Anonymous
Post 02/06/2014 16:54     Subject: Grocery Budget
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Family of 3 with a 16 month old. We also only buy organic produce, meat and dairy. We spend about $500 a month on groceries and probably eat out about 4 times per month (usually a quick breakfast or lunch as a family on the weekend)


PP here - OP, if you're only shopping at Whole Foods, there's your problem. Our Giant has a ton of organic produce and meat. As does the Harris Teeter nearby. I rarely go to WF for anything.


When I was on maternity leave, I stopped shopping at WF and started going to the Safeway and Harris Teeter by us almost exclusively, buying almost entirely the same stuff. Our grocery bills nearly doubled. WF is the same price or cheaper for many organic products, particularly meat, dairy, and produce and most especially frozen vegetables, when you can opt for the 365 brand.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2014 14:04     Subject: Grocery Budget
Anonymous wrote:Family of 3 with a 16 month old. We also only buy organic produce, meat and dairy. We spend about $500 a month on groceries and probably eat out about 4 times per month (usually a quick breakfast or lunch as a family on the weekend)


PP here - OP, if you're only shopping at Whole Foods, there's your problem. Our Giant has a ton of organic produce and meat. As does the Harris Teeter nearby. I rarely go to WF for anything.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2014 14:03     Subject: Grocery Budget
Family of 3 with a 16 month old. We also only buy organic produce, meat and dairy. We spend about $500 a month on groceries and probably eat out about 4 times per month (usually a quick breakfast or lunch as a family on the weekend)
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 16:55     Subject: Grocery Budget
We're family of 4 with a 1 and 3 year old. We average about $800 for the month. Produce, milk, eggs, fruits, and grains are always organic. Some meats are organic. We shop mainly at trader joes and WF. I havent' seen much saving with farmers markets.
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 14:08     Subject: Grocery Budget
Thanks too, I will definitely be checking them out as well.
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 13:43     Subject: Grocery Budget
You're welcome! They currently have 5% off for the summer shares too.
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 13:17     Subject: Re:Grocery Budget
Thanks for all that info on Groundworks, sounds great!
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 13:14     Subject: Grocery Budget
to 12:09's Q, we live Alexandria and do the Alexandria pick up for Groundworks. They also have pick ups in Arlington, Annapolis and on their farm further out in MD. A nice bonus, IMO, is that if you let them know you want to change your pick up location for the week to be on the farm, you can go visit and make a little field trip out of it for your kid to see where food comes from. I thought that was cool - we'll do that in the spring.
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 13:10     Subject: Grocery Budget
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We get all of our organic produce and meat from a farm share for about $52/week and it's more than enough to feed us and a toddler. I don't even take the full allotment each week. If we take on an pair or have an extra house guest staying for the week, I can pick up more and still be within our alloted quota, so that stays at $52 - includes monthly meat, weekly produce, and eggs.

We get our dairy, any out of season fruits, dried fruits (for toddler snacking), plus the occasional pack of granola bars or something at a grocery store for about $30-50/week.

So our weekly "grocery" bill is actually quite low but cooking from scratch with vegetables that are fresh out of the ground can be really time consuming so we also order in or eat out twice a week. DH & I grab breakfast at work if we slept in too late to eat at home. Those little things + coffee really add up and make our overall food budget anywhere from $700-1000/month. We could definitely cut back if we were more organized, cooked on the weekend, or at least pre-chopped things on the weekend so it would be quicker to cook on weeknights.


Where is this magical $52 produce and meat farmshare, and how much on average do you get each week.


We're with Groundworks Farm (http://www.groundworksfarm.com/farm-share-options/winter-whole-farm-share/). We do their weekly produce, monthly meat, and weekly eggs (a dozen/week) which totals to $1240.70 for 24 weeks, averaging $51.70/week. We used to also get the cheese share and chickens, at which point you're at a "whole farm share" - getting a piece of all the farm's products - and that averages to $64/week. The monthly meat allotment is a lot - 17 points worth. Each lb of ground beef, lb of beacon or breakfast sausage, is 1 point. Steaks are 3-7 pts depending on size and cut. We get at least half of our monthly share if not more as 1 point items because that's what we like and we only make a steak or roast dinner twice a month or so, so the 17 points definitely is enough for our monthly consumption. If you eat only steaks and high end cut roasts then it may not last you as long.

For produce, the summer share is a lot of squash, greens, herbs, and melons. Right now we're in the winter share which is mostly root vegetables, greens, apples, veggies they were able to store from summer and a few things they jar themselves. For quantity, it's usually 1-2 huge bags of a leafy greens (sometimes 3 different kinds), a few pounds of different squash/root vegetables depending on season, 2-4 lbs of fruit, fresh herbs, onions, etc - we've never run out of veggies or greens in the year we've been using them. We occasionally like to have cauliflower which they don't grow on the farm so we'll pick one up every once and while but other than that, we get enough veggies for 4-5 people IMO.
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 12:09     Subject: Grocery Budget
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We get all of our organic produce and meat from a farm share for about $52/week and it's more than enough to feed us and a toddler. I don't even take the full allotment each week. If we take on an pair or have an extra house guest staying for the week, I can pick up more and still be within our alloted quota, so that stays at $52 - includes monthly meat, weekly produce, and eggs.

We get our dairy, any out of season fruits, dried fruits (for toddler snacking), plus the occasional pack of granola bars or something at a grocery store for about $30-50/week.

So our weekly "grocery" bill is actually quite low but cooking from scratch with vegetables that are fresh out of the ground can be really time consuming so we also order in or eat out twice a week. DH & I grab breakfast at work if we slept in too late to eat at home. Those little things + coffee really add up and make our overall food budget anywhere from $700-1000/month. We could definitely cut back if we were more organized, cooked on the weekend, or at least pre-chopped things on the weekend so it would be quicker to cook on weeknights.




yes, where is this farm share? where do you live?
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 11:32     Subject: Grocery Budget
I don't separate out household/personal items since I buy them on trips to the Costco/grocery store, our average spending works out to about $650 a month on all those items. 2 adults, 1 3 year old. The 3 year old gets breakfast, lunch, and snack at daycare 5 days a week, the 2 adults pack lunch almost every day and we eat out usually one meal a weekend, whether that's dinner or brunch varies.

I do one Costco run for meat every 8 weeks or so, and every 2 weeks for organic milk, oj, and eggs, and I pick up produce, lunch meat, cheese, and bread at each of these runs. Fill in with produce and any specialty items from WF or the farmer's market in the off weeks.
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 11:12     Subject: Grocery Budget
I spend about 125/week with 2 adults and a 1 year old. that's food only (minimal "Extra" items). I shop primaruly at HT and Giant, but would love to add a monthly meat run to Wegmans or other to save some cash. I don't really use Coupons, but do stick heavily to a list. We go out to lunch once a week, everything else is covered in the 125 a week. I don't do organic except for berries or other items that appear to be hard to rinse.
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 11:00     Subject: Grocery Budget
Anonymous wrote:We get all of our organic produce and meat from a farm share for about $52/week and it's more than enough to feed us and a toddler. I don't even take the full allotment each week. If we take on an pair or have an extra house guest staying for the week, I can pick up more and still be within our alloted quota, so that stays at $52 - includes monthly meat, weekly produce, and eggs.

We get our dairy, any out of season fruits, dried fruits (for toddler snacking), plus the occasional pack of granola bars or something at a grocery store for about $30-50/week.

So our weekly "grocery" bill is actually quite low but cooking from scratch with vegetables that are fresh out of the ground can be really time consuming so we also order in or eat out twice a week. DH & I grab breakfast at work if we slept in too late to eat at home. Those little things + coffee really add up and make our overall food budget anywhere from $700-1000/month. We could definitely cut back if we were more organized, cooked on the weekend, or at least pre-chopped things on the weekend so it would be quicker to cook on weeknights.


Where is this magical $52 produce and meat farmshare, and how much on average do you get each week.
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 10:55     Subject: Grocery Budget
I am the holy crap poster. My 2 kids eat a ton, and they are super thin. They eat several pieces of fruit and vegetables all day long, I wish I could get by on $52 of produce a week but for 21 meals plus snacks a week it seems impossible for me. I want the best quality, otherwise if it doesn't taste good it isn't worth eating. I also cook almost everything from scratch, I can't seem to win. I fully admit and accept the fact that I feel I have to buy fresh caught, organic, free range and humane food, I am willing to buy my yoga pants from target vs lulumelon so I can get the fresh caught king salmon vs the farm raised. Still, it is hard to stomach when the total comes up on the register. We eat everything we buy, I used to do washington green grocer but the quality was actually poor IMO, I kept getting produce that was rotten and smashed. I am looking into other CSAs and possibly buying an entire cow (fort the meat) at a farm.
Anonymous
Post 02/05/2014 10:03     Subject: Grocery Budget
We get all of our organic produce and meat from a farm share for about $52/week and it's more than enough to feed us and a toddler. I don't even take the full allotment each week. If we take on an pair or have an extra house guest staying for the week, I can pick up more and still be within our alloted quota, so that stays at $52 - includes monthly meat, weekly produce, and eggs.

We get our dairy, any out of season fruits, dried fruits (for toddler snacking), plus the occasional pack of granola bars or something at a grocery store for about $30-50/week.

So our weekly "grocery" bill is actually quite low but cooking from scratch with vegetables that are fresh out of the ground can be really time consuming so we also order in or eat out twice a week. DH & I grab breakfast at work if we slept in too late to eat at home. Those little things + coffee really add up and make our overall food budget anywhere from $700-1000/month. We could definitely cut back if we were more organized, cooked on the weekend, or at least pre-chopped things on the weekend so it would be quicker to cook on weeknights.