What Do You Eat / Cost?

[Deleted]

As I am working on improving our diet, I could really use some real world examples of what to eat and the associated costs. Maybe note if you are in a HCOL or LCOL area just for reference?

I always read this type of thread and make a list of new things to try that I think might be in our budget.

With FS my monthly food budget was about $550. Without it drops to about $200+ whatever I can earn that month. So far this month that has only been $80 since my WAH job laid everyone off and limited work for those of us that they kept...

The rest of the limited cash I have after paying bills barely covers gas if I stay home most of the month, bottled water, pet foods, and HBA. We do not eat out at all unless we are out of the area shopping or something unusual.

In my pantry I have pasta, canned sauce, oatmeal, rice, brown rice, peanut butter, boxed cereals, Bear Creek soups that I stocked up on last winter, olives, canned tomatoes, spices of all kinds, and the basics for baking things like flour, sugar, etc...

Our typical diet consists of large salads with some form of meat like fajita, chicken or taco meat. I try to have that 2-4 nights per week.

One night a week we do breakfast with our eggs and some hash browns or something similar.

One night we do pasta with jarred/canned sauce that I add in bell peppers, onions, garlic and sometimes hamburger. (Still not sure how to get a decent priced, healthy sauce. Tomatoes here are $3+ a pound and mine won't be done growing for at least another month. The good quality jarred sauces are like $6 a jar... OMG) Maybe I can find some giant cans of tomato products and make a big batch to freeze. Have to look into that!

Other nights we BBQ a London broil or have fish, depending on what I can find on sale or markdown. Sometimes that is just salad shrimp so we have that.

For breakfast I typically have coffee and the teenagers typically have a trough of cereal with milk. I don't think any of us usually eat much lunch. Sometimes if we have lunch meat we will make a sandwich or we sometimes have crackers with PB or some fruit or something like that. We also sometimes cook a brunch of eggs if we are all hungry and someone wants to cook.

Anyway, I am really interested to see what people eat and their budgets so I can work on adjusting ours. Saving money on food, but eating healthy, would be great for my situation because I need to save some cash for needed things and haven't managed to get there yet. (Working every day on increasing income. Have a test tomorrow that if I pass I can do Google Rating for a guaranteed income of about $800 a month for part time. That would be a godsend for us!)

[NancysSummerSip]

I'd say check with the Women in Red Grocery Thread, first and foremost...those folks over there (mostly women, but a few male posters go there, too) are pros at saving money, using coupons and finding deals everywhere. I learned a lot from them!

I live in a HCOL area. Just two of us, plus pets. I stockpile seriously (I have a spare room for it). I stack sales and coupons, even CVS Extra Bucks and Walgreens cash-back go for food sometimes, if the deals are good enough. I don't have any issues about getting some basic items at those stores.

A lot of people hate them, but I love my crockpot. It's a five-quart, and it's great for slow-cooking tougher cuts of meat, or making large quantities of stews, sauces, etc., to freeze.

Can you get good fresh tomatoes now? You could make your own sauce from those; check the farmers markets for the marked-down, slightly bruised tomatoes that they sell cheap. If you are going to sauce them, it does not matter what they look like. Same for vegetables for stir-frys: cut off the bruised bits and use them. The stir-frys also stretch the protein quite a bit further.

[susanb]

Lately, I have only been cooking with meat 3x a week because 1. I grew up vegetarian and it grosses me out to eat meat every day and 2. I read about the interaction between meat consumption and cancer. It has cut my grocery bill significantly.

I make a lot of soups with veggies like kale, spinach, carrots, corn, sweet potatoes, etc. Sometimes I will cook one chicken sausage link to saute the greens in. It gives the soup a good flavor without using a lot of meat. I cook a little rice or pasta and only add it to the portion we eat that night so it doesn't get mushy. Allrecipes has all sorts of soup recipes.

ETA: $15 soup gives us about 12 servings. really cheap.

[Deleted]

I am in a M/HCOLA.

beans - $0.50-0.75/can... I make black bean and corn (canned, no more than $0.67/can) burritos (I get generic tortillas @ less than $2/pack). I get whatever shredded cheese that's on sale (usually around $1.99/8oz bag), and serve them with tortilla chips (whatever is on sale - Santitas chips are reliably $2/bag) and salsa (we stock up when Santa Fe goes on sale - no more than $2/jar).

This is just one meal example.

[Deleted]

Susan, did you watch Forks over Knives? I found it fascinating and have been talking to one of my sons about seriously cutting our meat consumption.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Read the back of the labels on jarred pasta sauce. High priced isn't always better and low pirced isn't always bad. Hy-Vee ( a local supermarket chain) jarred pasta sauce is just the same as some of the higher brands but it is WAY cheaper. You need to read the ingredient labels. The Hy-vee sauce has: spices, tomatoes, sugar and that's it. Some of the more expensive like CLassico have tons of fat and HFCS.

[constanz22]

Definitely come join us at the Grocery Challenge!
I am a one person household with 2 small dogs. My grocery/pet/household budget is $125 a month for everything. I am a serious couponer and stockpiler. I do buy a quarter cow every year (this year I split it with BFF so only an eighth, but it's plenty and way cheaper than store bought)!

If you don't have an interest in couponing or stockpiling, the next quickest way to save money on groceries is to meal plan using what is on sale that week and what you already have in your pantry. Allrecipes.com has a recipe finder where you can input ingredients and it will find recipes for you if you have trouble thinking of how to use what you have.

I eat very little processed food (other than the occasional chips, ice cream, etc.). I don't mind leftovers and since it's very hard to cook for one person, I will make something and eat it for 2 or 3 days in a row. I'm not a big breakfast eater, usually a yogurt with granola, or english muffin with peanut butter or bagel, sometimes oatmeal. Lunch I eat at work so usually buy a small amount of deli meat on Sunday and take a sandwich Mon, Tues, sometimes Wed, then will fill in with leftovers or whatever the rest of the week. I usually have some sort of chips, crackers and fruit or yogurt with lunch. Typical dinner might be spaghetti with salad, grilled marinated chicken, either in a sandwich or on salad, this time of year a burger or hot dog on the grill, side of veggies. I love my crock pot too. It's so easy to throw together chili, soup, beef tips and mushroom, salsa chicken, etc.

[jaya3300]

I spend about $160-180 dollars a month on groceries for DH and I. We live in a MCOLA. I've been able to keep our food costs lower by: reducing our processed food consumption, cooking more, using coupons, buying items on sale, eliminating soda, and shopping at Aldi, Target or Walmart for items that are not on sale.

[Formerly SK]

We're in a MCOL and easily spend $60/wk on fresh produce alone (family of four). That's not even for organic. We just eat a lot of fruits/veggies.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

If you want to try eating less meat I found a cookbook called Straight from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker at the library and you can get it for as little as $2 on B&N. I made the meatless chili recipe last night, DH raved about how good it was. This was after bitching all day about how he surely would not like it/never feel full without meat.

I like it because it isn't just taking out animal products in favor of tofu which I found in a lot of other books. It does have recipes that use meat substitutes but you can leave it out without altering the recipe. It focuses mainly on fresh vegetables and legumes.

[susanb]

Jul 17, 2012 12:51:39 GMT -5 @goldpanninggirl said:

Susan, did you watch Forks over Knives? I found it fascinating and have been talking to one of my sons about seriously cutting our meat consumption.

I did see it. I haven't found a serious scientific article written in the last twenty years that supports eating meat daily as part of a healthy lifestyle. I think the key is to replace meat with a plant based diet. Some vegetarians just eat a lot cheese and processed carbs instead. Nothing wrong with a little cheese or carbs, but a plant based diet is the most healthful way to eat that I know of.

[Cookies Galore]

Jul 17, 2012 12:54:13 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Read the back of the labels on jarred pasta sauce. High priced isn't always better and low pirced isn't always bad. Hy-Vee ( a local supermarket chain) jarred pasta sauce is just the same as some of the higher brands but it is WAY cheaper. You need to read the ingredient labels. The Hy-vee sauce has: spices, tomatoes, sugar and that's it. Some of the more expensive like CLassico have tons of fat and HFCS.

Or, don't buy jarred sauce and make your own. Jarred is shit.

Our grocery budget is $80/week, we are usually in the $65-$80 range each week. We also tend to go out once a week (going out comes from our fun money). We are right outside of Philly, so our grocery and restaurant options are plentiful.
I have fruit everyday with lunch, we have a green veggie and/or salad with dinner, or veggies are the main focus of the meal. I buy fresh produce from the store or a nearby farm. I eat fish once a week, df either eats fish with me or has meat once a week.
Last night was veggie joes - seitan, onion, red pepper, zucchini with sloppy Joe sauce. Tonight is salmon and broccoli (maybe wild rice), tomorrow is grilled portabella sandwiches, Thursday is broccoli and pesto naan pizzas, and Friday is Indian spiced lentils. At some point this weekend Im making some red sauce. I use whole and crushed tomatoes. We live in a small apartment and it's too hot this week, so Im making stuff that takes no effort. Probably a little more carby than usual, but that's okay.

[savecents]

We are in a LCOL area -- although grocery wise it feels more like MCOL, the rents are just cheaper, but I haven't noticed the food being cheaper since we moved from a MCOL area. For the two of us I budget $400. This includes all toiletries, cleaning supplies and paper products.

We usually eat some sort of meat + sauce + vegetable + carb thing for each dinner, cycling through various cuisines, pack the leftovers for lunches. Cereal for breakfast.

Typical dinners: tacos + salsa + lettuce + flour tortillas for Mexican, and then chicken + pesto + green beans + pasta. I mostly use frozen vegetables and it keeps our produce cost down. I use some canned vegetables -- beans, corn, green beans, and tomatoes -- but not things like peas. Some canned vegetables are just too mushy when canned so I up grade to frozen. We don't do a lot of fresh veg unless we're planning a special meal that needs it -- since we cook most of the vegetables anyway I don't mind frozen. I find frozen generally works best for me, it's easy, mostly already prepared, and you always have it there. We spend quite a bit on fresh fruit though -- NW cherries have been in and I've been buying them at least a month now.

I struggle getting the budget lower than this. DH doesn't really consider it a meal unless there is meat in some form. He will let me do cheese ravioli maybe once a month, but unless it's pizza he really doesn't consider a meal satisfying without meat. Also he likes to get frozen pizzas to make and he has a soda addiction.... I get all these on sale, but they're still expensive, I can't get the budget much lower no matter how much I shop sales.

[swamp]

Or, don't buy jarred sauce and make your own. Jarred is shit.

exactly. spaghetti sauce is easy to make and freezes well.

[midjd]

We've been making a lot of hobo packs on the grill lately because it's been 100 degrees and neither of us feels like standing over a stove. I love em because they're easy and I can throw a lot of healthy stuff in there and DH doesn't complain . Our grocery budget is about $50/week (including booze) and is about half healthy and half crap. We live in a LCOLA.

Last week I bought:
Pork medallions (1lb) - $4
Green peppers (organic) - $1 apiece
Green onions (non-organic) - $0.50
Bananas (2lb) - $1
Granny Smith apples (organic) (2lb) - $4
Lean Cuisines (I eat em for lunch when I'm too lazy to make something ahead of time) - $1 each on sale
Whole wheat bread - $1
Doritos - $2 (sale)
2 bags baby carrots - $1 each
Breyer's no-sugar-added ice cream - $2 (sale)
Silk soymilk - $3
Granola - $2
Diet Dr Pepper - $1 apiece on sale
V8 Smoothie - $2 apiece on sale

We're well stocked up on most of our staples - peanut butter, pasta, flour, sugar - so I can usually limit the weekly grocery run to fresh items + whatever's on sale.

[Deleted]

meg - I'd be making more sauces, but I don't have the time at all. One of the meals this week is spaghetti with sauce, ground turkey, tomatoes, and green peppers. When you have a baby that wants attention and about a zillion things to do from the time you walk in the door to the time when the baby needs to be put to bed, you go with what's quick and easy.

[midjd]

Oh Jenny, you know if you REALLY loved your child, you'd cook every meal from scratch.






And pre-chew his food a la Alicia Silverstone.

[Tiny]

(Still not sure how to get a decent priced, healthy sauce. Tomatoes here are $3+ a pound and mine won't be done growing for at least another month. The good quality jarred sauces are like $6 a jar... OMG)

"good quality" is subjective... I'd assume the $6.00 a jar is for the 'designer name'. You might want to watch the calorie count on the jarred sauces - some of them are OUTRAGEOUS. You say you've got canned tomatos and spices... you can make your own 'sauce' with from those for far less than $6.00.... I like Trader Joe's basil tomato sauce in a jar - under $2.00.

I'll go at your question from a different angle: Have you done a 'Trash Review" over say the course of a week? You know -- where you make note of all the food you throw away on a daily/weekly basis. If you are scraping/tossing food into the trash on a daily/weekly basis maybe that's the place to start concentrate your money saving efforts. I saved alot of money when i realized I was letting alot of food got to waste (and ending up in the trash). I starting buying less (which equaled a savings).

ADDED: I also starting paying more attention to how many 'meals' I'd need and cooking less or more depending on what my schedule looked like (a menu plan for each week). I generally plan for one or two weekly meals that are 'eat up what's left over' -- I rarely thru any food into the trash - trimmings/peels go into the composter. On the rare occassion some veggie/fruit goes bad it too goes to the composter. the occassional bread product goes out to the yard for the birds. I haven't tossed out meat or dairy in ages and ages.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Oh Jenny, you know if you REALLY loved your child, you'd cook every meal from scratch.






And pre-chew his food a la Alicia Silverstone.

[alabamagal]

"Homemade" Tomato Sauce

1 Superlarge Can of Whole Tomatoes or Tomatoe Puree at Sams $3
2 Cans of Tomato Paste from the grocery store $1
Onions, Garlic, Fresh Basil and Fresh Oregano

Saute 2-3 Onions in olive oil, add garlic, basil and oregano and saute some more, add tomatoes (use stick blender to puree if needed), heat and simmer ~1 hour. Add tomaot paste and cook a little more. Add salt. Add any other items to personalize to your taste. Divide into "single serve" ziploc containers and freeze. For our family, we get 5-6 containers, so maybe $1 per container and much better than any store bought sauce.

When you are ready to use, thaw in microwave and add to ground meat, or whatever else you want to use it for.

[Chocolate Lover]

I also recommend making your own spaghetti sauce. Shoot, you can do pizza sauce in a hurry from a small can of tomato sauce and garlic and onion powers and maybe some italian seasoning. I bet you have all that in the pantry. I make pizza sometimes and it's easy to cook that quick while you make dough (yeah, lazy me makes my own pizza dough, they even have a yeast just for that now ).

I have 5 people in the house, including one teenage boy and a preteen girl that eats like a grown person and our food budget is about $600 a month, give or take $50. I don't have a lot of processed stuff but there is some (like mac & cheese) but most everything there is to eat has to be cooked. Or assembled, like sandwiches. I buy generic everything pretty much all the time. It's usually cheaper, even with a coupon on the name brands.

LCOLA btw

[HoneyBBQ]

I echo many others: cut the meat if you want to cut costs. Look into beans, legumes, and complex carbs like wheat berries, quinoa, couscous, etc. These are great cheap staples. Red beans and rice is less than a buck a serving cooked in the slow cooker. We eat it for several meals. Lentil salad, lentil soup - super cheap and flexible. Any of the grains you can make into a salad, often adding garbanzo beans and herbs. Just add whatever veggies are on sale and in season. I spend money on nice cheese - because a little goes a long way. Or use high impact proteins like bacon and pancetta - but use them as a topping as opposed to the main course.

[Cookies Galore]

Jul 17, 2012 13:57:28 GMT -5 @moneyjenny82 said:

meg - I'd be making more sauces, but I don't have the time at all. One of the meals this week is spaghetti with sauce, ground turkey, tomatoes, and green peppers. When you have a baby that wants attention and about a zillion things to do from the time you walk in the door to the time when the baby needs to be put to bed, you go with what's quick and easy.

Im not talking Sunday gravy. A quick sauce can be left alone to simmer and takes no more effort than it does to brown ground meat and chop veggies. I have an Italian Grandmom and a stepmom from South Philly, "jarred" is a curse word to me.

[Deleted]

hmmmm... I do have some cans of crushed tomatoes to get rid of....

[cronewitch]

I am losing weight and trying to not eat fat or refined carbs so I have been making a lot of soup.

First I boil some skinless boneless chicken breast and remove the meat to ziplock bags and freese. Then I add a mixture of dried beans, lintels, split peas and brown rice, cook a couple of hours. Then I divide it to smaller containers and freeze all but about a 1/4th soup pan full. Sometimes before freezing I might have added ginger, garlic and onions, I don't eat salt. Then the pan I have left I add a ton of cheap veggies like cabbage, spinach, carrots, cauliflower, or whatever is on sale and looks like soup veggies except celery it is too much sodium. I add more spices like celery seed or whatever is handy that doesn't have salt. Sometimes I put in some boiled chicken and sometimes not. This is my hot meal most days now because I change veggies and spices often it isn't too boring.

It isn't real cheap but I lost 50# in 5 months and the carbs are controlled pretty well by watering it down with veggies. I buy spinach at Costco 2.5# for about $5 and it adds a lot of flavor and color for the money.

If I was feeding teen boys I would make soup from whole chickens and add lots of carbs like pasta for them. Also you can make chicken and dumplings pretty cheap.

Add lots of brown rice and dry beans to your menu and you will be able to feed them pretty cheap. Make homemade spaghetti and chili the same day and you can use most of the same ingredients like onions and mushrooms in both pots. Try to get some free food like blackberries this summer and freeze to make jam in the winter or pies. Apples and plums can often be gotten for the asking too and you can freeze zucchini you grow or get cheap or free to add to soups and things.

Stretch your protein by adding more veggies and carbs and ground meat or diced instead of pieces of meat. When serving eggs add a lot of veggies to the omelets instead of just eggs so it doesn't take as many eggs. I make egg white omelets for me with a full frying pan of veggies for one egg and some extra whites then give the yokes to someone who needs more fat in the diet than I do.

[kittensaver]

Money Jenny! Put a large pot of water on the stove to heat. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large saute pan; saute chopped garlic for about 30 seconds (until it smells fragrant), then toss in and cook and stir for a few minutes any chopped vegetables (onion, peppers, mushrooms) that you like or leftovers that you may have on hand (a great way to use them up). Stir in your large can of crushed tomatoes and any herbs or spices that you like (salt, pepper, oregano, hot pepper flakes, basil). Add a little water if you need to, or a little wine for flavor :-), then reduce the heat, cover and let it simmer while your pasta cooks. When the water boils, toss in some salt and the pasta and cook until it is about 3/4 of the way done. Uncover your sauce and add the pasta directly to it (I use a slotted strainer for fishing out short pasta and a pair of long tongs for fishing out spagetti). Allow the pasta to finish cooking in the sauce while you make a salad. Plate up the pasta and grate some parmisan cheese over the top. Dinner in half an hour!

Same as Meghan - I come from a first-generation Italian family, and jarred sauce would get me thrown out of the house. Hope this works for you!

[kittensaver]

Cronewitch: do you come from an old-world family? My grandma lived with us for a while (during her final years) and while she was with us there was ALWAYS a pot of soup in the back of the lowest frig shelf. Leftover veges, meat, rice and pasta went into it, and she kept it going with water or chicken stock. She swore that no matter how poor you were, if you kept a pot of leftover soup going and could make or barter a loaf of bread you would never go hungry. She wasted NOTHING in the kitchen.

[Cookies Galore]

Jul 17, 2012 15:13:26 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

Money Jenny! Put a large pot of water on the stove to heat. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large saute pan; saute chopped garlic for about 30 seconds (until it smells fragrant), then toss in and cook and stir for a few minutes any chopped vegetables (onion, peppers, mushrooms) that you like or leftovers that you may have on hand (a great way to use them up). Stir in your large can of crushed tomatoes and any herbs or spices that you like (salt, pepper, oregano, hot pepper flakes, basil). Add a little water if you need to, or a little wine for flavor :-), then reduce the heat, cover and let it simmer while your pasta cooks. When the water boils, toss in some salt and the pasta and cook until it is about 3/4 of the way done. Uncover your sauce and add the pasta directly to it (I use a slotted strainer for fishing out short pasta and a pair of long tongs for fishing out spagetti). Allow the pasta to finish cooking in the sauce while you make a salad. Plate up the pasta and grate some parmisan cheese over the top. Dinner in half an hour!

Same as Meghan - I come from a first-generation Italian family, and jarred sauce would get me thrown out of the house. Hope this works for you!

I toast my garlic first. Just put some whole cloves of garlic in oil and let them get golden brown. Remove from oil, mash with a fork, and put in your sauce.

[cronewitch]

Jul 17, 2012 15:19:51 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

Cronewitch: do you come from an old-world family? My grandma lived with us for a while (during her final years) and while she was with us there was ALWAYS a pot of soup in the back of the lowest frig shelf. Leftover veges, meat, rice and pasta went into it, and she kept it going with water or chicken stock. She swore that no matter how poor you were, if you kept a pot of leftover soup going and could make or barter a loaf of bread you would never go hungry. She wasted NOTHING in the kitchen.

No, my family is American of the mutt variety. I just started eating soup because of diabetes and the dietitians wanting me to go complex carb and low fat only tiny amounts of meat and to lose weight. I can eat large quantities of food so a high veggies soup means I can eat a lot of it. Eating 1/3 cup of brown rice and 4oz of meat would be too restrictive but make them soup with a couple of quarts of veggies and they are a big meal. I put in beans so don't add much meat if any. I eat almond or ground peanuts for fat so don't want it in my soup and I eat whole grain bread for snacks because it is about 15 carbs. I buy the bread at the outlet store and freeze toasting one slice at a time so no waste.

[kittensaver]

I toast my garlic first. Just put some whole cloves of garlic in oil and let them get golden brown. Remove from oil, mash with a fork, and put in your sauce.[/quote]

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Great idea ;D - - saves some chopping time!