What's a "good" cost for a supper

[Devaskyla]

What do you consider a good price for supper to cost for your faimly? Obviously this will vary a lot depending on family size, location & how much your family eats, but I was curious.

For us I'm thrilled if we can manage to eat supper for under $10/night. Usually it's closer to between $15 & $20, when dh is eating properly. I'm very unmotivated & hate cooking, especially if it takes much longer to make than to eat, so I get a lot of ready made stuff & we have big eaters here; a 4lb lasagna needs to be supplemented with something else if all of us are eating. I made a corn beef hash the other night & even that cost about $9 for all the ingredients; 2 cans of corn beef, a couple lbs of potatoes, cheese on top, plus ketchup/spices). Of course, dh had left overs for a few days, since he's barely eating still, but if he were eating properly, there probably wouldn't have been any leftovers.

[sanguine_speed]

I consider a very good cost to be under $15, however what usually happens is our meat meals cost a lot more, and our veg meals cost less, so I consider $15 a very good average.
Sometimes we'll have something very inexpensive like lentils and rice, and other times we'll have something very expensive like organic prime rib. Or if we have organic chicken breast during the week, another night is beans.

[maciascl]

I try for $5-$10 but I can usually keep it close to $5. That is for 2 adults and 2 kids. However I think my boys don't eat a whole lot compared to some of their same aged friends.

ETA: We are also vegetarian. We don't eat beans and rice much but we don't eat anything fancy either.

[yeahwhat]

I aim for under $10/supper for my family (2 adults, 6 kids 11 and under). Usually there are some leftovers too. Some meals are more expensive and balanced by cheaper meals. It does require making food rather than relying on convience foods. Grocery costs, especially dairy, are fairly high here.

[Devaskyla]

Originally Posted by yeahwhat

I aim for under $10/supper for my family (2 adults, 6 kids 11 and under). Usually there are some leftovers too. Some meals are more expensive and balanced by cheaper meals. It does require making food rather than relying on convience foods. Grocery costs, especially dairy, are fairly high here.

Wow, I'd love to see what kind of meals you have!

I know a lot of people use a lot of beans, lentils etc to make cheaper meals, but we can't have food with a high fibre content, it seriously aggravates dh's IBS.

[MyLittleWonders]

I try to average $15-18ish for dinner - that's two adults and three boys that take turns eating us out of house & home. I try to make enough so dh has enough leftover for lunch the next day. If we do GF pasta, organic ground beef, organic spaghetti sauce, and a veggie, it's about $9; if we have steak and everything that comes with it, it can be closer to $20+; but I limit dh on how much he can buy at Costco at any given time. We do eat about 90% organic, gluten & dairy free, plus all natural (Feingold diet too).

[fruitfulmomma]

Yesterday's lunch, which was equivalent to supper, was $1.99 for a package of frozen peas, $.88 for a five lb. pkg of potatoes, and $1.99 for a lb. of hamburger plus 50 cents for a stick of butter and maybe another 50 cents for seasonings and some sour cream. So $6 total for 7 of us.

I don't really have a specific budget since our finances vary a lot but we spend very little on food and shops sales. On average I would prefer not to spend more than $2-$3 per day per person.

[Violet2]

$5-$10 but it is harder to do it as food prices keep going up.

I did recently score a big manager's markdown on chicken. Got a roaster for less than 99 cents a lb and made $5 chicken soup to freeze for cold and flu season. And then a bunch of $2 off split chicken breasts for something like $1.40 or $1.50 a lb. That's the only thing that's been saving me lately, finding those deals.

You can see some of my recipes in my siggy.


V

[Devaskyla]

Originally Posted by fruitfulmomma

Yesterday's lunch, which was equivalent to supper, was $1.99 for a package of frozen peas, $.88 for a five lb. pkg of potatoes, and $1.99 for a lb. of hamburger plus 50 cents for a stick of butter and maybe another 50 cents for seasonings and some sour cream. So $6 total for 7 of us.

See, the peas would be about $3 here, the potatoes $4 most of the time (& we'd use the entire bag for 1 meal), $4+ for the hamburger, butter is $5/lb (which is one reason why I buy margarine, the other one is dh can't eat butter).

[sanguine_speed]

Originally Posted by Devaskyla

See, the peas would be about $3 here, the potatoes $4 most of the time (& we'd use the entire bag for 1 meal), $4+ for the hamburger, butter is $5/lb (which is one reason why I buy margarine, the other one is dh can't eat butter).

We're simlarly limited, except I buy all animal products organic for ethical reasons. I'd much more quickly buy coventional produce than conventional meat/dairy. The hamburger would be local grass-fed for $5 a pound (and then only because I bought a bulk order), and the butter is $10/lb. I don't begrudge paying the real cost of real food, and I do recognize the privilege I have that I am able to do so.

[lunarlady]

We spend about $1 per person for each meal, but we have a huge garden that provides a lot of food, and a farm share too that isn't counted in that budget. So i guess if we were buying everything it would be closer to 2 or 3$ per person. We don't do much meat, and eat very little meat when we do. I'm also a serious bargain hunter and thrifty shopper.

[Magelet]

I'd say 5-12 for 2 adults who eat a HUGE amount (we eat definitely enough for 4 adults)

[velochic]

I'd say if keeping cost down is a priority, cooking from scratch, as much as it is hated, has to be a priority, too. Boxed meals will kill the food budget.

We eat almost no processed food and do pretty well budget-wise. Last night, I served what I would call SUPPER. Four courses, with 5 adults and an 8yo girl. Except for the wine, the whole meal probably cost about $16-$17 (whole roasted turkey, homemade rolls, homemade stuffing, roasted red potatoes, peas and carrots, appetizer of baked goat cheese, salad course and dessert, which was homemade pumpkin pie). We'll eat on that for a couple of days, the 4 of us (2 were guests last night), so that would bring the price down quite a bit more, even. We get our meat ethically raised and butchered and it's all quite local (except for the very, very little pork we eat). Buying in bulk for meat is probably the biggest factor. That and just cooking from scratch.

We average daily main meals for under $10, 3 adults and one child. Often we eat something like ham and beans (the ham being leftovers from a baked ham eaten at some other time and producing lots and lots of freezer fodder and the beans being dried). That meal will cost about $3 to make the whole thing and we'll eat that for 2 days, bringing the per-person cost down to under 50 cents. That offsets our bigger food expenses. Our biggest expense is fresh fruit. We eat about $10/day in fresh, as local as possible, fruit.

So, I think an average over time is what you have to look at. If you're spending $15 for every single supper, I think you absolutely could halve that with some meal planning and scratch cooking.

[BetsyS]

We are in the $6-$7 camp as well. I feed 2 adults, 2 small children, plus leftovers for dh the next day, and me about 50% of the time. So, 4-5 adult servings (my boys eat about half of an adult serving).

And, like velochic said, that is an average, with some meals higher and some lower. This spring, I got 14 pounds of nitrate free, fancy pants bacon on sale for $1/lb. We've used most of that for BLTs. Tomatoes from the garden, bread, mayo, lettuce, and 1/2 lb of bacon feeds us all for less than $3.

[Alyantavid]

Some of these seem really high to me.

The last dinner I cooked was fried rice and souvlaki. I buy rice in bulk for cheap, the veggies came from the garden and the eggs are about $2 for an 18 pack. I think there were 4 eggs in it.

The souvlaki was $10 for 2 lbs so our total was probably around $12. But that's very rare. And there's tons of fried rice so we'll be eating that for days. We raise most of our own food and I shop sales and plan my meals from that so we eat very cheap.

[Violet2]

Originally Posted by Alyantavid

Some of these seem really high to me.

The last dinner I cooked was fried rice and souvlaki. I buy rice in bulk for cheap, the veggies came from the garden and the eggs are about $2 for an 18 pack. I think there were 4 eggs in it.

The souvlaki was $10 for 2 lbs so our total was probably around $12. But that's very rare. And there's tons of fried rice so we'll be eating that for days. We raise most of our own food and I shop sales and plan my meals from that so we eat very cheap.

Having seen some of the other food cost threads, the cost of living is highly variable.

I know for us, not only do we eat a lot of meat, we have terrible grocery stores with unusually high prices.

V

[Ruthiegirl]

Our cost per dinner is usually around $5-8 to feed 2 adults and 3 children. We seem to eat pretty cheap.

Our dinners this weeK

frittata $7.50

-- 8 eggs ($2), 1 C milk (~$.50), garden and CSA veggies (~$2), cheese ($1) fruit for a side dish ($2)

Chicken and rice, veggies ($7)

-- chicken ($3), rice (~$1), veggies (~2.00), milk to drink ($1)

Shrimp curry on rice ($7.50)

-- shrimp ($4), red pepper ($1.50), peas ($1), basmati rice ($1)

Tostadas ($5)

-- black beans, homemade ($.50), corn tortillas ($1), avacado ($2), lettuce ($.50), salsa from garden, cheese ($1)

Split pea soup and corn bread ($4.5-$5)

not even sure how to tally this one -- peas bought in bulk ($1), onion, carrots (~$1.50), corn meal and extras (maybe $1-2)




Our dinners are filling and enough, but not so much that there is a ton of leftovers. I used to make way too much food, but have been cutting back on our portion sizes a lot. Dh and I both needed to lose a little weight and our son has issues with overeating if there is too much offered.

We have stopped with the after-dinner snacking and simply have learned to eat a little less. We have a wheat allergy, so no pasta meals. Our protein sources are eggs, chicken/turkey and a little seafood if I can find it priced well. Lots of beans, lots of rice and potatoes, loads of veggies, and a gallon of milk a week.

I spend $100 a week on food, plus $500 every 6 months on beans, peas, oats, brown rice, basmati rice, w/f flour, olive oil, coconut oil and spices.

[Mackenzie]

I am in the under 10 average range also...

[Kyamo]

I almost never tally up the cost of one meal, but we spend about an average of $7.5 per day on food, for two adults. That includes all meals, but does not include eating out (once every 1-2 months).

[yeahwhat]

Originally Posted by Devaskyla

Wow, I'd love to see what kind of meals you have!

I know a lot of people use a lot of beans, lentils etc to make cheaper meals, but we can't have food with a high fibre content, it seriously aggravates dh's IBS.

I mistyped and somehow in deciding between dinner for 6 and 2 adults, 4 kids, I typed 6 kids. They're 11, 8, 6, and 3, which is relevant because I've fed teens before and they eat much more than my 11yo even.

It's partly how I shop/cook and partly the sort of meals we eat though.

Example, 2 weeks ago lean ground beef was on sale for under $2/lb (about half price for here. I bought a big family pack, brought it home, divided it in half and cooked a big pot of spaghetti sauce and a big pan full of taco meat. Had spag and sauce for dinner with raw veggies, divided the rest into meal sized portions for the freezer. Taco meat, I divided into meal size portions and had one portion the next night, with the rest going into the freezer. Then we had enough sauce and taco meat prepared to have them each one meal per week for the month. If I can't buy tortillas at the bread outlet, I make them myself. We all prefer the homemade version anyway.

Last week I went into the store for milk, saw a 2.5lb roast beef marked down to just over $5, made it for supper with boiled potatoes (bought on sale), brussel sprouts (sale), gravy (made with the drippings from the pan, homemade chicken stock from the freezer, potato water, cornstarch, and s&p), and carrot sticks. Dh then ate the leftovers for lunch for a few days.

Turkey will go on sale here soon. I'll buy one and cook it up, making soup, pot pie, stock, etc. out of the leftovers. So a $10ish turkey will go toward several meals.

Butter was on sale for $2.75 last week. I bought 10 lbs to last us until the next sale. It keeps fine in the freezer. Regular price is $4 or more per lb. I see that you don't use butter, but apply that to whatever foods you do eat. When chicken's on sale, that's the meat you buy, ditto pork chops, roasts, whatever. Eventually you can mostly eat out of the freezer and pantry and supplement with milk and what ever fresh fruit/veg are on sale that week.

I don't eat meat, and we do eat some vegetarian meals as well, which won't be helpful to you.

We were redoing the kitchen this summer and eating a lot more prepared foods as a result. It was so much more expensive to feed us and it was so much less healthy. After 2 months of it, everything started tasting the same too. We haven't had a meal out or a packaged meal in the 2.5 weeks we've had the kitchen usable again, and I don't miss it at all.