Dinner for 4 - $10

[Dace]

I keep hearing this as some amazing savings...Rachel Ray and Good Morning America keep pronouncing how wonderful this is.

I spend less that for a family of 6. Am I the only one who does not see the 'great bargain' here? I think $10 is at the top range of a dinner expense...I mean lasagna with meat, Parmesan, mozzarella, ricotta, eggs, and sauce is going to be on the pricey side.....but am I off?

Perhaps all these years of pinching pennies has skewed my sensibility.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

For my family of 4, I can make $10 last through at LEAST two meals if we are splurging, 4 or more if I'm being super frugral & have a lot on hand. And yep, I think its the frugral side that makes us say "Thats a lot more than I normally spend!"

 

[Dace]

Ok good, because they are calling it "Meals for Steals" and I am like :/ huh?

 

[Dace]

This is more my style

http://www.bloglander.com/cheapeats/category/recipes/three_dollars/

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Now if they talked about feeding 4 for $1.50, that might be more like it. Or having a dinner party for $10

Although, you have to think about why they are doing that. The average family spends waaaaay more on groceries than most of us on this forum.

 

[miss_thenorth]

I used to love watching Rachael Ray's 30 minuted meals, but $10 for a meal is high in my books too.

Even IF I were to buy ALL of my ingredients in a grocery store, I would still be under the $10 mark. I think, in our house, lasagna would have to be the most expensive meal I make, what with ground beef, ricotta mozza, spinach, sauce and noodles (and spices), and I could probably make a pan of it for $10, and that would include leftovers.

But mind you in every day life, I buy in bulk, when on sale, and I grow/raise alot of my stuff myself.

Often I keep monthly tabs on what my grocery spending is. $300 a month is an average amount spent. I'm hoping this year it will be even lower, considering what I have put up.
Most people I talk to , for a family of 4 spend an excess of $600 a month.

 

[Dace]

Yes, I know...sad huh? So much waste of money going on out there...if only people knew how to hang on to their money better!

It's the whole....i want what I want and I want it now thing1

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Case in point: I have a set of friends who get food stamps. They get $700 a month

It only lasts them 3 weeks. Again
Granted, they have 2 very hungry young girls & a baby boy who can eat as much as me, but STILL!!!

Man, for $6-700 a month, I'd be eating steak and lobster every night. Forget the lasagna! We spend about $250-$300 a month when I go shopping. That includes our staples, toiletries & cat food too. When hubby does, its more like $350, but still reasonable. And it lasts us for the entire month or more. We usually have at least 1 full month a year where we don't have to buy anything but fresh milk and some fruit for the counter, so our average is even lower than that.

 

[keljonma]

I think Rachael Ray and the rest of them on FoodNetwork, etc. are talking to mainstream young career people. Not those of us trying to live real lives without breaking the bank on a daily basis.

One of my sisters has a step-daughter who lives in Manhattan, works at WSJ, and for her $10 a meal is bargain eating.

Last winter we were spending $100 to $150/month on food/feed for dh and I, 1 Great Pyr and 15 large breed chickens. DH and I ate a lot of home canned goods from our garden, from friends, and from local farms. When we buy meat, we divide it into 1/4 pound packages, and that is the amount we use for a meal. You can eat inexpensively, if you are creative.

 

[big brown horse]

Thanks to ohiofarmgirl's recipe on another thread, I am going to feed my family dinner and lunch tomorrow plus left overs (about 8 meals) for $5 worth of pork sholder, $2 worth of picante sauce and about $2 worth of whole wheat (high fiber) tortillias. Salad is free because it is from my garden. That comes to about a little over a dollar a meal.

(I actully bought a $10 pork sholder, cut it in half and I am going to serve the other half at my harvest party this Sat.)

Noobie, if I spent $700 per month on food, I would have so much food I could feed my family and 3 others! I would love to know what they buy with $700.

At Fred Meyer, you can buy 6 bone in gi-normous chicken breasts for under a total of $5.50! Do you know how much soup I could make with that?!! Probably 3 stock pots worth of soup! (Plus imagine all the broth I could make with the bones etc.)