I don't understand how anyone can eat (even for one person) for $193 or $125 per month. Even assuming that's just food and not paper and cleaning products that's $6.43 per day. Maybe you live on a farm and have access to chickens and vegetables without cost? If not, are you guys eating 3 meals a day of rice and beans?
(I don't mean this sarcastically. I am genuinely curious.)
Why the hate for rice and beans?
This week we've had imported Thai Jasmine rice, brown rice, refried beans, and garbanzo beans. But the main courses were more interesting!
So far this week I've cooked from scratch for every dinner. Monday was fajitas. Tuesday was butter "chicken" and tikka masala (hence the rice and garbanzo beans aka chana in Indian cuisine). Wednesday (tonight) was turkey burgers with slaw (leftover from a weekend thing), chili (homemade, from my freezer reheated), and the standard fixings of pickles, lettuce, fresh tomatoes, cheese, etc.
I shop the sales and get some good deals. Having a hypercompetitive local grocery market certainly helps supress prices. There's a SuperWalmart, Lidl, and Aldi basically at one intersection and they compete with cut rate pricing and good promotions. We skip Costco because it's rather expensive in comparison.
The fajita steak was on sale for about $2/lb. The protein for the butter chicken and tikka masala was actually a boneless pork loin I bought for $1.29/lb on sale. Tonight's turkey burgers were on sale for $1.50/lb this week. Tomatoes 0.79/lb.
Also snacked on greek yogurt ($1.69 for 32 oz this week) and oatmeal (about $0.10/serving) this week.
We have no problem eating leftovers so I usually make a double batch of whatever. Fajitas are now gone. Indian food - probably 8 servings left. Turkey burgers - made 16 and there's half that for a future family meal.
FYI we spend around $500/month solely on groceries for 5 of us but the kids usually eat school lunch during the school week (it's cheap and pretty decent plus they get free breakfasts which they take advantage of half the time).
We don't set out with a goal to slash our grocery spending to the bone and do okay in spite of buying plenty of pricier ingredients (ribs, salmon, shrimp, scallops, fresh tropical fruits, imported asian curries, spices, sauces, seasonings, etc).
blow the dough.
