My husband asked me over dinner the other night if I had figured out yet how much more we were spending on food. And I really had to struggle to think. It’s easier in some ways to track food costs because I am only paying a few folks. Here is basically what I am spending now:
Meat ordered monthly, about $100. This one is tricky because I ordered 4 racks of beef ribs to smoke since I knew the price was going to be going up and bought two briskets to make corned beef for our St. Patty’s Day bash. Normally I probably would have spent about $60 – $75 for a month’s worth of meat, including breakfast sausage and bacon on occasion.
Cow’s Milk – $100 – $120. This gets turned into yogurt, kefir, lemon cheese (sort of like cream cheese) and buttermilk that I put into our bread to make it higher in protein, tastier and lighter. I expect this will go up as I start making more cheese.
Goat’s Milk – $16 monthly to be made into cheese for various dinners.
Cheese – $20 a month for the most amazing mozzarella from River Valley Cheese, $30 a month for aged cheddar from Beecher’s.
Veggies from the farmer’s market – $80 – $100 per month
Eggs – $40 per month. We seem to eat a lot of eggs! We eat a lot of buttermilk pancakes in the morning and I tend to go heavy on the eggs to make them a more complete meal. These are also my go-to for picky eating kids who may not eat some of our more adventuresome meals. They freeze great and pop in the toaster for a quick convenient running-out-the-door snack.
Butter – I cannot find a local, organic source for butter that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I’ve been buying Straus organic butter from California for $6-ish per pound. The quality and taste is better than Organic Valley and it’s made closer to us. We eat about $40 a month’s worth of butter.
Various small items to round out menus $50 – $100 per month. I still buy organic, local and seasonal but sometimes I can find things like button mushrooms grown in OR at PCC and they don’t have those at the farmer’s market this time of year. Onions are another example. Storing onions are done for the year at the farmer’s market but I can get them at PCC and they are grown in Eastern WA. Oatmeal is another example. It seems to only be grown in the midwest or Canada so I am buying Bob’s Redmill old fashioned thick cut oats. They are grown in Canada but are organic. I’m hoping next year to be able to buy it directly from Nash Huber in Sequim but that is aways away.
Other things I would buy would be cooking oil in bulk from PCC. They have extra virgin and virgin olive oil from NAPA and refined sunflower oil from California for way less money then you would spend to buy it in jars. Because it’s winter though we haven’t been sauteeing as much. Winter dishes seem to be more about braising or hearty soups. I haven’t run out of sugar yet but it will fall into this bucket when I do. We actually don’t use that much sugar in the winter. Dessert night is only once a week so that helps.
Grain, bread, crackers, pasta, muffins, pancakes, pizza dough, breadsticks for Toddler – $15 – $20 per month. Isn’t that crazy? We used to down bakery bread and buy pancake mix, pasta and crackers every week. Now I buy the grain in bulk for next to nothing, the yeast lasts forever and costs about $6 directly from King Arthur Flour and I make everything from scratch.
Legumes – I haven’t yet found a local organic source so we haven’t been eating very many but I would love to add these into our diet. When I do it will probably replace something I’ve already addressed so wash out in the costing.
Coffee – not local but shade grown and fair trade. About $20 per month.
I’m not including wine & beer since that is discretionary but I can tell you that we drink local microbrew beer now that we aren’t homebrewing or we are drinking WA or OR state wines and I try to find values and purchase by the case to get discounts from grocery stores. I would like to look at implementing a tap system on a second refridgerator like we used to have to save both money and recycling. It’s much cheaper to drink beer from a keg than to buy 6 packs or even cases of it in bottles. We predominantly drink IPAs which last longer than other brews which would allow us to buy beer by the keg.
So all in all about $570 per month for a family of four, wine and beer notwithstanding. I feel like we eat pretty well for that. I’m sure I could get it down if I really wanted to but I want to enjoy what we eat. I want to celebrate the food that we have chosen and try to cook in a way that elevates it into something special, regardless of how humble it might be on it’s own. It keeps this experiment challenging and fun since I enjoy both cooking and eating.
I’m sure it would be cheaper for me to clip coupons, shop sales, buy subsidized food (by that I mean processed food made from government subsidized ingredients like high fructose corn syrup) or buy eggs or meat that was farmed and butchered in extremely inhumane and unsanitary ways to keep the price down. But I am voting with my pocket book, my conscience and my stomach. I choose food and good health over more disposable stuff I could be buying with my money (toys, jewelry, new clothes, etc.) It feels (and tastes) delicious.
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This is the first I’ve seen your blog and I enjoyed this post. I had to comment on the legumes. I’m from Kansas and have had good success growing pinto and Great Northern beans in my garden. Not knowing any better, I bought bags of dry beans from Aldi and planted some. And they grew. And produced. And I canned them with my own little hands. You could grow them on a trellis and they wouldn’t take up much room that way. Best of luck!
Hi Maria, thank you! I got some dried beans to try this year myself. Since I’ve posted this I’ve gotten our food costs way down again but legumes and cheese are still struggles for me. The produce is next to nothing since I grow it myself and I’ve gotten the meat way down, we got chickens for eggs and I grow a lot of their food now too but the milk, cheese, butter and legumes are still high. We don’t eat as many legumes sadly but I’m just paying the price for the milk & butter and compromising on cheese since the kids drink/eat so much of it.
I *may* be lucking into a source for local goat’s milk soon which will help a lot with the cheese. Fingers crossed…wish my dh would let me get a goat! :p