So the new project I referred to oh so cryptically in the previous post? Here it is. I’ve joined two other writers in an experiment and group blog. Is it possible to eat well on $50 a week per adult? My guess is, yes. Absolutely, yes. We’ll see how it goes.
You can read my thoughts as we get this project underway in my first post.
And yes, I’ll still be blogging here just as irregularly as ever. The food blog project is a totally separate thing from my random ramblings over here.
Neat experiment. Makes me want to try it myself, though I’d like to get it closer to $40. Took a (casual, vague) look at where my money keeps disappearing to, and it seems to be all about FOOD.
PS. Of course, it’s complicated by the fact that I have to get about 6 meals a day out of that money, not 3.
Am looking forward to reading. I recently tried going through my receipts and keeping a spending log and was truly amazed and horrified at how much money goes towards food. Even worse is how much ends up in the compost bin.
Good luck with that. I couldn’t do it, even with my big garden. 😉
Totally possible! I used to do it when I lived by myself (before I married the Gigantor eating machine that is my husband). Good luck and happy cooking 🙂
Absolutely! I pay ~$95/week on groceries to feed myself, my husband, and my daughter full time, and then the little boy I take care of at least 5 meals a week (plus snacks) and a third child 2 meals and snacks a week!
We eat a lot of produce, very little meat, and all “whole foods”. Of course we save money by making our own bread and desserts… mmm, desserts, off to eat some cookies!
A big help would be this book:
“The Complete Tighwad Gazette” by Amy Dacyczyn. Amazon has it for about $16 and just for the kid tips and recipes alone, it’s worth much more. I used it years ago when my kids were at home and still refer to it now and then.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Tightwad-Gazette-Amy-Dacyczyn/dp/0375752250/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244216298&sr=1-1
I love it! Can’t wait to follow! Lala and I have been living on that exact budget for a while now (only our $100 bucks a week also contains household essentials, laundry soap and what-not. It does NOT include pet food, or we’d have no food for ourselves). Yay!
Wow. $50/week per adult is a large amount of money, more than most people have to spend. I look forward to reading the blog, but you’re already starting from a position most adults can’t afford, can’t be too hard.
I read the article at Time.com. Very interesting and cool process! The link to the blog isn’t working from there or from your post here, perhaps due to the fact that it’s years later…not sure if you are still doing this. But I do have a question and figured I’d just post it for all of you here. I am curious to know what changes you all experienced in terms of your health. Did you lose weight? Did you feel stronger or weaker physically compared to before you started? Hunger pangs? I worried a bit when I read the “a lot of pasta” comment. I know your focus is on eating well so I’m interested in any health benefits (or issues) that you experienced.
Hi Donna,
Yes, that blog and the experiment are long defunct. I can only speak for myself and my family. We still keep to a food budget, but now with two hungry, growing kids we don’t restrict the budget quite that much. We’ve made cuts in spending in other areas, instead. But when we were strictly keeping it to $50 a week, I don’t recall eating significantly less or being hungry. For my part, the biggest change was that I started making as much as I could at home. I made all of our bread, jam, pickles, grew all of our vegetables, etc. So what really changed was the way we sourced our food, rather than what we ate.
Thanks for checking in! I hadn’t thought about that old blog in ages!