She told me they couldn't help us when I told her we spend $300 a month on a family of five (one doesn't eat yet!)! She said the average family of 5 spends $110-$150 A WEEK on food and paper products. HUH? And I thought I was doing a lousy job with my purchases. I may spend that on occasion, but not all the time. And, I can do better!

nak

Wow! They'd reject me, too. LOL

I think www.thedollarstretcher.com had a survey on that recently and I was shocked how much most families spent a month.

Sil spends $150+ a week for 4. I spend that a month for our four! lol

edited to fix link

Oh goodness, you make me feel like I'm starving my family now, lol. I spend about $50/month on food, for 5, but then again, 3 are toddlers. And it is really tight, tho. We recently got food stamps, so we'll be able to get more fresh fruit and produce now!

WOW I wish I could do that well right now... what type of foods do you guys eat, MamaWolf?

Originally posted by *snowflake*
WOW I wish I could do that well right now... what type of foods do you guys eat, MamaWolf?

Well, the kids don't eat a whole lot since they are toddlers. DH is on atkins right now, so he's the worst to buy for. :( The kids love pasta (can coat with a little butter and garlic salt!), sandwiches (I stock up on Aunt millie's wheat when it goes on sale for .99), salads, pretty much anything. I have a deep freeze so that helps A LOT. I can't bake bread for as cheap as I can get it on sale, so I stock up when it is. Chicken quarters are big here, too. Why pay 1.99 or more a pound for chicken legs/thighs when you can get a 10# bag of chicken quarters for 4.90 (or 1.90 when on sale, I usually buy up to 100 lbs.)?? I have dh seperate into thigh/leg pieces and freeze up to 4 total quarters in a bag. I also buy the bags of individually frozen chicken breasts at meijer when on sale b1g1f. Averages to about 5.99 a 5 lb. bag. They are good for dh to just pop one out to heat up for himself. Frozen veggies are big, too, at 1lb. for .77 at Wal-mart. They are pretty good, too. Going to try to switch to organic now, those are 1.50 a bag on sale. I also buy assorted pork chops when on sale and individually flash freeze so dh can individually pull them out to heat up and eat. Usually on sale for 1.39/lb. And I get 6-pk Romaine Hearts for 3.49! Oldest dd LOVES salad!

The kids don't eat too much meat. They're not big fans of it, really. They like veggies and pasta better. And especially fruits! Oh, goodness, I can never keep fruit past grocery day! lol So I try to keep fruit cocktail on hand for those in between times.

Sometimes I do spend more than $50, especially if there is a good sale. I stock up when I can! If you have enough meat frozen, all you really need to buy is veggies, fruits, and bread. Really cuts down on costs. We also get WIC, which helps out a lot on the milk, cheese, cereal, eggs, juice, and peanut butter. I don't know what I'd do without it! I pry wouldn't use milk. They don't need it anyway, right? They can get plenty of calcium from cheese and veggies, and we'd pry do without juice. Fresh fruit is better anyway.

Anywho, after rambling away, a deep freeze is definitely worth the investment if you can get one! I got the biggest chest freezer I could at the time!

Thanks for sharing all that! It gives me some good ideas and things to try (or buy!). :)

LOL about the deep freeze... we got a nice freezer at Lowe's a few months ago for $50!! It was one of those scratch & dent things - someone had returned it and they repaired it. But the thing is sitting here completely empty now. I've been trying to decide whether I should leave it plugged in... lol Is it worth the electric? I dunno. I am afraid it would be a melted mess if I unplugged it. I've never had a big freezer before. But I am looking forward to stocking it again... someday. :D

Well, I have no idea how much we spend on groceries. My dh does all of the shopping and he doesn't want to share the finances with me. I'm working on him. I finally got him to agree to let me keep all of the grocery reciepts for this month so I can see what we spend. Right now, our food bill is being subsidized by the community because my dh doesn't have a job. So about every 6 weeks or so we recieve a shipment of food - usually 4 boxes. Unfortunately, some of the food is stuff that we just don't eat - like white rice, and packaged mixes, etc. But kosher meat is very expensive and that's how we are getting it right now.

We got a deep freeze - I was so excitedwhen my dh decided that it was a worthy investment. For some unknown reason, I thought that I would be able to bake in advance and freeze. ha! he bought one of the smaller ones and it's packed full of meat. No room for my baking.

Originally posted by *snowflake*
Thanks for sharing all that! It gives me some good ideas and things to try (or buy!). :)

LOL about the deep freeze... we got a nice freezer at Lowe's a few months ago for $50!! It was one of those scratch & dent things - someone had returned it and they repaired it. But the thing is sitting here completely empty now. I've been trying to decide whether I should leave it plugged in... lol Is it worth the electric? I dunno. I am afraid it would be a melted mess if I unplugged it. I've never had a big freezer before. But I am looking forward to stocking it again... someday. :D


I *believe* a full freezer uses less energy. We used to buy gallons of water and a neighbor always wanted the empty jugs to put in the freezer for this reason.