S/O Finances $1000 a month for food?

amother

Valerian

Yesterday at 4:51 pm

Family of 4
I spend around $200-250 a week on food house supplies not counted
My cart is strictly milk eggs cheese bread meat chicken veggies fruit I buy one Shabbos treat
Occasionally I will throw in a bag of chips or chocolate bar but really minimal on processed foods I find that chicken nuggets pizza snaps and the like really add a lot of $$ but not much sustenance

↑ cupcake123 ↓

Yesterday at 4:52 pm

Im actually embarrassed because it's only came out to around 900. And there was some pizza store bills which I included. Am I missing something? Am I the crazy one ? I even went and looked in target app to see maybe I buy food there and wanted to count it. This was for month of November. But I'm thinking all it takes is going away one shabbos and saves you 100. So maybe I went away.

The only thing I can attribute is that I bake like crazy. Like a few times a week cookies, cake....

amother

↑ Dahlia

Yesterday at 4:54 pm

emee2 wrote:

I’m also curious. For those that say go to Aldi, do you go to multiple stores each week? Like I would also love to save on my bill. I want to know all the tricks.

I find I need a produce refill mid week. So I go to one store Monday and one store Thurs, and I plan what makes more sense to get at each store. Monday is my overall cheap supermarket and Thursday rotates among where the things I need to fill in happen to be cheapest

↑ cupcake123 ↓

Yesterday at 4:54 pm

amother Valerian wrote:

Same! I read all ingredients. I will spend a little more to get less ingredients but I guess in the end probably saves me money because I skip a lot of stuff.

amother

Copper

Yesterday at 4:58 pm

I always thought we spent about $1000 on food per month and numbers like the ones here are crazy.
This month I decided to track carefully, every last minute shop for 2 items etc..
And we’re at around $1100 with 10 days left for the month. I expect with Chanukah etc we’ll
Spend a drop more and get to $1600
Family of 5.
This does include Costco (go approx every 5-6 weeks).
I don’t make myself crazy, if we need it we buy it, we have chicken/meat around 2X per week. I make lots of food shab so we eat leftovers Sunday.
Salmon once a week, DH eats a piece (high protein diet) I stretch it for the kids and me-in a burrito etc.
The other day/s pareve usually chili or fake ground beef tacos
Generally I bag my own pretzels chips etc. much cheaper like that.
Kids eat cereal and milk for breakfast or yogurt (we buy a big one and they take from there).
I bake myself (challah etc)
I make my own dips.
With all this..we’re still a relatively small family, no teens yet, we eat chalav stam..shop Aldi and Walmart mostly and still…I would assume $1500 per month average.
I can’t imagine how all of you do it with heimish brands chalav yisrael and large families with teens do it!!!

amother

↑ Mimosa ↓

Yesterday at 5:11 pm

cupcake123 wrote:

We never go away for Shabbos or yom tov so I guess that’s an additional expense

I make about 2 lbs chicken cutlets for my family

My gourmet Glatt bill is usually $250 beg of week and another $100 end of week, more if having guests.

Fruit
Frozen fruit for smoothies
Yogurt
Snack bags for kids (I try to only get the cheaper ones)
I rarely if ever buy baked goods, I bake my own cookies and challah
Salmon one night a week for dh and I
Chicken most nights
Eggs
Flour
OJ
Milk
Cheese
Bread
Vegetables

For Shabbos I buy broccoli slaw mix, capon, boneless flanken, chicken cutlets and bones for soup, veg for soup, gefilte fish, kishka, sorbet.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Yesterday at 6:53 pm

cupcake123 wrote:

Thank you so much for coming to this thread and posting what you spend. (Sorry I didn't respond right away, busy with hw and bedtime).

I spend so much more than that but a lot is convenience food. I'm trying to convince my husband that if I cut my work hours and make more homemade food, baking, I can cut my food expenses by a lot.

I'm just curious how much you spend for Shabbos and how you would break it down. We currently spend around 200 to 300 a week just on Shabbos, eight to twelve people (adults) depending on the week. Do you buy meat, chicken, salmon?

amother

↑ OP ↓

Yesterday at 7:05 pm

amother Mimosa wrote:

This sounds doable for me. I wonder if it really makes such a big difference to make all baked goods myself, currently I don't bake and buy everything.

amother

Blushpink

Yesterday at 7:14 pm

I don’t have exact numbers.
We get wic so I never pay for milk and some other stuff but I have plenty extra every month I give away to others
Family of five oldest is three so I don’t send snacks except two bags of snack every month.
We only eat one hechsher for chicken and it doesn’t really go on sale
Only eat chalav and pas yisrael but I do eat plain ou so I can buy more in Walmart.
I am not so careful about what I buy though I dont buy things sometimes because they are super expensive and I do get the cheapest company usually.
We usually spend about 750 a month not including disposables but it includes about 150 in formula.
Wic benefits is probably about 150 a month that I use, I give away most of what I get.

amother

Jean

Yesterday at 7:25 pm

How is that possible? Family of 7 kh and I spend around 800/week on groceries. In don’t buy premade stuff like pizza, takeout, bakery. We eat only cholov yisroel and heimesh hechsheirim. Protein carb and vegi every night. Serve breakfast and supper to everyone. 3 of us have lunch from home as well. And I don’t shop at expensive store but actually one of the cheapest - krm

amother

Teal

Yesterday at 8:07 pm

Tip - you have to weigh up time versus money.
I have time to go to aldi most weeks, but on a super busy work week I cant fit it in
On a typical week , I will spend approx $60-70 at aldi, and if I look carefully at the reciept I see that I usualy saved $20-25 based on the current prices at my kosher grocery store.
At aldi I buy eggs, orange juice, sometimes lemonade for a shabbos treat, flour, sugar, rolled oats, canola oil, olive oil, salmon, fruit and veg.
At walmart I buy raisins, prunes, almond milk, cereal, frozen veg
Those items are cheapest of all at those stores (in my city that is)

amother

Yolk

Yesterday at 8:31 pm

cupcake123 wrote:

How many people? Are kids little or older?

amother

Carnation

Yesterday at 8:45 pm

Wow this is validating, I thought we spent an insane amount on food. We are a family of 4 but with lots of allergies so food is complicated and expensive. I haven’t checked recently but probably about 1500 and we don’t really eat out.
I shop at Costco for produce as much as I can. Trader Joe’s is also more affordable. I buy things on sale when I can. I don’t buy pre cut or pre washed veggies

amother

DarkYellow ↓

Today at 4:31 am

I spend approx $1600/month for a family of 7 in Lakewood, not including household supplies.
Only chalav Yisroel but we do eat OU
DH and I take lunch from home, the rest have lunch in school
My trick will sound like it makes no sense, but it works for me. I do orders online because I work and have no time to go to the store. The grocery is more expensive because they have the most convenient deliveries, but I spend hundreds less because there are no impulse purchases. I always start my order with their online Specials.
I go to Trader Joe’s, Walmart, or Aldi once a week for produce. I also order OU items from Target or Walmart.
My daughter and I bake tons so we never buy cake, and the kids take for snack.
I look for deals on snacks and stock up, and we limit it based on how many hours each kid is in school. We also buy large packs for the kids to bag. (We noticed that snack was a huge expense so we worked on cutting it down with the kids still feeling good about their options.)
Yogurt is limited to one per kid per day.
Breakfast is yogurt, cereal, eggs, toast, pancakes.
Supper is chicken or meat 3 nights a week, Sunday is leftovers from Shabbos, Thursday is homemade pizza, omelettes, etc. Every supper has protein, starch, vegetable, and in the winter soup.
We’re home every Shabbos, I make everything. I recently started buying dips because that was taking me too much time.
I do not feel that buying less prepared food is a burden even though I work, it’s my privilege to feed my family healthy, homemade food, and I splurge with extra cleaning help to clean up from all the cooking instead of buying.

amother

Cherry ↓

Today at 5:27 am

cupcake123 wrote:

Cupcake123 thanks for all the detail. Can you reminde how many pple and how old oldest?

Separately,
When people on this thread post family of 5 do they mean 5 kids or 2 adults +3 kids?