The Groceries Problem

There's an unwritten rule I've noticed among people who write about personal things, whether those people are bloggers or columnists or Facebook-posters. The rule is: You're never supposed to talk about money.

Everything else, it seems, is fair game. Your politics, your gripes, pictures of yourself after working out, what you ate for breakfast - even really personal sex-and-love-related things are OK.
But we are all very, very private about our money. And although I understand it, I wish it weren't the case. I wish we could talk openly about money questions, because I have a burning one.

And it is this: How much do people spend on groceries/food every month?

I want to ask this question of smart, reasonably-normal, healthy people with families because the groceries problem seems to be one with no good solution, and I know that can't be the case. Somewhere, someone has to have the groceries issue figured out!

Here's my problem. We spend SO much money on food.  So much! And I feel like we are doing a lot of things right. At least I think we are, but how would I know because no one will TALK ABOUT IT!

We are generally very good budgeters, and most weeks I try to do pretty decent meal-planning so that every weekend, when we go to the grocery store, we're mostly buying only:

1. Staples that get used up every week, like eggs, milk, cheese, bread, yogurt, breakfast sausage and fresh fruit and veggies.
2. Ingredients for the lunch/dinner meals for that week, such as meats, specific veggies, any special seasonings or random ingredients (for example, I needed honey mustard for one meal this week and had to buy that specially).
3. Snacks for the kids' school bags and for munchies around the house, such as goldfish, pita chips, cheese sticks, cereal/granola bars, hummus etc.

We try to stock up on things like rice, pasta, frozen waffles, oatmeal, chicken nuggets etc., so that we always have those things around. We don't buy coffee, syrup, ketchup and those kinds of things unless we are really close to running out.  And we buy our toiletries and paper goods during our (way-too-frequent) Target runs and our (not-as-frequent) Costco runs, so as not to pay the premium price for those items that the supermarket charges.

Lester shops once a week and on Sundays, I cook two- to two-and-a half big meals for the work-week's dinner and lunches. I try to make sure we do really well with leftovers before moving on to something else (even though I admit that, by Thursday, we all are pretty tired of what I cooked at the beginning of the week.)

We buy what we can from Trader Joe's, which helps, because they're cheap, but they don't have everything we need/want there - or even most things. So we almost always end up at Safeway or Wegman's or Harris Teeter. We steer clear of Whole Foods, because $$$$$$$!
But STILL -- we are blowing through money on food!

So hold your hats, folks. I'm going to break the unwritten rule and just put it out there, because I need to know if this is normal or not: For our family of five, we spend close to $750 a month on groceries, sometimes more. (And we have a separate budget for restaurants/take-out! And that doesn't include the WINE! Or the fun foods like ice cream and Pillsbury slice-n-bake cookies!)

Seriously, $750! That blows my mind.

It feels like a lot to me, but is that a lot?  Does that sound about right? What do other people do to keep their grocery bills in check? (Besides coupon-cutting, because we just aren't those people, no offense to those who are. We're just too lazy to do it.)

Our kids are not even teenagers, sucking down whole cartons of orange juice and eating entire boxes of cereal for snack yet! They're not demanding to buy expensive school lunch or bringing their friends over to rummage through our fridge after school. How will we survive?

Help us figure out how to feed these three sweeties and not end up in the poorhouse!
 

They're watching TV here and not the least bit concerned about food. Maybe we should just let them watch TV 24 hours a day.

My shrimpie can't eat shrimp

I have been actually doing things during the day, like spending more time with Cary and Dean, cleaning my bedroom, folding clothes, grocery shopping, visiting with friends, going to fun places with the kids, etc. So I have not had time to blog.

I hate it when that happens because so much time passes that I miss things I really wanted to get down.

For that ONE reason, I'll be glad when I get back to work. I seemed to find a few minutes during the day more often when I was situated in front of my office computer for hours on end.

I have only a little bit of time, because Clair will be up from a nap soon so this will be quick.

Most importantly, we found out last week that Cary may have a food allergy!

Upon discovering redness, bumps and scratches all over his chest and stomach, I took him to the doctor. After answering a million questions, it seems the most likely culprit is the Chinese food we had the night before, when my Mom came to stay the night with us. I gave the boys fried rice and the broccoli out of my shrimp and broccoli. They love broccoli and kept asking for more, "Brocki, please!!" they kept saying. So I kept giving!

But the shrimp must have lingered in the sauce, because it apparently made my sweetie break out in a rash. Awwww.

At the doctor, Cary was a good sport. And all the nurses loved him. "What an angel," one said.
HA!

It was true, though, that he was much better behaved without Dean there. It was also nice just to spend time with him alone, since we never get to do that. Lester said the same thing when we made it home: that it was nice to spend time with Dean all by himself. So we're going to try to do that more often. Minus the shellfish.

(I need to point out here how BLOWN I am that Cary might be allergic to shellfish. I LOVE shrimp and lobster and Lester loves crabs! Now we'll have to be extra careful around him when we have those things. And he is not going to like it when we tell him "No." Sigh. Poor little itchy baby!)