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Part of it seems to be buying food and discarding the leftovers. Half of this food is ending up in the compost bin. I'm constantly throwing out uneaten food that was left to go bad.
Whatever is leftover for dinner is usually our lunch the next day. It's only thrown out if it goes bad by the end of the week.
A bag of muffins or bagels is my breakfast, lunch is usually leftovers, or paid for by work (customers treat me all the time) and really we just do dinner as our main course cooking a bit extra on purpose for lunch the next day.
Last edited by BostonMike7; 08-20-2015 at 12:59 PM..
Even with 3 teenage boys in the house, we didn't spend that much, it was probably close to $1500/month, with $1200 of that for groceries, and the rest for meals out.
Now that it's just mainly myself and spouse, with one son joining us occasionally, I can feed us well for under $150 a week, and that includes wine/paper products/ cleaning products.
Very strange...we (a couple without kids) shop exclusively at Whole Foods. We make all our meals from scratch for breakfast, lunch and dinner (not simple food either, we love cooking and using tons of different ingredients), plus go out 1-2 times per week. We also drink 4-5 times a week. We spend less than $1,000/mn...how you could go more than twice that is beyond me!!
Without some details as to what is being purchased under the label groceries all we can do is guess.
Some folks like to eat out and like to eat out at nice restaurants. OP's wife may still be adjusting to being a SAM. Is grocery shopping an outlet for frustrations or does it not make sense to her or does explore unknown items? What gets thrown out?
This sounds like an insane amount of money to spend on food, regardless of who is doing the shopping, but I'm a little concerned by all the comments that the OP needs to tell his wife what to do, or force her to do a better job, and stuff like that.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is a tremendous amount of waste in these expenditures, and not only for the excessive restaurant spending. This really sounds as though there is no planning of any kind going on, and most people would say that's a danger sign for any area of a family budget. Since the OP and his wife are both adults they should sit down together and do some meal planning. They should also go shopping together, maybe not every time but enough that he has a better handle on what they are buying and what it costs.
Just picture what you could be doing with the $1000 a month or so that is just wasted now.
It depends on your lifestyle really. I'm independent and I budget around $550/mo for groceries and dining out.
I have food allergies, and I'm a bit of a foody. I shop mostly at Whole Foods and buy high quality proteins.
I eat out a nice restaurants, not fast food joints.
I buy 2 froufrou coffee drinks per week at about $12.
If I had a spouse and child, I would expect that amount to increase by about 125% assuming I kept my lifestyle the same.
Its not wrong to have a large food budget, but it helps to track where the money is going month over month. Most people spend around 30% more than they intend to when not tracking their spending habits. When I got back into budgeting in 2013, I found I was spending around $725/mo on food. I made some changes and got it down to $550 which is comfortable for me. Obviously, I have to offset that. I don't take a lot of trips and only go out of town every 2 years. I keep my cars till they die of old age and I don't have cable.
I recommend getting a budget tracker that lets you download your credit card and bank transactions. Track spending for the next 2-4 months. You'll start to form a good picture of where you are and where you want to be. Get your wife involved too. You have to partner when it comes to spending or it becomes a real point of contention.
Last edited by TheWayISeeThings; 08-21-2015 at 08:59 AM..
Yeah, half of it is Whole Foods. it's all on the credit card, so there's no cash back. That would show up as an advance. Part of it seems to be buying food and discarding the leftovers. Half of this food is ending up in the compost bin. I'm constantly throwing out uneaten food that was left to go bad.
Honestly, even for our family of six (no infants) I don't think I could hit $500 a week at Whole Foods even if I tried. Unless half of that is wine, I really don't see how 2 adults + an infant could spend that much at WF Maybe a lot of seafood??
Honestly, even for our family of six (no infants) I don't think I could hit $500 a week at Whole Foods even if I tried. Unless half of that is wine, I really don't see how 2 adults + an infant could spend that much at WF Maybe a lot of seafood??
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Maybe a lot of seafood??
