by Hope
As with most of us here, I am constantly looking for ways to cut expenses. In fact, that has been the biggest way that I have been making strides in paying off debt. So I was so excited when I saw a headline that read…Feed a Family of 5 for $200 per month! I just knew they had some sort of magic couponing trick to get food really cheap, a great meal plan that lets you stretch things out for several meals and some other super component that I have been missing, because food gets us all the time!
So, of course, I clicked right through and the first sentence dashed all my hopes! They were feeding two adults, a young elementary aged child and two toddlers. Of course, their food bill is less than mine. The two adults can make healthy choices and wait between meals (one thing they pointed out they did.) Their elementary aged child will eat what they are given and doesn’t consume alot, and toddlers…eat like birds. I did continue to read the rest of their meal plan to see if I could gain any new knowledge that would help me in my continued quest to feed my family healthier yet more economic foods. But alas, all I did was come away disappointed.
But it did bring to mind a lot of what really gets me in doing this blogging thing. So many of my critics, who I certainly appreciate as they always motivate to do more, constantly compare me and my choices to Ashley. While we do have several things in common such as:
- Both native Texans and our family remains there, so travel is required to see them.
- Variable income due to her husband’s job and my job.
- Have kids.
I think that about sums it up. The reality is that we are very different such as:
- I actually moved here to VA to be close to my family, 4 of the 7 of us lived here when I moved here 11 years ago. When the last two moved back to TX just about 2 years ago, it cut me very deeply. And not seeing them regularly is anguish at times. So I will eat the travel expenses to see them when I can. (I am proud to say that I have only taken the 1 trip down, but it’s not for lack of wanting. Just trying to stay the course for debt pay off.)
- I am a single mom with no second income to count on and no one to help make decisions. (You have no idea how valuable a second opinion is even on day to day choices until you no longer have one, especially when there are kids involved.)
- My kids are almost grown…16 years olds who are almost driving (think car insurance premiums) and two almost middle schoolers who are constantly growing and heavily involved in activities. All of them who eat quite a bit, as compared to toddlers.
I could go on, but I think you get my point. We all have to learn to read the fine print when we see those headlines that might make us think we can do better. And I would ask that when commenting on my posts, you remember that comparing Ashley’s life and mine is like comparing apples to oranges rather than apples to apples.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
The website www.budgetbytes.com might help you with your food budget. My boyfriend and I have used a few recipes from the site and they are TASTY!! She’s a nutritionist as well as a good cook, so her meals are made with real food and she does a thorough cost breakdown of each meal. Of course, costs may vary due to regional differences.
Anyway, you and your kids might have fun going through the site each week and meal planning. It could be a good activity not only for your budget but in teaching your kids about budgeting and cooking.
Budget Bytes has quickly turned into my go to for recipes. I have enjoyed every recipe I tried. The recipes generally don’t use a lot of excess or exotic ingredients. I’ve found the price estimates to be pretty accurate or sometimes high if you match the meals to vegetables on sale. Most of the recipes are 4-6 servings so you may need to double if you are looking to have leftovers also.
My new favorite is the english muffin bread which is the only bread I’ve made that does not turn out like a brick. In around an hour (mostly waiting time) I can bake 2 loaves of bread for the week that actually stay soft more than a day. Its not just for breakfast either. The slices hold up very well to big sandwiches!
Jen,
Thanks for the suggestion. My kids have been meal planning and budgeting for those meals for years now. They used to do a week at a time, but with the craziness of everyone’s activities, they have 1 night a week and take turns doing the shopping. We always like finding new ideas of what we can cook. And they are ALL exceptional, creative cooks. This part of their lives…I’ve definitely done something right. I will not have to worry about them feeding themselves or others ever.
I haven’t done too much research into it yet, but I’m considering trying out once a month cooking (at least some modified version of it). The idea is that you buy in bulk which saves money, cook all at once, and then you also have a freezerful of meals which saves time for those busy days.
OMG Jen – thank you for posting that – that site is AMAZING!!! I love how she breaks down the cost of everything so I can see how much she pays (not sure where she is though) vs what we pay. I’ve already printed out a bunch of recipes 🙂
Budget Bytes is awesome. I’ve followed her for years and love everything I’ve made from that site (and cookbook, which I gladly bought even though the blog is fantastic, full of recipes, and has beautiful pictures).
We also use something called The Fresh 20. It’s like $5/month, gives you a weekly meal plan that is real food, not too expensive, and really yummy stuff. There are different options (# of people, dietary restrictions, etc.), and I find it totally worth it. We waste much less food because it helps us plan ahead, and we eat much better because the stuff is fresh. With your teens, they could take on some of the work and it’d probably go quite smoothly for you.
I think the bottom line is that the majority of the commenters (including myself) tend to favor more conservative financial decisions. I agree it’s not possible to make an apples-to-apples literal comparison between Hope/Ashley’s situation, but I think most of the comparisons I can remember being drawn have more to do with the spirit of the decisions being made, in regards to how aggressive debt was tackled and how conservative the spending decisions were.
In that sense, I think the commenting has been pretty fair. Hope got a lot of praise for getting rid of her car, Ashley for tackling the food budget. Hope is getting some pushback on the plan to purchase real estate, and Ashley got the same for her decision to go on a cruise next year.
I totally agree that the comparisons are really unfair. I think it’s a natural tendency since we started blogging at the same time, but I cringe every time I read a comparison because, as you point out, we have such different situations that any comparison is really an apples-and-oranges thing. However, I would like to point out one more similarity – we both have birthdays on major holidays in December! : )
Also – glad I read the comments here because I’d never even heard of budget bytes, but I’m definitely saving that link!!!
Hope, I will point out that you also make comparisons. Just last week you indicated you wanted to live off last month’s income as Ashley had done.
Part of the point of the community is to compare your strategy to the debt payoff strategies the rest of us used and hopefully to share ideas and inspire you to push harder.
My thoughts exactly.
True, true. I think what got me recently was when someone compared feeding my crew to feeding Ashley’s true and did it in the way of “why can’t you be like Ashley?” that got me. Believe me, when I just had two little ones, the food budget was an entirely differently budget. This post was just a knee jerk reaction to that comment, I supposed and wanted to make sure everyone did recognize that there are distinct differences in our lives that are going to make our journey’s different and the choices we make different.