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[quote=Anonymous]OP, you can get your number way down! I feed the 5 of us on about $800-$835/mo. This includes paper towels etc that I buy at Costco, but not alcohol. My kids are 6, 8 and 11. I eat lunch out once per week and DH pays for lunch 1-2 times/week (he eats out more, but it is for work and paid for. He packs 1-2 per week.) Some suggestions for you:

Start with the kids! They are eating toast and cream cheese because they're allowed to. Tell them that you're done making everyone separate meals. You make a meal, they eat it. You can accommodate some preferences by serving the meatballs and sauce separately from the spaghetti or not putting Cajun spices on all of the pork chops, but you're not making quesadillas for Larla while everyone else eats salmon. If they don't eat the meal that it offered, then they wait until the next meal/snack time. Someone will test you at the start and then it will improve after about a week.  (you might keep the full dinner plate sitting on the counter that first week instead of scraping it right away -- I had one kid who would decide around 730 that she really did need to eat dinner after all and then wolfed down her meal.)

Second, use your deep freezer! Find some meats on sale or at Costco and put them in there so you have an arsenal to pull from. At night, put tomorrow's chicken breasts into the fridge to defrost. This will free up room in your regular fridge to see the produce and other fresh food that you have available.

Third, get yourself organized. Pick a grocery app on for your phone. Many of them let you share between users if both you and DH shop. Some of them include a meal planning feature, tho that usually isn't in the free version. I use the free AnyList and really like it, but check out what works for you. It lets you go to the store with a definite list in mind and keeps you focused while you're there. My kids know that if it isn't on the list, we don't buy it!

And then sit down to do a meal plan for the week. Take into account what activities you have on various nights, how much time there is and who is cooking. Build in a leftover night. Plan for the weekends, too. And always have an easy fallback meal in case your original plan cannot come together. We can always do beans and rice. The Costco frozen salmon fillets are also easy -- they defrost in about 30 minutes and cook in 8.

Make use of your time in the kitchen, too. Chop the entire onion and put what you don't need now into a Tupperware to pull from for the next few days. Make a big salad tonight and eat the rest tomorrow. I don't like to do too much with fruit in advance because I feel like it spoils, but YMMV.

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