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My budget is $125 per week for our family of 5: myself, my husband, 3 kids ages 11, 9, and 5. We do not eat out much at all. Husband is on a sodium restricted diet, so it's difficult to do so. The $125 does not include any non-grocery items; they have a separate line in our budget. It's just food and drink. Some weeks I go a little over, and make up for it the following week. It averages out to $125 though.
When husband travels for work, kids and I might take the opportunity to get Chinese take-out, but that's only 1-2 times per month. We budget $60 for eating out/take out and it's almost all me and the kids.
We eat pretty healthy, mostly chicken or fish for meat, with a lot of fresh produce. I shop mostly at Aldi which is significantly less expensive than the local grocery stores.
Well, given your dietary restrictions and higher COL I think that your bill seems okay, OP. One thing that I stopped doing awhile ago when we ate out with our children is getting them juice or milk with their meals. That alone can save almost $10 on a bill when you include tax. They get water and we often have them share even kids meals, as portions are getting bigger and bigger and our youngest never finishes a meal on her own.
We're right in between the 2 levels of the thrifty amount for a family of 4. I am a bargain shopper, though, and I try to do as much bulk buying and cooking when sales present themselves. We shop at Kroger, Sprouts, Wal-Mart, Target and Costco and I'm pretty diligent about planning our weekly menus with what is on sale in those stores.
We eat a lot of chicken and lean pork for protein and beef is once a week. Veggies, Greek yogurt (tastes so much better than the regular stuff) tons of fruit, milk, OJ, pretzels.... I try to make everything we eat as healthy as possible but I don't go overboard. If I want to buy a bag of Lays a few times a month, I'm gonna buy them, LOL.
I have also become a master at re-purposing food. For example, if I bake/grill a pork loin, I will use the leftovers for pork chow mien or pork tacos. I can pretty much turn anything leftover into a whole new meal and if I can't figure it out at the time, I freeze it and wait until an idea pops in my head.
Making things from scratch is also much cheaper (most of the time) and tastes better, too. I made a big batch of cookie dough yesterday and froze it so when we want a few cookies, I just pop them in the oven, rather than opening a bag that has gone stale because we don't really eat store-bought cookies. I make pizza dough from scratch, cakes for parties, popsicles (Greek yogurt blended with fruit and a little juice, good stuff!) shred my own cheese, etc. It's a lot of work but it's worth it!
I'm not a parent, but I was "politely" told to help with shopping if I wanted dinner made as soon as I hit 16. When I got my license, I was told to do the shopping unless I wanted to buy and cook my own meals. With that said, I've been focusing quite a bit on our meals in my household and what you spend on takeout alone, weekly, is how much it costs my family to go out to eat about four times total.
I lived, and I say lived because I moved out, in a household of three growing teen guys and I'm the oldest at 19. Since Jr. High I was in sports, so my appetite knew no limits. Plus we all have a naturally high metabolism, so food never lasted but we made it work. The people being fed was me(19), my brothers(15 and 16), my mom, and grandmother. Out of us, I ate enough to fill my mom and grandmother, during track season I ate enough for them and one brother alone. Plus I work out the most, so out of us I ate enough to feed a grown man in his 30s.
Our bills were, Wal-Mart now, $350 a month. Just enough to keep us going. I worked, so I put in what I earned to feed us. Going out to eat would be between $50-80. Takeout 2-3 times a month would be about $25-50.
We couldn't afford really healthy fruits and veggies but made an effort to buy it sometimes. That's where my bills come in. My grandmother does the cooking and we eat in a Southern raised household so there's a lot to last. And by last, I mean two days max. Leftovers are eaten completely before we move on.
Like there's ton of room for improvement but if you are cool with it then I guess it's fine. I want to know how much you make to afford that cost of food though! What you spend on food can help me pay for my car insurance for six months lol.
Like there's ton of room for improvement but if you are cool with it then I guess it's fine. I want to know how much you make to afford that cost of food though! What you spend on food can help me pay for my car insurance for six months lol.
Car insurance gets cheaper as you get older. When my husband was 21, we were paying $300/month for full coverage for one vehicle. Now our car insurance is $63/month for two vehicles. When he was 21, he was making $6.50/hour, so his monthly take home pay was about $1000. $300 for car insurance was a big chunk of that, 30% of his income. Now he's making $20/hour so his take home is about $3150/month, and car insurance is only 2% of his income.
I'm pretty sure we make up the difference in groceries though.
We used to eat a lot cheaper when we had less money.
Groceries: $700-800/mo for our family of six w/three cats. (Kids are 11, 9, 6 and 19 months)
Eating out: $300ish/mo, sometimes more
We do main shopping at Trader Joe's, Safeway and Savemart, and make Costco runs every so often. We eat pretty Primal, and use our instant cooker a lot. We live in Nor Cal in a MCOL area.
I spend about $230 on groceries for a family of 4, but that generally includes laundry detergent, razors, cleaning supplies, dog and cat foot, and other expensive items. We eat a lot of meat and fresh veggies, which also drives up the price, and drink organic milk. My kids are both under 5 so I know this cost will grow when they eat more.
If your number is just food it may be a tad high, not so much if the number includes things like soap and toiletries, sodas, etc.
What kills you is your eating out budget. We were on vacation this week and probably spent between $300 and $400 on meals out, varying between 4 and 7 people, all adults. We probably won't eat out again for 3 or 4 months unless I get lazy and order a pizza or get a craving for a sub or something.
There are only 3 adults left at home and the 20 year old is an eating machine (moderate to heavy physical laborer). I also will buy decent cuts of meat occasionally (steak mainly) so ours skews upwards a bit sometimes.
I'm not a parent, but I was "politely" told to help with shopping if I wanted dinner made as soon as I hit 16. When I got my license, I was told to do the shopping unless I wanted to buy and cook my own meals. With that said, I've been focusing quite a bit on our meals in my household and what you spend on takeout alone, weekly, is how much it costs my family to go out to eat about four times total.
I lived, and I say lived because I moved out, in a household of three growing teen guys and I'm the oldest at 19. Since Jr. High I was in sports, so my appetite knew no limits. Plus we all have a naturally high metabolism, so food never lasted but we made it work. The people being fed was me(19), my brothers(15 and 16), my mom, and grandmother. Out of us, I ate enough to fill my mom and grandmother, during track season I ate enough for them and one brother alone. Plus I work out the most, so out of us I ate enough to feed a grown man in his 30s.
Our bills were, Wal-Mart now, $350 a month. Just enough to keep us going. I worked, so I put in what I earned to feed us. Going out to eat would be between $50-80. Takeout 2-3 times a month would be about $25-50.
We couldn't afford really healthy fruits and veggies but made an effort to buy it sometimes. That's where my bills come in. My grandmother does the cooking and we eat in a Southern raised household so there's a lot to last. And by last, I mean two days max. Leftovers are eaten completely before we move on.
Like there's ton of room for improvement but if you are cool with it then I guess it's fine. I want to know how much you make to afford that cost of food though! What you spend on food can help me pay for my car insurance for six months lol.
you're doing a great job there! as you get older, your other misc cost will lessen like car/insurance as i recall as a 21 year old, my car insurance was second biggest line item after my rental. We live in a HCOL, so household income reflects that. We *CAN* afford our expensive monthly food groceries, however i'd love to manage/use it more cost effective, so the "extras" can go towards savings. Never hurts to have savings as much one can.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hedgehog_Mom
Car insurance gets cheaper as you get older. When my husband was 21, we were paying $300/month for full coverage for one vehicle. Now our car insurance is $63/month for two vehicles. When he was 21, he was making $6.50/hour, so his monthly take home pay was about $1000. $300 for car insurance was a big chunk of that, 30% of his income. Now he's making $20/hour so his take home is about $3150/month, and car insurance is only 2% of his income.
I'm pretty sure we make up the difference in groceries though.
We used to eat a lot cheaper when we had less money.
yes to that! i just looked at the usda food cost for family of 4; seems like we fall in betwen moderate to liberal spending plan, lol.
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