<p>I’m with Emily, again. For four, spend less than 4200/year. Hardly spent anything this summer, even with the girls home, because I had carefully shopped some sales in late spring. (No separate freezer.) </p>
<p>I followed the calculator, using the middle class income range and maxxing with two kids 16 and 17 (ie, assuming higher costs) - $5500 on their food, 4300 on transportation and the rest???</p>
<p>What does a family buy for 5500, just for the kids’ portion?</p>
<p>My 6’4", football-player sized kid doesn’t even eat 5500 dollars’ worth of food.</p>
<p>I don’t know how accurate these numbers are, but it’s models such as these that make our tax/benefit picture so bad for society as a whole. Middle class people having 2-3 children is vital for society at large, and penalties for doing so to pay for many other ventures is bad for us all.</p>
<p>The USDA calculator estimates annual food cost for a 16 year old: $2,630</p>
<p>$2630/12 months = $220/month
This does not seem like an unreasonable estimate to me, when one throws in restaurant meals & Starbucks</p>
<p>from USDA calculator explanation:
</p>
<p>GMT, family of two here that eats less than $200/month. I’m especially cheap because I’m a vegetarian. Neither of us drink coffee or go to any kind of specialty stores like that. It’s very possible depending on your region and eating habits.</p>
<p>@roman, $2630/365 days = $7.21/day. </p>
<p>If you can eat on 3 bucks per day, then you must be very thin and svelte, indeed :)</p>
<p>For sure. I spend more than that for coffee, I don’t know how anyone could be so careful and frugal. But then again, coffee is life.</p>
<p>I am curious if your gallbladder surgery will change your food budget, romani. If you can eat more things without feeling pain or discomfort, perhaps you will spend more. And that’s a good thing, to be able to enjoy many different sorts of food without misery!</p>
<p>Ha- BD :p. My pain only started a year ago and yet I’ve been eating like this my whole life lol. (All I’ve been eating the last few days is soup and applesauce so I’m hardcore craving something with substance -.-)
I’m a very healthy weight. Definitely not “thin” but “fit”.</p>
<p>GMT, the problem is that looking at “per day” costs paints a poor picture of reality. I spend ~ $100 every two weeks at the grocery store (actually less than that as I buy fruits & veggies weekly at a local, cheaper store). We don’t drink coffee, cut out pop pretty much, and buy store brands of many other products. But breaking it down by day, a sandwich like a PB&J costs ~ $0.15/sandwich (grilled cheese even cheaper) and a bowl of cereal is ~$0.30.
I just think breaking it down by day is a poor way to look at something because you don’t buy food by day- you buy it weekly or biweekly.</p>
<p>I grew up poor. You learn to stretch food and buy cheap brands. We don’t really buy junk food. We also grow a lot of our own food. I don’t remember the last time we bought spices or cucumbers or peppers, etc.</p>
<p>^^All I’m going to say, is if you, or you and BF come to Seattle, I’m taking you out to dinner and making you eat some seriously good food!! No, I wouldn’t force fillet mignon on vegetarians, but there’s got to be something particularly tasty that you like.</p>
<p>I grew up pretty poor too, I’d say. At least lower middle class, with parents that never ever ate out, drank coffee, gave up alcohol a long time ago, and grew many of their own veggies. Cook bulk food massively and freeze it, buy the fruit at a discount that stores will throw away. They still do that, even though most people would consider them wealthy (purely because of being frugal for a lifetime). I must admit, they really enjoy when we invite them over for something different. My dad actually moans while he eats, and I’m not a very good cook.</p>
<p>I’ll hold you to that :)! </p>
<p>I’m a terrible cook. Absolutely terrible. Maybe that’s part of why I eat so cheaply. I don’t make anything with more than 4 ingredients! (An exaggeration… but only a little :o).</p>
<p>Yeah, I know what you mean about the cooking. I am just really lucky that my husband is grateful for anything I make for him, as long as he doesn’t have to do it. And you can make plenty of things with only 4 ingredients. I have a couple of specialties that I make over and over again…they are actually pretty good, which is why I make them repetitively. My friends are very nice and tolerant of my cooking (plus I load them up with lots of really good wine before they have to eat)! Plus, when it comes to having company over, Whole Foods prepared food is awesome.</p>
<p>When you say 7.21/day for a kid, sounds different. I remember, ages ago, doing Europe on the $5/day food budget, for myself. But when you put together 2, 3 or 4 -at home- the economies are there. And we stick to reasonable portions on meats, deli, specialty. I’m a good cook.</p>
<p>Whole Foods is actually less, for some items. A few items.
(Maybe we need another recipe thread :))</p>
<p>I think just invest. But if it was more like lotto hundred millions we have talked about retiring, starting a new company that might be like solar based or design innovations that produce and have fun running it, and invest the money in the greater good. My ideal company is like Paul Newmans company.</p>
<p>One can eat at home if thrifty for only $200/mo. and about $150 additionally for each household member. Nothing fancy, but reasonably healthy meals.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2013/CostofFoodJun2013.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2013/CostofFoodJun2013.pdf</a></p>
<p>I would buy real estate. Not to live in – to rent – then sell later on. This is after paying off a lot of outstanding bills (including one collection account for $3K). And I would never have to fill out FAFSA again. </p>
<p>Does the person with the best answer get the $$$??</p>
<p>The person w the best answer might convince someone not to have kids</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Heck. The person with the worst answer might convince someone not to have kids.</p>
<p>roman,
We do not eat sandwiches, they are expansive, since bread is expansive in relation to amount of nutrients, almost zero. We pack left overs for lunches instead. No grill cheese, no cold cuts (also very expansive). The same goes for pasta, rice. We eat very very little of these products. We spend much much more than $200 / months on food for 2 of us. The reason is that although we are not vegetarians, we consume a lot of veggies and ton of fruits, and they are very very expansive. Coffee is free at our offices and we go out very rarely, only when kids are visiting. I have no idea how to spend only $3 / person / day on food. I might eat the whole pound of cherries in one day and it will be already $2.99. But this would not be the only food that I consume in this day.</p>
<p>@romani,
When I worked as a TA and was a poor/starving grad student (way back in the Jurassic), I was probably also eating on the equivalent of ~3 bucks/day. When I graduated and got my first job, I was like, “wow, I’m earning FIVE figures!” ;)</p>
<p>I’d love a beach house but it wouldn’t be much fun without our family to share in it.</p>