Food Is the Demise of Millions of Americans

I’m finishing this “Sucky” series with one of the biggest recurring money-sucking categories comprising many families’ budgets on a monthly basis. Based on what I’ve seen, so much money is dumped into this category without even thinking by the average family that it’s almost embarrassing to me to tell you how much I personally spend… well, here it is, for your voyeuristic pleasure. Take a lot of notes. You’ll be saving so much cash every month, before long, you’ll have to build a money bin to keep it in.

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I want you to get ready to be floored by this final article in the series. It may just cause a bit of incredulity and disbelief. But I assure you everything is true.

By the time I’m done, you’ll probably think I’m either crazy or a masochist. The one thing I’m sure of though, is that you will have a few new ideas about how to save money, and how you might be able to plan, eat, and live more healthy and frugally.

I don’t even consider myself extreme. There are many others out there who could offer a lot more guidance in this area of Villagerism… but judging from statistics I’ve read on the average family, I feel like my own habits have a bit of wisdom to offer.

One of the biggest criticisms I face on this site is people is from people who truly think it’s impossible to live on the food budget my family does while eating legitimate, healthy food.

This criticism mostly comes from people who aren’t stupid… they just have never experienced a lifestyle where people actually shop for groceries, cook their own food, who plan what they might be eating on any given day of the week, and who make a genuine effort of understanding that cooking and shopping for yourself is actually much cheaper, and saves more time, than eating out.

That’s a difficult misconception to wrap your mind around. Cooking your own meals really saves time? How is that possible? Well, maybe not if you’re running to Little Caesar’s for a pizza. In that case, you’re only saving time, not money. But you sure aren’t saving money on gas for your car.

Over the past 5.5 years since my wife and I started having children, our family has grown to four people. And we have one on the way. During that time, we have managed to make our average monthly food allowance hover around $414 per month. That’s just food alone, but does include eating out occasionally. Breaking this down, my family spends roughly $1.15 per person, per meal, per day, or a total of $13.80.

Putting that into perspective, even going cheap and buying a Little Caesar’s pizza with some bread-sticks for everyone (is there a cheaper way to eat out than this?) is like spending almost a full day's worth of meal budget, one just one meal. And again, that’s dining out “on the cheap.” Forget about a trip to a good steakhouse, or even an outing to my wife’s beloved “Olive Garden,” dubbed by people I know as the “fast food of Italian.” That would cost us 4 days' worth of food budget! For ONE MEAL. The food there is NOT THAT GOOD.

As you can see, we're pretty frugal. How do we stack up with America in general?

In 2012, the average family spent $151 per week, or $668 for thirty days. I spend 38% less than the average. That’s nothing compared with the 1 in 10 Americans who say they spend over $1328 per month... and I find my spending to be embarrassing compared to the 1 in 8 Americans who say they spend less than $50 per week. I would love to know where they shop.

Those are some fun numbers. But beyond being interesting, they don’t help us much.

How is any family spending $200 per month on food? Now that is rice and beans!

But seriously… let me just share with you what we do, and some guiding principles behind minimizing the amount we spend.

Rule number 1: We make a menu, and stick to it, and cook/grow our own food

Most people find this ridiculous and painstaking. Fine. Let them spend 50-100% more than me. I’ll be enjoying the extra three years of early retirement this money saves me.

Why do we do this menu thing? We like to eat a variety of foods, and to eat healthy. We also hate to sit around and stew about what we are going to “make for dinner” on any given night. By making the menu, we make sure we get a variety of food, we know we are eating healthy, and there is no guesswork around dinnertime. This also ensure less temptation to run out and grab a pizza if we have nothing planned.

We currently have around 70 distinct main dishes that we plan our menu around. This ensures that we don’t have to eat the same meal any more often than about every two months.

There are several things we have learned to make at home, and love better than store-bought brands. Bread-sticks, home-made bread, smoothies, and a few other things. Also, we have a fruit tree on our property, as well as an awesome garden in the summer which is low-maintenance.

Rule Number 2: We “shop” once a month

One we have a menu planned, knowing what we are going to eat each night, we sit down and plan out a shopping list. The entire process of menu and shopping list, plus shopping time, takes around 3 hours a month. So, my doing this planning, and not eating out, we end up paying ourselves around sixty bucks an hour compared to the average family. That’s some good money!

Why shop just once a month? The more you trek to the store, the more impulse items you buy. By not shopping weekly like most, we save an estimated 20% off our grocery bill.

Rule Number 3: We don’t really eat out.

I brown bag lunch for work, or take leftovers. Since our homemade meals are always so amazing, my leftovers are always the envy of the office.

By having a menu, getting plenty of variety, and shopping for all we need, we never really feel like we need to eat out. There are the off days when we just don’t feel like cooking, so we do offer ourselves a freebie once or twice a month, and it doesn’t kill our budget. We could eat out as much as we want, but it would be stupid, unhealthy, and much more expensive. We don’t “eat in” just for the sake of it—we like to eat at home. It’s a better atmosphere. Ever tried to taking two kids under five years old out to dinner at a nice restaurant? Now that’s ridiculous.

I’ve got a friend who constantly complains about some debts he has, and about how expensive things are for his family of six. But he comes into work every morning with fast food, and goes out almost every afternoon. Talk about dumb. I guess he's not too concerned about paying off the debt.

Rule Number 4: We compare prices regularly, shop at the quality, but low-price stores, and buy in bulk.

One of our keys to saving money is buying at the right stores. Some stores have crappy produce; we don’t buy there. Some stores are overpriced on meat; we don’t buy it there. We do our best to remain price-conscious, and to shop where things are cheapest per ounce, per roll, or whatever.

We also shop at stores like Sam’s Club or Costco, to save big on stuff that we buy in bulk. TP, seasonings, and many ingredients, etc, are available at these bulk shops for around 33% lower than the price you would pay at a regular grocery store. The savings add up here quickly. We keep tabs on prices as we shop to see if prices are changing, and if they are, we change our shopping habits. We have a list of things we know are always cheaper at the big box stores, and we plan our trips to the store accordingly.

Rule Number 5: We don’t buy lots of snacks, chips, pop, candy, or other junk

We just stay away from the snack aisles, with the exception of snacks for our little ones. We get things like crackers and fruit snacks, but beyond that, nothing. And we don’t need to, because we buy tons of other good food, so we don’t feel like we need junk snacks. We never buy pop, candy, and other crappy empty foods.

I'm done with this rant... I implore you to take a look at where you sit on the spending scale for food. Think about how much you could be saving... and how much time you could actually save in your life, not only now, but in the future, in terms of retirement years. Every few hundred you save per month now adds up to YEARS shaved off of your working career. The math doesn't lie. Always keep that in mind.

Next on our agenda for your reading pleasure.... a little follow-up discussion on the meaning of "retirement." Be sure to give it a good read!

Money Trolls Mock, But They Shall Mourn