Where does your family fit?

[Parrothead]

Tara mentioned the USDA Cost of Food Plans in the current Forks Over Knives thread. I'd never heard of it and was curious. I found the current chart (for July 2012) and did the math.

 

Our family of 3 slides right into the Low-Cost Plan. I actually budget $13 less than the plan allows per week. At the monthly level the Low-Cost Plan is quite a bit more than I spend. But I still spend more than the allowable Thrifty plan.

 

It was interesting. I wonder what those who fall under the liberal plans purchase.

 

Oh, and my budget includes pet foods and household supplies.

 

Where does your family tend to fit?

[Heatherwith4]

I'm not 100% sure what we spend, but I'm pretty sure we fall under the low-cost plan.

[BlsdMama]

 

It was interesting. I wonder what those who fall under the liberal plans purchase.

 

 

Lol, as with these food discussions always, it isn't WHAT they are purchasing as much as where they live.

Large families have to add up the totals and subtract 10% for accuracy - see footnotes. Other size families also have to adjust accordingly - see the bottom.

 

So, after doing all of that, this is supposed to be our food budget:

 

Thrifty - $1243.89

Low Cost - $1633.80

Moderate - $2008.62

 

I can tell you my goal every month is to stay in or under thrifty. I can tell you I haven't succeeded yet, even ONE month, in 2012.

 

I'd LIKE to be under the Low Cost and I *can* do it IF I plan, plan, plan AND I stick to my menus with no deviation. No popcorn, no desserts, no sneaking ice cream.

 

I DO stay under the moderate every single month.

 

I could EASILY spend way over the moderate though without blinking.

 

In the Midwest I could drop about half that, but we also haven't lived there in almost three years. We also stopped buying 1/2 cows for our freezer and Daddy doesn't live near me, so no free pigs. We don't live on a farm anymore, so no meat chickens either, or goat milk, etc. :(

 

Too many variables to look at someone's bottom line and think, "Wow, they must waste it." We also try to be gluten minimum so that accounts for more meat and more veggies.

[Heather in Neverland]

Ok, I feel dumb because I can't figure out the chart. :001_huh:

 

5 people:

2 adults, ages 42 and 44

3 kids ages 2, 8, 14

 

I spend about $750 a month on groceries including toiletries and paper goods but not counting eating out. Where does that leave me?

[gingersmom]

I fall around the moderate level.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

We fall in between the Low-cost and Moderate Plans. Even if we ate out more, we'd be in the Moderate plan for sure.

[FaithManor]

We fall in thrifty. But, that's because A. my dad has a HUGE garden for the entire family. We can, dehydrate, and freeze so I buy very little in fruits and vegetables from October - May when produce prices are high and everything is being shipped in from Florida, California, or Latin America.

 

I shop at a Mennonite Bulk Food store and can buy many items cheaper than even Walmart and organic foods FAR cheaper than any other supermarket I've ever seen.

 

It's amazing we manage this with three male offspring that are determined to attempt to eat us into the poor house.

 

Don't ask about the clothing budget. If they don't outgrow it immediately, they can ruin it in record time! :glare:

 

Faith

[momofkhm]

I added it up for us. When I'm trying to be frugal, I fall in the thrifty plan. When I just shop with a plan, it's low cost. When I'm stupid and don't plan but end up shopping every.single.day, I definitely edge up toward moderate. Thankfully one week of that and I'm cured for another 3-4 months.

[DawnM]

I think I did this correctly. The thrifty plan for our family of 5 using the age chart is $820. That is about what we spend most months, but we include all toiletries, paper products, dogfood, and medicines.

 

So, I guess technically we are spending less than the thrifty plan.

 

Dawn

[Annie G]

We're easily in the low cost category, with money to spare. This surprises me because we buy what we want- I'm not sitting here trying to figure out how to feed us well on that amount of money.

 

We have decent quality meats, fresh fruits and veggies in abundance, and we all drink soda (That Pepsi Max addiction is my worst vice!), and always have ice cream in the house.

 

I think we must live in a low cost food area- but until I saw the chart and where we fall on it, I thought we were way overspending on food.

[jujsky]

If I figured it right, we were between Low-Cost and Thrifty. I took what we spent/month in our grocery budget, divided it by the number of people in our family and divided that by 4 weeks to get the food/person. Our grocery budget includes paper goods and cleaning supplies lumped in there, so it might be less.

 

I was surprised by the results. I always thought our family spent a lot on groceries.

[SKL]

Hmm, I'm pretty sure I spend less than the thrifty plan. And I spend more on my kids' food than on my own.

[Nestof3]

I just started getting much better about a weekly meal plan which helps me so much with the grocery bill. (Blogged about it here: http://ournestof3.blogspot.com/2012/09/my-menu-plan.html)

 

My Kroger and BJs receipts added to $130. We actually eat very well. I'll post my mean plan at the bottom.

 

This included an extra meal of ground beef/chicken (I cooked it all together with onions to add with black beans to make tacos)

 

An extra two meals of chicken breasts

 

An extra meal of roast pork to shred for sandwiches

 

Extra meal of fish

 

I already had the following for this week on hand:

stir-fry beef for tonight's crockpot dinner

pineapple slices

pasta

spaghetti sauce (I cooked a triple batch last time)

rice

 

We will also have to buy some more snack stuff and ice cream this week. I already have cat food and litter, but that's pretty minimal, and I buy once a month. With all the extras, we are probably on the low-cost plan.

 

******************************

 

Monday

Spaghetti with meat sauce

salad

 

Tuesday

slow cooker pepper steak on rice

pineapple slices

 

Wednesday

BBQ sandwiches (from roast pork)

coleslaw

sliced apples

 

Thursday

chicken florentine pasta

steamed broccoli

 

Friday

pancakes

nitrate-free turkey bacon

eggs

 

Saturday

white fish

rice

broccoli

 

Sunday

tacos

[Ruby Rose]

Thrifty

[*Michelle*]

Thrifty. 2 adults, three children (2, 3, and 5). I budget separately for the baby's formula. I'm a bit surprised, actually. I upped our food budget recently and feel almost extravagant with my purchases some weeks.

[*Lulu*]

When I make the family size adjustments our spending falls into the Low Cost plan. That includes cleaning supplies, tolietries, pet food, and eating out. When I am really on my game and we are not eating out more than 3x a month I can manage with the amount in the Thrifty Plan.

 

I think where you live plays a huge part in this. If you are paying $5 for a 5lb bag of flour it is a whole different world from someone playing $1.98 for the same bag.

[Mom-ninja.]

Too many variables to look at someone's bottom line and think, "Wow, they must waste it."

 

:iagree: Where one lives plays a role in cost. Plus, there are food items that cost so much more than the "normal" items. For example, my ds is allergic to peanuts and sunbutter (made from sunflower seeds) is over $6 for a jar smaller than a regular peanut butter jar. So, I don't buy that often. Almond butter is also more.

 

We are gluten free (not by choice) and the price of gluten free pasta is much more than wheat based pasta.

 

Compare the cost of wheat based flour with a bag of gluten free flour. :glare:

 

One is supposed to buy organic and those prices are a lot more than conventional food.

 

I doubt the food budget by the USDA takes special diet restrictions into mind.

 

Meat is expensive especially if one buys organic or even natural (whatever that means for that particular item).

 

I recently read the little booklet on how to keep one's groceries under $250 a month. Yeah, whatever. I became ticked off when all the author could really say was, "don't buy convenience food." Because I don't. A bag of pretzels is a huge treat and only purchased maybe once in 6 months. If you look in my pantry at any moment you will not find convenience food. I don't buy cold cereal, chips, pretzels, frozen ready made food, canned soup, granola bars, etc.

 

People tell me to not buy meat and eat more beans and lentils. Can't. My ds is very allergic to beans (all legumes actually) and lentils. So those cheaper protein options are not options for us.

 

Ugh. I get irritated when people scoff when I complain about how expensive it is to feed my family. They scoff like they can do better because they don't spend as much so in their head I must be wasteful, lazy, and buy luxury items that are not needed.

[MeaganS]

We fit in the "thrifty" plan. We must live somewhere inexpensive, though, because even on that plan we get lots of organic/free range/natural style foods (30%, I'd guess?). I guess we do eat less meat than most, but still.

[tabrizia]

I haven't added up what we spend a month in awhile. If I add up what we spent in the last 2 weeks and multiply it by 2 we are somewhere between the low cost and moderate plan, closer to the moderate plan, which is actually a lot better then I thought we had been doing. That third child adds in a nice amount of wiggle room even the young ones.

 

We use to be between the moderate and liberal plan so being between low cost and moderate is a nice change, especially considering the cost of living around here.

[Desert Rat]

We're in the thrifty category. I spend about $600 a month for food and toiletries, etc. On months where I stock up on meat, etc. We'd creep into low cost land.

[Mom22ns]

We easily make the low cost plan. However, when I plan well, we would be in Thrifty. When I am being extravagant we are near the top of low cost. I guess I'm not very extravagant after all. :lol:

[Denisemomof4]

Moderate. we sometimes spend more, rarely less. I am really battling with the prices of organics seeing that THEY ARE NOT GROWN IN OUR COUNTRY, for the most part, so our costs may be going down.

 

We eat a mainly plant based diet. Dh and dd's eat organic, grass fed meats periodically. The combination of the two prove to be expensive especially where I need to be low carb.:glare:

[Parrothead]

Thrifty. 2 adults, three children (2, 3, and 5). I budget separately for the baby's formula. I'm a bit surprised, actually. I upped our food budget recently and feel almost extravagant with my purchases some weeks.

I've been trying for a couple years to stay under XX amount. Since I wasn't able to do it 99% of the time I just decided that XX is our new budget amount. I hardly ever go over it and it is still within the low-cost plan. But I feel like I'm being lavish.

 

It is interesting that no one has yet said they are liberal in their purchases.

[fairfarmhand]

I wonder how this adds up when you include eating out.

 

We barely scrape by on groceries right now.

[Trilliums]

We fall on higher end. We live in the Midwest, but I have found food prices are higher here than other "high COL" places we have lived. Organic dairy and meats add to our high food bills.

[Dory]

This could change so much depending on where a person lives. I know up here, I can take the same amount that I use to live here and move in with my friend in Manitoba and spend almost half what I do here on the same foods. Despite that, according to that chart I'm thrifty. I need to do a look and see if I can find a chart for Canada.

[Jen in PA]

Thrifty. Even adding in a few meals/snacks out and toiletries, we remain in thrifty. But, and I always say this when these threads pop up, we live in a low cost area, I have a garden, and I make nearly everything from scratch. It is a trade off we can manage because I am at home, and would have been too impossible and exhausting to manage back when I worked outside the home.

[justamouse]

For the size of my family (double their large plan) we fall into the thrifty.

 

Costco has helped us immensely. I think we have a decent food budget, and over the summer, as the prices of food were going up, and up, our pantry was getting more and more bare. I was seriously ending up worried at the end of the week. It is a bit more gas $ for us to go to Costco (I'm a mile from the grocery, and about 15 minutes from Costco), but after shopping there weekly for about 5 weeks, my freezers are now full again, and I have $ left over, and we're able to buy wants, in addition to needs. And, we're eating very well--much better than when I was just hitting my local grocery.

Edited September 25, 2012 by justamouse

[Trilliums]

I am really battling with the prices of organics seeing that THEY ARE NOT GROWN IN OUR COUNTRY, for the most part, so our costs may be going down.

 

:

 

I have seen this too, much to my frustration! We do have a great health food grocery store but it is $$$ even for locally grown produce. The farmers market is also costly IMO. I am kind of picky about my produce quality too.

 

We garden but I do not can. I guess that is what I need to learn to do next!

[LostSurprise]

Even including paper products, toiletries, pet food and my youngest son's special diet (including lots of costly high fat items) we're thrifty (and below thrifty levels)? It feels weird to be there. I used to budget and be much more careful about about our food money then I am currently. Its crept up $30 or so a week over the last few years. I feel like I'm at the low to moderate level.

 

We do live in the Midwest though.

Buy whole meat and store it.

Have many non-meat or meat minimal meals a week (soup, breakfast for dinner, stir fry, pizza).

Don't really buy soda or juice (other than dh's Mt. Dew addiction which stays at his work). Do not buy chips or candy (other than a bag of tortilla chips a week). Do not buy frozen foods.

[Mom-ninja.]

I think where you live plays a huge part in this. If you are paying $5 for a 5lb bag of flour it is a whole different world from someone playing $1.98 for the same bag.

 

Try $13 for a 4 lb bag. Yes, I typed that correctly. Right now the flour is priced at $11.80 on Amazon (you have to buy 3 bags at once) but the last time I bought it the price was $13 something. At my local grocery store the same bag costs $16. At my "local" health food store it costs $14.

 

So I make those bags last as long as I can. We don't make bread often. I try to buy individual bags of different flour to make my own all purpose mix but that is just about as expensive. A bag of coconut flour (used in a lot of gf baking/cooking) is going for $5.04 on Amazon right now for a 1 lb bag. That's a ONE lb bag. A bag of almond flour is $9 for a ONE lb bag. Rice flour goes for about $3 for a 2 lb bag, but now the USDA is saying to not eat a lot of rice due to arsenic. Lovely.

 

See my irritation?

[QueenCat]

Try $13 for a 4 lb bag. Yes, I typed that correctly.

 

 

Wow! I just paid $3.85 for my white wheat, and $3.19 for my white flour.

[SorrelZG]

We're easily in the low cost category, with money to spare. This surprises me because we buy what we want- I'm not sitting here trying to figure out how to feed us well on that amount of money.

 

We have decent quality meats, fresh fruits and veggies in abundance, and we all drink soda (That Pepsi Max addiction is my worst vice!), and always have ice cream in the house.

 

I think we must live in a low cost food area- but until I saw the chart and where we fall on it, I thought we were way overspending on food.

 

 

This is us as well, except I think we may make it onto the thrifty plan, even.

[Mom-ninja.]

 

It is interesting that no one has yet said they are liberal in their purchases.

 

I fall in that category. Yet I buy no convenience foods. No frozen foods. The only paper product I buy is tp. I don't buy paper towels. I make my own cleaning products. I garden. I buy meat in bulk from a co-op.

 

Yet, I still spend in the "liberal" category. :001_huh::glare:

[cottonmama]

We're usually closer to the thrifty plan, but when I'm pregnant we tend to gravitate towards more convenience foods, and waste more food, and I give into cravings more... so right now we're closer to the low-cost numbers, and during my first trimester I think we were beyond that even. We live in a low-cost area.

 

Ironically, when we lived in a high-cost area, we were more consistently on the thrifty budget. But it was hard work then, and and I still felt like we spent too much. (I knew people who spent $20/week less than we did.)

[MomtoCandJ]

We fall under the thrifty category and that includes the pets foods and litters. But we did buy a half cow this year when we got our tax refund so we haven't bought any beef products.

[Mommyof4ks]

Our family of 5 eats mainly organic with little processed food on less than the thrifty plan, so what do people on the liberal plan buy?

[ebrindam]

We fall into liberal. Family of 5.

[ssavings]

Thrifty - actually less than that. I am surprised; I thought we were spending more. We eat a lot of locally-grown and very healthy, too. We are wheat-free, soy-free, and DS and I are also dairy-free and egg-free.

 

The girls and DH eat eggs from a local farmer who can't afford the organic certification but uses organic methods. We get honey and tilapia from a friend who homesteads with organic methods. We plan meals around whatever fruits & veggies are on sale at the you-pick organic hydroponic place, and grow a lot of our own. Our milk is local and organic, but direct from the dairy so its much, much cheaper than at Whole Foods or Publix GreenMarket.

 

We eat the USDA recommended portions of protein, but not much more than that. (most of my family eats a lot more meat than we do, and they feel like we eat too little meat. Our portions are right in line with the USDA, but it is quite a bit less than most people think!). Our meals are vegetable/fresh fruit based, rather than carb-, dairy-, or meat-based.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Wow, and here I was thinking my $700 monthly budget was too high. We fall around $100 below the low-cost plan (for a family of four), and I buy grass-fed beef, pastured chickens, farm-raised eggs, mostly organic/natural food, try to eat low-carb, gluten-free, etc. No wonder I can't seem to squeeze more out of my grocery budget!

[Unicorn.]

Low cost, but I don't agree w/ some of their numbers. In the low cost for example, it has a male teenager costing less than a male 19-50. I don't think so. and then as the budget goes up, the male teenager costs more than the older male, which makes sense. Then it switches again for the liberal plan. Have they seen teenage boys eat?

 

It also has teen girls eating less than older women on the low, moderate and liberal, but slightly more on the thrifty. Again, have they seen teenagers eat? I also think there should be a bigger difference for teens and people over 50 in general. Everyone I know over 50 eats very little, and those over 70 eat less than the 50 yr. olds.

 

And yes, I am over analyzing it. I'm good at that. :D

[Hoot]

We probably fit somewhere between the moderate and liberal plan. We don't really budget for it though, so it's just a rough guess.

 

Ours would be considered high for 3 people but only because:

 

1. I am a raw vegan so we buy an extraordinary amount of fresh produce every week. On a light week it's probably $45. On a heavy week, closer to $60 JUST in fresh produce.

 

2. When I buy raw vegan snacks for myself (occasional) they are very expensive.

 

3. We buy some things local (eggs, cheese, & meat for DH & DS as well as some produce etc.), which can be a bit more expensive than buying the generic Wal-Mart brand.

 

4. I buy raw meat to make my cats' food as well as buying a high quality grain-free kibble to supplement. Between that and feeding my other animals, we easily spend $100 or more on pet food every month.

 

5. I included eating out in my figures. We don't do it a lot, though.

 

In the summer we have a HUGE garden, so that offsets our expenses quite a bit for those months.

Edited September 25, 2012 by contessa20

[*lifeoftheparty*]

.

[luvnlattes]

We spend between the thrifty and low-cost levels. I was surprised because I don't feel like we skimp on things. We have fresh fruit and vegetables and plenty of meat. I also buy chips and other "snacky" type foods.

Edited September 25, 2012 by luvnlattes
mis-named the levels

[Soror]

Thrifty plan- I looked at the Family of 4 w/ kids age 2-3 and 4-5 and added on a 6-8 yr old as that was the best I could figure to approximate our family make-up.

 

We eat gluten/soy/preservative/color free, limited grain and sugar. Most all grassfed and local meat.

[In The Great White North]

Is this just for food or everything one buys at the grocery store?

 

I don't think there is a big enough difference between Low Cost and Liberal. If dh were to start eating lunch out every day instead of brown-bagging it and buying the occasional Starbucks, that would take up most of the difference. Even without the rest of us eating out or buying convenience foods.

 

We could easily spend LOTS more.

[justamouse]

Thrifty plan- I looked at the Family of 4 w/ kids age 2-3 and 4-5 and added on a 6-8 yr old as that was the best I could figure to approximate our family make-up.

 

We eat gluten/soy/preservative/color free, limited grain and sugar. Most all grassfed and local meat.

 

 

See, I wish we could go that healthy, but our costs would double. One fryer sized organic chicken from our local farmer is 25.00. I need two to feed my family. Organic eggs are 4.00 a doz. :glare:

 

I buy what we can organic, and fanatically stay away from the carp. Hopefully if food pries ever go down (like if gas ever goes down) we can afford that stuff.

[Zebra]

We're thrifty. We have a small garden, are vegetarians, and I make a lot from scratch.

 

It is really hard to compare grocery budgets, there are so many variables.

[Snickerdoodle]

Liberal in a high COL area. No junk or convenience items. All meals are whole food from scratch.

[Jean in Newcastle]

It was looking like the low-cost plan plus some wiggle room since my grocery budget includes paper goods etc. but then I realized that I hadn't factored in eating out. That puts us into moderate.