random curiosity

[ratcreature]

Poll #4781 the price to feed yourself

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 42

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How much money do you spend on food per week per person? (in an average week, eating your average food, not an exceptional one with a holiday feast or a dinner treat at an for you unusually fancy restaurant or the like)

View Answers

less than 20 € (currently exchanged to about 27.50 US$ or so or 17.50 UK£, convert € below accordingly, though I realize the exchange rate vagaries don't reflect local purchasing power for stuff like food necessarily)
4 (9.5%)

20-30 €
11 (26.2%)

30-40 €
11 (26.2%)

40-50 €
3 (7.1%)

50-60 €
5 (11.9%)

60-70 €
1 (2.4%)

70-80 €
2 (4.8%)

90-100 €
3 (7.1%)

100-120 €
2 (4.8%)

120-140 €
0 (0.0%)

140-160 €
0 (0.0%)

160-180 €
0 (0.0%)

180-200 €
0 (0.0%)

200-250 €
0 (0.0%)

250-300 €
0 (0.0%)

more than 300 €
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[astridv]

I'm just guessing, I really have no idea.

[ratcreature]

I started keeping a budget book this year recording all my purchases, because I had no idea where the money went exactly, even while I tried not to spend too much. So now that I did that some months, I have a good idea of my current averages for the first time really.

[zing_och]

Would be less if I could resist take-away coffee. Would be more if I didn't eat in our cafeteria.

I buy a lot of stuff organic, so I could spend less, but since I finally have enough money, why not?

[ratcreature]

Yeah, a few years ago when I had about €150 more income a month and actually less expensive fixed expenses, I bought mostly organic food too, especially all dairy and eggs. I feel really bad about buying non-organic dairy, but it's that or never having cheese. I still buy organic eggs, though.

[sapote]

In the US the cheapest cheese is actually price-fixed by WIC (they don't define it as price-fixed, but it's totally price fixed). I accordingly have measured the two extremes of my income level as an adult as "government cheese" versus "organic cheese" :) It's kind of indicative of our food funding priorities that whenever I help a friend who's down and out figure out what to do about groceries, I start with "okay, so you're going to buy a large block of cheese..."

[ratcreature]

Here the lowest price store brand basics usually end up costing the same everywhere too (at least in a region, my sister tells me that the city she moved to is way cheaper than here both in rents and in food prices), presumably because people comparison shop (at least the stores deny coordination and price fixing when accused of such). Like in 2008 with that food price spike, all the discounters somehow raised for example the price for a basic 500g bag of pasta within a few days of one another (I have three discount supermarket chains in walking distance and checked in all of them when suddenly pasta cost a third more). And this year when the butter jumped from 85¢ to 1.05€ for 250g that price hike happened simultaneously too.

[sapote]

Well, in this case (to clarify), foods that are included in the Supplemental Food Program for pregnant women have to be below a certain price, or the county office withdraws WIC authorization from that store. So you can always get things like gallon milk, cheese, certain whole-grain cereals, certain fruit juices, etc. at a stabilized price regardless of how crazily inflate-y all the other prices get. It's not a bad trick, though I'm always surprised how few people use it.

Otherwise there's no logic - the same box of crackers that costs $2 at one grocery tends to cost $4 at another.

[shadowvalkyrie]

I usually manage to keep it below 20 € a week, but that only works if I don't go out on the weekend and it's nobody's birthday etc. Also, I don't eat very healthily and 7 € of the budget is chocolate. *g*

[ratcreature]

I used to be able to keep it below €20 for a while before 2008, but then it increased, but this year I kept track of all my purchases in a budget book, and some weeks it's less, but some weeks more like €30, if I replace some staples or add a pound of coffee or the like.

[shadowvalkyrie]

The budget book thing is a good idea actually...

I think I'm lucky in that I don't smoke, very rarely drink alcohol, and don't like coffee. Also, fresh vegetables are expensive, and I avoid those like the plague. *ggg* All of that keeps costs down immensely.

[shadowvalkyrie]

Oh, and I guess I should add that I'm extra lucky to live in the countryside, so I can get cheap organic eggs next door, and occasionally get honey and meat for free or in exchange for garden work from family.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, as a vegetarian I find the fresh fruit and vegetable prices quite unfortunate.

[yvi]

Hmm, it's usually about 70€ a week for breakfast and dinner (warm meals) + all food on the weekend for the both of us, plus about 2-3€ a weekday for lunch for me. Plus maybe take-out once a week, so 50€-ish per person seems to fit

[ratcreature]

For cooking purposes I often wish I shared a household, because it's cheaper and often more convenient if you don't just cook for one. I always have to plan around managing leftovers, so I won't get sick of lentil stew the third day in a row. *lol*

[bluemeridian]

I probably guessed too high for our household because of the non-food groceries, but we still buy most of our meat and there are various other purchases (usually small) coming from a variety of sources which do add up. Plus purchases that aren't weekly which are a bit more confusing to spread out the effect of.

[ratcreature]

Yeah. I started a budget book in detail only this year to finally figure out where the money was going exactly, so now that I did that some months, for the first time I really have an idea of my current averages. (And it helps that I buy cleaning stuff and other regular stuff mostly at a different place from my food stuffs, so tallying the receipts is easy.)

[maire]

Damn. I forgot about non-food groceries entirely. Probably more like 60 than 100, then. We eat out a lot, though, as a family.

[reginagiraffe]

I'm probably aiming too high but I don't really keep track. Some weeks I'll spend a ton if the meat we like is on sale. Other weeks I barely buy more than milk, bread, and a few veggies. We also go out to eat at least once or twice a week so that increases things a lot.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, eating out regularly gets expensive fast.

[devildoll]

I try to stay under 75 $US per week, including apples and carrots and mints and molasses for the horse. Two or three years ago it was 50, but I finally had to give up and admit it was time to raise the limit. I try to buy spices and olive oil etc when on sale, so sometimes those purchases push me over 75.

I use up my over-ripe bananas by baking breads and muffins and cakes to take to the barn, which does cost me money in flour, sugar, eggs, etc. It'd probably be cheaper to just toss the bananas outside for the varmints, but I enjoy the baking and the barn people enjoy the eating, so...

[ratcreature]

Yeah, in mine the fresh stuff I share with my three rats is included as well, i.e. veggies and every now and then yogurt or an egg, but they are much smaller than a horse.

[mecurtin]

I'm stunned at how high most of these estimates are, frankly. It's the effect of years (on my part) of:

- cooking for a family, not single
- making food from scratch
- eating out *extremely* rarely when not traveling
- not even going to coffee shops

I would never have thought to include the upper reaches of your poll, and would have split the lowest level into sub-categories.

[ratcreature]

Well, the minimal subsistence margin set by the government here calculates with €4/per day for food for an adult living alone, that's €28 per week. I already started lower than that. ETA: And the upper limit, I calculated that some people go to lunch or dinner or sometimes both daily and not some fast food place but decent restaurants, and have a bottle of wine several times a week, and then maybe prefer organic food and so on, and then maybe regularly splurge on an expensive restaurant once a month. I have no trouble to image €300 for food per week on average if you have a good income.

[mecurtin]

What do they calculate for a family of 3 or 4? I wonder how much of my saving is due to never eating out, how much for being a family instead of single.

Every Saturday, we have a dinner party for 6-10 people: we do most of the cooking, other people bring wine. This *feels* like a special occasion enough that I don't often have the urge to eat out, but it costs very little -- we could keep doing it even when our finances had gone from "tight" to "dire".

[ratcreature]

It lowers in shared households. And not just children, also non-married partners and even roommates. If you live together you have to prove that you don't share costs if you want to get the full support. I think they reduce to two-thirds in the calculations but I'm not entirely sure.

[bibliofilen]

Aprox 30 EUR a week I think, possibly less. That is with eating out a bit. Single houshold, living in Sweden.

[saraht]

While I try not to be wasteful, I buy things in bulk when I can, and I do try to take lunch in to work on a regular basis (eating out in my area will kill you), I think buying good-quality food is one of the best investments you can make in yourself and in the health and economic vitality of your community. I buy a lot of food at the farmers' market in season (not cheap), I get most produce and meat from the higher-end store here even though I don't always get organic, and I try to buy cruelty-free meat, dairy, and eggs whenever possible. Last Saturday at the greenmarket, I probably spent twenty-five dollars on: kale, leeks, garlic, sage, rosemary, apples, a few cider donuts, and some wild arugula. I have a weekly grocery budget of $75, but when I eat out I charge it against my entertainment budget, so I know I often go over that.

[saraht]

(However, from past experience, I know I could get by on about $30/week in dire straits, and $50/week with some discomfort.)

[ratcreature]

When I had a bit more money I spent quite a bit of that extra on better food, eating mostly organic for some years. I still feel bad about not buying organic dairy anymore (because I already have dairy guilt anyway, but I always fail as vegan while I have been vegetarian without problems since my late teens), and I do still buy organic eggs, but then I don't eat many eggs anyway. Mostly I buy them for baking and because my rats love having egg every now and then.

[thefourthvine]

Our food costs look ridiculous, and in fact they are, but they are that way in part because of our kid's eating habits - his firm preference for All Things Organic and Local, and his sincere love of expensive foods. This tends to translate into expensive food for all of us - we all eat mostly organic and local now, and, well, if you bring expensive cheese in to this house, you can expect it to be consumed fairly rapidly. Things like that.

Although. Hmmm. Actually, our expenses this summer and fall have been lower, because we've been pulling food from the garden. I may have to go revise the figure - this is one from when we last did our budget, before the garden happened.

[ratcreature]

I don't think they are ridiculous. I mean, I'm actually surprised that so many people spend so relatively little on food, because I feel I'm rather scrimping out of necessity and would much rather spend much more on food if I could.

[lilacsigil]

Fresh, high quality food is relatively cheap in Australia but I've figured in the fact that we have to drive a 120km round trip to buy it.

[ratcreature]

Wow, that calls for really well planned grocery shopping.

[lilacsigil]

Once a week on Tuesdays! There is a mini supermarket in our town but the food is disgusting - rotting fruit and vegetables, things months out of date, constant problems with the refrigeration - so we don't shop there. Our town is on a gourmet trail so if we ever want, say, artisanal cheese or olive oil or wine, we're good. Bread, cereal, milk and vegetables are more of a problem!