One thing I learnt last year as I cooked for a few extra mouths (we had homestay students) is how to pad out a meal.
I have learnt that Your Labour/Time = what you save in $.
So for example with fish, it's easy to buy three packets to feed eight, and pan-fry or steam or bake. But to save money you can pad out just one packet by adding stuff like vegetables & flour, and making them into little fish cakes. It goes a long way.
Currently, I am spending about $45 per week per person on food.
This seems a lot especially because two of those persons are little kids under 7. And we don't eat extravagantly.
This includes the Franklins receipt, including foods like cheese, dip, and worchestershire sauce, but also things like toilet paper, dishwasher powder, and shampoo. I'm not going to sit there and split it! So it's counted all in under "food bill".
My aim this year (once head is above water for 2 minutes after Baby #3) is to bring down the weekly cost of food to under $200.
$80 fruit & veg (incl. $25 veg co-op)*
$30 meat
$20 Korean groceries e.g. seaweed, curry block, dumplings
$60 Franklins
$10 Here & there/Buffer
I am learning to cook more Frugally.
*$25 veg co-op buys me a lot of stuff. But I also spend about $55 at the local fruit & veg shop to buy lots of fruit (we eat a lot of fruit!), pasta, milk (6L), passata, nuts, bread and herbs. I think some savings can be made here...
I am trying to reduce our grocery bill too. Definitely harder with kids with allergies... but I think we can be under $200 too. Here there is a great fruit and veg markets near by and we can buy everything we need for the week for $25-$30. Meat is our expense with needing it most nights for J's diet - she needs the protein since she can't get it any other way.
ReplyDelete