*Creative Commons image by Yvon
Recently some folks in the St. Louis community took something called the "Food Stamp Challenge." This meant that they would be living on the standard food stamp allotment for one week, which worked out to $1.50 per person at each meal. This made me curious to see what our family spent on food and so I got the bank records for the previous month, did a few calculations and came up with about $1.19 per person at each meal. This included my son's school lunches, as well as Thanksgiving shopping. And while my mom often gifts us with food, such as her special muffins, we did not rely on free food sources this month.
I understand that if my children were older, they would be consuming a lot more food and so some expenses would be higher. But I also know that most months we wouldn't be spending so much on special foods like turkey, cranberries, chocolate chips, etc. There are actually places that I think we could cut expense without nutrition suffering, and those go on my future goals list. At any rate, I think it is safe to say that (by American standards) this is a relatively frugal food budget.
Some people think that with a budget like this our family must be eating macaroni with catsup, but that simply isn't true. We have fresh fruit nearly every day. We eat brown rice and whole grain breads. We eat good quality meat. We drink fresh milk and use real butter. We eat lots of vegetables. This isn't to say that we are nutrition saints that lead lives of diet perfection. For example, my kids love hot dogs on white flour buns and occasionally they get to eat them for lunch. But on the whole, we have a very healthy diet.
There isn't a single magic trick for creating healthy meals without a lot of money. It is something that I constantly work towards. I'll be using this blog to occasionally share tips, tricks and recipes to eat healthy without breaking the bank. I look forward to learning more from my readers as I go forward.
We really watch our spending on groceries as well, though I don't think we've got it down to less than $1.50/meal yet. What an interesting challenge! Meal planning helps us more than anything - I finally found an app I like that also has a web component that both my husband and I can access anywhere. It's call Big Oven and lets me save favorite recipes as well as create grocery lists. With my husband working days and me working nights, it helps us both be in the loop with meal planning and not end up running out to the store or a drive through last minute to get food on the table. We also make a conscious effort to have a fruit and a vegetable at every meal - it's amazing how many people don't do that!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure what part of the country you live in also has something to do with how feasible it is to meet the challenge. And like I said, if my kids were older I'm sure we would be spending more. The app sounds useful and it sounds like you are really making a conscious effort to be healthy without overspending. Thanks for sharing!
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