Love the transparency in your posts all around! One genuine question about this one: how do you manage to keep your food budget at $732/mo with two adults, two kids, one toddler?
We are eating food cooked at home, which is a lot cheaper then frozen meals and much cheaper than restaurant food. We have a dinner rotation with housemates (and a neighbor) where we take turns cooking dinner, so Julia and I each usually cook once a week.
What I cooked last night:
3lb sausages, bought on sale @ $2/lb
I often buy meat on sale and keep it in our chest freezer
2lb pasta @ $1.20/lb
2lb tomatoes @ $2/lb
2lb onions @ $2/lb
2 bell peppers @ $2/each
Usually there’d also be a vegan or vegetarian option, but we didn’t happen to have anyone who needed that any last night. If we did I probably would have baked some tofu, 1lb @ $3.50/lb.
Overall cost, assuming I’d included the tofu, is ~$25 when you count the small amount of amortized spices, cooking oil, etc. This would be dinner for about 10 people, and several lunches. About $2/meal. $732 is ~$5/person/day, and lunch and breakfast are generally much lighter and cheaper than dinner.
My lunch is also provided by my work, and once a week we have dinner with my extended family at my dad’s house. I’m also not counting the electricity used to run the stove, but I think that’s probably too small to matter?
A much larger missing expense is the opportunity cost of each adult’s time cooking, but I can combine cooking with watching the kids to some extent and it’s also something we enjoy.
Love the transparency in your posts all around! One genuine question about this one: how do you manage to keep your food budget at $732/mo with two adults, two kids, one toddler?
We are eating food cooked at home, which is a lot cheaper then frozen meals and much cheaper than restaurant food. We have a dinner rotation with housemates (and a neighbor) where we take turns cooking dinner, so Julia and I each usually cook once a week.
What I cooked last night:
3lb sausages, bought on sale @ $2/lb
I often buy meat on sale and keep it in our chest freezer
2lb pasta @ $1.20/lb
2lb tomatoes @ $2/lb
2lb onions @ $2/lb
2 bell peppers @ $2/each
Usually there’d also be a vegan or vegetarian option, but we didn’t happen to have anyone who needed that any last night. If we did I probably would have baked some tofu, 1lb @ $3.50/lb.
Overall cost, assuming I’d included the tofu, is ~$25 when you count the small amount of amortized spices, cooking oil, etc. This would be dinner for about 10 people, and several lunches. About $2/meal. $732 is ~$5/person/day, and lunch and breakfast are generally much lighter and cheaper than dinner.
My lunch is also provided by my work, and once a week we have dinner with my extended family at my dad’s house. I’m also not counting the electricity used to run the stove, but I think that’s probably too small to matter?
A much larger missing expense is the opportunity cost of each adult’s time cooking, but I can combine cooking with watching the kids to some extent and it’s also something we enjoy.