S/O $150k a year- low food budget- how??

amother

Emerald

Today at 1:27 pm

I have a family of 4. Live out of town. Keep cy. Host a lot for Shabbos ans YT. Lids don't get lunches in school. We spend around 1200/month on groceries. We buy from walmart whatever we can. Frozen veggies thay don't need to be checked (according to Star-k) like green beans, peppers, etc. we get there. Salmon we get from Walmart or Aldi or Trader Joe's. We don't buy prepackaged snacks. We pack chips, pretzels, popcorn, cheese slices, veggies and fruit.

We don't have fleishigs every night. One night is Shabbos leftovers, maybe another night or two is fleishigs. We do pasta one night a week but with salmon or a hearty soup. Another pareve or milchig meal a week (usually homemade pizza with Walmart dough).

If you want to serve fleishigs every night, buy bottled drinks, packaged snacks (especially fromt trader Joe's, which are expensive compared to other stores in terms of snacks) your grocery prices will be higher as you can see yours are.

Weekly grocery trip: milk, checked lettuce, bananas, apples, fruit that's in season, zucchini, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onion, chicken, gefilte, tomatoes, eggplant, big tubs of yogurt, cheese, big bags of pretzels, chips, cream cheese, butter, small yogurts for kids, frozen broccoli and cauliflower with a hechsher.

Walmart order every two weeks: beans, frozen green beans, cereal, tortilla chips, salmon, salsa, mini peppers, pasta, rice, juice, eggs, pizza dough, bagels, popcorn ketnels, sometimes cake mix and flour, sugar, salt, etc. as needed.

We don't usually buy bread. I usually make challah and dips. Desserts I bake and freeze in batches. I buy meat only on sale and stock up in my freezer. Yes this gets factored into my grocery costs because I have a seperate credit card for groceries. But in that case I'm also counting foil pans, napkins, paper goods and sometimes cleaning supplies from Walmart.

I get grape juice from costco. Wine averages about 15 a bottle and usually we use a bottle every two weeks.

1000 for a family of six does sound a little low but if you don't keep cy that makes a big difference on cost. It does sound possible.

amother

Ebony

Today at 1:43 pm

amother OP wrote:

Wow thanks. We eat very differently. My kids take 4 snacks a day. We eat chicken most nights. My kids eat fresh or frozen pizza Sunday lunch. DH has a fresh bagel daily. We eat meat on Shabbos. We eat cholent and mazza and if there’s guests I serve a lot more. I also have my nespresso machine which is about $1.5 a cup.

Btw I’m also including all paper and plastic goods.

I don’t get what you’re confused about- you spend a lot on food because you want to eat like that.
We never buy frozen pizza, individual yogurts, 4 snacks - if you mean snack bags - per kid per day is a lot of money that most people don’t spend etc. of course my find bill is waaaay less than yours. No one doubts that it’s possible to spend a lot. But spending a little IS possible.

amother

Poppy

Today at 1:59 pm

We are a family of 6 and spend about $1600-2000 a month including paper goods. Kids eat cereal or oatmeal or pancakes for breakfast. Lunch they get in school. Kids take 3 snacks to school. Supper schedule is leftovers/milchigs, chopped meat, fish, chicken, and milchigs or pareve on Thursday. We have a roasted vegetable and/or a salad at each supper.
We host every shabbos and Yom tov. I make lots of food and I don't buy out. Challah, dips, dessert, dressings everything is made from scratch but it's still a lot of money. I daven that Hashem pays us back for shabbos and Yom tov expenses. I don't think we are very fancy hosts - we have salmon and gefilte fish one meal and the other just gefilte fish. If lox is on sale I'll incorporate that in too. I serve chicken Friday night and cholent (with some meat) and grilled chicken cutlets or shnitzel for shabbos lunch main. I find the salads to be very costly as well.
My kids eat frozen pizza, frozen French fries, cheese sandwiches etc different random times during the week too.
Food is expensive.

amother

Yolk

Today at 2:06 pm

I don't know what the original thread was about, but I think it's important to differentiate between what is "normal" to spend when you have the money, and what you should spend on if you really don't have the money to spare. Also that each person has a differnet amount of energy, time, cooking abilities, personality...and different ages and temperments of kids, and that definitely impacts whether they are able to make more frugal choices -- and whether those choices are smart for that family.

I'd say that we spend over 1000 a month for my family of 8, but nowhere near 2000. We eat chicken on Shabbos and leftovers, maybe one ground meat meal during the week (or something like chicken wings that's cheaper). We sometimes have a hearty soup and bread as a meal. Meatless tacos, quesadillas, things like that are common dinners here, easy on the cheese since we keep CY which can get expensive. Shabbos day, our main is cholent with a small amount of meat in it. No appetizer, my kids don't miss it. If we have company, I'll make gefilte fish or a fruit salad or something, but otherwise, it's not necessary.

Oh, and my oldests are teenage boys. Granted, for some parts of the year they eat a lot of meals in yeshiva once they hit 8th grade, and they do need more food when they're home. But this was how we ate as of last year, when only one of them was in mesivta, and his (local) yeshiva lets the boys come home a lot.

If there is a family that is not making it, then making some changes to keep costs down makes sense. That doesn't mean that every family should do it. It's fine to have cholent and deli on Shabbos if some of your kids won't eat cholent. It's fine to have fleishigs every night if your husband prefers it, or if it's easier for you to make, or if your kids won't eat the pareve options you've tried. You don't have to feel guilty for spending money you don't "have" to spend. That might be the best choice for your family, and that's fine.

But if you aren't making it, if you need the money for other things and it isn't there, then maybe it makes sense to think outside of the box when it comes to food. If I had to, there are things I am willing to pay for because they make sense for our family right now, but they're the first things I'd give up if we were really stuck. Like I buy challah every week because I've decided that the amount of time and energy it would take to make it just doesn't make sense at this point in my life. But if I needed to, I could step out of my comfort zone and start making it every week. I also buy whole grains instead of white, and I occasionally serve certain vegetables that are not so cheap, because I think it's important for my kids to get used to eating those things. But I'd rather my kids eat non-whole-wheat noodles and not eat broccoli for a while than move to a small home, or live without air conditioning, or not have the money for much-needed braces.

Doesn't mean that I'm going to cut those things out of my shopping list right now. I B"H don't need to. And I don't feel guilty about that.

amother

↑ Azalea

Today at 2:33 pm

amother OP wrote:

My kids also take 4 snacks, but only 1 is allowed to be a snack bag- the rest are healthier and cheaper.

We have fleshigs 3 nights a week - used to be 4 till kids asked for rice and beans instead

Pizza doesn’t exist here because 2 kids are gluten free, so we generally do pasta bar for Sunday lunch.

We use Thomas’s bagels because there are no fresh bagels here, and I get minis for the kids so there’s less waste.

So they’re small differences but they do add up.