So I’m just one dude and 10k a year just on food seems incredibly high. I don’t go out that often, ~$1600 was at restaurants. I’m not really sure what I’m doing wrong while shopping at grocery stores and want to track grocery purchases better. The store I typically go to doesn’t have online receipts to use.
I’m wondering what kind of apps are available for tracking grocery expenditures that Lemmings would recommend? It would be nice to be able to go back and check prices/sizes of things too, so what is being shrinkflated/skimpflated
Out of curiosity, what are you buying? I cook for a family of three and I buy like $100-150 worth of food every month. I buy lots of fresh produce (many, many onions), whole chickens or large cuts I trim myself and some cheese or butter. I also make my own stock with a slow cooker, veggies scraps and bones/carcass from the chicken. I also buy my fresh produce at the local, smaller, grocery store. If you want to you can also use beans and peas to supplement protein.
I also save money on spices buying them whole (like whole pepper corns) by the bag from local specialty grocery stores, bottled spices at the big box store are a scam in comparison. When cooking I scoop all the spices I need and grind them in a dedicated coffee grinder, it’s really fast.
Also by the cuisines, basic, “base” ingredients in bulk. The kind where you can make most other sauces and dishes with. An example for Asian cooking is soy sauce, honey, oyster sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar. The combination will let you make a large variety of sauces in that cuisine.
Also freeze finished meals so you never need to get door dash.
$150 a month? Can you detail that? I am having trouble imagining feeding 3 people for that. We do cook near everything at home, including bread, stock, and have a garden and no way could we do that, not from zero.