Thought you guys might enjoy this... I recently again became infuriated upon reading the blog of a friend who claimed that for herself and her husband she paid a combined total of 100 dollars a month for food and other grocery items (soap, etc)! Paying myself several times this amount while trying to live thriftily, I was amazed -- how does she do it? So I did some armchair excel calculations of how cheaply, buying only at the lowest average prices at which I know I can find grocery items within my shopping radius, I could eat a healthy, balanced diet. I figured my friend must be couponing/stealing/making out of old paint chips hygiene items for free so I did not include them in my calculations. Here's what I came up with:
As you can see, eating real food and avoiding fats, it is impossible to feed two people on 100 dollars a month -- in fact, one person can barely squeeze in for that month on a third-world-style rice and beans diet. 200 dollars per person for a veggie-filled, ramen-free diet sounds about right.
So, in conclusion, I am no longer racked with guilt upon hearing stories of 5-person-families-with-two-large-dogs living off 100 dollars a month, knowing that they must be doing it by stuffing themselves with cheap fats and processed foods.
But, I would like hints on how to save while eating mainly "ingredients" (food that didnt take a whole factory and herds of engineers to produce).
(BTW, for curiosity's sake, getting all your calories from McDonads 1 Dollar Double Cheeseburgers costs 4.25 / day including tax -- more than rice and beans but a lot less than anything healthy -- and what atmosphere!)
4 comments:
i tried for stinking ever to get the chart to display right ... no dice... stupid blogger reduces all your images to tiny and screws up all formatting.. oh well, if anyone cares about the chart ask and ill send the excel file
I'd love to see the chart. Email it to me if you get the chance. Truth is to eat really cheaply you do have to make some health decisions. When Danny and I were eating on a ridiculously low budget we were not eating very healthy. For example--we new rice and potatoes cost practically nothing so we ate that almost always with a little something to add flavor. We also ate meat about once every 10 days. Cheap bread and never ever mushrooms, OJ, or anything like that. Cheap, but not a recommended diet.
What a great blog entry. Thanks, Travis. I believe that if you eat whole foods, grains, vegetables, fruit, good quality meat (not preserved meat very often) you will feel better and spend less money on illness. I don't think drastic food budgets factor in the amount of time and money lost to low energy and to illness. I have read many remarkable budget articles about using coupons, but the products they buy and eat with coupons do not fit my requirements. They make you gain weight and feel lousy. So the real cost of a food budget overlaps other areas. Money and time spent on higher quality food (even growing a garden or joining a produce co-op) makes for a more energetic productive life and less money spent on medicines. Dad and I actually experienced this for a few years when we had to use our food storage and found that everyone was healthier. As soon as we got more cash we bought potato chips and breakfast cereal.
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