Is it really that hard?

[pinkfox]

yup 5.5% state wide on "food or food ingredients" and then things like soda and prepared food state wide is 7% HOWEVER the local tax can be added to both (its not usually added to basic grocery but can be to some items depending on how "basic" it is ect) and so you can pay up to an aditional 2.75% ontop of those depending on which county your in.

the sales tax is counter balanced by the removal of other taxes, but yes, you pay tax on your food wether your eating chicken with a side salad, a tv dinner or cheetos and cola for dinner...youll pay tax on your grocery bill, from what im told TN is one of only a handfull of states that tax your groceries and from what im seeing based on other localities snap benefits TN has the one of the lowest benefit amounts country wide for food bennies...so they give you less money to buy food with and then charge you more for your food by adding the sales tax too!
fun huh?!

 

[Denim Deb]

That's nuts!

 

[redhen]

Canada doesn't have food stamps, but I've/we've lived on far less. As mentioned by others above, buying bulk and eating less meat really helps. I've actually never eaten Ramen and we don't eat boxed macaroni and cheese.

When the girls were little (they are 16 and 15 now) our family of 4 could eat for $50/week. If I think about what we did then, we could probably do it for under $100/week now. But it does take work and real cooking (no convenience/packaged foods). We did garden a bit back then (way more now) and froze the extra, plus canned things that we bought in season like fruit (peaches and pears, jams, pickles) as we do now.

Dry beans and rice do get boring, but if you vary the spices and side veggies you definitely get cheap good protein that way. Stir fry goes a long way with rice or noodles.

Grocery stores always have marked down meat, and we stocked up whenever we saw it/could afford it and put it in the freezer.

One of our local grocery stores (Superstore) always has a rack of cheap produce that is past its prime and much of it is fine cooked or used up right away. Superstore also always had/has no-name packaged pasta for less than a dollar for the 900 gram package, which makes two meals for our family.

We never bought "ready made" pasta sauces, always just canned tomatoes (now we can all of our own) and made our own sauces with spices and by cooking tomatoes down into paste for thickening (or bought tomato paste on sale).

"Dollar Days" sales and case lot sales were wonderful for pasta, canned tomatoes, frozen veg, canned tuna (I only bought it on sale) etc. I always used these sales to "stock up", especially on baking items as well as what I've already mentioned. Most people seem to buy cases of canned soup at these sales, but we always made our own soup--stock from whatever meat we ate plus whatever veggies we had.

Casseroles can stretch meat a long way if they include pasta/rice/beans and lots of cheap veggies like potatoes and turnips.

We ate/eat a lot of cabbage dishes--cruciferous veggies like broccoli and cauliflower are expensive but you get the same health benefits from cabbage.

We never bought/still don't buy packaged salads or bags of "baby" peeled carrots--we buy big bags of real carrots and make our own salads from heads of lettuce. Iceburg may have less nutrition but it can be really cheap certain times of the year, and tastes good with other salad veggies.

I get the no job or unstable home situation, we've moved a lot ourselves plus hubs doesn't always have work--but instability is a state of mind, you do what you have to do to get by and make your kids feel secure. Even if it means learning to cook and plan meals based on your budget

Canada doesnt have food stamps? What do they have in place of that? Do they have Welfare? Just wondering..

 

[hwillm1977]

I realize that in some areas, it may be harder, areas where people don't have a large supermarket available to them, and have to rely on neighborhood stores that may not have the selection available to them. But, if you didn't raise any of your own food, or do any hunting and/or fishing, would you be able to eat on $35/week w/out resorting to TV dinners, and Ramen noodles every night?

There is no way I would be able to eat WELL on $35/week... especially if I didn't garden, bake, etc.

It depends on the prices in your area too... We eat almost two gallons of milk a week, a pound of cheese, at least a dozen eggs, and just that amount of food totals $27.00 here... eggs and milk rarely go on sale, but cheese will go down to $5.99/pound, regular price is $8.69, for Kraft cheddar... a gallon of milk is $7.49 now. A whole chicken is $3.69/pound, so $12-15 for a chicken. Flour is $15.99 for 25 pounds, sugar is $3.99 for 2.2 pounds (1kg).

Shopping sales, having a garden, baking my own bread, clipping coupons, etc allows us to eat on around $130/week... that's for me, hubby and our daughter who is only 17 months (although buying her fruit, veggies and dairy is a large portion of our budget). I don't eat much convenience food, and cook everything from scratch... although sometimes I buy boxed stock to make my soups from when I'm feeling lazy I do like Ramen noodles, but I stirfry them with veggies and eggs... I don't prepare the envelopes of flavour that come with them.

 

[Avalon1984]

I just can't imagine for cats. I would buy the one bag of food every 2 weeks, for the 2 cats I had. One was a 25# maine coon male.

I have a fat cat named Bubba, she eats a lot, then 2 more inside cats. We have 4 outside cats btu hubby pays for their food. To my defense, we do buy them tuna and wet catfood as well. We don't have kids, so might as well spoil the animals

 

[moolie]

Canada doesn't have food stamps? What do they have in place of that? Do they have Welfare? Just wondering..

Yes, we have Social Assistance, but I don't know anything about it or how it works. I think it is mostly for single parents (my cousin was on it for a while when her son (now 21) was small and she was in school to get a better job, and for people who are unable to work for health reasons, but again I really have no idea. We do have food banks, and lots of churches (like ours) also have "food pantries" of donated items and transit ticket booklets for people who stop in asking for aid.

There is no way I would be able to eat WELL on $35/week... especially if I didn't garden, bake, etc.

It depends on the prices in your area too... We eat almost two gallons of milk a week, a pound of cheese, at least a dozen eggs, and just that amount of food totals $27.00 here... eggs and milk rarely go on sale, but cheese will go down to $5.99/pound, regular price is $8.69, for Kraft cheddar... a gallon of milk is $7.49 now. A whole chicken is $3.69/pound, so $12-15 for a chicken. Flour is $15.99 for 25 pounds, sugar is $3.99 for 2.2 pounds (1kg).

Shopping sales, having a garden, baking my own bread, clipping coupons, etc allows us to eat on around $130/week... that's for me, hubby and our daughter who is only 17 months (although buying her fruit, veggies and dairy is a large portion of our budget). I don't eat much convenience food, and cook everything from scratch... although sometimes I buy boxed stock to make my soups from when I'm feeling lazy I do like Ramen noodles, but I stirfry them with veggies and eggs... I don't prepare the envelopes of flavour that come with them.

Seriously, over $7 for a gallon (well, 4L) of milk out there?

Here it's $4.99 - $5.09 plus the recycling fee (10 cents?) for the jug. Huge price difference! That's just crazy what they are charging you. The rest of your prices sound similar to here, although your flour price sounds high--but then again we don't buy flour, we buy wheat ($25/50lbs of organic hard red wheat) so I'm not sure on that one.

We buy our cheese and eggs from the local year-round farmer's market (from Sylvan Star Cheese) so we pay similar prices to what you are paying for Kraft (sorry, but that stuff is yuck!) for about a pound of cheese and we pay a little more more than average for eggs to get free-range. But if we were back on a serious budget I'd be buying the store brand cheese (900 grams/almost 2 lbs for $8--you really should check your local stores, our Co-op store brand cheese is WAY better than Kraft and doesn't have any food colouring PLUS it's cheaper) and we'd be buying it much more occasionally that we do now as well as store brand eggs ($1.99/dozen) at our local Co-op grocery store.

And I'll never understand grocery store "loss leaders" like the fully cooked rotisserie chicken for $6.99 vs. the $15 raw chicken (same size). But I'll sure buy it to save money if I want chicken on a budget, because it will make 4 meals: dinner, sandwiches for lunch the next day, and soup that will last at least 2 meals.

There's so much you can do to make your money go further with groceries, although I totally agree that higher local prices make it that much more difficult.

 

[hwillm1977]

I had two large dogs that didn't use $35 of food in 3 months time, so I can only imagine just how many cats you have!

Our two dogs (65 and 95 pounds) cost us about $35 every 3 weeks (that's 40 pounds of grocery store brand kibble), and our one cat (6 pounds) costs about $25/month but he's also on expensive vet prescribed food for urinary crystals. There's no way I could afford to spend $35/week on pets, I'm pretty much at my limit now.

We buy our cheese and eggs from the local year-round farmer's market (from Sylvan Star Cheese) so we pay similar prices to what you are paying for Kraft (sorry, but that stuff is yuck!) for about a pound of cheese and we pay a little more more than average for eggs to get free-range.

Oh, I never buy cheese at regular price (or Kraft for that matter ) we have a good friend that picks up dairy quotas at farms around the area, and he buys cheese wholesale from one of the farms and then re-sells it to us... I was just trying to point out that if you have to go to a regular grocery store, prices vary WIDELY for what you are going to get. Milk is one thing we have to buy at the grocery store, it's highly regulated. It's funny, the 'nickname' of our town is Dairytown, we even have a 20 foot dairy cow to great tourists... and it's one of the most expensive places I've ever seen to buy dairy products. Our farmer's market only runs from June-October, but it's a wonderful place to shop for just about everything.

Really I never buy anything at regular price... flour will go on sale for $9.99, cheese sometimes $4.77... I bought boneless skinless chicken breasts this week because they were cheaper/pound than a whole chicken (regularly 11.99/pound... on sale for 3.50/pound) I love the rotisserie chickens too!

 

[moolie]

The pet comments are interesting, as we didn't have a pet when we were on a much tighter budget and the girls were younger. It never occurred to us to have one, because we simply couldn't afford one.

Our 7 lb cat only costs us about $15/month for organic Wellness brand dry food, and she doesn't like canned food very often (and only eats a third of the smallest can size a day) so she only gets a 65cent can every two weeks as a "treat", which takes her 3 days to finish. She doesn't eat much at all. Her annual vet visit costs us about $100 for her checkup and shots, so she's pretty inexpensive all around.

We had a second cat for a couple of years, but had to give him up last summer to friends who live on an acreage because our city has a "no outdoor cats" bylaw and he was causing us serious problems indoors (peeing everywhere). He's much happier with our friends where he can roam freely (and hunt) but he ate more than twice as much food as the cat we still have, who is a "fraidy cat" and prefers to be an indoor cat.

 

[Beekissed]

It was the same for me and my boys. We didn't get our first dog until I was in my 30s...simply couldn't afford it until then. Even then it was a tight squeeze and it only happened because this dog was a gift from God..presented to me in a time in both of our lives of great need. He needed us and, though we didn't know it yet, we really needed him.

I wasn't hoping nor shopping for a pet at the time because we simply couldn't really afford it. I was working 72 hrs a week and caring for 3 small boys and just didn't have the money or time for a dog right then but God had other ideas, I guess.

Our cats are always a cheaper pet because they hunt for most of their food and I only feed them a little to make sure they have a second choice if their hunts are unsuccessful.

 

[moolie]

Glad your dog has been a blessing to your family, despite the cost of keeping him I never had pets growing up, although hubs had lots of cats and a dog, so it's been really cool having our cats. We like that cats are somewhat independent (we go away the odd weekend) but also loving.

...

Our cats are always a cheaper pet because they hunt for most of their food and I only feed them a little to make sure they have a second choice if their hunts are unsuccessful.

Our cat that we had to give up pretty much fed himself as well (we live on the edge of the city where there are a lot of mice and voles in the farm fields and a lot of birds) when we had him outdoors during the daytime.

But we got a letter from the city to say that someone in our neighborhood had complained and that his outdoor time was against city bylaws. So he was super unhappy indoors, ate a lot, and peed a lot, so we found him a better home. He still remembers us when we visit our friends, but loves having his own kitty door and the freedom that brings. Our friends say he is super low maintenance because he's such a good hunter.