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Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Cost of Food
I revisited the Salon article on food and food stamps, reading the comments this time. It's a very disheartening activity, for the most part -- a lot of compassionless comments, though there are some compassionate and thoughtful ones.
The discussion on the cost of groceries -- healthy versus junk -- and grocery food versus fast food got me thinking about the cost of our food: we try to keep under $600 a month for groceries, which is always challenging. I've not been a good budgeter/tracker of expenses, so one of my goals is to improve in this area. Frankly, I don't know how often we keep within this amount!
DH and I talked about inventorying our pantry after he'd forgotten we had a *case* of grape jelly. So that's added to my goals, too.
I'm teaching full-time at a nearby high school, and I have three classroom observations tomorrow, so these projects are in queue for next weekend. I hope I can juggle all this until June!
In the meantime, here's the cost of today's breakfast and lunch, and a start at our monthly food expense:
Breakfast
eggs, blue corn waffles and pancakes:
Frankferd Farms' mix in 25# bags: about 15 cents per batch
4 eggs (organic, fertile brown eggs): about 28 cents each, $1.12 for four
milk - about 50 cents for mixing and drinking (figure $4.00 a gallon now)
maple syrup - the expensive part - now $17.50/gallon at Costco: so probably $1.00 a serving.
Lunch: pb&j and oranges, and milk
bread that DH baked yesterday: cost per loaf:
white flour (Swany White organic, in 25# bags): 66 cents
wheat flour: 25 cents
a bit of butter: 5 cents
A loaf of this bread doesn't stick around much longer than a day!
Once Again organic peanut butter (bought by the case): about 50 cents
Oranges from Costco: this time, $12.99 per case - about 70 cents each.
For three of us, then, about $4.00 for lunch ($1.33 a person, $150/month) and about $2.00 for breakfast ($65/month). We do the same lunches (packed) during the week, though we do often use the prepackaged pineapple containers -- which increases the lunch cost to about $5.00 for all of us. Weekends are often soup, too - so add $2.50 for a can of Amy's organic veggie or tomato. That brings it to $160/month, unless we get fancier. Breakfast is about the same as today, too -- we get up early enough for eggs and pancakes from scratch during the week. So - about $210-$225 a month for breakfast and lunch.
Our costs go up when I can't deal and we do a frozen/prepared lunch like Amy's pizza or enchiladas: then we're at about $8-10 a lunch for three.
The comments on the food stamp article discussed the cost of fast food versus grocery food. My last Taco Bell meal was over $7, so grocery is definitely cheaper. We buy mostly organic (except for the Costco produce), and avoid the center aisles in the grocery store mostly (except for tea and coffee). Our staples we order monthly from a grower/distributor in PA, and that runs about $400/month (including a case of pizza and enchiladas and soup for those days I can't face the kitchen!).
Peace and blessings,
campergal |
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