but I spend on average at least $200 a month for just me and my dog. Every time I go grocery shopping, the prices on items I usually buy have gone up.

Toilet tissue, laundry detergent etc?

and it is still including shampoo, pet food, household cleaners, tinfoil, etc.

hmmmmm

the grocery store is not always the best place to buy those items.

two adults
one adult chocolate lab
one blue and gold macaw
one lesser sulfur crested cockatoo
fourteen diamond doves



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for food for the 2 of us.
Just groceries, no TP, no pet food, etc.
No eating out, no fast food, just basic ingredients to cook with.
The budget worked fine for 4 years.
3 years ago the price of rice doubled.
so did the price of coffee.
And milk and....well, you get the picture.
We buy the same basics every 2 weeks.
But spend twice as much now.
there is very little budget room left.

if you want to make some assessment as to whether you are on the high side or the low side of reasonable spending

like that for food - but I don't know what it is or what it should be.

So yeah, I probably spend a bit more in groceries than I would if it were just dh and I.

Dh and I work full time, so meal prep has to be pretty easy. We rarely go out to eat. We don't do fast food but once in a blue moon. We cook at home. Dh and I take leftovers for lunches, or soup.

I generally cook two whole chickens or a package of pork tenderloin on Sunday or Monday. Leftover meat is used in one or two dinners during the week - like enchiladas, tacos, curry, Chinese food, etc. I also make soup (split pea, chili, roasted pepper/carrot, vegetable) on Sunday.

If I make a lasagna during the week, I make two because it is just as easy. I cook one and freeze the other. The more that I cook, the more I find ways to save money on ingredients. Obvious examples include dried beans instead of canned or homemade vegetable stock instead boxed. Prep time is always a pain to deal with, but nice you get the hang of it, it isn't that big of deal.

is the 8 pound bags of bird seed and the bags of unsalted peanuts for the outdoor critters. This is my one extravagance and I probably spend more on that than human food. There is a raccoon blind in one eye who visits my deck for food pretty regularly. When aliens arrive and give me magic powers, I'll restore her sight to 100%.

things like that are what make life worth living

dry cat food for night critters.

That includes food, toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, etc. It's my first time trying to break even for a whole month.

Yesterday I spent $12.67 on 1 bag ground coffee, 5 avocados, 3lb pears, 2.5 lbs apples, 4lbs oranges. I'm getting back $2.99 from endorse for the coffee, and $9 from a store survey I did while I was there. No coupons used - Net cost: 67 cents.

It helps that I'm entering the month well stocked. I was able to get 4 gallons of smart balance milk for a dollar a gallon last week, it has long expiration dates (into April). I think that will cover the husband's cereal and yogurt making operations for the month. I got some marked down hams for 50 cents/lb, so my freezer is stocked with those for sandwiches and soups. And I still have frozen chicken legs from when they dipped to 29 cents/lb last fall.

And I make my own laundry soap. I got the borax and washing soda for $8 a few years back, and the third ingredient, the zote soap, I got free at home depot at halloween when they had a "zombie mulching" game on their website, I earned $20 or so in store credit with that, and spent some of it on the soap, so I won't have to pay at all for laundry soap for a few years.

My big dilemma today is whether I should go get more avocados. In truth, I have enough. But I love them, and they were only 35 cents each - and really hard, so I could keep a stash in the fridge and just pull out one or two as I want them to ripen. How many avocados would you all get at that price?

Meanwhile, that roadside stand in Castro Valley has them four for a quarter. Maybe I need to move.

Aldis has them for 49 cents each this week but for some reason they marked them down further. Normally I expect that if they're getting to ripe - but these aren't even close to ripe.

packed with vitamins and the good kind of fat.

I think I need a bigger freezer because buying meat on sale really helps save.

And yes, suddenly I have become obsessed with trying to reduce expenses. I have an app that I use to track everything I spend. Then I can analyze it with a spreadsheet at the end of the month and try to figure out where I can save.

The full list of what I bought:

1 bag ground coffee
5 avocados
One head of red leaf lettuce
7 ½ lbs pears
2.5 lbs apples
4 lbs oranges
2 bananas
7lb pork shoulder
5 fresh breads (like bagels)
a 6 pack of snapple
2 muffin mixes
20 frozen burritos

Week 2 is starting off a little rougher but I still hope to break even.

I have spent quite a bit, but I have stockpiled a number of things. I am reaching the point where my stockpile is where I want it, so then I will only need to by fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, and bread. Then, I can go back to bi-weekly trips. I use coupons, and when I say I use them, I USE them! My last trip, my food bill would have been about $150. I paid $60. Now, I have to learn how to plan my dinner menus around what I have stocked and what I can get for the week. We don't eat out any more, well, it has been at least 6 months, and I did get fast wood the other day, the first time in almost 6 or 7 months.

Plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and good fats like nuts and olive oil. I'm not talking organic-just basically healthy.

To eat a healthy diet today is way beyond the means of most young families and it really is heartbreaking.

If you eliminate junk foods, restaurant, fast food, take out and buy non-processed foods you can prepare yourself while watching for sales, it shouldn't be that hard to eat healthy on a low budget. It may take more time than just tossing something in the microwave or picking it up from a restaurant, but it's not that hard once you get used to it. It may take more time, of course, and single parent families or families with both parents working, and sometimes two jobs, I can see how it can be difficult to manage.

I doubt I could do it. Seriously low budget food is really high carb-bread, potatoes, rice, pasta and beans. On a food stamp budget, children can't possibly get fruit and fresh vegetables at home-maybe at school, but not at home. Certainly, nutritional education could make an enormous difference but in all honesty I'm not sure its enough. And as you mention, when parents are working, its hard to stretch basic items into a healthy meal.

In the 1950's/60's my mom fed 5 of us on very little. But she didn't work and had a sister and brother-in-law who farmed and gave us vegetables. Plus my father drove an 18 wheeler and provided excess chickens/grapes/bananas/tomatoes etc that he was hauling. Kids today rarely hve that option.

We were lucky, very, very lucky. I see that now, oh so clearly.

for the husband and i and that generally does not count toiletries, paper products, cat supplies, etc. feeding my husband is like feeding an army of teenage boys.

we don't really do processed foods, i cook as often as i can and we eat a lot of cereal and sandwiches.

not counting wine or beer. which could double that amount. Not including eating out 1-2 times/week. Life improves when the kids are gone!

My mother lives with me, she is 79. I turned her onto Costco a few years back. She does all the shopping and cooking for us. About every 6 weeks she spends about $150-200 at Costco. She uses a lot of coupons and shops at the grocery stores that have the deals and spends about $50-75 a month.
In the summer we go to the farmers market every two weeks. She freezes our leftovers meals and vegetables. She uses the vegetables for her homemade soups. There's nothing like living with a Depression era kid, who knows how to stretch the dollar.

Mom will be 83 in a couple of weeks, she still cooks and goes to Costco. We shopped today at a supermarket and spent $69 after coupons, we bought fresh meat, vegetables, cheese, milk and pasta. We had 17 bags to put in the van. That's it for Supermarket shopping for a few weeks. We bought 3 heads of cabbage, it was on sale for 17 cents a lb. A lot of that is being frozen for soups, haluski and stuffed cabbage.

I would say we are now spending about $200-$260 a month now.

Which is roughly equal to what I spent 15 years ago when my wife and I were raising three kids.