it’s tough to beat

My boyfriend and I have lived on just his modest income for a year and feel like we are still living the good life, maybe even more so now. We actually save money with my not working because I have time to cook from scratch and to work on DIY projects.
We live in downtown Portland just two blocks from Slaveway, but we NEVER shop there. I find it is healthier and cheaper to take our backpacks and hike over to Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. Also, we get our produce every Saturday at the Portland Farmer’s Market just blocks from our place. The local in-season fruits and veggies taste better, cost less, last longer and most of the time are also organic. Also, the variety is amazing. I try to learn how to use produce I didn’t grow-up eating like fennel or fiddle heads (fern shoots.) At Whole Foods, I go straight for the bulk bins and load up on (the cheaper)nuts, orzo, super grain elbow pasta, grains, beans, rice, quinoa, oatmeal, popcorn, nutritional yeast, dried fruit and spices. At Trader Joe’s, I get whole wheat pasta, red sauce, grape seed oil, olive oil, vinegars, yogurt, butter, soap, toothpaste, and dark choc. If we are splurging, we get our cheese there as well. It’s also the best place for party snacks and wine. We don’t buy meat or milk. I use seaweed in my cooking and found that it is much cheaper if bought in bulk from risingtide.com. Two kitchen tools that I think help save us money are my soymilk maker and crockpot. I use the soymilk maker once a week to make a two pound block of tofu using soy beans from the bulk bins. Fresh tofu is so much better tasting than any I have bought. A byproduct of soymilk making is a pulp called okara. I use this to make veggie burgers or “chicken” fingers. I don’t like soymilk for cereal or drinking, so I use my machine to make almond milk for about $1.60 a batch with bulk almonds, oats, and a bit of honey. The soymilk maker wasn’t cheap, but it has paid for itself. My high-end crock pot was found at Goodwill in like new condition for about $8. I make kick-ass chili, soups and stews. I always make a full crock because I can freeze the extra for a busy day and the boyfriend takes leftovers for his lunches. Learning how to properly cook grains and beans can save tons of money. Sometimes Whole Foods has little free books in the bin area that give cooking directions and tips. Other things that save us money are not owning a car, not owning cell phones, no tv, watching DVDs from the library on the computer, buying used items, sharing with friends and checking the apartment’s free shelf daily.

A piece of advice for anyone who ends up not eating a lot of meat, for budget reasons. I became an unintentional vegetarian for two years while I was working part-time and studying part-time because meat was just too expensive. Because I hadn’t said “I’m going veggie” (and certainly ate meat if someone else was paying ) I didn’t really think about my nutritional needs taking meat out of my diet. After a string of colds, infections, stomach bugs, hair loss and general exhaustion, my doctor diagnosed anaemia. If you’re on a tight budget and aren’t eating meat, take an iron supplement every day (with a vitamin C tablet, or an orange, to help you absorb it) – doctor’s bills and missed days of school or work are much more expensive than 200mg ferrous sulphate a day.

There is no right answer here…we all design our food budget around what we can/can’t do and what we are willing/not willing to buy.

I’m in the Midwest, living with my husband and our 4-year-old grandchild. We spend $200 a month on groceries. That’s just food, no paper products, no cleaning products, no pet products, no alcohol unless it is strictly part of a recipe, and no meals out. All of those things come from other parts of our budget.

I actually believe we could reduce our budget a little, but we haven’t felt the “pinch” enough to actually try it. At $200 a month, we don’t feel deprived. We enjoy main dishes such as meatloaf, chili, roast beef, taco salads, a variety of chicken dishes, a variety of pork dishes, an occasional steak dinner and even more often, shrimp or seafood. Here’s what I’ve learned will save us the most money:

1. Plan menus. I don’t think that can be said too many times. Plan for a week, two weeks or like I do, a month at at time. It doesn’t matter, just make a plan and stick with it.

2. Don’t be brand loyal. Buy whatever is cheapest. Store brands don’t necessarily taste “worse” than brand names, just “different”. Add a few herbs or spices and you can’t tell the difference.

3. Shop where food is cheapest. Here we have Aldi stores, and they offer quality private label foods for much less than even the store brands at the “regular” grocery store. Aldi is our primary store for shopping, but we do buy loss-leaders from regular supermarkets, shop at freight salvage stores, farmer’s markets, Amish stores when we happen to be near one, Dollar General, Big Lots, etc. Spices are always cheapest at either the Amish stores or natural food stores such as Wild Oats.

4. Learn to cook. The more I cook, the less I enjoy going out to eat. I can’t help but think, as I sit in a restaurant, that I can make this dish, as good or better, for half the price.

5. Eat leftovers. No, more than that…plan for leftovers. I cook all meals in double (or larger) portions. We eat whatever is made for two nights (consecutive or not, it doesn’t matter) and then freeze the rest for another time.

6. Limit yourself drastically on processed foods and empty-calorie foods. We very rarely buy soda, opting for water or iced tea instead. We very rarely buy boxed, dry cereal, opting for oatmeal or Cream of Wheat instead. No “helper” type meals, no noodles or rice side dish mixes, no individually wrapped cakes or cookies.

7. Learn to bake your own bread.

8. Learn to cut up a whole chicken (which is cheaper per pound) or at the very least, buy bone-in chicken breasts and fillet them yourself, saving the meaty bones for something such as chicken and dumplings.

9. Try some meatless meals. We try for at least one each week.

10. Eat leftovers for lunch; pack a lunch for work instead of buying lunch out.

9. Splurge once in a while by making a nicer meal, such as a steak dinner or a shrimp dinner. Remember that a portion of steak is 4 ounces, not 8 or 12 or 16. As for shrimp, it’s not cheap in the Midwest, but occasionally it goes on sale for around $3.50 per pound. When it does, I buy a few pounds, as it freezes very well and is quick to prepare.

I could go on, but those are my basic methods. Yes, a lot depends on geography, but to those who believe some of us are lying about our food budgets, we aren’t. It really can be done.

For those who asked about health issues on a limited food budget, my husband’s cholesterol is 182. Mine is slightly high (213), but my doctor says is only that high because of thyroid medication I take. We both have low tryglicerides, above average HDL, and normal LDL counts. We both have below normal blood sugar counts. We are neither under- or overweight. Our granddaughter is at the 75th percentile for height and at the 60th percentile for weight.

Again, I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to budget for food. It’s all a matter of individual priorities.

Odd, I live in Davis,CA as well, and i spend about $160 a month myself. its a matter of using things in more than one application, and recipes that last more than a day.

This is my first post to this excellent site, and I have to say the best part of it is the philosophy of it – do what works for you – and its recognition of the fact that managing and using money is as psychological as it is the mechanics of compound interest and suchlike.
So in the spirit, allow me to give you my family’s approach to budgeting food. I live in Kenya where we can get fresh fruits, veggies, milk and meat for next to nothing, so I won’t bother making a cost comparison that is certainly not apples to apples with the developed world.
My wife and I were blowing loads of cash on eating out, and we found a philosophy that works pretty well and which cut costs by 60 percent. We have two children.
I’ll caution that this will most benefit those who love to cook and learning to cook new things, but the principles can be applied to just about anyone. A lot of what Blogarita says above is right in line with our philosophy.
1) Limit your eating out to 2 or 3 times a week, and make at least one a reward for working hard. The others can be for social purposes, but one should be for the joy of just going out and sharing each other’s company.
2) Stop buying random snacks like the morning muffin st Starbuck’s or the convenience store. Bring them – fruit, nuts whatever makes you happy.
3) Buy in bulk the necessities and grab them while they are cheap.
4) Find the least expensive options for things like milk, and take the time to go to farmer’s markets. You’ll get the freshest and usually the cheapest. I make a regular trip to a local dairy on Saturday for our week’s worth of milk. Loads of benefits: it’s the perfect time for me to take our boys, 2 and 9, out on a men-only adventure; it gives my wife a break; we get the best milk I have ever had week after week AND we get 15 liters of milk for the price of 6 liters at the store.
5) Plan to cook. We like to have flexibility because my wife is self-employed and my work hours are erratic, so we say we are cooking dinner five nights, and leave which ones those are to our whims or social schedule. But we cook some staple stuff some nights, and have a bank of recipes we pull off the web that we use to splurge at home, if you will. This part requires the discipline of cooking the recipe that week, because sometimes we need special ingredients that are expensive — so you have to use them or lose them in most cases.
The key benefit: You feel like you get the best food in your own house, and you can eat very, very well for cheap.
6) Spend on your spices, and amortize their cost over the variety of dishes you will be able to create with them. Good spices will make anything better in the hands of even an amateur like me.
7) Think of your favorite food eating out and try to replicate that at home. The fun is in tweaking and engineering the food to your liking. You may never cook a pizza the way your favorite pizza place does, but you’ll get better and enjoy yours all the more.
I’m with Kaz – You’ll be amazed how easy it is to make things you usually just buy from the store. For example – we cook up flour tortillas on Sunday every few weeks, and they are good for breakfast, lunch and dinner all week. That was a function of not being able to find tortillas in Kenya, but the benefit was immediately obvious in terms of time spent versus food created and meal opportunities. It’s true sweat equity for food, since the cost of the flower, cooking gas and butter to make them is almost negligible.
9) Forget about cookbooks most of the time. Spend on the classics, like the Betty Crocker one and the New York Times cookbook, which are great references. But spend time on the Internet searching out recipes. Print them out for the kitchen, and keep them in your e-mail or computer so you have a nice electronic archive.
10) Clear out your cabinets once in a while to see what you have not used or those items which have expired. Don’t buy them again.
11) Don’t be afraid to splurge on some things once in a while – that will keep you sane, and keep you from feeling like it’s always boring gruel or leftovers again … here’s a good example — I bought mascarpone cheese that costs the same as 2 lbs of chicken breasts, and that’s expensive for cheese. But when I mixed it into a cream cheese-mascarpone frosting for a red velvet cake, it was well, priceless.

I disagree with most of you. I think it costs less to eat fast food. I get two burgers at Wendy’s for $2.14 with tax. That fills me up. Or Taco Bell I can have a meal for $1.71 including tax. Two bean burritos or a burrito and taco. There are several other restaurants that offer a dollar menu.

When I try to save money by eating at home it always ends up being more expensive. To make two bean burritos at home I need beans, tortillas, cheese, picante sauce, onion and electricity to cook and wash. I can’t get that for less than $1.71. The cost of electricity to cook is not insignificant. My electric bill is $60 less per month when I don’t cook anything at home. I’m single and live by myself so the electric cost of cooking is not divided by 3 people or however many you may have in your home. I have found that I can eat for about $5-6 per day by eating fast food. And when I find coupons I can get it lower than that. Sometimes I splurge at the fast food or have a late night meal so my average food budget is $180 which is less than all of you when you factor in electricity.