Can some of our American or UK members advise me as to the approximate cost of a grocery bill for a weeks worth of groceries?This includes if you had to go back for example running out of a few items?


Just out of curiosity I'd be intrested to know how much a family of 2,3,or 4 would need to spend in a week in America?

If you have a family of four, that family can go to a place called Costco, or the Price Club, or Sam's Club and buy everything in bulk.

You can save big time that way.

But if you are on a budget and let's say there are two people in the house, first you have to tell me if you want to eat healthy, or if you want to fill up on Cereal, macaroni and cheese, and frankfurters.

You can eat for a few bucks if you eat stupid, or you can spend $100 a week and eat chicken, fish, fresh veggies, and salad (just like Alan and I do). But you have to know how to shop, where the best price of chicken and fish is per pound. You have to know where the best produce store is and buy your lettuce and veggies on sale, (especially tomatoes).

See, it's all about what kind of food you are into. And I didn't even include BEEF in that scenario. Alan and I do not eat any red meat or beef.

We get our protein from chicken, fish, turkey burgers and we combine that with a low carb lifestyle.

But if you like spaghetti, well, that costs peanuts and you can LIVE on that for a week. Add eggs for breakfast with some rolls. And you can do this on $25.00 a week. Make your own home made sauce and you're good to go.

If you need recipes for muffins, let me know.

lol
Melody

P..S. If you have kids in the house, you have to add milk to the equation. And probably Soda. We don't drink soda, but kids love it.

I decided to get a bit of advice in this area due to my situation. I have been keeping a tally the last few months on my outgoings for food. It seems that I am spending an average of $1000 + this month,and still have another week to go.

Last month I spent $1409.

This is a combo of grocery store and take away food. The problem I have is that I get home at about 5:30 pm. My husband gets home at 7-7:30 from work. I have tons of chores to do when I get home,and I also have to help with homework,reading,bath,dog, and hopefully 10-15 minutes on my treadmill. When I cook, I also do all the washing up, and I actually get in bed at 9 pm,exhausted from all of this.

The one thing I can skimp on is the cooking now and then. Sometimes I'd rather outlay 60 dollars on takeaway or chinese, than do the cooking.


Unfortunately I am a one woman show as they say. I do ALL the chores and work a full day too. So I need ideas,recipes to make cooking easier,simpler etc. My husband is also a big eater unfortunately and gets rather cranky with me when there isn't a dinner for him. So I try really hard to make dinner or have dinner ready every night. If it were up to me I'd have a cup of noodle soup now and again with a piece of fruit and me tea, I would be sweet all night!

But with 2 men in my life, food...food...food.... is all they seem to want from me!!

SIZE="7"]HELP!![/SIZE]

What's a working mother to do these days?

The other issue we have in Australia is that there is a monopoly in the supermarket situation. Coles and Woolworths control everything here in Sydney. Not too long ago banannas had gone up to $15.00 a kilo. Food is getting real expensive. Just 2 or 3 years ago I was spending $130 at grocery store,now its like $170 for the same stuff.

We don't have "Costco" bulk buying places here, (as yet that is), everything from America is slowly making it's way to Sydney so I am sure it's only a matter of time.

Any advice on recepies or what to cook that's quick would be great.

Thank you

that this constant food preparation thing is stressing me out! The constant worry about what to prepare for dinner is neverending.

The worst question in the world is "What's for supper"?

After being married for 22 years, and with an 8-year-old son, I am convinced I have tried every known option. Most of them multiple times.

My wife works a standard 9-5 schedule, and I'm the one who works afternoons/nights/weekends with considerable ability to set my own hours. So it's my responsiblity to decide what/how to feed the family as she commutes home. And I admit to being inordinately fond of take-away--especially as where I live, in Queens, NY, we have more international ethnic food nearby than probably anywhere else on Earth. I realize, though, that all this stuff is probably not best from a nutritional, or economic, standpoint.

Since this is New York City, we have a lot of services that can prepare hot meals and have them delivered, either for immediate consumption or for re-heating in the future (such as Fresh Direct). The food quality with these is generally good, though of course one gets hit in the wallet quite hard.

Added to all this is the reluctance in the summer months to cook and heat up the whole house, and then spend even more money air-conditioning it.

I try to do things such as salads, fruit and vegetable combos, and even "breakfast for supper" scenarios with omelettes, (gluten-free) pancakes with various fruits and toppings, and the like, but I ran out of orginality several thousand suppers ago. This is even despite the fact that our gluten board here is a treasure trove of interesting recipes (though many of them take a good chunk of time to prepare).

I often get so bored with the whole thing that I'd rather make a meal out of a yogurt, a pear, and a handful of walnuts, but I do have the Daddy guilt thing that I shuold try to get a more proper meal on the table--even if it's ordered out--for the commuting spouse and the always hungry child (who, all 60 pounds of him, eats like a construction crew).

Things I do insist on--there is no soda in this house, and any juice is pure juice. A lot of fruit smoothies get blended here, too. (And very few cookies/cakes/pastries and the like--I'm gluten-free and couldn't eat most of these, anyway.) There does tend to be too much ice cream, though.

Part of the rise in food prices, I think, is more the rise in oil prices. Many fertilizers are petrochemical in nature, and we do not eat what is grown locally in most parts of the Western world; too much of our food is shipped from long distances, and that shipping cost is really being jacked up. Another argument for reduced dependence on oil.

I tend to spend about $75-85 American dollars a week for a family of three; I try to shop the sales and buy in bulk when I can.

It would be at least $80 - $90 per person were i am in OZ, and thats being carefull, bulk buying when prices are discounted, helps, as i live on the bay a local fishermam sells pretty cheap fish, so thats not to bad at all.
Safeway and Coles are the big players down here in groceries game and in the last 4 months i would say for certain we are spending at least 40% more for the same amount.
The fruit we get from these two major players are mostly imported and frozen, bananas last about 2 to 3 days if you lucky before going brown, the fruit isn't tasty at all, i can't remember when i enjoyed the last piece of fruit i have had, its a joke, that our farmers have to bulldoze their crops back into the ground because one of the grocery giants will only offer a pittance for their crop, so in come the import fruits, i blame our goverment for this, they should raise the import tax up high enough that imported crap isn't an option anymore and give our own farmers a go.

Aussie - why don't you make Saturday and Sunday self service days, i know someone that does this and it works fine she said, a few BBQ's thrown in during the week might help, as the man normally cooks them, and definatly one washes the dishes and the other dries, [if that will work ]
good luck
Brian