[quote=harvey][quote=UCGal]Food – if you eat a decent amount of beans, rice, lower cost meats (chicken wings/drumsticks vs steak) – you could easily feed a family of 4 on $500/month.[/quote]
$500/month for four people is a little over $4 per person per day, or about $1.38 average per meal. Possible, but not easy. Even harder when both parents are working full-time jobs. Finding bargains at the grocery store and cooking meals takes time.
A family of four living in a high cost city making $60K per month and saving 40%+ of their gross income would be an impressive display of thrift.[/quote]It really not that hard. We not pinching pennies by a long shot. Yet, our family of 4 spend between $400-600/month on grocery. If we really must pinch pennies, I’m confident we can easily cut that spending down to $200-400/month, just base on the food that we currently eat and compare to the food I used to eat when I was little.
There have been many threads on here about food cost. I’ve brought up the fact that Asian food tends to be very economical to make. Here’s a prime example. We can make a big pot of chicken pho that can easily feed 15 people for about $15. It tastes better than anything you can buy at the restaurants and it’s a lot cheaper. I can list many other dishes that are just as cheap to make.
