If you are new here, my food budget has been $500 a month for the last year. The year before that it was $450. And the year before that it was $400. I have 6 kids aged nearly 14 down to 2, stair-steps. Here, I’ll prove it:
When we were working Gazelle Intense to get out of debt (in 2005,) Our food budget was $185 for 5 of us. My 3 children were aged 4, 2, and 1. Once we were debt free, I budgeted $50 per person per month, no matter their age. I gave myself a $50 raise when I became pregnant with the next little person. Even though I didn’t eat double (I gained weight like I was eating double!) I used the extra money to buy a few more convenience items to compensate for being sick while pregnant.
(Oh and this budget is just food–not paper products, not pet items, not soap….)
Over the last 5 years (hmmm what happened 5 years ago? I can almost put my finger on it…..) food prices have steadily risen about 60% (The average inflation rate is 2.9% food is a commodity and effected differently than normal inflation.) What used to cost $1 is now $1.50 and sometimes $2. So raising my expectations from $50 per person per month to this new formula made sense.
Under the new recommendations my budget would be: $550–which is plenty for us without allowing me to be extravagant.
But with our recent financial crisis, I wondered if I could spend less. (Interesting to note that I‘m not the only one spending less, and Americans in general spend less on food than most developed countries.)
So this month we dropped our budget down to $400 again. Oh, if you had heard my heart whine about this when I was at the store, we would both be embarrassed. Case in point:
“Excuse me, Miss. Come with me. I want you to live in a big house that has no finished floors, or a working kitchen. The bathrooms don’t have doors, some don’t have walls. But it’s clean(ish), and dry, and warm. You’ll work 4 mini-jobs and your husband one big one. (Oh, yes. We found him. He’s alive.) There will be enough money there for you to pay your bills, but not more. And here’s $400 cash–you’ll get it each month. Use it to buy food for your 6 children (Yes, they are all safe too.)”
Do you think she would feel sorry for herself? Me either. It puts it all into perspective for me.
So here it is, November 27th–only 4 days left in the month. And I’m looking in my envelope to see what I have left….drumroll….$100 and some change! We have bread, we have milk. We have a decent pantry. I don’t need to spend again until December. We are soooo blessed!
I did a terrible job keeping track of my receipts this month and can only find $103.60 of what I spent to document for you. I went to Aldi twice, Dirty Don’s twice, the Bread Outlet once, McDonalds once (I know…just being real), Dollar Tree twice, Walmart 3 times. I meant to go to Costco, but never made it there (Hmm think we discovered why I still have $100 :)) Some big purchases included a $9 spiral cut ham from Aldi (Which fed us for 3 meals and made us feel like kings.) I also spent $10 of the money to buy food related Christmas gifts for DH’s stocking and $15 to buy treats for school and our family worship gathering.
I’m planning on a grocery receipt envelope in my purse for December so I can do a better job documenting what we spend. Which will be likely to guarantee that I do a terrible job with my food shopping that month–but hey, we’re all real people, right?
There were a few meals that we didn’t have to cook: There was a Thanksgiving potluck at church and my mom brought extra so we could come empty handed; my niece’s birthday dinner; a date night we used a gift card for and friends served babysat our kids and fed them pizza. One night my Mom brought over Enchiladas; and one Saturday we worked at her place all day and she fixed us breakfast and lunch. She is hosting Thanksgiving for us, and when I asked what I could bring, she said “A lettuce salad.” That has eased our spending quite a bit. Starting to see how awesome my mom is, again.
I’m putting the extra money in a secret stash. I will use it to stock up on good food deals when I spot one.
When I write about what we spend each month, it raises a few eyebrows. I think anyone could do what we do. It gets tricky for those determined to be vegans, or gluten free (and buy a lot of prepackaged gluten free stuff), or refuse to eat anything not labeled organic, and those who follow every new “healthy” trend out there. But I don’t recommend anyone slash their grocery budget in half the first month and expect things to go well. Here’s a better way to get started.
“hmmm what happened 5 years ago? I can almost put my finger on it…..” Oh, I know, I know!!!
The link at the bottom of this is giving me a warning that I’m going to an unsafe page. Just wanted to check before proceeding. 🙂
It’s fine, for some reason Google doesn’t like my security certificate, um hello it’s fatcow….Very well known host
Great article…beautiful family <3
I figured…just wanted to make sure! 🙂
Great article! I am so happy that you opened my eyes to going paper free. I have saved a huge amount not buying toilet paper, paper towel, etc. I now use cut up t-shirts and have not looked back. Am shocked at how much these unnecessary, horrible for the environment paper products cost now that I don’t buy them. Thanks for that!
We are a family of 8 also and will join you in the $400/month challenge. :). But I’ll start in January since we’ll have extra food expenditures for lots of Christmas gatherings.
A budget blog seems the right place to report back on my laundry project.
Before the industrial revolution every thing was heated with wood fires leaving an ash which made lye, the FREE degreasing agent. What actually cleaned clothes was the ‘bashing’ with paddles , feet, hands etc. in the streams of running water. Its the pressure of the water that takes out the dirt. As people moved into towns and industrialisation took place, coal became the fuel, it had to be bought not gathered. Its ashes are not suitable to produce lye, it is smuttier and makes everything – housing and clothing much dirtier. The laundry industry was born, not having running water, rinsing was inadequate (moving 50 buckets of water to do a weeks wash, often up stairs!). Soap residue was left in clothes which became ‘dull’. Optical brighteners (the blue cube) were born. Manufacturers are still adding more and more chemicals to the mix and advertising hard. I still remember the ‘ring around the collar’ from an advert when I lived in Detroit 27 years ago – that marketing firm was GOOD.
I have been washing without any product other than a little washing up liquid solution for a month now. My clothes are unbelievably CLEANER! I am getting out ingrained grubbiness that the products couldn’t. Caveat – not all of them! The clothes are softer, brighter and iron easier. My husband (a hard sell) commented on the brightness of his shirts (and no ring around the collar) and the softness of his jeans. My daughter has tried it and is raving about it. We both noticed soap suds in the wash left over from previous washes, how much detergent had we been using! It is almost as if the soap residues attracted the dirt. How conned do we feel by the manufacturers.
I tried washing in cold but my machine doesn’t tumble the wash enough, I have decided to stick at 30 degrees and not stuff as much in as possible (a bad habit I had!) to give a good bashing. Savings wise I calculated on saving over $110 a year for the two of us with 6 loads a week. I imagine that would go up substantially for your size family.
Warning : we are so brainwashed it actually hurts you not to put product in the machine!
Hope all is going well with your foundation work, Christmas is family and friends, laughter and song, the surroundings don’t matter. Happy Christmas.
Thanks for another great post! The link at the very end of your post isn’t working for me. “Here’s a better way to get started.” It has errors from both my phone and laptop. Thanks!!
Kristine, try the first steps tab at the top of my blog
It’s so odd that grocery prices never went up before he was elected. 😉