Where are my penny pinchers? Budget time

[mooretitan]

Try doing it when your family has to eat GF. Thats when the real pain sets in. I like to cook a good dinner each night. With 5 kids I am guessing most dinners are $20-$30 for the family. The last two years with the price of food it has hurt

 

[Bowhuntone]

Ramen noodle?

 

[MThuntr]

Growing up below the poverty line, fresh veggies were fairly rare and today a significant amount of my grocery bill goes toward fresh fruit and veggies. Do you have a CSA or Bountiful Baskets type service? You get a ton of veggies for cheap. WinCo and Aldi seem to be popular if you have one nearby.

Costco and Sam's Club aren't always money savers but generally you can justify the membership in a bigger family.

Have you considered buying meat directly from a producer or buying boxed meat from a packer/butcher? There's a guy back home that buys semi loads of box, frozen meat and sells it in his stores cheap...like $0.59/lb for whole chicken or $0.89/lb pork by the case.

There's a joke in there about lots of kids, money, and "control" but I'll try to bite my tongue

 

[AKBC]

I am surprised how many people consider individual portion, processed, high carb, low fiber snacks for their kids necessities. Maybe this isn't you, but if it is I would start there for ideas to reduce cost and improve their health.

 

[eye_zick]

Picky eaters are expensive. Nutritious food is typically more expensive than processed foods, ie hot dogs vs chicken.

I grew up in a family of 10. Stick with potatoes, rice, and pasta. Chose pork over red meat. Incorporate more hot cereals for breakfast. Grill hot dogs over chicken. In order to save more money you have to spend more time in the kitchen.

 

[KsRancher]

$1800 a month is spot on for a family of your size.. we are $1500 a month, 3 kids 2, 5 and 8.

Side note, that $1500 a month was no where near over $800 a month 2 years ago.

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I agree. I have 4 kids. 16, 13, 8 and 3 months. We spend around that $1500/month. Between the 16 and 13 yr old. They can eat a bag of apples, bag of pears, bag of grapes, big container of strawberry, bag of carrots, and several cucumber a week just as a snack like its nothing. They pack that stuff as a snack for track meets and practices. The 3 month old downs about $240/month in formula

 

[Banded_spooney]

I can't help you on saving money for feeding the family.

Biggest advice I can give for saving money is staying off Rokslide

 

[grfox92]

I agree. I have 4 kids. 16, 13, 8 and 3 months. We spend around that $1500/month. Between the 16 and 13 yr old. They can eat a bag of apples, bag of pears, bag of grapes, big container of strawberry, bag of carrots, and several cucumber a week just as a snack like its nothing. They pack that stuff as a snack for track meets and practices. The 3 month old downs about $240/month in formula

My kids will eat a $6 bag of apples in 1 day if we aren't watching.

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[fngTony]

Honestly, that sounds pretty cheap for that many lil-roksliders

 

[BRTreedogs]

I travel for work which makes it hard.
But id say I spend are $900 month just for myself.
And I don't really eat out. If I do is more fast food oriented.

 

[svivian]

My advice..... Condoms

Jokes aside do you live near a COOP where you can trade some manual labor for some fresh fruits and Veggies? Kids enjoy it too and teaches them some stuff.

 

[Jcaff]

Something my girlfriend and I started doing is planning out our meals week by week. Every Sunday evening over dinner we plan out what we want to eat every night for the week. Most of our meals resolve around venison burger, steak and fish (stuff I have lots of). From there we figure out the sides and extras we want to have. If we don’t have it we add it to the list. What we found out is that before this we were wasting a lot of food, we’d do one big grocery run a month. By the end of the month a lot of that food had gone bad. Going week by week we have a lot less food waste and have found our grocery bill has gone down quite a bit! Granted this is only for 2 people, I’d think the same concept could work for you.

 

[SonnyDay]

As others have said, limit eating out as much as possible… and avoid store-bought crap snacks (bar and other, sugar-filled garbage). Individually packaged snacks can be a buck or two a pop. Whereas fruit, popcorn, nuts, etc. are usually much cheaper. Step it up a notch with quesadillas or cheese melted on crackers.

We also avoid pre-made meals (frozen burritos, pizza, chicken fingers, etc.) way more expensive than making something comparable from scratch.

Of course… we don’t all have the time. Good luck!

 

[SonnyDay]

Something my girlfriend and I started doing is planning out our meals week by week. Every Sunday evening over dinner we plan out what we want to eat every night for the week. Most of our meals resolve around venison burger, steak and fish (stuff I have lots of). From there we figure out the sides and extras we want to have. If we don’t have it we add it to the list. What we found out is that before this we were wasting a lot of food, we’d do one big grocery run a month. By the end of the month a lot of that food had gone bad. Going week by week we have a lot less food waste and have found our grocery bill has gone down quite a bit! Granted this is only for 2 people, I’d think the same concept could work for you.

This is also a great strategy. Has helped us not waste food and just buy less for our family of five.

 

[Customweld]

I dont have kids but my wife and I only eat out once a month and we each can get lunch for ourselves once a month. Other than that, its all made and brought from home. Saves us a ton of money.

Watch for sales and stock up. Winco had pork on sale for $1 per pound, we bought 40 pounds. They also had asparagus on sale for 68 cents a pound. We bought 35 and canned most of it.

I love this time of year when Winco has asparagus at .68 a pound! Veggies and fresh fruit make up the lions share of our food budget. We buy a half beef every year from my cousin and pork when someone has a half listed on CL. I grew up sub poverty line and my mom was an awful cook, so we ate a lot of processed, boxed stuff. My wife is an excellent cook and makes 99 percent of everything from scratch. We very rarely eat out, maybe once every couple of months. Our monthly grocery bill is between $500-$700

 

[wesfromky]

I think other have mentioned making your own bars, but I will add making popcorn the old fashion is super cheap and goes a long way. Plus it taste way better and is much less unhealthy compared to the other options. I use avocado oil and $5 worth of oil and kernels ls will make a shit ton of popcorn.

 

[fngTony]

What do you do for work? Is it something that you could do you want to side as well to make a little extra money? Maybe fill out the job market see if you can get a significant raise? I know that’s not exactly what you asked but we were to the point that there was no more budgeting to be done. We had to increase the income.

 

[Jcaff]

This is also a great strategy. Has helped us not waste food and just buy less for our family of five.

Another thing, a lot of times our grocery stores put expiring produce on sale. In the last couple trips we got lots of bell peppers and bananas for super cheap. They weren’t in the best shape but good enough for stir fry’s and smoothies! We made packages of peppers and froze them, also froze the bananas for smoothies.

 

[Roosterstraw]

My wife and I spent about $700/month on groceries. We have one toddler. We eat the majority of our meals at home. With inflation the way it is, I don’t think it’s going to get better anytime soon.

 

[Ucsdryder]

My wife and I are updating our budget, which means we're also looking back at all the ways we sucked at following our budget over the last year

We try really hard to be frugal people, while still enjoying ourselves. Looking back over the last year, the areas where we tend to get a bit reckless with our spending are eating out and my wife's target addiction........
Those are easy fixes, but what's got me scratching my head is our grocery budget.

For Context, we just had our 5th kid, so we're feeding a lot of mouths. My kids are 7, 6, 4, 2, and newborn. All they ever want to do while they're awake is eat snacks.

We try to eat healthy, real food, well rounded meals. We try to have leftovers from dinner for lunch whenever possible. I've got a couple freezers full of wild game, and I have a bunch of laying chickens. Yet, we somehow still spend around $1,800 per month at the grocery store!

Anyone with experience feeding a big family and keeping it affordable? Meal planning experts? Leftover and snack hacks? Grocery deal seekers? I need all your advice!

Can’t help you with the groceries but whatever the cost of a vasectomy is…it’ll save you more than the rest of the penny pinching combined. Which reminds me, I need a referral from my doctor!