Food Budget Part II

Ok, here are my grocery spending totals for Feb. 2009. Please sit down before you read if large sums of money make you queasy.

This Monthly total includes Toiletries/HBAs/Paper Goods/Cleaning Products/Pet Food & Supplies....oh, and food too. We are a family of 5-2 parents & 3 eating machines, er....I mean teenagers(God help me).

Merchandise Value Total: $2524.90
Deduct....
Value of Coupons: $561.89
Store Sales Savings: $758.29
Rewards/Gift Cards/ECB's Used: $118.96
You get.....
Paid Out of Pocket: $1085.76

Savngs Total(Coupons/Sales/Rewards):$1439.14
Average % Saved: 56.9%

Rewards/ECB's Earned: $62.92
Rebates Sent For: $138.43
(ECB's & Gift Cards balance rolled over into next month: $20.99)

Total Cost to me (after rewards earned and rebates): $863.42

I found a Food Plan chart from the USDA that I am going to use to set a monthly food budget. The chart is located Here.
The dollar amounts of the Plans are based on food prices for Dec. 2008, which is the latest month for which the info. is available. There are 4 levels of food spending-Thrifty, Low Cost, Moderate Cost & Liberal. According to this governmental chart, my family should be spending anywhere from $784.30 a Month to eat on the cheap to $1542.40 a Month to dine on steak & caviar.....well, maybe NOT the caviar.
I am all about eating on the cheap but not so cheap that it has questionable nutritional value and/or it tastes bad. Yes, I let the kids eat their share of Pop Tarts and Kraft Mac & Cheese in the box but it's not an everyday thing and they get plenty of 'real' food most of the time. We eat well here and I'm not going to put the family on a ramen noodles and generic hot dog diet to save an extra buck or two.

But I just can't believe we spent that much on food for a month. Granted, I'd guesstimate that about $300-400 of what I spent was stocking up on things we use at incredibly LOW prices so that makes me feel a little better.

I guess I'm just shocked by the current cost of food. I read recently that food on avg. has gone up in price about 9-10% in the past year? Can that be right?!

I remember when husband & I were in college....back when dinosaurs roamed the earth as my kids say, but really it was the early 1980's/late 1970's. The two of us ate, albeit it WAS a meager menu, for $20 a week. Nowadays you can't even eat for 2 days on that! I use to wheel our little grocery handcart up the 6 short blocks to the big A&P on the main thoroughfare bordering the ghetto-esque part of the neighborhood in Baltimore. As starving students, we ate alot of Kraft Mac & Cheese with either hamburger or tuna fish mixed in, hot dogs & beans, hamburgers, pasta with sauce or for a special treat-Lasagna. You could buy a pound of mozzarella cheese for $1.99. Generic Kraft was 8 for $1., a can of tuna was 49 cents, pasta was 20 cents a box & spaghetti sauce was 89 cents a jar & a can of green beans was 29 cents. I'd love to go back to prices like that but not the quality of food it bought.

Except for the price of lobsters. I'd love to go back with my income TODAY to my 1st summer job in Maine in 1980. There was a guy selling lobsters out the back of his pick-up truck in the parking lot of the Stop & Shop. 1980 price for fresh just off the boat lobster in 1980 Maine?.....$2 lb.
To have a spare $20 and a Time Machine right about now.
I would eat myself into a lobster stupor.
Seriously.
In a heartbeat.

Back to the point.
I am going to try to stick to the "low cost" monthly food plan this year, the $1038.70 one.
That will include any stocking up I do too.
For Savings Challenge Goal Challenge purposes, I am going to put a Food Budget Limit of $250 for March however. I want to try to get through March with only buying milk, bread and fresh veggies/fruits, as I plan for us to eat down the pantry this month. I figure $150 and another $100 for any seriously low deals for stockpiling that may pop up later in the month.
Then for April, I'll go to the $1038.70 monthly budget.

So what do YOU spend for food a month at your house?
Do tell!

Sluggy