Finance Friday: A Deeper Dive Into Food Spending

When I posted my 2021 spending summary, I got a couple of questions related to our spending on food/meals/etc. So I thought I'd do a bit of a deeper dive this week to talk about our spending! Like nearly every category of spending, the amount of spending on food can really vary from person to person but I suspect we are on the lower end of the spending range.

Level setting: I doubt I have many newer readers but in case I do, our little family consists of me, my husband Phil, and 2 little kids, ages almost-4 and 1. I would say that Phil eats less than the average male, probably because he is very lean. We weigh about the same, so eat about the same amount of food which I think is probably not typical for a husband/wife pair. Will is a pretty open-minded eater, Paul is very selective, and their appetites vary from day to day and week to week. 

Dining out:

We likely spend less on eating out than the average couple. I was thinking this was more so related to Covid. We haven't eaten inside a restaurant since the start of the pandemic - we have only eaten outdoors since the pandemic started since I am immune compromised. And in Minnesota, the outdoor eating season is super short - probably about 3-4 months. 

I also thought our lower level of spending was related to having young kids with early bedtimes. But after having an exchange with Kae about dining habits, it made me realize that even pre-kids and pre-covid, we didn't eat out all that often. When we were dating, we probably ate out 1-2 times/month? We definitely chose dining out over take-out back in those days since most food tastes better straight out of the kitchen. We mostly frequented local, non-chain places that were reasonably priced - like the Eastern European deli where we'd split a $16 combination plate that included a sausage, cabbage roll, pierogi, and sauerkraut (I could not eat the pierogies since they have gluten but we'd split everything else) or a Taqueria where a 3-taco combo plate was about $9. Pre-covid, book club was hosted in a restaurant once/month and, for the most part, I did not consider the cost of what I ordered and would often get a glass of wine and split dessert. We ate at nicer restaurants so this would probably run me about $50-60ish/meal but since we ate out so infrequently, especially after having kids, it was a worthwhile expense. Post-kids, I made a goal in 2019 to go on a date once/quarter and those tended to be nicer meals. I think quarterly "nicer" meals out are about the right cadence for us so hopefully in the 2nd half of 2022 we can get back to doing that. 

One area of spending that has increased since having kids is take-out, but I still think it's likely lower than the average family. We probably get take-and-bake pizzas about 1-2 times/month but that costs us $27- the boys split a large pizza and I get my own 12" GF pizza, which lasts me 3 meals. Then about every other month, we get Indian take-out which the boys don't eat. I think Will would like it, but we just make something for the kids to eat. If Paul could get on board with Indian food, I'd be more apt to order more things and make it a family meal, but he's not open-minded enough to eat Indian food... yet. Indian take-out usually costs us about $40 with the tip. Additionally, I get a latte about once/week. 

In January, our total spending on take-out, Phil's lunches on week days, and coffees was $155. 

Grocery shopping:

Last week, we spent $42 at Aldi and $58 at Cub, which is our local big box grocer. I do not pay close attention to our grocery spending so I asked Phil if this was a typical week. He said it's about what we spend on groceries each week. Our total grocery spending for January was $500, so his thought that last week was a typical week bears out since we bought groceries 5 times in January.

Last Saturday, besides our staple items that we buy each week, Phil was buying ingredients for lentil enchiladas, Spanish rice and turkey wild rice soup. We had the majority of shelf-stable ingredients for the enchiladas and rice in our pantry, and the turkey for the soup from a turkey breast I made last week so he didn't have to buy much for the meals I planned. We also had planned to get take-and-bake pizzas one night. Usually I plan 3 meals/week but this week I only planned 2 since we got pizza. Our staple items include eggs, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, fruit, a rotisserie chicken, a container of mixed salad, veggies for my salads, and popcorn. 

Phil does all of our grocery shopping and he will tell you that the biggest way we've saved money over the last several years is by going to Aldi. I really don't know how they charge so little for their products! From my days of working in finance at Target, I know there are "loss leaders" that companies willingly lose money on to get people into the store, but so much of what we purchase at Aldi seems so cheap. Phil stops there first and buys as much as he can from the list we make (we use a shared iPhone note so we can both add items to it). Most of our produce and meat comes from Aldi as well as a bunch of other pantry staples like popcorn, tortilla chips, granola, cereal/granola bars, etc. That means that a majority of the produce/meat we purchase is not organic (some is, like my mixed salad, but much isn't). Phil is naturally very skeptical of things and that includes the importance of buying organic groceries. Insisting we buy only organic produce and meat is not a hill I am willing to die on, so I let him make these decisions. We used to split a local meat share with a friend but it was increasingly more difficult to get to the farmer's market to pick it up when juggling kids and such, and I didn't like that the meat share kind of dictated what we were eating. When we are in a different stage of life where shopping at a farmer's market is easier (nap times have made farmer's market shopping challenging in this stage of life), I'd like to purchase some meat and produce from the farmer's market during the summer months. Maybe this summer will be the year to do that. 

Back to the thrilling topic of shopping! Whatever he can't find at Aldi (which is a number of things - Aldi is not a one-stop place for us), he gets at Cub and/or Target. We go to Target about monthly so most of our other purchases come from Cub.

So with only 3 planned meals, what do we eat at other meals? 

Breakfast: I eat oatmeal with a cut up banana every single day, Paul has a bowl of cheerios and milk every day, Will nurses so I just give him some cheerios or slices of bananas on weekdays. On weekends he eats peanut butter toast, yogurt and fruit. The boys also eat breakfast at school M-F but since we leave for school at 7 and breakfast is at 8:30, they get 2 breakfasts. Phil eats peanut butter toast or a granola bar and sometimes a bowl of cereal on the weekend or when he WFH.  

Lunch: The boys eat at school M-F - and thank God they do! We joke that we wish we were on that meal plan as they eat SO WELL. On weekdays, I eat a salad with rotisserie chicken and various chopped and sometimes roasted veggies nearly daily. Phil buys lunch at work the days he's in the office, which is 4-5 days/week. He spent about $5-8 on lunch so it's pretty inexpensive. He would never pack a lunch because he feels he could not spend less making his own lunch. Pre-covid, I brought my lunch 4 days/week and enjoyed a lunch out once/week, usually a fancy salad that was $12 and worth every penny. On the weekends, Phil often makes eggs so we'll give some to the boys, or we'll have leftovers or easy meals like a can of soup. 

Dinner: All 3 planned meals (enchiladas, soup, pizza) yield several days of leftovers. The lentil enchiladas yielded 4 servings of leftovers, the pizza will yield about 2-3 days of leftovers, and the soup will yield probably 5 additional servings. Will will eat the vegetables from the soup but not much else. Selective Paul won't eat any of the soup. But at least he gobbles up lentil enchiladas (but not the rice - he oddly will not eat rice!). So on the nights when we aren't eating a meal I made, the adults mostly get by with leftovers. The boys sometimes eat leftovers, but also eat simple meals like banana pancakes topped with peanut butter (banana pancakes are made with overly ripe bananas, 2 eggs/banana, and a dash of cinnamon and vanilla), mac and cheese, cauliflower tots, and dino chicken. Clearly our kids eat processed foods. This is another hill I am not willing to die on at this stage of life. I hope they become better eaters with time so we are all eating the same thing every day of the week because the meals I make for Phil and me are not processed foods. We are not there yet, though. 

I am lucky that a) we are happy to eat leftovers and b) I don't mind eating the same thing every weekday for breakfast/lunch! It makes things far simpler to not have to plan 5+ dinners, different lunches/breakfasts, etc. Most weeks, us adults eat 3 meals that are usually pretty healthy (pizza isn't but you can't always eat healthily). I would like the kids to eat more vegetables but that is an uphill battle right now. I hope this changes as they become older and more rational. So far, Will is a pretty open-minded eater but I know that can change because children are fickle! 

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Wow, that was a lot of detail about how we eat.  Are you bored out of your mind? I think inside looks at these quotidian aspects of life are fascinating, but I may be in the minority.

Please enlighten me and tell me how you/your family eats? How many meals do you plan/prepare each week? Do you eat the same things over and over like me or do you need variety in your diet? Do you think you spend more or less on dining out and groceries?