This article on MSN has a Melissa Fulmer struggling to survive on $100 week Food Budget for a family of 4. I have to give her credit for trying. But I can see where she went wrong. Couple of reasons why it’s hard to succeed.
First she had no stockpile. She started from scratch. Thus unlike many frugalites she didn’t cheat like many of us would and eat out of our pantry some pasta, rice, canned goods, etc bought on sale. She actually attempted to feed her family from scratch. Well kudos for getting close with $105.
But what could she have done? Well if she had done the HillbillyHouseWife $70/week menu like I pointed out here in “Hillbilly Housewife $70/week menu“, she might have succeed but I doubt it. And here’s why…She lives in LA. Unfortunately I think her Cost of Living is closer to my $140/week than to HillbillyHousewife’s $70/week menu in North Carolina.
One thing that struck me as odd was a family of 4 gets $117/week in food stamps or ($117 *4.3 = $503/month), while a single woman and her baby in Washington DC gets $280/month food stamps + $65 Women, Infants, Children for formula = $345/month for a family of 2! I wrote about it here “Still Hungry with Food Stamps.” So can a family of 4 be getting so much less than a family of 2?
But going back to $100/week, do you feed your family of 4 on less? I think it would be extremely tight if I had to feed 2 kids where we live right now. Just because of the COLA and the rise in food prices. But I think it might be doable. It would mean no eating out at all, lots of bulk cooking and buying only things on sale, and possibly eating processed foods that are free after coupons. Also I would be working to use and maintain my stockpile to help keep costs down.
One thing for sure it was an interesting read.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Angie // Jul 24, 2008 at 11:30 am
I feed my family of 4 on about $100 per week. Some weeks more, some less, but it comes to roughly $400-$450 per month. We don’t live in a high COLA (Arizona) and I shop sales, stockpile and use coupons. Part of the reason it is so high is because DH likes a lot of meat; preferably red meat.
2 Jenna // Jul 24, 2008 at 11:32 am
One thing about these “challenges” that seems to skew how the results come out is the attempt to quarter the money and live for a week off the result. During a rough patch I was on FS for about 6 months and one of the big ways I (and some friends in similar boats) managed was to do only 2 shopping trips each month – and sometimes only one.
That hundred bucks and trying to feed for all at once for a week? Hard. But taking the $500 and buying a whole turkey or two ($30-$40 out of a weeks budget is impossible, but out of the whole it can generate enough meat and meals for a huge stretch of time) is the kind of thing that makes it possible.
Is it hard to manage on foodstamps? Of course. But is it doable AND healthy? It can be. Everyone eating has to be involved and some mindsets have to be changed.
3 LivingAlmostLarge // Jul 24, 2008 at 11:36 am
Definitely easy to shop more than just one week from scratch I agree.
And foodstamps can be quite a lot.
4 Kristy // Jul 24, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I feed my family of 3 on $75 a week. I take out $150 every two weeks and that’s what we use. Some tips that I use are to shop the sales for the week. Plus, I use what I have at the house and stockpile items that we use regularly if on sale.
We also try to do two meatless meals a week. So we may have rice a beans for one meal and pancakes and fruit one night.
So, yes I could feed another child on less than $100 a week. It certainly isn’t easy, but it can be done.
5 Zombie Money // Jul 24, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I’m living on around $80 a month for just myself but it includes meat.
If I had a family of four I think I could pull it off non meatless or maybe a little bit of meat. Similar to what above poster said.
Meat/chicken is the most expensive part of my purchases but I need the protein as I work out a lot.
7 Amphritrite // Jul 30, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I feed a family of 1-3 (that’s one to three people) on any given week on about $25, most of which is fresh fruit and veggies (I do not even go down the freezer aisle anymore, except for when frozen veggies are on sale). My sister is a poor college student finally living in the big city on her own, and she has a five year old.
How do I do it? There’s a few key elements to a low food budget that many people overlook.
1. I buy fresh. I buy local. Shopping for produce at farmers’ markets and international markets often allows you to get better quality produce (even organic produce) at about half the price you’d pay at the grocery store.
2. I’m flexible. If bananas are listed at $1.29lb, I won’t buy them. I’ll go with the kiwis that are listed at $.55lb instead. I love kiwis just as much as bananas, so it’s no big deal to skip the expensive produce until the price comes down. The same goes with pasta, rice, and beans — three staples that should be in every cupboard and used interchangably.
3. I buy staples in bulk. I buy 10lbs of rice at a time, 5lbs of beans at a time, and pasta gets picked up anytime it goes on sale for less than $1/pkg. Also, I buy flour, sugar, and yeast from a local baker that sells to me at bulk prices.
4. I make my own. I realize not everyone has time to make their own goods, but especially in the baked goods arena, I make all my own bread, my own muffins, my own croissants, my own pies and cakes, cookies and popovers. They’re much healthier for you without the preservatives, and they freeze and defrost much better.
5. I make up dishes. The pantry game is one I get an immense amount of joy out of playing. I’ll take three random items (like…zucchini, noodles, and mozzarella cheese) and make dinner from them.
6. Finally, with dairy, I buy three at a time. Three gallons of milk, three blocks of cheese, three packages of butter, three times the amount of yogurt I’ll use. All of these things freeze remarkably well! My freezer is constantly packed with dairy goods and meats.
7. Speaking of meats… Finding a local butcher who will sell you odd cuts and bones is an excellent way to help both yourself and your local community out. Often, the prices are slightly higher, but the quality and quantity is often better. I usually stock up on whatever’s on sale (whole chickens that I cut up myself, really fresh ground beef, fish right off the dock) and use it whenever I need to add a bit to a meal.
8. I use meat as a side to the entree. Meat’s expensive, have you noticed? Because I don’t mind eating veggies and beans and noodles and rice, I usually toss in a small amount of meat as a side dish, instead of the other way around. I still get my protein, my portions are controlled so that I don’t overeat, and everyone gets full and happy.
A little forethought goes a long way : )
8 LivingAlmostLarge // Jul 30, 2008 at 4:21 pm
OMG is meat expensive! I agree that it really should be more of a side dish than a main meal. Although my DH loves a good steak.
9 Spoodles // Aug 2, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Like I said on some other blog a few days ago, my family does it on $330 a month, but I’ve had a lot of practice, and I’m fortunate enough to be a SAHM, so I have plenty of time for cooking and planning. Some months I splurge and we spend a little more than that. That said, if we were in desperate straits and had to use food stamps, I’m positive we could make it on the amount allotted. We’d have fewer choices, but my folks always say ‘beggars can’t be choosers’. Sad, but true.
10 Marcia // Aug 6, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I was able to feed my family for $70/week or less for a few months. I did “fall off the wagon” during the last couple of weeks, then went on vacation.
But now I’m back on vacation, and my pantry is BARE. So I did it, but only by cheating and eating up the pantry. And this is for 2 adults and a toddler in So. Cal.
11 LivingAlmostLarge // Aug 7, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Yep her $70/week plan is for a family of 4-6 people! I think that’s a fantastic price if you are in dire need of money stretching.
Festival of Frugality #136 - Summer School Edition | Student Scrooge - Jul 30, 2008
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