what's your food budget? and selling stuff when you don't have time

[bethasaver]

What is your average monthly food budget for a family? So, how many kids and adults? How much is for groceries and how much is for eating out?

My other question is: What's the best way to unload household stuff that should be worth some cash, when you don't have time?

Not enough stuff for a garage sale (besides how much time that would take). I am offered more overtime than I can manage to work, so unless I know that I can make more than that per hour doing things like selling stuff, I just work OT unless I'm doing family stuff or necessary tasks, sleeping etc. I've sold quite a bit of stuff on ebay in the past, and that's very time consuming as well. Ideas of how to quickly unload stuff and still make some cash? Or am I better off trying to donate the stuff and take the tax deduction?

Thanks savers.

[Nika]

about $900 on groceries and lunches at work (we go over if DH does not have travel days where his meals are covered). We live in NYC where everything is expensive.

Eating out about $500+ average. I've been trying to get it down, but it is pretty hard when both parents are working, baby goes to daycare and good grocery store is 20 minutes away. So some days we ran out of groceries, but it is past 7 when we get home, too tired and hungry to go to the store, come back, than cook and clean up. I know, with more work we could plan it better, but I feel too tired sometimes.

[optimist]

$300/month per person on food, including alcohol and paper goods/cleaning supplies.

[twest]

We spend about 200/month per person. There are three of us so around 600/month. We typically do buy too many convenience foods and I am really wanting to work on our food budget but this is what it is right now. That does include the eating out that we do as well.

[bethasaver]

good grocery store is 20 minutes away.So some days we ran out of groceries

Does good grocery store deliver?

[bethasaver]

We spend about 200/month per person. There are three of us so around 600/month. We typically do buy too many convenience foods and I am really wanting to work on our food budget but this is what it is right now. That does include the eating out that we do as well.

That's a pretty low budget. Convenience foods are cheaper than fresh, go figure.

[MonkeyMama]

Our food budget is about $125 per person in our household (monthly). We homecook most our meals. & this includes a fair amount of luxury (soda, alcohol, fresh fish, steak, lots of meat, etc.). Just to say that this is hardly a bare bones food budget. There are 4 of us, so obviously cooking bigger meals/buying bulk helps.

On the selling things - probably best to just donate. I only donate things. If we can get more than $5, my spouse has the time to sell things. Everything under $5 just gets passed on or donated. He is not working, though is plenty busy, so $5 limit works. I am sure if he worked full-time, that limit would be much higher.

[isaac]

$75/week for 2 of us is our average, this includes everything from hygiene, paper towels, soaps, & my wife makes us breakfast I have with an 8oz redbull every morning, cooks dinner for 3, we eat 2 and I take the 3rd for lunch along with mixed raw fruit and vegetables. She cooks everything fresh, very little if any processed foods & oddly enough we stay skinny.. We do all our shopping at ALDI, no coupons.

[isaac]

Ideas of how to quickly unload stuff and still make some cash? Or am I better off trying to donate the stuff and take the tax deduction?

Idk about the tax deduction but.. Craigslist. All you have to do is post a very generic ad with a single terrible photo and list as pickup only. No finding boxes or packing to ship. If the item doesn't get hits Craigslist also has FREE section you can have people come take your stuff for free.

[bethasaver]

[QUOTE=MonkeyMama;335729]Our food budget is about $125 per person in our household (monthly). We homecook most our meals. & this includes a fair amount of luxury (soda, alcohol, fresh fish, steak, lots of meat, etc.). Just to say that this is hardly a bare bones food budget. There are 4 of us, so obviously cooking bigger meals/buying bulk helps.

Wow Monkey Mama, that's phenominal. What's the eating out budget?

There are 4 of us and the lowest I can comfortably get ours is $775 per month- this is for groceries only no toiletries, paper goods. That's with using coupons, shopping sales and going to Aldi. We cook nearly everything from scratch, so very little in convenience foods.

It's interesting to hear what others spend and how they shop

[MonkeyMama]

I think home cooking is really the most of it. But we live in California and produce is pretty abundant/affordable. We shop around sales. Not a lot of coupon clipping and not a huge plan-ahead strategy, but when we see things on sale we can plan meals around that on the fly. We also have a Target grocery which helps with some of the cat food, generic cereal, snacks, etc. Both the grocery store and Target have a lot of "buy x and get $5 or $10 off next time" kind of deals. Plus we get 5% off with Target RedCard. So we can regularly save 10% on our bills, with these deals. IF we spend $100 at a time, and can usually take $10 off the top.

I just keep a $500 budget for all food and household items. It includes pet food, cat litter, too. So, if we eat out at all, it generally offsets the non-food part. So just $500/month on food. Period. We really don't eat out much at all (never without coupons). We don't drink coffee or anything like that.

Which reminds me, we mostly drink water. It's one of those things people think is weird or depriving, but I am totally happy to drink mostly water. Buying drinks can sure add up.

[Thrif-t]

We are a family of 5 two teenage dd's and 1 tween son. We average $700 per month in groceries and all the other stuff, no pets. We don't eat out except a few times a year so no budget for that. I cook from scratch so not a lot of processed foods. I'm trying to get it down but it just keeps creeping up. For the working mom try crockinggirls.com for crock pot recipes on those late nights!!

[Goldy1]

I can say that having a child(he is three) had done wonders to stop us from eating out. He's picky and I make him healthy homecooked stuff(some he eats, some he doesn't) but he won't eat restaurant food) so we don't go and we save.

[LuckyRobin]

Ours is $600 a month for 3ish adults and 2 children aged 16 and 12, but I am working on bringing that down. Our situation is a bit atypical though. My husband is gone 2 weeks out of every 4 for work and work covers all meals when he's gone. My mother eats dinner with us almost every night though and sometimes breakfast, too. And that's for about a 90% organic, sustainable diet.

We spend $300 on grass fed, pasture-raised, organic beef, pork, and chicken from a local farm each month. I spend about $100 on staples, $50 on wild-caught fish, and about $150 on produce (though not right now as the garden is in full swing still). We have chickens and ducks so we have our own eggs. I have canned a lot this summer so I am hoping the amount I spend on produce can be reduced.

We eat out once or twice a month and spend about $80 to $100. And my husband spends about $30 per travel day which is twice a month. Almost everything else I cook from scratch using weekly meal plans I make up each Sunday (though I do keep around a few cans of chili and soup for when I get sick or lazy). I imagine that if I bought conventionally grown food, but still unprocessed, it would be about $400 a month with careful planning.

[EarlyRetirementJoy]

Our food budget for two adults is $100 per week total. We usually come in around $80 - $85 on purely food, with the additional $15 - $20 going toward pet food, personal care products and paper goods.

Our eating out budget is $175 a month, but we rarely go over $75.

Disclaimers: We're vegetarian, so our per meal costs may be a bit lower. Also, we're both newly retired so we now have time and energy to prepare all our meals at home. When we do go out, we increasingly try and take advantage of the Happy Hour specials at our favorite restaurants, or use a Groupon. We also like to have a glass of nice wine at home so we can avoid the hugh restaurant markups. The pre-wine dinner at home has become a nice tradition. We wait to pour until we're dressed in our going out duds, which elevates the whole thing very nicely.