We spend about $200 a month on everything for 5 people. I think the biggest reason for that is because we get all of our beef for free and my husband won't eat pork (he thinks pigs are too cute to be dinner) so all we buy is chicken.
I've loved reading how others make their food budget stretch. We average $100 a week (DH gets paid twice a month) for four people, two cats and two big dogs. This includes toiletries, pet food, litter, etc. We allow ourselves to eat out one time each payday. We don't spend more than $20. That means it's usually pizza or the dollar menu at Wendy's or McD's. If I have restaurant coupons, sometimes we'll go somewhere nicer. Or, Picadilly cafeteria has .99 kids meal night on Thursdays and from 11-4 on Saturdays. The kids get a ton of food (entree, two sides and a dessert), and we can still get out of there for under $20. I know I could recover $40 a month by not eating out at all, and some months we have had to do that. But the family so enjoys eating out together...sometimes you just gotta enjoy life, KWIM? :wink: As for groceries, I use coupons and try to match coupons with sale items at the stores (like Kroger) that double coupons. I have gotten many free or nearly-free items this way. The trick is to just get the coupon items and the deeply discounted items they advertise to get you into the store...because everything else is invariably more expensive there. Then I go to Aldi's or Wal Mart to finish out the shopping. We don't buy lots of soda or junk food, but when we do want treats, I have weaned the family to prefer store brands. Aldi has the best baked tortilla chips for just over $1 a bag and their BBQ potato chips are better than Lay's. We found that we actually prefer Sam's Cola, Twist-Up and Dr. Thunder to the national brands. 2-liter bottles are usually .59, half of what you'd pay for a mere 20 oz. Coke out of the cooler. Stuff like this helps us to not feel deprived. We buy a couple of two liters and some frozen pizza, and still have our Friday night "Pizza and a movie" for a fraction of what it would cost to order delivery. One of my favorite frugal tips involves hand soap. My kids love the Softsoap foam soap. I'm a real stickler for handwashing, so they were going through a whole bottle every two weeks. I kept some of the cute holiday-themed softsoap foam bottles and found online how to make cheap refills. I buy a big bottle of $1 bubble bath (like at Dollar Tree). Pour the bubble bath into the foam soap dispenser until it's about 1/4 to 1/3 full. Then fill the rest with water, put the top on, and swish it around until it's mixed. That $1 bottle of grape bubble bath has lasted me for a full YEAR! Like the others, I bake a lot and stock up when things are on sale. We buy huge bags of dry dog food at BJ's wholesale club, and also get our milk and eggs cheaper there. I think I might try Angel Food for December. I've heard so many good things about it, and the menu looks like items we would use. They have steaks next month so DH will be happy! :lol:
We budged 400 per month for the five of us. That includes diapers and pull ups for two, cleaning supplies and all personal items. I cut coupons and get them off the internet. Here is a good site for them www.workingmom.com
We average about $100/week for everything--food, toiletries, detegents--for a family of four. (However, we also spend $5 a week on chicken feed for our 10 hens, which give us 3.5 dozen brown eggs each week, so we come out a bit ahead there! We plan to start selling them locally soon.) We shop every two weeks. Like others, it helps to plan out menus in advance. However, I also try to take advantage of sales and stock up. So at any one time, I may have a ton of chicken, but no pork and little beef. Or we may eat broccoli with our meals 3 times in one week. All depends on what the local stores have put on sale. In the summer, we also garden. We grow from seed, and seed prices are soooo low. For your effort, you get great tasting, fresh produce with high nutritional content. We also have strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry patches. We can and freeze any extra. We buy very little produce from late June until frost. Since we make a special effort to eat healthily, that saves a ton of $$! I also shop at Aldi once every 4-6 weeks. I figure by shopping less often, we're also saving $$ on gas. We combine library day with errand day, and do piano lessons on co-op day, so that we're not always running to town. Carol
We are a family of 2 and I spend approx 200 a month on food. and we eat pretty decently. I do buy dinner at work when Im there, I spend approx 50.00 a month at work on lunches-depens on the week/# of shifts worked etc.
I try to keep us under 100 a week for everything. That includes diapers for both little ones (I don't think DD will ever decide to use the potty), toiletries, cleaning supplies and groceries. There are some weeks when I have to pull of 50 bucks for everything. On those weeks we eat spagetti once or twice and a meal of dogs and mac and cheese. It is much easier to stay on budget if I make a menu. So I make one everyweek. I then figure out how much it is going to cost to buy everything, if it is above my budget I pull the most expensive meal and replace it with spagetti, if it is still too high then I pull another meal and replace it with dogs and mac., I hate weeks when it is too tight, but I have learned to make it work. I figure if I want to keep staying home then I have to provide the needs of the family at a price that is within our means.
We have a family of 4 (kids are 11 and 8), and spend about 120/week on groceries (at the grocery store) and then about 400/month at Walmart or Target (there's food in there as well as other stuff). Eating out is probably the worst thing as far as money goes. Try to cut back on that. We've been eating out once a week lately and that HAS to stop b/c it really adds up. As for you dh - mine is the same way. He won't eat left overs either. When we've gone on trips, I'll pack bread and cold-cuts and he'll still want to pull over to buy food. He's like a big kid who GETS his way .
My dh is picky. He won't eat just anything. I kinda will. I mean I checked out that Hillbilly Housewife menu....my dh wouldn't eat 95% of what was listed. lol. He also hates casseroles. He should have been born to wealthy parents. lol. Oh well. We do share a love for sushi and I know that is expensive.
My DH usually won't eat chicken (or any poultry. He calls it "dirty bird"). There is one way that I make it that he actually likes. But if all we can afford that week is Chicken, then he eats it without complaint. He'll try anything once and really likes having leftovers around to "snack" on (if a plate full is a snack). I guess I'm blessed that way.
I read this on Mary Hunt's site a long time ago. It's how a family of 4 can eat out for like 10.00 at McD's. Dad orders a value meal, supersized. The two kids get one two cheeseburger meal, supersized. Mom gets a sandwich from the dollar menu. They ask for two extra cups. Mom and one kid get soda from dad and the other kid. Mom gets some fries from Dad and the kids, and the kids share the fries they have left. If I'm remembering that all correctly, they all have fries, a soda, and a sandwich.
I do something similar to that, Becky. I get a value meal (whatever's cheapest), two 2 cheeseburger value meals, and 1 value sized drink. The kids all get a cheeseburger, and we split all the fries (3) evenly. Since there are 3 big drinks, the kids share 2 of them. It's much cheaper than 4 happy meals and a value meal (at McD's). We rarely eat there anymore though, because the prices have gone up a lot lately. We can eat at a nice sit-down place for a few dollars more. We rarely do that either though.
We do that, too. My only problem would be with the drinks. Since drinks are refillable, I feel it would be wrong to share them with another person.
We don't need to refill the drinks since we get the large ones. If we have small drinks, I get every one one.
Jackie don't feel bad about getting a refil and sharing. Those big pops are only abut five cents.! does everyone's McDonalds still have the 2 cheeseburger meal??? I wanted that the other day-- minus the cheese....... but I didn't even see it on the menu and not even a plain hamburger was on the menu!!!! when i worked there I bought the happy meals.... I knew someday I'd have kids I still have the dalmation ornaments and the first few tiny beany babies and some disney toys in movie cases from happy meals..... I didn't have to buy the drink so I spent .84 cents for my lunch every day...... we also go half off.
No, they do not have them here. I thought it was a TX thing. The dollar menu is also MUCH smaller here (no Big 'n Tasty or Double cheeseburger). When we left TN I could still get a Big 'n Tasty or 2 cheeseburger meal for 3.19. There is no 2 cheesburger meal here, and the B&T meal is almost $5.
Even on the rare occasion that I do go to McDonald's my poor deprived children don't get Happy Meals. Even the 'big kid' meals are not enough to ever fill up my ds5 and sometimes not enough to fill up ds3. So we get 5 double cheeseburgers and 2 large fries. Then we come home for drinks and to eat on real plates. I know I'm odd, but I hate eating fast food out of the wrapper..lol.
Our value meals start at about 5 bucks here and go up. It costs us about 20-25 for McDonalds or BK or Wendy's. A regular restraunt costs us 30-50 depending on what one we go to. We eat Subway alot, they have 3 footlongs (just enough to feed the 5 of us) for 12.99 all the time here, we get that hit the store for a bag of chips and a 2 liter of soda and come home to eat it.
I find that one of the benefits of eating out is no dishes so even if we take it home it is NO dishes. LOL. Unless we have paper plates. Now...there are exceptions to the rule of course...but then they wash their own plates. LOL.
