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April 06, 2011

Assignment #21

How has everyone been doing on your assignments? IF you have an area you need help in let me know. For private messages there is an email link on the blog page. You can email me at theycallmemom at ldsliving dot com. The email address is written as such to prevent spam. No spaces, use the symbols :)

What is your monthly food budget? I was reading another large family blog and saw a post that peeked my interest. It was called the Food Stamp Budget Challenge, or something of that sort. this mother had 9 children, Her challenge was to live on the budget she would have if she had to live off food stamps. With close to 50% of Americans now on food stamps this is becoming a closer reality.

The calculations for this budget, according to her family size was a $1200 a month to spend on food. As we all know food stamps do not cover soap, shampoo, toilet paper, pet food, cleaning supplies etc. This would be in addition to the food stamp budget.





So while I commend her for this challenge, as its a great way to learn to save money, I wanted to pose a similar challenge to you. But I think $1200 is too generous. For a food subsidy I feel if you have to rely on this for food you put every effort to use as little as possible. If this means no Doritos, or steaks then so be it. Cut back where ever you can to spend as little as you can and still maintain a healthy diet.

My family of 10 people and 3 dogs spends about $600 a month on groceries. This is food, cleaning supplies, soaps, dog food etc. This works out to about $60 a month per person. Could you live off $60pp a month for groceries?

Lets take non food items out of the equation. For this assignment budget your meals and your money to spend $60pp for the next month on food to feed your family.

**Note I am working on our monthly food menu which will be posted May 1st. This will be a list of every meal we ate in April and the cost of each meal.

We will check in in May to see how you did :)

2 comments:

  1. Our family of six is spending about 150-200 weekly for food, health and beauty stuff and dog food(4 dogs). I'm trying to trim this down some so am happy to read your ideas!

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  2. We are a family of 6 with 1 on the way, no animals and our budget is $500 a month. This includes everything to TP. I also buy all organic. I order all my food online and it is delivered as a group coop. This has also helped our family stay healthy. We grind our own wheat to help with cost. Eating whole wheat and things like that give my kiddos a full belly in turn causes them not to have to eat a snack.

    ReplyDelete

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