Holy Cow!

By SaveYourSelf.biz

$2,457.55.

This is the amount my household spent on food in ONE month this year. I couldn’t believe it. I was chatting with my husband, probably about food, when my Mint app notified me of my monthly expenses. Leading the pack: Food.

That is an embarrassing figure.

To put this into perspective, this is more than our mortgage. More than most people’s mortgages, I bet.

This is more than our healthcare costs.

I could invite my entire neighborhood over for dinner for less than $2,457.55.

I could have taken a post-vaccination trip.

We are a family of three, for crying out loud, plus my doggy daughter. That’s me, hubby, teen-age son and a one-year-old pup. What’s more, in June 2020 I began eating healthier and in November I set up a home gym, both steps taken in an effort to lose weight. So, you would think that at least one of us should be eating less food, right?

When I was young, eating out was a treat. We would go to restaurants to celebrate special occasions such as a birthdays or graduations. Now, we eat out because it’s Tuesday. And we crave tacos. And we are too tired to cook. And we are overscheduled. And it’s the pandemic and we want to treat ourselves for surviving another day. OK, so maybe there are still some special occasions involved.

But $2,457.55 worth?

Even though there’s a vast difference between a $20 pack of boneless chicken and a $1 pack of ramen noodles, the price of the items we chose wasn’t the only driver behind this ridiculous food bill. During the pandemic, the term “comfort food” has taken on new meaning. So, has comfort drinking. And be clear, emotions have been tied to many of the meals we have eaten in quarantine over the past year-plus. But $2,457.55 still seems like an excessive amount of money to spend on boredom and stress eating. I know people are using many different coping methods. This is ours.

Here’s the math, according to Mint:

$1,029.43 Groceries (deliveries from grocery stores)

$792.12 Food & Dining (meal kits—yes, we have two subscriptions)

$576.08 Restaurants (food delivery apps and curbside restaurant services)

$59.92 Alcohol & Bars (I expected this to be much higher)

To avoid ever reaching this point again, we have taken the following steps to trim our food costs.

Know Your Why?

Why are we eating more than ever? Are we bored, stress, concerned (yup, yup and yup)? In our household, it has become a habit to walk into the kitchen and give the fridge and pantry a once-over at least a dozen times a day. Now, my family is learning to deal with the boredom and stress in non-food ways.

Repeat After Me: We Have Food at Home

With groceries and meal kits, we absolutely should have food at home. However, it’s so tempting to order out instead of cook. Before we flip open one of the many food delivery apps, I open the fridge and pantry and scan our meal options.

Limit Grocery Store Deliveries

We have cut back to two grocery deliveries per week. Yes, I know this may still seem excessive, but we were shopping a few times a week, based on cravings. It was the equivalent of walking the grocery store aisles when we were hungry. We were setting ourselves up to overspend.

Cut Back on Subscription Services

Yes, we have two meal kit services. Some weeks, the menus for one are more appealing than the other. We are reviewing both and will drop one soon.

Have you seen an uptick in costs during the pandemic? Share your stories onour forum.

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