How much should it cost to feed your family?

[luna-mia]

http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/FoodPlans/U.../fooddec03.pdf



How much should it cost to feed
your family??

This is a neato link by the FDA

[Tree0164]

I am below it... we spend about $300-$350. Family of 5- 3 boys under 6.

[sdc2027]

Family of two adults- Thrifty program(290$)- we beat that easily by $100

[nate]

Originally Posted by Tree0164

I am below it... we spend about $300-$350. Family of 5- 3 boys under 6.

That's amazing! Congrats.

[terry1156]

Great link! Thanks for sharing.

[pschale]

We are below that . I usually spend about $300-350 for food, cleaning, toilteries and paper products for a family of 4.

[Lori63]

I spend less than the thrifty plan, with three growing boys (16,13 and 9). My cost includes non food items also.

[mom-from-missouri]

I spend around $40 a week for groceries 3 children 8, 6 and 6 yrs and myself. I do most of my shopping at our local aldi store. about 2 times a year, I got to a nearby town to the amish store, and get my flour and sugar in 50 lb bags. it is so much cheaper, and i put into airtight containers in the freezer, and it keeps fresh and bug free. i usually get my meat when it is marked down(go early in the day). i also have a garden. i visit the day old bread store. This $40 a week also includes my childrens school lunches, which i pack. but, we do order pizza one night a week-at a whopping $20. Latley the girls have wanted to make their own pizza, so I am trying to enforce that idea buy giving them the money we saved for their bank account.

[Tree0164]

I posted my $300-$350 almost 6 months ago. Food has gone up since then and my 6 yrs old is eating alot more. The last two months my food bill has been averaging $375 this includes some other stuff you buy at the grocery store as well.

[pschale]

Food has gone up but I have still managed to keep the food bill down to $300-$350 including things like toiletries, paper products, laundry, etc. I do this by making my own cleaning products and using cloth napkins, rags to clean with. I use paper towels to drain food only and most of the time I can use a colander instead.

[gypzye]

Fascinating.

For my family of 2 (me and FH) the thrifty plan is $290. I'd say, generously, we spend $50 a week at the store. Probably every third week we have a bill more like $75 and every once in a grand, grand while we hit $100--that's usually when I've run out of all the staples like canned veggies and pasta or we're buying specialty spices for a new dish--but that's really rare. So without poring over our bank statements, I'd say we're keeping it at about $250 for the two of us.

Which is funny, because I was easily spending $300/month on just ME before he came along.

[aukxsona]

Broken Link

[LuxLiving]

United States Department of Agriculture - Home

search 'thrifty plan' and look for the 2007 one.

[Tree0164]

My food bill has gone up to about $500-$600 a month compared to 4 years when I posted. Now I have 3 boys under 10 and they are starting to eat more and more.

[MonkeyMama]

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publication...fFoodMay09.pdf

Last time I looked these numbers were insane (like 50% more than we spend - even on thrifty plan).

We still come in about 20% under the thrifty plan. Which I still find interesting because I wouldn't describe our grocery shopping as way thrifty, by any means. We try to cut costs, but we also splurge plenty on our food.

[Tree0164]

A comparsion of 5 years is that my food bill is on average about $600 dollars now a month with 3 boys under 11 years ago.

[terces]

Tree---- it just gets worse and worse as boys get bigger.

I have two boys 13 and 18 and I'm happy if I can keep our monthly grocery bill close to $500. Looking at the chart I can see why. Basically my boys are in the most expensive categories. Definitely explains alot.

[rosemary_sanders]

It depends upon your family size and the age of the children. When my 3 children were younger (1 girl, 2 boys) I spent an average of $650 per month. Now I spend between $375 to $550 per month. Having a garden helps, as well as shopping the "Reduced Sections" at the grocery stores. Also, I bake muffins, cookies and birthday cakes to incorporate healthly ingredients and save money. Try to stock up on staples for your pantry, it really helps when there are times you don't have a lot of money for groceries.







kajeet: the cell phone service for kids.

[RAYT721]

A safe formula is to budget for around 15% of your takehome income (weekly/monthly) for food. If you can't work in that ratio, you'll need to adjust other budget categories to compensate. I use a formula of 10% savings/emergency, 35% housing, 15% transportation, 15% food, and then the remaining 25% of our income for disposable needs like cable tv/internet, phone, gifts and entertainment, minimal credit card debt, etc.

We don't have a very high income so our categories provide lower budgetable amounts but we manage. If one night we have steak, another we'll have grilled cheese.

We do use coupons, shop by sale flyers, plan ahead, don't shop hungry, no kids to lug for impulse, etc. The more you shop around the outer end of your store, the healthier the ingredients. Portion control is also important to reduce food costs and wastes. We use our freezer. We only pay cash for groceries. We don't go out often except for $1 side salads from Wendys instead of individual ingredients. We take multivitamins to insure nutrition. I pack lunches and snacks for work.

The food budget, however, is a priority right after housing and transportation. I'd rather go without consumer splurging than food. We eat well, exercise, and take time and make time for family communications about goals, dreams, wants and needs.