jenbrdsly Posted March 15, 2013 Author Share Posted March 15, 2013 A quick update. I'm on week 3 of my experiment now. I'd change my vote to Yes. I can feed my family on $5 a day per person. I can even go significantly under that. These are they ways I've cut: I've stopped considering if something is "local". I've stopped buying organic milk. I switched from brown organic eggs to white cage-free eggs. We've been eating a lot of frozen veggies. We've been eating a lot of potatoes. I've cut back on my own, G-F purchases (which means I've sometimes been hungry). I've stopped buying crackers (dh isn't so happy about that one). Phew! I've still got one more week to go on my experiment. Thank you to everyone who commented on this thread because your ideas have really helped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 Why? The amount of ingredients should scale exactly with the number of people. And I can, even with a small family, buy large packages and freeze/refrigerate a part, thus taking advanatge of the better unit prices for larger amounts. Why would it be more expensive per person to feed four vs eight? I have been wanting to address this for quite some time, but can't think of ways to explain it even though I have, personally, seen it happen. One reason is when you multiply servings you don't always multiply ingredients. For example to sauté an onion or three you can use roughly the same amount of oil. Ditto frying. Now, obviously, oil isn't the only thing that doesn't multiply and not everyone uses oil to fry, but it is a tangible example. Another example of not multiplying all ingredients: If I make a marinade or sauce for 4, I might use the same marinade or sauce for 5 or 6 by just increasing the meat or pasta. So I do not need to double or even use ingredients plus 1/2 more. The same with soup. I can add more potatoes or a little more stock without completely doubling the recipe while still not compromising taste. The way you cook with 4 is different than the way you cook with 12. Some of that is choices, some necessity. I do not stand over the stove and flip French toast one piece at a time, I make baked French toast. When you change the way you cook the ingredient amounts also vary. I am sure there are other reasons, but this is all I can think of at the moment. Eta: I thought of one more. If I normally cook a certain amount of Mexican food for my family of eleven and we invite a family of 3 over. We do not need to add three more servings. I can make my same amount of meat, beans, rice, etc. and only add an aditional side or two like chips, cornbread or salad. So it wouldn't cost three more servings, just the cost of an extra side or two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RegGuheert Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 I voted "Yes". We are currently at about $500/month for seven people. That's less than $2.50/person. We do the kinds of things OP is doing (except couponing): (And yes I garden, make my own chicken stock, clip coupons, buy in season, go to multiple stores to shop sales etc.)I maintain a price chart in Numbers on my iPad and use that to track prices. Basically, here are a few prices we normally get: - Meat: $1/lb. (Chicken and pork. We have cut way back on beef.) - Vegetables: Nearly all come from our garden. - Eggs: $1 to $1.39/dozen - Milk: $2.59/gal. - Fruit: $0.38 to $2/lb. (Bananas, apples, pears, oranges) - Wheat berries: $0.80/lb. - Fish: $2.40 to $3.00/lb. Interestingly, the prices vary drastically depending on what nearby town we shop in. We usually shop in a different state than where we live, but it is only a 12-mile drive there. Costco has only a very few items which are cheaper than their competitors and we are not sure it is really cheaper to just buy those items after paying $55/year. The decision to keep or drop them will be made next month. We will continue to try to increase our garden production. MomsintheGarden is an amazing gardener! We have tried to grow fruit trees, but the deer have conspired against us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ocelotmom Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 I do use Bountiful Baskets though and that really helps us afford more fruits and veggies. Same here. Last week we got 80 lbs of citrus (half lemons, half oranges) for $30. That takes care of a big chunk of our fruit budget for a while. We calculated out our food expenses a while ago, and I can't remember exactly how much it was per person per day, but fell within the "thrifty" plan. I can't claim we're doing half a plate of produce per meal every meal, but there aren't any grains or legumes (cheap plate-fillers) in there, either - it's all meat, eggs, and produce. I think we could manage fish within that limit twice a week IF we managed to find it 50% off (which we do frequently, but not quite often enough to be reliable), or it was cheap fish like tilapia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 Yes, if you count bananas and frozen peas/corn most days as the fruits & veggies. Where we live, fruits & veggies are limited. During good summers, we can grow our own, but the last two years we had record heat & drought, so frozen spinach, peas, corn, bagged salad, or canned green beans are about as good as it gets. We don't even have cabbage many months around here. I feed us for about $600 a month for 7 people on good budgeting months, so ~$2.86/person/day. That is gluten free (and peanut free for all) for 5 of us, with free range local beef and "humane" chicken. I need to do better, but it's really hard. I hope this summer will be mild enough that we can grow and save some produce. I miss good fresh food, but it just is difficult here right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 Any ideas how I can accomplish this? :bigear: By ignoring their outdated and somewhat idiotic recommendations. I like your veggie tracker idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 Yes, but only because tuna is fish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenbrdsly Posted March 16, 2013 Author Share Posted March 16, 2013 By ignoring their outdated and somewhat idiotic recommendations. Exactly! It seems like if the USDA really wanted families to save money they would at least be suggesting to skip meat one night a week. But they aren't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingiguana Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 $5? Sure! No problem -- as long as we're eating out and don't include *that* in the food budget. Otherwise, no. But our household is essentially all adults. And they all eat their fruits and veggies. It does get expensive, even when we cut back on the meat. I can't see doing it with fish. Not decent fish, anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ondreeuh Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 Oh my gosh, I live in Alaska and the produce is pretty high here. Milk is $4 a gallon for the grocery store, non organic brand. The cheapest whole wheat bread is at least $3. Bananas are $0.85 per lb. (non organic). We do eat canned fruit and veg. Our farmer' s market is a joke. It's twice as expensive as the grocery store. Remote villages can't even get fresh produce, and milk is $8 a gallon. It could be worse! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deb in NZ Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 Oh my gosh, I live in Alaska and the produce is pretty high here. Milk is $4 a gallon for the grocery store, non organic brand. The cheapest whole wheat bread is at least $3. Bananas are $0.85 per lb. (non organic). We do eat canned fruit and veg. Our farmer' s market is a joke. It's twice as expensive as the grocery store. Remote villages can't even get fresh produce, and milk is $8 a gallon. It could be worse! Our cheapest milk here is $6 for two 2 litre bottles (aprox. 1 gallon total). This is the storebrand whole milk & as we live in a country that depends on dairy exports you would think that milk would be cheaper. Produce is expensive as well, but we are thankful to have a climate that allows us to garden year-round. This year we're experiencing one of the worst droughts in living memory. Half the country has been declared a drought zone in the past fortnight. We're expecting much higher prices for produce/dairy/etc. in the coming months as many farmers haven't the yields that they normally see. We only could live on $5/day if our garden / orchard was producing well, ds#2 was bringing home lots of fish from his fishing trips, & we went mostly grain & dairy free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ann.without.an.e Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 We are grain free and dairy free and we spend around $4.20 per person per day. We do have a large garden though? Not sure how that plays in. Being grain free, we use almond flour which costs about $125 for 25# of flour and being dairy free our milk is about $6+ a gallon. I guess it evens out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koerarmoca Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 Im going to go with sometimes. Our current food bill is a bit high because we are currently have an extra 4 kids and an extra 3 kids on the weekends one who is diabetic plus 4 adults. I'm hard pressed to afford $5 per person. We do a lot of fresh and frozen veggies, lean meat, chicken No pork or fish. I do a lot of soups and stews it amazing how 3 chicken breast can feed 15 people if its in a soup. When its just the six of us. I can usually still keep it under $5. I am super frugal and I know how to stock, and stretch a pantry ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz CA Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 Honestly, I don't think you would want to unless you can grow almost all your food at home down to the grain to thresh for grinding flour. In CA, I could hardly get 2 meals for this price and especially not when our food is supposed to have some nutritional value. There is no way I could feed dh on $5.00 a day. He needs more food than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandymom Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 If Bountiful Baskets operates in your area, I highly recommend it. I'm on my Kindle, so I can post a pic, but here's a link to my latest "basket" I actually got all the produce pictured for $48 (half of it organic) and the bread (9 loaves of organic) for $22. This was actually kind of a lean week because it's kind of between growing seasons. The co op is offered here every other week, but it's every week in some locations. See link in the post below :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandymom Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 Ok...that won't work. Here's my blog post with pictures. I'm not a great blogger and it's very new, so just look at the pictures, ok? http://www.foodforhe...y.blogspot.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurie4b Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 For low cost fish that is wild caught, try canned salmon in the taller cans (it's cheaper and still has the skin on it) or sardines. Sardines are rich in omega-3s, cheaper than salmon, and pretty far down on the food chain, so low levels of contaminants. Walmart has a wild-caught salmon that is a decent price. The trouble with sardines is that they are hard to find a way to serve them that kids like. I eat them for the benefit of my health, but I'm the only person in our family who will. I serve them on pasta with tomato sauce, with some red pepper flakes and parmesan. I like them that way. I haven't found another way that I particularly care for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenbrdsly Posted March 22, 2013 Author Share Posted March 22, 2013 My blogging friend is hosting a free breakfast for a month give-away on her blog, in case anyone wants to take a look. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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