How much do you spend on food?

[Leta]

Yeah, search for the manufacturer, and "like" them, and sometimes it will open a printable coupon window.

 

[opal]

*dumbfounded expression*

Evidently I spend WAY too much on food for just me and hubby.. 3 cats, 23 ducks and around 50 chickens. Our very first garden is just starting to produce so that should help but I'm sure we're over 25% of our income.. which is only disability money.

My poultry feed/bedding bill is higher - much higher than I've been reading in this thread. I think it's higher than our people food bill.. and I shop at a military commissary.. trying for once a month and use coupons. I'm not a ninja couponer.. but I'm pretty good about it.
Even walmart *cringe at going there* prices give me sticker shock on food.

Our poultry feed, chicken scratch is almost $15/50lb bag.. layer crumbles are around 13, our duck crumbles (for the girls.. the breeder food) is also around 13 and we oyster shell for "on the side" for those that feel they need it. The duck hutch is very sturdy and on a concrete slab so I use pine shavings (for the fragrance) under hay for their bedding.. 6.50 and 7.50 respectively. They go through the pine shavings about a bag a week and hay.. bale might last 2 weeks. Our supplier doesn't always have the best quality control on their hay.. Ace hardware..

Really liking this forum btw and just found the little handle at the bottom of this posting screen which allows for dragging full width for posting.. BRILLIANT whoever coded that.

 

[Leta]

opal, I don't feed livestock, so this is just my two cents, but I would not count poultry feed as a food expense.

I just about drove myself nuts trying to categorize our expenditures. "If I use olive and castor oils to make soap, that's not food. Or vinegar and baking soda to clean, that's not food." DH told me I was doing to myself what the university (his employer) does to itself- making the accounting and inventory system so confusing that it's impossible to use.

So I really simplified. I define food the way the government does- if it can be bought with food stamps, then it's food. Almost all chain stores and all grocery stores break their receipts down into food stampable and non-food stampable, so it's really easy to glean from receipts what you are spending and where. In my state, food is untaxed, so even though I am not using food stamps to pay, it is to my advantage to use edible items for non-edible purposes- it amounts to a 6% discount.

This is sometimes odd. For example, I use a ton of baking soda, so I buy it in a 50# sack from a pool supply store. That's not considered food, and I pay tax on it. Buying 10,000 little boxes of baking soda from the store would be food, though. But most items are not this way.

Also, if all your income is disability, perhaps it is time to consider applying for food assistance. It has become considerably easier to get- DH's assistants at work all get about $200 per month in food stamps working minimum wage jobs (part time during the school year, full time in the summer). Just a thought.

 

[opal]

Re the food stamps or eq.. we tried.. VA comp disability at 100% P&T + SSDI put us over the amount of income to qualify, even though our mortgage payment went way up due to home owners insurance going up x3.

What the social worker told me is that since I'm relatively able bodied, I should be out working instead of home taking care of my disabled husband.. and the live stock - which we'd have to pay someone to do if I was working.
(insert a multitude of bad words here)

We do avoid sales tax on non-food grocery store things by shopping on base and the prices are generally easier to stomach than off base. Knowing my prices is a big part of the whole game though. There are things that are cheaper - even with sales tax at big lots or a dollar store that are on our shopping list.

We were hoping that once the egg production got going that we'd be able to sell to the commissary .. oh the hoops.. pasturized.. *rolls eyes* right.. layed in the pasture doesn't count.
We can barely give away the eggs now (even to food banks because of government hoops *growl*) so many folks around here have their own chickens. Hubby barters some to the local (as local as anything is out here) sushi bar and gets to eat his squishy fishy free. That's about the only eating out there is unless we're stuck 85 miles away at a VA appointment at meal time.

We don't have a local bulk/warehouse store .. wish we did for some things, but not sam's club. I used to love pace where I lived 10 years ago.. I think I can safely blame about 10 pounds on my hips on their bakery.. maybe it's better we don't have one of those stores.

 

[freemotion]

There are other options for poultry feeding and bedding. I only use shavings for the baby chicks until they are six weeks old and go outside. I use deep litter and fill the coop up with dry leaves in the fall, and sometimes rake up the bits of hay left under the hay bales at a big horse farm that they sweep up and throw away between hay shipments. Throw some whole corn in the coop occasionally so they will mix poop and litter and if you have enough bedding it won't smell bad. Partial clean-out once or twice a year. With 20-30 hens (depends on the winter) in a small coop (12' x 3') it works. I think I used one bag of shavings 2-3 years ago when we had rain the entire time the leaves were coming down in the fall, or I was working on the only dry days and couldn't get any.

My flock does free-range in a good-sized fenced pasture, though. I also scatter whole grains for them...this cut my feed bill tremendously. I was shocked when I got rid of the free-choice hanging feeders at how much the local vermin (mostly chipmunks) were getting fed. I toss grain out twice a day and production has remained the same.

 

[opal]

Our chickens don't get bedding.. they're perch critters.. it's the ducks that have bedding, and because it's on concrete the deep bedding thing doesn't drain and gets mildewy.. slippery and oh the flys...
anyway.. I feel like I'm threadjacking here since this was about food costs .. *goes to read the TOS again see if she's gonna get mod spanked for going OT*

 

[Leta]

I think it's reasonable to talk about livestock expenses in a food cost thread. It's sort of like if I were talking about canning jars in a food cost thread.

However, I am not a mod.

 

[Country Homebody]

We are a family of four. (our children are young adults) We spend $400 per month for everything. That includes all paper, cleaning, toiletries and food for the outdoor kitty. The indoor kitty is on script food so we don't include that. Oh, part of that is for stocking up the pantry.

With the way our economy is looking we plan on taking an extra couple hundred dollars to just stock up just in case. This is on top of what we already have put away.

 

[Marianne]

Our grocery bill just keeps getting higher and higher. :/ Our only grocery store does not accept internet coupons unless they are from their website. Not that I'm a coupon person anyway...
Animal chow is getting really bad! Im pondering letting the hens out to free range again even though there is sorghum planted on either side of us and tall orchard grass in our back field. Last year we lost two hens on one day since there was so much predator cover, so I swore I wouldn't let them free range until after harvest. Bugs are getting worse since the hens aren't out, too.

Cat and dog chow is the worst - I'm giving the boxers race meat ($0.48 per pound at the local greyhound supply place), bone broth mush, etc along with their kibble. Their health has definitely improved! Have a multitude of indoor and outdoor cats, one with allergies, so I have to make her food. Oh, it just goes on and on. No more animals are allowed here. I'm afraid to add up what I spend on those idiots. (The same idiots that would eat anyone trying to hurt us, the same idiots that catch the occasional mouse in the house and the idiots outside that have snagged voles, moles, mice that chew on the wiring of our car, a rat and a weasel.) Oh, I almost forgot the white peacock that moved here, he gets a handful of cat food twice a day. He can stick around for the entertainment factor.

I buy meat only when it's on sale, but even then! $4.50 for a pound of bacon?? (But I have that first tomato from the garden just sitting on the counter, waiting...)

The new hens should start laying any day, and garden harvest time is starting, so that should help.

 

[framing fowl]

We're between $200 and $225 per month total for 2 people. We've cut out all prepackaged food other than when DH is craving crackers and I still haven't incorporated making my own in my kitchen routine. Typically I spend the most in the produce department and at the farmer's market. Then protein (meat, cheese, and eggs) and baking supplies/spices are where we spend the least.