For years I was able to come in at $75 or under a week for groceries. All that went out the window when Jacob got sick. We were blessed by being surrounded by caring people who dropped off meals, sent gift certificates for the grocery store, or local restaurant gift certificates. That took a huge strain off of me having to closely budget and shop all the sales. It allowed me that extra time with Jacob, which I will forever be grateful for.
But a lot happens in three years, mainly rising costs of groceries. And boy, did the cost of groceries rise in the past five years! When I went back to budgeting, meal planning, and detailed grocery shopping in the fall of 2013, I was horrified by how our grocery budget needed to be doubled, if not tripled, some weeks.
Still, I am in sticker shock. My problem is doubled by the fact that I could care less about food. No, I haven't stopped eating, probably the opposite is true, but the pleasure of meal planning...of even being able to think up a menu seems a little beyond me yet. It's grief, it's not really caring about this issue, it's trying not to stress out about it.
But stress I do.
I find myself running to the grocery store a few times a week. Spending $30-$40 and walking out of there with just a few meal's worth of food, then repeating the process a few days later. I find myself sending hubby to the store for something, only to have him return with several bags of (unasked for!) stuff. I find us eating too much junk. Going through food too quickly. Wasting time and money. It's a circle way too easy to fall into.
I've gotten to the point that I don't even know how much we spend on food, and am a bit scared to find out. I don't even know what a reasonable weekly food goal is at this point. According the a quick Google search it sounds like $900 or more for a family of four?!
I did the Frugal Housewife's $70 Menu Plan (which ended up costing me $82) in 2012. We found the menu to involve way too much bread and not many meals that we liked. I did a $400 Healthy Month Meal Challenge in 2010 and don't think I could replicate that 5 years later.
We are a family of five. My husband packs a lunch each day for work. With us homeschooling, every single meal and snack is on me to provide. That adds up to a lot of food. Add in a 6 year old boy that literally grew out of his shirts in a one week span and a tween that will soon be as tall as me. A toddler that burns her energy as fast as she makes it. Food, food, food seems to be the theme around here! Even the cats beg for food all day long. :/
What is my point? I'm hoping to get back on track. My first goal is getting together a good menu and shopping list for this coming week. My next goal is to figure out just how much we are spending on groceries each week. My next goal will be to see how low we can go. I shall allow you peeks into this process.
What area of the country do you live in and what is your grocery budget each week?
Our family of 5 (kids age 5, 6, 7) lives in Tx. We eat mostly all organic and little to no processed food. Our bill is around $160-$180 a week. It stings, but we don't eat out at all so we actually save a lot of money over our previous habits of cheaper grocery food and more eating out.
ReplyDelete$180 weekly for organic and unprocessed doesn't sound too bad! Since you live in a warmer climate are you able to grow some items yourself year round? Or take advantage of Farmers Markets?
DeleteWe have an aquaponic garden but it isn't yeilding much yet. Unfortunately farmer's markets are only during summer, even here. :-(
DeleteWhat grocery store do you shop at usually?
DeleteI live in Michigan (Detroit area) and it's just my husband and myself. We do our shopping at Meijer. We spend anywhere between $50 and $90 per week and that doesn't count what we buy at Costco. I buy sale items in bulk. Most weeks my cart will only have produce, milk and sale items in it. I know when my two girls lived here, I was only spending about $100 per week. Those were the days of double coup0ns and those days are long gone. What really annoys me is that the products are shrinking in size but the price stays the same. We just can't win!
ReplyDeleteI miss the days of double coupons...my mom was able to get so much for so little! Now I rarely use coupons, unless they are in the store flyer. I just don't see the savings there like I used to.
DeleteElizabeth,
ReplyDeleteCheck out Prudent Homemaker (Brandy Simper) SHe is a stay at home mom of 7 kids and her hubs sells real estate., He lost all income when the market crashed (things are better now, thank goodness), but they lived out of their pantry for over 1 year. I want to say 2 years. Granted, they are Mormon, so I am sure they had a stocked pantry, but it is quite admirable.
Her recipes are great, and very frugal. I tried her chicken fried steak made out of oatmeal; I figured it would be horrible and fed to the dogs, but was quite surprised. It was good! I make a batch of her cranberry almond granola each week.
She has a "How to eat on 40 Cents a Day " link.
Her photos are gorgeous, and I am always motivated after I read her posts.
(Not as motivated as her though HAHA)
Anyway, take a look. He's a link http://theprudenthomemaker.com/
Oh my, I never heard of that blog before...it looks like an excellent resource! I hope to browse it this weekend and get some new ideas! Thank you!!!!
DeleteWe budget $600 a month for groceries which includes everything you can purchase at Walmart and/or Costco. We are feeding 5 people, myself, my husband and three younger children 9,6,5 every meal every day and my older daughters one meal or so a week. In the last several months I have been spending aournd $700 a month.
ReplyDeleteI am excited to check out the blog mentioned above as well.
I have wanted to encourage you in the past but just remember Grief is never wrong or out of place and thank you for sharing so openly! I can say that it is nice to know we are not crazy some days!
Thank you for your kind words!
DeleteI used to manage $400 a month but I'm now beginning to think the $600 you spend a month is very reasonable for a family of five. Hoping I can get our budget to that!
I live in South Carolina in a rather low income area. We are a family of five. We often spend $300 a week on food, however, its not all "food". A lot of it is toiletries, cleaning supplies, stuff the kids need, clothes. So, I'd say we spend $200-250 a week. We don't coupon. My husband won't eat pork or beef, so we mainly eat chicken.
ReplyDeleteSee, I never know if I should include the household products into my budget or not. I never have but know several people do. That's such a variable cost - pet food, diapers, dishwasher detergent, and all the other hundreds of products we use always seems to run out all at once! I would not know how much to budget for all that...but maybe that means I need to keep better track of what I spend on that!
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