Do You Know How Much You Really Spend on Food?
The San Francisco Chronicle surveyed 30 Bay Area food shoppers to see how many actually knew their monthly food expenditures. While many wing it, throwing out random estimates, others could quantify to an exact dollar amount. My favorite part is when one woman munched on her "CCOF Certified Organic Shinko Asian Pear" for $1.45. While logging the steep price in her records, she listened to a report on credit default swaps.
Which category do you fall under? The "wing it" or the "tally up receipts" crowd?
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23 Comments:
Wing it. I'm single and don't have kids so my needs frequently fluctuate based on work and social demands. Some months I spend more because I'm in the mood to cook extravagantly and others I keep it to the basics and have a lot of scrambled eggs for dinner.
kitchenbea at 3:43PM on 10/20/08
I'm somewhere in between. My gf and I tend to spend between 60-100 on groceries per week. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more. I might review expenditures online rather than scouring receipts...
lawofmurphy at 3:45PM on 10/20/08
Definitely wing it. I have an approximate idea of our daily average, and so I can throw out a monthly or annual estimate based on that - but I don't budget carefully, and so if I'm up or down in the short term I don't really know.
jessie at 3:53PM on 10/20/08
Wing it, as long as I'm single anyway. What I spend on takeout in NYC is enough to scare me.
JustinH at 3:57PM on 10/20/08
I wing it for the most part since I'm single. I usually spend no more than 40 a week though sometimes more depending on how much I'm in the mood to cook.
HeatherB at 4:01PM on 10/20/08
Wing it....I don't spend much on clothes, entertainment, etc so we can enjoy what we eat and I can have fun cooking. The fiance logs every reciept of his part of our "budget"...I truly don't want to know.
Cary at 4:05PM on 10/20/08
I wing it for the most part its probably way more than I would like to spend. There is a Shaw's supermarket near my office, which is great to stock up the office or grab a key ingredient for something I am drooling over online during the afternoon surf break. I know I spend WAY too much and in turn probably throw away alot too, and now I am sad, hmmm.
shayna99 at 4:22PM on 10/20/08
I am single and have been winging it...just decided not to do that anymore after watching "Unwrapped" on Food Network. They did a spot on "the Grocery Game" dot com site. I am giving it a try to save some bucks.
rckymtn1 at 4:23PM on 10/20/08
i am with cary. i am NOT single and i have been winging it, and i truly don't want to know. but i definitely don't spend much on anything else...the last piece of clothing i bought was a coat from a thrift store this summer, so i guess i can splurge on food when i want. but i definitely took my boyfriend out for two meals yesterday....whoops.
thuscwspake at 4:28PM on 10/20/08
For years I "wung" it...then, when I took some time off from a very demanding job, I really started paying attention to what stores were charging for plain, every day, mundane items. Case in point: the famous $1.00 lemon. No, it wasn't at Whole Foods or Balducci"s or even Dean&DeLucca...it was at plain little ol' Waldbaums. I mean, do lemons eat corn or something? Now I check all the circulars online and in the papers (and this was even before the bear market) to get the best possible prices on ordinary food. Funny, I still don't give a damn what the truffle salt, EVOO, Mountain Gorgonzola and aged Ribeyes cost, though.
Since we're not eating out as much we just have to have the best of some luxury items. Do I feel guilty? Not a chance.
bessfour at 4:39PM on 10/20/08
I am in the Wing It crowd!
izatryt at 4:57PM on 10/20/08
I wing it. And that's NOT good. I'm trying.
nightowl at 5:04PM on 10/20/08
Winging it, but very aware. That is to say, I don't keep track of every penny, expenditure to expenditure, but I always know approximately what I spend, and can pull a ballpark figure off the top of my head that's remarkably accurate. But most people I know really haven't the first clue about what they're really spending.
Another thing I know is that I spend way more than necessary. I'm by no means extravagant, but I'm nowhere near as careful as in those long ago days when I was so poor that eating was almost a luxury, because paying the rent was the only thing that mattered more than food! I still compulsively calculate unit prices, stock up when stuff's on sale, and resist the urge to indulge too frequently in expensive cheeses, wines and cuts of meat.
I could probably cut my food bill in half, literally, with hardly any effort. And I'm so grateful to be so fortunate that I don't have to pinch pennies anymore!
LoCo at 5:34PM on 10/20/08
I am winging it, but so sad to see so many of my favorite small local restaurants closing shop :(
Ranton at 8:27PM on 10/20/08
I do plan my weekly menu quite tightly but do so because I enjoy the planning rather than for extreme frugality, so the actual spending can end up being flexible (especially when honeycrisps are in season!) For me and the husband its about $120 a week at the grocery store plus maybe about another $50 - one lunch out for him and one dinner out for us both each week.
I spent more when I was in grad school, because there was a Starbucks on the way to campus.
AliceBlue at 8:35PM on 10/20/08
I would be afraid to find out how much we spend on food.
Between going out to eat twice a week.
Drinks here and there.
Cooking with the best ingredients, and just basic groceries, I am certain we are eating our money!
Stacey Snacks at 9:15PM on 10/20/08
Tally-ho!!! I save all receipts and add them up, and buy everything on sale. The monthly total for our family of four is still more than I would like.
mcmvoices at 9:45PM on 10/20/08
wing it. i know i spend quite a chunk of change on my food -- probably close to 500 dollars a month. i have a lot of expensive habits, like imported parmesan cheese, fage yogurt, getting my produce from the greenmarket, and freeze dried mangoes at six bucks a container. i don't eat out a lot and i never get take out, so i suppose it could be worse.
cybercita at 10:21PM on 10/20/08
i used to wing it but have been sticking to a budget for the past few months. for just myself, i spend about $30 a week on food. since the majority of my meals are eaten in between classes or at work, luxury items are few and far between. the joys of being a student!
alisahno at 11:15PM on 10/20/08
Wingin' it all the way... Depending on how well I plan out the week's meals & how many non-food items (TP, shampoo, etc.) we need to stock up on that week, it ranges anywhere from $35 to $90 for my hubby & me. Hooray for working & being on student loans!
daveandcat at 9:12AM on 10/21/08
I do the majority of my grocery shopping at the farmer's market. I take $100 with me and get all the groceries I need for a week for two people- breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I usually don't spend that much, so whatever is left over I spend on non-farmer's market staples like sugar, flour, butter, etc.
nyclocavore at 9:40PM on 10/21/08
I definitely wing it but I usually average out to $30 a week.
Vincci at 1:02AM on 10/22/08
100% completely wing it. A TOTAL seemingly unavoidable nightmare.
I work overnight shifts in NYC which means no cooking because if it gets too busy and I don't get to eat it, I get mad that I wasted my groceries and time. That leaves Manhattan take-out for my 10:30PM dinners, three times a week. Easily $50 not including the required large coffee and medium 3-topping Pinkberry on the way to work.
On my days off (away from NYC) I always cook, but utterly wing it at the grocery. I'll budget clothing, toiletries and haircuts, but no way will I budget food. I do look for sales and deals ("ten for $10" is popular at the local grocery for things like canned tuna and bagged cereals) and get my veggies from supercheap upstate farmer's markets, but really if it calls to me I'll buy it.
What has killed my grocery bills is the "happy meat". I now make a point to buy only "happy meat" from happy animals from happy farms. This means $6 individual pork chops instead of $6 trays of pork chops. It means $10 chickens instead of $5 chickens. In the near future I think it means less pork and chickens.
This October I got an app for my Centro that I can type in my expenditures as I buy so I have a better idea of what I'm spending. The 'groceries" and "take-out" categories are nothing short of outrageous.
I highly suggest everyone who wings it takes a month to keep track of food spending. You'll freak.
missbhavens at 2:56PM on 10/22/08