The USDA lists food plans to show the cost of food at home for levels. It is on the Internet and you can download the chart. A family of four with preschool children that's with the plan is $128 a week. The same family of four with gradeschool children is $146.60 a week . These are the latest statistics for December 2016. Our average for the first two months of 2017 is $50.35 a week. That is for my husband and I and preschooler. That also is not only notonky food eaten at home, but also maintaining a stock, It's no secret this is done by not paying full price for the majority of the food we buy. It is possible to get wholesale prices while shopping at regular stores. You cannot, however, do it buying a weeks worth of food at a time.
Stores have sales to bring you in the store. Their object is to have you buy one weeks worth of food at a time and make up the somcalledmloss leader by pricing other thins at what my mother used to call top dollar. They have tricks to make you spend more and succumb to impulse buys. On all accounts sixty to 70% of all purchases are impulse buys.
Stores have studied shoppers habits. They have studied Ways to get you to spend more. It's no accident that snack food and junk food is at the opening of the store as you walk in. If you walk in hungry, you are more likely to buy more snack items, It's also no secret that snack ite,s are so,e of the highest priced "food" in the store. In some estimations. Fifty oerxent of your grocery cart is junk and drinks. Eliminate the junk and buy just coffee and tea and milk and you can drastically cut your food bill. Some families consume a gallon or more of milk a day. Look up the RDA of milk or dairy products your family,needs based on age . Stick to the RDA. There are health concerns regarding milk. I personally don't believe in fake anything. I tend to think that moderation and a varied and complete diet is better for you, Through the seventy years I have been on this planet, the. Ition ofmwhats good for you and what is not has changed as much as the fashions.
Part of my career was working for a non profit that helped small farmers and suppliers of food get their products into the marketplace. I found out that the percentage of mark up for products varies between stores. Basically the fancier and more specialty products a store carries, the more mark up and, thus the more expensive the food costs. It's no secret that if a store has to spend more for rent, it has to pass the costs on to their customers. Soecialtynfoods don't have as much turnover typically. That idea translates into higher prices. One store in particular has a 46 percent markup.
Manufacturers pay slotting fees. Basically they pay the store to place their merchandise on eye level or other predominate places on the store. No sexret: the price of that merchandise reflects the slotting fees. Look up. Look down, look on the back of the store. Case in point: Fred Meyers has a table at times at the back of the store. Some things are no bargain, some not. I got a large box of meds that the doctor prescribed for eight dollars. The cheapest cost o had flimd was 13. At Costco. The box was not in good shape. Don't ingest the box. LOL.
If you don't fall into the stores typical shopper mode, you can save a lot of money. Tend to buy what's on sale for a good price and buy enough to last you a while if it os either not perishable or you can make it that way. Rarely do I pay full price for something. I have to need it pretty bad, or it is something that never goes on sale.
It all goes back to spend more time studying the ads and planning a trip and take some I even to download coupons and checking a site like Ibotta and make up the time cooking scratch efficiently. There are appliances that pay for themselves. And with some research , you can find dinners that are inexpensive, tasty and have little non-passive time. A slow cooker meal only takes the time to dump it on the slow cooker. Many times that is five minutes or less. An insta pot is a rice cooker. A s,ow cooker, and a pressure cooker. It has safety features that our grannies pressure cooker never had. You can get a six quart as low as 80 dollars on sale at Amazon. Divide the 80.00 in three and it's really quite inexpensive considering how much each of those appliances would cost separately and takes less room on your counter. If you don't put it away, you will use it more often.
I have more than saved the cost of the appliance on food savings. Beans alone pays for it. Beans are a staple in this house. With the pressure cooker you don't have to soak them. It takes literally a couple of minutes to put beans on to cook . The cheapest canned beans are .50 on sale at Fred Meyers. .9st per half cup serving 12 cents. The cost of a serving of dry beans is .04 a serving.the cost of home cooked rice is .03 a serving. Before a rice cooker I either bought ready or instant rice. The difference in nutrition and cost is remarkable.
Rice bought in bulk is .03 a serving ready rice is closer to fifty cents. Ditto things like rice w seasoning in a box rice mix takes few minutes and saves lots. It's a matter of chicken stock and seasonings. You can get low sodium chicken granules . Or you can add seasonings to your rice and cook it on homemade chicken stock. Less salt less preservatives and less money. I don't want to eat anything I can't pronounce .
