Monday, March 21, 2011

So what does it cost to feed a family of six?

Well, I decided to look at we use in a day. It's a bit more difficult because I'm not the one home with the girls, but Justin is all in for helping me, since he's rather curious as well. To start off let's get a few things straight. We shop at the commissary and Costco for the most part, looking for deals on produce at places like Henry's, Frazier Farms (local to our neighbourhood) and occasionally Sprouts. Our family size varies. We have RachelLynn half the week. The other three are gone every other weekend. Justin and I don't eat much when the girls aren't here, partly due to not knowing how to cook for two, partly due to apathy. We make most of our own bread and bread products-save tortillas. And I'd love top get a tortilla press but that's for a later date. We don't eat a lot of processed foods, though we do eat crackers, microwave popcorn and a few other things. Hopefully this will also curb our eating out. Not really a huge problem with the food, but Justin and I kinda (really) like Diet Dr. Pepper from McDonald's. But we'll see what happens with that...

So for today: Breakfast :$1.95
6 eggs. $5.89 for 5 dozen, so $.60
4 whole wheat tortillas. $1.83 for 11, so $.64
About 2 oz cheese. $12 for 5 lbs (actually close to $11 but couldn't really remember), so $.30
2 7 oz bananas, $.47/lb, so $.41
We forgot milk (don't worry, the girls get a ton of liquids and calcium).
Justin and I didn't eat-I know, most important meal of the day and all...


Lunch:
We're still figuring that one out. Like I said, we make our own bread. We've been meaning for a while to figure out how much it costs (definitely not $3 a loaf like at the store) but haven't sat down to do it yet. But the girls had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and carrots and ZoeBel had mango, crackers and a boiled egg for snack. ClaireBeth had somewhere between the two. I had leftover stew and biscuits (more stew than biscuits) and a boiled egg. And Justin doesn't remember to eat half the time...

Dinner: Total non-leftovers: $4.36
Pork chops. 1.95 lbs at $1.66/lb, so 3.24
Mashed sweet potatoes from leftovers, so no clue.
Same with the salad-spinach, boiled egg, mozzarella, craisins, carrots, corn, broccoli-yum.
For sake of simplicity we'll figure everyone drinks their milk, so today we're looking at 52 oz milk. So 2.75 a gallon (we'll stick with this throughout as well) and we're looking at 1.12.

Justin and Jessica Snack: 2.24
Smoothie pack. 1.79.
Last quarter of a bag of frozen strawberries. .45
handful or two of spinach. 2.5 lbs for $3.79 (the main reason we joined Costco. Seriously)???

Snacks we'll start figuring tomorrow, partly because it involves weighing stuff and the like. But we're looking at less than $10 a day, if we're conservative. Well, maybe a little more with the smoothies. And since we're going forward, not backward, we won't include the half a bag of Reese's Easter Eggs we've been noshing on...