"How much should you spend for food? While there is no single best answer, there are guides to help you estimate what you should spend. Spend enough to give your family nutritious meals they enjoy eating."
Buy Powdered Milk in Bulk mix up 1/2 gallon of it and then mix that with 1/2 gallon of whole milk. Makes you 1 gallon of milk for just pennies more that the 1/2 gallon cost. It makes whole milk taste more like 2%, but if you use milk a lot to cook this will save you lots. Milk is expensive! I bet if you put your mix into an old gallon milk jug your family would never know the difference.
I know just what you mean. I am currently without income and am just obsessed with our budget, cutting and saving where I can. My husband has a decent job, but it does not cover all of our bills, so I have to get creative. I take it as a challenge - to make nutritious food that our 3 kids will eat. My food budget is $200 per month, and it seems to be going pretty well. We do garden/freeze, which helps and I cook everything from scratch. I realize I was wasting a lot before, not knowing. It really is important to stick to a list, make a price book, shop the sales, and plan ahead. I used to just buy whatever and make meals from that, but I never really knew what I had already in my pantry. Cutting back on meat saves a bunch too. I just made a whole chicken yesterday and used every bit of it - the drippings made a delicious gravy, and the bones I boiled for stock to make soup this week. I consider THIS my job now, and I sort of enjoy rising to the challenge. Good luck to you and I hope you share any tips you discover!
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