[quote=CA renter]Okay, our family eats more meat, and I think the prices per unit are pretty low. Is that Costco, or? Also, the price for veggies is close, but also seems pretty low. We eat more veggies, and probably more fruit (we eat way too much fruit!). We’ll be working more on our garden this fall, too, so hope to be more like your aunt soon! We don’t feed our kids cheap calories, which is probably why our food bills are so high. What about drinks, spices, etc. to go into the food?
No matter what, if you’re really keeping your total bill at $600 or less, you are doing exceedingly well. I’m going to use some of your ideas here to see if we can bring ours down as well.
Thanks for everyone’s input on this! :)[/quote]
I figure you guys would eat more meat. Asian cooking tend to cook the meat in a way (through seasonings) where you don’t really want to eat too much meat at one time. Not like you can with a slab of steak. So, the same amount of meat can feed a lot more people than if you just lightly season and bake a slab of steak. We also love our rice. So, when you fill your stomach with rice, you tend to also eat less meat as well.
In term of price, I find the Asian supermarkets (most of the time), have meat and veggies that are much cheaper. Have you tried out Zion market in Clairemont? Here’s their weekly special: http://zionmarket.com/sale/store1.htm. As you can see, 1lb of shrimp is $4.99, or whole chicken for $1.59, or pork spare ribs for $2.99/lb, or napa cabbage 3lb for $0.99, or 3 head of lettuce is $0.99, or 2lb of plum for $0.99. You can find plenty of meat at other Asian supermarket either in Mira Mesa or 99 Ranch that have several different cut of meet for less that $5/lb. Our cheap calories is rice. We love rice and I would feel like I’m missing something if I don’t have rice for a few days. When we’re lazy, we can take one fillet of fish, season it well and bake it. That one fillet can feed both of us. This is also my favorite: http://www.theravenouscouple.com/2009/08/ca-kho-to-vietnamese-braised-fish-in-clay-pot.html. It’s super cheap to make and it’s salty & sweet enough that you would eat a lot of rice with it, so you don’t actually eat a lot of fish.
Regarding drinks, my house is water only. We don’t buy soda, or beer or wine. Spices are cheap and they last a long time, so I didn’t really count them in. Fish sauce, soy sauce, and oyster sauce are some of our main seasoning. They’re $2-3/bottle and the last for months.
