Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We eat a veggie/some fish diet and got our food costs down to about $500 a month, by:

1) getting take-out only once a month
2) getting coffee out one day a week only
3) Doing 90% of shopping at Lidl
4) All lunches are leftovers
5) lunch is largest meal of day six days a week, dinner is usually omelets, open faced sandwiches, salads
6) Sending school lunch
7) Avoiding packaged food
8) Cutting snacks except a formal 4:00 snack like homemade baked goods
9) Cooking in bulk, freezing half
10) meal-planning

How are you doing leftovers for lunch, when lunch is the largest meal of the day?

So, for example this week:

Sunday, made a large squash risotto - served it for dinner, and then everyone has it for lunch Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday while working from home, made a spinach lasagna for Wed-Tuesday lunches. Tuesday is a late night for kid's activities, so we didn't have it for dinner - we have panini and salad. Thursday I made focaccia and veggie soup during the day, and everyone had salad, focaccia, and omelets for dinner, and then for Friday lunch for the kids, I added pastina and sent it to school with a slice of focaccia, fruit, a wedge of cheese.

This is PP, and sounds delicious. I'd love eating at your house.

We are in the budget. I do 90% of my shopping at trader joes. rest is Aldi or Harris Teeter.

Breakfast- Husband has a bagel with an egg, kids (2) have egg sandwich on a brioche bun from aldi, I tend to eat eggs (whole egg mixed with egg whites from aldi) with oatmeal.

Lunch- Elementary kid buys lunch, HS kids eats things like a turkey sandwich, frozen pizza, husband eats leftovers, I cook/meal prep my meals in bulk (examples- turkey chili, egg roll bowl, salad, stif fry)

Dinner- Cook most meals at home. Examples-
Turkey meatballs, chicken parm over pasta, pork tenderloin with mashed or baked potatoes and broccoli, Salisbury steak meatballs with egg noodles, oven beef fajitas, nachos, taco varieties (fish, korean, regular beef), grilled chicken, cob or caesar salad

I think meal planning is key for us. I plan out all meals and buy accordingly. Reduces random purchases and food waste. i also think shopping at Trader Joe's helps because there is less variety so fewer random purchases.

I know I could save money buying meat at other stores, but I don't have the time or energy to shop around so buy most of it at Trader Joes. I have also found that while Trade Joe's meat like chicken thighs may be more expensive it is also trimmed of fat a LOT better than at other stores so I am not wasting time trimming it or throwing half of it away.

Meal Planning is key:
This week for dinners we had
chicken and mushrooms over egg noodles
tacos
chicken and rice soup
chili
breakfast for dinner
leftovers
pork tenderloin and broccoli

yogurt/eggs/bananas for breakfasts

sandwiches or simple salads for lunch.

We spend about $100 per week. We shop at WF and don't eat meat/chicken. Will buy seafood - whatever is on sale that week. Do not buy anything prepared and stock up on sale dry goods. Even fruits and veggies, buy the ones on sale.

Like everything else, part of the answer is time vs money. Driving to different grocery stores to save $5-10 is worth it for some families and not for others. Saving on prepared sauces vs the time spent on prep, cooking and cleanup time is worth it for some and not for others.

Also, it’s not reasonable to compare your spend x years ago to today. Toddlers eat very little, kids eat a little more, and having two growing tweens/teens is equivalent to 3-4 adults. I used to make one roast chicken for my family of 4 and have leftovers. Now that I have two hungry tweens, I make 2 roast chickens and they are picked clean. And I eat less than I used to, so it’s mostly the kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We eat a veggie/some fish diet and got our food costs down to about $500 a month, by:

1) getting take-out only once a month
2) getting coffee out one day a week only
3) Doing 90% of shopping at Lidl
4) All lunches are leftovers
5) lunch is largest meal of day six days a week, dinner is usually omelets, open faced sandwiches, salads
6) Sending school lunch
7) Avoiding packaged food
8) Cutting snacks except a formal 4:00 snack like homemade baked goods
9) Cooking in bulk, freezing half
10) meal-planning

How are you doing leftovers for lunch, when lunch is the largest meal of the day?

So, for example this week:

Sunday, made a large squash risotto - served it for dinner, and then everyone has it for lunch Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday while working from home, made a spinach lasagna for Wed-Tuesday lunches. Tuesday is a late night for kid's activities, so we didn't have it for dinner - we have panini and salad. Thursday I made focaccia and veggie soup during the day, and everyone had salad, focaccia, and omelets for dinner, and then for Friday lunch for the kids, I added pastina and sent it to school with a slice of focaccia, fruit, a wedge of cheese.

It drives my husband crazy, but I make it a game to get the cheapest prices on groceries. For example, you might be shopping at Aldi, but not all ALDIs are the same. I’ve found (and complained to them) that ALDIs in food deserts have higher prices. Therefore, I go to an Aldi that is right across the street from a Lidl and they need to compete on price.

Additionally, don’t count out big stores like Wegman’s. Their pasta and sauce is cheaper than Aldi.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you $1000-$1200 is quite reasonable. I can eat quite cheaply as I love oatmeal, salads and home made soups. It's the picky growing kid who wants ribeye and packed lunch.
I spend about $600 a month. Trying to get it down to $500.

For a family of four?

No, sorry, should have written down the number- 2 only. That's why I think hers is reasonable.

Anonymous wrote:We eat a veggie/some fish diet and got our food costs down to about $500 a month, by:

1) getting take-out only once a month
2) getting coffee out one day a week only
3) Doing 90% of shopping at Lidl
4) All lunches are leftovers
5) lunch is largest meal of day six days a week, dinner is usually omelets, open faced sandwiches, salads
6) Sending school lunch
7) Avoiding packaged food
8) Cutting snacks except a formal 4:00 snack like homemade baked goods
9) Cooking in bulk, freezing half
10) meal-planning

How are you doing leftovers for lunch, when lunch is the largest meal of the day?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having done this analysis and carefully compared prices at WF with the Giant and similar markets, I've concluded there's only minimal savings shopping at cheaper supermarkets *for the same basket of goods*. And you suffer lower quality in exchange.

The real savings comes from your menu. People who spend less on food are eating rice and beans, casseroles, ground beef or turkey, hamburger helper, tuna fish, canned soups, noodles and pasta. You want to save money? You need to simplify your diet.

And what you save on food costs, you end up spending on insulin!

OP i think you are doing great at 450 a week for 4 people inclusing 2 teenage boys. Don’t listen to the devil aka people pretending they spend only 500 a month for six without resorting to food banks and/or having someone do incredibly labor intensive food prep like cooking beans from dry and baking their own bread and telling their kids their only snack is a mouldy banana split three ways

Wrong. Eating unprocessed foods and cooking from scratch never made someone diabetic. What a weird take.

Seriously. Rice and beans are not fueling the diabetes epidemic. The PP's ignorance is contributing to the health problems we have in this country.

PP was responding to the hamburger helper and canned soup suggestion, not cooking from scratch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please walk me through what you eat every week.

We recently had a thread about how much people spend on food every week, and some families of four were in the $250/$300 range.
I need to get my costs lowered and apparently it could be done. I would love to know an example of what you eat for each meal in a week.
(I shop at Aldi, Lidl, Trader Joe’s, so not spending outrageously at WF).

Same food as “average” DCUMer, but we don’t buy organic and never shop at Whole Food$. Huge waste of money.

I live equidistant between a large WF and a Giant and a Safeway. WF is on the whole slightly more expensive but not noticeably so, which really surprised me. And a lot of stuff is more expensive in the Giant than WF. The WF supply chain is phenomenal and definitely better quality produce and meats. And WF has regular sales on meat. Where WF is more expensive is for things like cheese and fancy frozen pizzas but at the same time you either can't get them at the Giant or they are no cheaper for the equivalent.

The only real savings is going to Aldis but Aldi is hit or miss and mostly misses and you can't rely on it for regular shopping.

Shop the sales. Buy pantry staples in bulk when they're on sale. I had 3 giant toilet paper packages on hand when the pandemic hit, because they had been on sale shortly before the shortages began. Know which stores have the best prices on fruit and other produce, which stores have good quality meats at decent prices, and so on. Grow easy vegetables like tomatoes and zuchinni, or herbs like basil and chives, and you won't have to buy them for a few months every year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please walk me through what you eat every week.

We recently had a thread about how much people spend on food every week, and some families of four were in the $250/$300 range.
I need to get my costs lowered and apparently it could be done. I would love to know an example of what you eat for each meal in a week.
(I shop at Aldi, Lidl, Trader Joe’s, so not spending outrageously at WF).

Same food as “average” DCUMer, but we don’t buy organic and never shop at Whole Food$. Huge waste of money.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. Whole Foods is cheaper than Giant/Safeway/Wegman’s for the things I buy there. You wouldn’t know since you never shop there obviously.

+1

We moved away from a Whole Foods when we moved to suburbia, we gave the grocery stores closer to us a chance (Safeway/ Giant etc) and we were very disappointed with the quality of produce and fish- it also wasn’t cheaper at all!

Now I drove 20 minutes to the closest WF, and it’s absolutely worth it.

Also, it’s if it matters I spend just a hair under $200 everytime i do big haul. So it’s one big haul one week, and the next week a bunch of little trips to refill things like milk and fruit that add up to $100ish.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please walk me through what you eat every week.

We recently had a thread about how much people spend on food every week, and some families of four were in the $250/$300 range.
I need to get my costs lowered and apparently it could be done. I would love to know an example of what you eat for each meal in a week.
(I shop at Aldi, Lidl, Trader Joe’s, so not spending outrageously at WF).

Same food as “average” DCUMer, but we don’t buy organic and never shop at Whole Food$. Huge waste of money.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. Whole Foods is cheaper than Giant/Safeway/Wegman’s for the things I buy there. You wouldn’t know since you never shop there obviously.

I'm more of a $450/week spender now, but used to be much less. Hard to compare because it was before we had teens, but for two adults and 1-2 young kids I had a budget of $50/week. Inflation and kids ... eating that menu today would probably cost somewhere around $200/week for my family of 4.

Some ideas of what we ate:

Stir fry was frequent. Small amount of ground turkey or chicken thigh, or buy drumsticks and de-bone them myself. Lots of cheap veggies: cabbage is a great filler, plus celery and carrots. Soy sauce and garlic. Huge bags of rice from Costco. Add a couple of scrambled eggs.

Speaking of eggs... they are one of the cheapest proteins out there. We had eggs for lunch or dinner often. Omelets or fritatta, fried eggs and toast with spinach.

Rice and beans, with collard greens. Or a bean soup with lots of kale and spinach, plus carrots and celery.

Make our own yogurt. I actually still do that because I like it better than purchased yogurt, but it's also far cheaper. Make our own granola from whole oats.

We had a decent variety, but it was all within the cheap protein + cheap veggies + carb filler kind of family. Variety came from how they were combined, or occasionally what spices were used (couldn't afford to buy new spices every month, so this was limited). We were not eating ribeye steaks, asparagus or dishes that required a ton of new ingredients. Something like fresh ginger was considered an extravagance. Very little red meat or seafood.

I love PP's idea of keeping cooked pasta & meatballs as snacks for the teens. My teen boys will go straight for the cupboard and eat half a box of cereal in an afternoon, or a whole box of granola bars. I'm going to start doing this!