this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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I'm not sure about tracking your spending, but I can tell you that you're grocery shopping is way too wasteful. That's like $200/week on groceries for one person. Unless you have a very limited diet, you're paying more than double what you should be at the grocery store. For context, when I get groceries for me and my wife, I rarely spend over $50. Get store brands, buy bigger sizes, and shop at cheaper stores like Aldi. Stop buying frozen and processed garbage; buy fresh meat and vegetables and cook big batches and have leftovers. This time of year is great for a big pot of soup/chili!
I think if I were interested in tracking spending like that, I might just build a simple spreadsheet with dates and costs, maybe add variables for the unusual things like stocking up to have guests to feed or whatever. Sorry I can't be more helpful on that front. If you're not experienced with cooking, there are some really good YouTube channels that can teach you some good, versatile recipes that are very budget-friendly.
It really depends on where you live. $200 doesn't get you that far in places like Manhattan or San Francisco. Especially if you're cooking for every meal for more than one person for a week.
You're not wrong. But for context, my wife and I live in Ashburn, VA (NoVA is super expensive but not quite Manhattan or San Francisco expensive). A lot of it comes down to choices though. Of course eggs and bacon for breakfast are not gonna be in the budget I mentioned, but oatmeal with some frozen berries fits just fine. No you can't get steak to fit in that budget all the time, but if you have a vegetarian meal every once in a while then you get some flexibility in your budget to allow steak sometimes because meat is way more expensive than a can of black beans.
I also make my lunches and pack them for when I'm at work, so that's a lot of the food I eat and it's way cheaper than it would be if I ordered something somewhere, and it doesn't take much time to make a whole batch of sandwiches for the week. Idk I grew up poor, so these things are just in my nature, and now even though I don't have to be so frugal I still choose to because it just doesn't make sense not to.
I don't think it's as simple as coming down to choice. Planning, shopping, cooking, and cleaning takes a non-trivial amount of time and effort that not every person can afford even if they can afford ingredients. It's not uncommon for people in the city to come home exhausted after 70 hours work week and hour long commutes.
Sometimes it's not physically or mentally possible to sustain the kind of min-maxing lifestyle of cooking under a tight budget. Cooking is hard, cooking affordably is even harder. Sometimes, having a steak for dinner is one of the few things that keeps people happy enough to not kill themselves in an exploitative work culture while being crushed by unaffordable housing.
I don't think OP is necessary overspending because it really depends on where they live, how many hours they work, what their living situation is like, how much of their own mental load they carry.
I've lived on a tight budget before. For a time I made do with $30 a week in an expensive town, albeit almost a decade ago. I skimmed on everything I could and bought as many $1 bags of spoiled vegetables as I could, trimmed off all the moldy parts, and just made whatever vegetable soup I could every week. This is one of like 50 other things I had to do to get by. And it wasn't great for my mental health. It sucked to have to spend so much time and energy when I had so few hours left in a day to do all this.
Living cheap has a cost too. I don't think it's fair to assume that OP is necessary choosing to waste money when we don't know where they live or what else is going on in their life.
I understand that there are many variables that we're not privy to, but that doesn't change that fact that quick, cheap, simple, nutritious meals are possible, and OP has internet access to find all the info necessary to make it happen. I work 12 hour, highly active shifts, so I'm no stranger to being tired, but it's pretty easy to throw a decent meal together in 15-20 minutes.
OP has said nothing about working long hours or being tired or anything like that. I'm not sure it's wise to assume anything specific about details of their lifestyle too much. I know I was speculating with regards to spending, but they said that they don't eat out much and they still spent a pretty absurd amount just to feed themself, so I gave the possible out of having a restrictive diet. Halal/kosher costs more, gluten-free costs more, most seafood is pricey if they're pescatarian, etc. If that's not a factor, then there's zero legitimate reason to spend $200/week feeding one person aside from ignorance, so I was just trying to introduce them to some thrifty tips and basic shopping/cooking educational resources. An approachable favorite of mine is the Pro Home Cooks YouTube channel because he has some videos where he's doing the prep and cooking in real time while talking to show how fast and easy it is, targeting 15 minute dinners for 2-4 people.
I'm not trying to be a dick so I'm sorry if I've come off that way. I'm sincerely sharing habits and strategies that I've found to be helpful. <3
I'm not sure how I became the one making assumptions about OP's lifestyle. I was asking you not to make assumptions because you said that spending $200 on groceries was a choice to overspend, and now you're saying it's due to ignorance. Even if it can be improved upon, I don't think either is necessary true and really depends on OP's living situation.
It's apparent to me now that you're just looking to have an argument, so I'm going to disengage. They are explicitly reaching out because they themself believe that they are overspending on groceries, hence their post. Have a good day.
I was only asking you to be mindful about high cost of living in some cities and how high spending habits aren't always a product of moral failure. Not sure how that is constituted as looking to have an argument, but you do you.
$50 for two people for a week? That's about $1.20 per meal and rivals what companies like Aramark spend per inmate/school child per meal. I have a tough time believing this holds true for more than a week unless you're just eating beans and rice.
I'm looking at that receipt and it would be one day of food in our household. One supper for 4, and 3 lunches (one kid gets free lunch, their school gives it to all students), one round of breakfast , maybe. You eat this all week? Two cans of beans? What is your calorie goal for a day?
It doesn't look like much, but this was probably like 20 pounds of groceries. This wasn't a full week of groceries because I was using some stuff I already had on hand in addition to this, but that's also why it's so much cheaper than the price range I said is typical. Some of this was ingredients for oatmeal or overnight oats, but I already had a big thing of oats at home. Some of this was supplies for my lunches I pack but I must have had enough bread at the time for my sandwiches, etc. Whatever sweet potato black bean thing I was cooking used two cans of black beans, a whole 3 pound bag of sweet potatoes, and probably 4-5 tomatoes. Maybe we had rice with it which we would've had on hand like the oats? But remember it's just feeding two people for us, so this easily makes us a few days worth of leftovers. OP said that they are only feeding themself, so shopping and cooking for two will be a closer approximation than your expectations while shopping and cooking for four.
I don't usually take pictures of my receipts, so I unfortunately don't have evidence of a typical weekly trip. It's almost always more expensive than this because I usually wouldn't choose a vegetarian option for a big batch to have lots of leftovers. For example, I am cooking a big batch of clam chowder right now, and because Aldi didn't have chopped clams, I had to go to Giant for that, so getting stuff for lunches and breakfasts and clam chowder all cost about $55 this time. And I don't expect to need to get groceries again until probably Friday or Saturday. 5 cans of clams aren't cheap, but they go a long way when you're stretching it with cream, carrots, onions, celery, and potatoes!
I don't really target a specific calorie goal. We eat until we are no longer hungry. Rest assured, we aren't starving lol. We just really like vegetables, and they're relatively cheap compared to meat and processed stuff. I think it would be clearer if you saw the sizes of some of the things you see on the receipt. Like "sweet potatoes" doesn't explain that it's 3 pounds of starch yet it's only $1.59 lol. "Vine tomatoes" for $2.89 was 4-5 medium size tomatoes. Idk why vine tomatoes are so cheap compared to tomatoes without the vine, but I'm not complaining. For comparison, if you shop at a typical store, you can get 6 pouches of gushers in a box for a similar price (usually more), and that's less than 1/3 pound of food. Cooking really saves a shitload of money at the cost of some time, but you also choose leaner portion sizes because the sooner you finish that food, the sooner you have to cook something else.
I know kids make this way harder, but that's not something OP has to worry about right now.
No receipt, but I have the pending Aldi and Giant charges on my bank app! I got my wife something for Valentine's at Giant, but if you ignore that it's a total of about $55 for the groceries like I said.
Do you eat meat?
Yes, but I buy bigger packs, so I don't always need more. That's why this receipt was so much lower than the $35-50 I was talking about. A big pack of chicken thighs from Aldi is under $10, usually $7ish. But based on that receipt, I was probably doing a sweet potato black bean something or other. Hearty, satisfying vegetarian meals can be as delicious as they are cheap.
$200 a week is easily enough for a family of 4. I have no idea how you even get to this level.