A Grocery Question

[thedailyshow]

How much do you spend per week on food? I try and spend about 50 bucks per week on six meals. I'm a single person, and the six meals I make always have plenty of leftovers, so there's always something to have for lunch. I usually go out on the weekends with friends for a nice dinner that sets me back about twenty bucks.

I'm also surprised at how fucking expensive tomatoes have become :-(

[masjenkins]

1. there has been a tomato crisis.

I heard about this a few months ago.. All the rain on the east coast during the summer. We spend about 100-200 a week for a family of three. (15 year old teenage boy, included)but we also grow food. Haven't had to buy a tomato since last june... we had a bumper tomato crop.
Lycopene.. they are advertising on ketchup now. ( I am not being sarcastic about any of this)

[thedailyshow]

2. Man, that sucks about the tomatoes

What other food do you grow? What's Lycopene?

[lpbk2713]

32. The biggest factor in the rise of the price of tomatoes

was the four hurricanes that hit Florida recently. Florida provides 70% of the US requirements in tomatoes ordinarily. Tomatoes are grown here year round and this latest crop was devastated by the hurricanes. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. The latest crop is ripening and imports that are ripening in Mexico are starting to hit the market.

Link: http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~33~2563066,00.html

[Dem_4_Life]

58. The price of tomato's here in San Antonio is $2.99/pound

I made stuffed tomato's for Thanksgiving and had no idea when I said I would make them that they were so expensive and so hard to find good ones. I will pay the extra price to get the tomato's but I was searching through the tomato's forever to find ones that were not all or partially brown and that did not have mold on them. I couldn't believe that tomato's in the store actually had mold on them.

As for weekly groceries I usually spend anywhere from $50-$100 for two people. We always buy a lot of veggies so that is why the groceries are so expensive.

[realisticphish]

3. the wendys near us

says that you have to ask for tomatoes to get them, since they're scarce

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[thedailyshow]

4. how sucky!

:-(

[realisticphish]

5. eh

i hate em anyway :)

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[thedailyshow]

10. how can you hate tomatoes?

they taste so friggin' good!

[realisticphish]

11. i have no clue

i like ketchup, salsa, tomato soup, tomato juice, all of it, but i cant stand plain tomatoes. i think its the texture, i tend to like/hate foods based on that

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[thedailyshow]

12. hmm, interesting

My younger sister has the same aversion to tomatoes because of the texture yet she likes all of those same things that you like. Heh, funny.

[realisticphish]

13. is she a Scorpio?

im no astrologist, but maybe that has something to do with it :)


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[thedailyshow]

14. she was born in April

and I am fucking clueless about astrology. I don't know what makes that little brat :lol:

[realisticphish]

15. lol

i know jack shit about astrology (big crock of shit, IMHO). i just happen to know my sign... very useful in bars :)

how old is she? im just curious, because ive met a lot of kids my age (19) who are the same way, and i dont know if it has to do with age, or if its just the way we are

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[thedailyshow]

16. she's 13 and crazy as a bat

My entire family is fucking crazy, but at least they aren't Republicans!

[realisticphish]

17. same here

two union parents...though i am suspicious of my 17 yo sister, she seems like potentially slipping into fundie territory. she refuses to curse, cause "now she has morals." :scared: anyway, we're all crazy, but quietly so...we're the people of whom is said, when neighbors are interviewed after the police find something horrible, "they were so quiet, we never saw it coming"

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[thedailyshow]

19. save your sister from fundamentalism!

My sister is way too angsty, and curses way too much to be a fundamentalist. What a fucking relief.

[realisticphish]

21. the thing is

shes half goth...really into a lot of jewelry, into celtic stuff, wears black. im going to try to get her to like some goth music, maybe that will help :evilgrin:


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[thedailyshow]

24. get her to date goth guys

hopefully that will work. ;-)

[realisticphish]

25. if i REALLY wanted to halt funditis

id get her to date goth girls :evilgrin:


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[thedailyshow]

26. haha, goth girls are really hot

[realisticphish]

27. starts with tomatoes

ends with goth girls...aint the lounge great? :)


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[thedailyshow]

29. that's how it should meander!

[BiggJawn]

37. Sounds like she's going "Straight Edge"..

Christian skinheads, if you haven't heard of them.

My daughter dated one. Thankfully she dumped him before getting her face tatted...

[smbolisnch]

28. I'm a scorpio, and I feel the exact same way you do.

I feel like I am eating slime with seeds. Anything made with ketchup, I love. Go figure. :shrug: I don't know a thing about astrology, though!

[amazona]

40. most don't taste good

Homegrown Creoles and Beefsteaks taste good...most fresh tomatoes taste like little baseballs.

[BiggJawn]

36. That's troubling.

I saw that. I asked "Do tomatoes cost extra now?"

"No...."

"Then put them on or discount the price of the burger. I'm paying for it, I WANT it...."

"The Great Tomatoe Shortage of 2004"...What's going to be the next item we'll be lining up to get a chance of getting one?

Why does this remind me of stories my Social Studies teacher used to tell us about grocery shopping in the USSR?

[opiate69]

49. Great pic of Rev. Maynard in your sig!

We spend about $200 every two weeks, for our family of 5.

[ogradda]

6. veggies are expensive

fruit too. my mom and i were in the produce section today whining away. i feed a family of 3 on about $60 a week but i'm a very careful shopper.

[thedailyshow]

9. I hate what inflation's doing to the price of produce

I suspect that within four years of this miserable presidency, that our grocery prices will go up even higher :-(

[demnan]

7. I spend more

but I admit that I usually eat out or buy something out for lunch about 5 times a week (4 - 10 dollars each, depending on whether I have pho or salad bar, or something else). I also buy breakfest with coffee out 5 times a week (about 4 dollars - expensive for a couple of boiled eggs and some grapefruit). I make about 3 meals at home and with leftovers that gives me 6 meals, costing about 40 dollars.

Tomatoes are one of my luxuries, and I try to always have fresh salad stuff in. I buy most of my produce at Asian markets where produce costs less. If I bought at grocery stores my produce would cost much more.

[thedailyshow]

8. I'll keep that in mind about buying produce at asian markets

I try not to spend money on lunch as much as possible by microwaving my leftover meals, but I do have the hankering for good chicken strips so I'll go out and get them for lunch. I probably spend about fifteen bucks per week on lunch. And coffee....ahh, probably about twenty bucks, dammit. Why must coffee be my one main vice that will send me to my early death?

[CornField]

47. There are five of us

Typically about $150-200 per week. I think I could save quite a bit, but I like to buy from the organic market.

[NJCher]

18. I have no idea

Maybe I'll start watching now that you've brought the matter up.

Lots of meals out, though, here.

Hey you guys who don't like the tomatoes--maybe you've just had those winter tomatoes. You should try a fresh NJ tomato (if you can get it) in the summertime. You'll never think the same way about a tomato. Also, the varieties in the store are bred for shipping, not taste. It's little wonder you would not like them.

I grow all kinds of tomatoes in my garden in the summer and some heritage. My black krim tomato was outstanding! The heritage tomatoes taste the best, IMO, but they have all kinds of little peculiarities in their culture.

For a paste tomato, a true San Marzano can't be beat. Again, though--fussy. I have to pick them as soon as they're ripe. They do not last on the vine at all.

Re veggies/cost, the Korean grocers are a Godsend here. The produce is so much less expensive. We also have a Japanese market that has fabulous produce at very reasonable prices.

I grow a lot of my own, too. Just today, for example, I dug up a huge basket of carrots. I winter over herbs and salad greens in cold frames, which is nice. I still have arugula and Japanese purple mustard greens doing fabulously well. Also leeks.


Cher

[thedailyshow]

20. Damn, I want leeks now

[izzie]

22. That would be high for me, a week but I hardly eat meat.

So I leave only a small amount for fish and some chicken which I only had about once a week. I plan to put a down payment on a tomato this week.My name is on the list.

[thedailyshow]

23. It's so ridiculous how one tomato costs nearly four bucks!

Insane, I tell ya! Insane!

[eyesroll]

30. Here's the thing with tomatoes...

It's winter.

Tomatoes are a summer fruit.

When something is out of season, you (theoretically) have to pay more for it because either it has to be shipped from somewhere else in the world, or concocted in a lab or something.

They also don't taste very good out of season -- or at the grocery store in general -- because they're usually picked green and then gassed, not to ripen them, but to make them turn red.

But we've gotten used to having all produce available year-round, and whenever something happens like fuel-cost increases or crop shortages, the price goes nuts.

My advice? Stick to canned tomatoes in the winter -- you can get a big can for $1.25. Look for as few ingredients as possible on the label (ones that are imported from Italy tend to just be tomatoes packed in tomato puree, sometimes with a little salt). They don't work in salads, but just about anything else works well.

In the summer, buy from your local farmers' market -- and buy the ugly ones in the discount bin (unless you need them to be attractive for a particular use). They taste the same, sometimes better, and they cost less. I like heirloom tomatoes, but they're insanely expensive (so I grow them myself when I can) -- so the regular ones work fine too.

My grocery budget varies insanely. I can make two dinners' worth of Asian noodle soup for less than $1. A pork tenderloin is $5-6, and again lasts 2 meals (add, say, green beans and rice on the side and it's still dirt cheap). But then I'll go nuts on some ingredient or something, and one meal will cost more than the others of the week combined.

[thedailyshow]

34. Hmm....good point about the canned tomatoes

[radwriter0555]

31. RACIAL pricing in the box markets: Get this; I had this giant tortoise for

a while, and the only thing he could eat was fruits and veggies and grasses and romaine lettuce.

I'm here in southern California; The primary box grocery store is ralphs. I definitely shop and compare prices, especially when feeding a giant tortoise 2-3 heads of romaine lettuce per day.

I noticed that in Hancock Park, the romaine lettuce was almost $2 per bunch. But at the Ralphs on Crenshaw, down here in the West Adams (we call it 'hood adjacent!) the same lettuce was half that, at $1.00 a head.

AND if I went to the Korean market on Olympic and Western, (not ralph's though) it was cheaper even still, at .50c per head.

Same lettuce. And, go figure, the best quality was at the Korean market (great place, very clean, tidy and organized.. love that market for veggies, top quality, lowest price!)

[thedailyshow]

33. why is it that the asian markets are cheaper when it comes to produce?

[amazona]

42. it's irradiated ?

Not sure but in my area locally grown lettuces are twice as much as grocery store lettuce. I just grow my own or do without. Lettuce has no nutritional value anyway -- it is just water plus low quality fiber plus (in most cases) pesticides.

[rug]

35. We spend that on donuts

[thedailyshow]

38. eccch, your health must really suffer then

[BiggJawn]

39. "Good" food is getting more expensive, junk stays cheap.

And your belly doesn't know about quality and such, it just wants to be full. So what're ya gonna do when a healthy diet is no longer within your reach? You buy the cheap shit. Starch and fat. You get fat, then you find a CNN camera crew following you around while they work on a "Fattening of Murka" project...

I've seen my grocery prices go from about $35 a week to over $60-$70. I'm not buying any differently, everything is just more expensive.

This keeps up, I'm going to be eating cheap hamburger gravy and biscuits again. That'll be fun, I got to over 325 Lbs. on THAT diet....

[Deja Q]

41. For groceries, I try to keep under $150/mo. (difficult!) I do spend $60

on restaurants w/co-workers though.

[thedailyshow]

57. If it were up to me, I'd eat out all the time at restaurants

but I need to save some $$$, so that's why I grocery shop each week for under fifty-five dollars.

[shesemsmom]

43. There are 3 of us,

and we feed shut ins on the weekend, about 150 per week

[skygazer]

44. We spend close to $200 per week for two people

Which, in my opinion, is too much but we tend to stock up on canned adn boxed foods, bottled water and paper products. We also cook too much - hubby is Italian and tends to cook enough to feed the entire Russian army. The up side is it gives him lunch through the week so he doesn't have to eat out.

[thedailyshow]

45. have you thought about planning around five or six meals?

And not buying ingredients that deviates from those meals?

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

46. About $150, sometimes more and sometimes less.

My family consists of myself, my husband, and our 2-year-old son.

[BlueCollar]

48. In Texas

Tomatoes are not cheap but they are plentiful and available. Can't make salsa without tomatoes!!!

I like tomatoe and mozarella cheese sandwiches with basil on Italian bread...:-)

[gollygee]

50. I spend about $150 a week on three people

We go out to eat or get take-out once or twice a week too.

[haele]

51. Close to $150...

Two adults, one dog, two cats, three rats, and one cockatiel. The rats and cockatiel share some of the leftovers, fresh fruit and veggies. The dog and cats will occasionally get some of the meat and dairy eaten by the humans.
We cook, so most of the food is either fresh or frozen. We are lucky in that we live in California, and there's a local indie grocer who has local meat and produce cheap.
Perhaps two/three "eat outs" - usually between $10 and $20 a week.
Anyone who doesn't count what the critters eat on a weekly basis is cheating - they may only consume about $40 a week between the seven of them, but that's still $40 a week.

Haele

[partisan to truth]

52. 20/week for one... coupon clipping, stocking up on sales, etc

I didn't realize I was doing well- good question :)

[thedailyshow]

55. that's amazing!

[Left Is Write]

53. We usually spend between $115 and $150 per week at the grocery store.

That's for five people.

Last week we snuck out for $90 and I was thrilled.

[rbnyc]

54. About $120.00

Plus I buy breakfast for myself 5 days/week. And at least 1 day/wk I order lunch instead of packing lunch, so that's anothe $15.00-$25.00.

I did not include diapers or kitty litter or cat food, another $30-$40/wk.

So that's about
$530 per month, plus
$477 for health insurance (that's what comes out of my check)
$1200 for rent
$65 telephone
$25 gas
$100 electric
$275 student loan
$80 Credit Card (approx.)
$80 Subway

That's $3132 in basic cost-of-living expences per month. (I did that in my head. I may be off.)

I don't think I actually make that much per month. How am I doing this?

:shrug:

[thedailyshow]

56. I don't know

It's always amazing to me how much I spend per month compared to what I earn, which isn't much.