2013 USDA Cost of Groceries

I promise not to beat this egg anymore after today, but Deborah Stein was kind enough to send the most up-to-date version of the link I posted yesterday.

Here's the new link, and you can also click the photo below to enlarge it and see what the gov't has to say about meal-preparation costs in 2013:
 

According to this, every one of you who commented on my original groceries post is doing really well keeping costs in check -- even as we all try to prepare healthful, tasty, relatively interesting meals for our families.

We should all be proud of ourselves! Keep up the good work, folks!

(The "thrifty" plan AKA the "eat a bunch of crap or starve" plan is still disgustingly low to me, but that's a rant for another day.)

Aaaaaaand, now I'm hungry! Who's up for second-breakfast?

Feeling good about groceries (and a recipe to share)

Now see? This is just another reason why I'm so glad I started blogging.

Hearing from all of you about your grocery shopping budgets and philosophies not only made me feel good about what we're doing, but it also gave me a lot of great ideas for how to save more, or do things differently, if necessary.

Thanks, guys! Really. Your thoughts were all very, very reassuring - and helpful!

One of the most interesting responses to yesterday's blog post came from my friend and colleague Deborah Stein. Debbie sent me a chart from the USDA, showing what the gov't considers to be the amount a family should/could spend on home-cooked meals per month.

Couple things I took away from this chart:

• It's the government, and they notoriously UNDERestimate how much it costs to feed people (hello, food stamps?) so whatever they say here is right, I know to add way more.
• It's from 1994, and everything has gone up a thousand times since then, so again, I add more money to whatever they say.
• Look how ridiculously low the "low-cost" level is. And the "thrifty" level? Debbie tells me that that's the level they base food stamps allotments on. Seriously? Seriously, gubment?! That's ree-dic. Sometimes I just can't believe how much our society seems to hate poor people.

So, based on that - we are doing awesome!

Anyway, I wanted to give something back to you all for your thoughtful and helpful responses. So in the spirit of feeding our children healthful, tasty, inexpensive meals, here's a recipe I made that was quick, delicious, inexpensive and a huge hit with the kids, me and Lester, too:

Homemade Sloppy Joes

Yummy in everyone's tummy!

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 carrots, coarsely grated (2 cups) [ I used shredded carrots, because it's easier.]
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 1 garlic clove, minced [ I used a little more garlic, because garlic = yum!]
• Coarse salt and ground pepper [Regular salt and pepper worked just fine.]
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 3/4 pound ground turkey (93% lean, dark meat)
• 1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons dark-brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 4 whole-wheat hamburger rolls, split

Directions

1. Step 1

   In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium; add carrots, onion, and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 5 minutes.

2. Step 2

   Add tomato paste and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add turkey; cook, breaking up meat with a spoon, until no longer pink, 4 to 5 minutes.

3. Step 3

   Add tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, 12 to 14 minutes. Serve on whole-wheat rolls.

Easy-peasy! I served these with baked potato wedges (just sliced potatoes, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and baked for 15-20 minutes at 450-degrees, turning once during baking) and salad greens.
 
Huge hit! Clair now can even say, "More soppy joe, pees!" That's how much she liked it.

(Note: The recipe was a smidge too sweet for my tastes, even with me adding more vinegar and more Worcestershire [I like my sloppy joes twangy!] so next time I make these, I'll add less brown sugar.)

 And Janna, I know this recipe won't help you so much, but I'll try to find something meatless to share just for you! Xxoxx!

 Happy eating, all!

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.

Bringing my blog back up-to-date

The last few weeks have been so jam-packed, I haven't had time to properly blog. My goal is to get something down at least five times a week, but that is like a pipe dream, even on the best weeks.

So lots of stuff gets unrecorded, and lots of thoughts get unsaid. But there's nothing to do but to jump right back into it. So here goes.

I'll start with a hodge-podge of things that happened over the course of the last couple weeks or so.

You already saw the kids in their adorable Halloween costumes, but you didn't get to see MOI.

I'm the Queen Bee, y'all. Bzzzz.

Momma Bee went to the boys' school for their Halloween party. While there, I had to be the "kid" and the boys were the teachers. "Sit down, Mommy!" they said. "Criss-cross applesauce!"

Here they are showing me what day of the week it is. I also learned what the weather was. And, if I was very good, I could possibly have gotten to be the line-leader or the door-holder. But I don't remember earning any of those things. I must not have been very good.

Last week, Lester got invited to go to "Thank the elected officials night" at The National Aquarium, even though he's not an elected official. But his boss is, and so we joined him there for a nighttime reception, dolphin show and free rein of the awesome Baltimore aquarium. (If you haven't been, it's really quite nice.)

There were lots of questions about where dolphins go poop (and lots of "ewwwing") and lots of emphatic declarations that jellyfish DO give us jelly, Mommy. "That's why they're called JELLYfish!" Duh.

My favorite is the boysenberry jellyfish. Peach is pretty tasty too.

We got to take home this snapshot of us holding Photoshopped puffins. Cary, who was in no mood to participate with the photographer's requests, was heartbroken when he realized that his pouty refusals to hold his hands out meant he didn't get to 'hold' a puffin when the picture came out. Oh well. Life lesson, Cary. It'll learn ya.

In other news, I'm happy to say, after an October of jam-packed Sundays, we went to the church we like two weekends in a row and pretty much decided we want to join. But first we're going to attend a newcomer's reception this Sunday and ask a few more questions, just to be sure.

I'm excited about possibly joining a church again. But I will be even more glad when Lester and I can both sit in the sanctuary and hear the message together, as opposed to what usually happens: One of us ends up in the lobby with Clair, who refuses to sit still during the lesson and screams bloody murder when we try to leave her in the (very sweet and cute) little nursery. Ugh.

For now, I'll just be happy that we're getting our butts up and getting ourselves to church again. Baby steps, right?

After church last weekend, we ended up going grocery shopping as a family, which we rarely do because hello -- three kids? Wegman's is near the church, so we went there, which was a total blessing! The kids were starving after church, so I took them through the prepared foods section of the grocery store and bought lunch, which we ate upstairs while Lester took the list and shopped.

When the kids were done eating, we just went over and played in the grocery store's children's area until Lester got the car loaded and came back to get us. Easy peasy.

Seriously, whoever came up with the brilliant idea to have a children's area near a dining area, near a bank of bathrooms, upstairs from a huge supermarket -- that person is a bonafide, A No. 1 genius.

We can't afford to shop at Wegman's all the time -- especially when you factor in having to feed the lot of us while we're there, instead of eating lunch at home. But when we have to do it, I'm grateful that we have it as an option. (Also, I made the easiest delicious butternut squash for dinner, thanks to Wegman's handy-dandy "buy a vegetable, we'll dice it for you" service. I love Wegman's!)

And lastly, I have to say how excited I was when Cary came padding into our room yesterday morning (a half-hour before it was time to wake-up, but I'll forgive him) and said, "Look, Mommy." Then, slowly, pointing to each word with his little finger:  'A. Is. For.'"

He read that!

Then he pointed to the alligator and said "Alligator. A. Is For. ALLIGATOR!"

Best 6:15 wake-up call I ever had.

Tomorrow is the end of the soccer season -- there's a parents vs. kids soccer game and a pizza party! Cary and Dean are beside themselves with excitement.

Happy weekend everybody!

Not your grandparents' chore list

My sister sent me this Q &A article today about a woman she thought would resonate with me for two reasons:

1. She had a unique story to tell and couldn't get an agent/publisher interested, so she started her own publishing company and did it herself! (You go, girl! I'm taking notes!)

2. Her story was about fatherhood, looking at it differently, based on her experience as a Mom of 2, and having her husband step up to the plate in a major, major way.

This author's experience got me to thinking about how much Lester does in and around the house, and for and with the kids. I started mentally listing the things he does, and then I started feeling self-conscious. Like, "Dang! What the heck do I do?" LOL.

When I actually thought hard about it, I am quite impressed by not only how well we divide the work in our family, but also how we defy a lot of gender norms -- Lester especially. This is not by design. We did not set out to be gender-neutral, necessarily (and in some cases, we're decidedly gender-norm-believers, like I ain't going in that alley with the rats, so I will NOT take the trash out. Sorry, feminist friends. I ain't doing it.) We just do what comes most naturally to either of us, or what we like to do (Lester loves grocery shopping; I like keeping the calendar, etc.) and it just works. Thank God.

Anyway, here's a look at how we do things in our house, broken out by partner:

Lester:

• Does all the laundry washing and folding
• Weekdays - gets the kids up, dressed and teeth brushed. Gets them their breakfast (cereal, mostly)
• Bathes the kids most nights/Brushes their teeth
• Does about 60-percent of the dishes
• Cleans out the refrigerator
• Takes out trash/recycling
• Changes our sheets
• Straightens our bedroom
• Mows the lawn/Handles yard work
• 8 times out of 10, mops and/or polishes the floors
• Handles all the finances - bill-paying, budget-making, taxes (Except I handle check-ins with the financial planner)
• Handles insurance matters
• Does all the grocery shopping and most of the Target, etc. shopping
• Handles almost all repair orders (calls plumber, exterminator, Comcast, etc.)
• Researches and plans most vacations
• Keeps track of car maintenance
• Reads to kids, plays with them 
• Is a softie when it comes to discipline
• Sets goals/rules for family

Tanika:

• Makes the grocery list/plans the meals
• Weekends - gets the kids dressed (they get themselves up) and teeth brushed
• Does all the cooking (except for some wonderful pancake breakfasts on some weekends)
• Does 40-percent of the dishes
• Bathes the kids when Lester's out at a meeting or the gym
• Changes the kids' sheets
• Straightens up the house
• Does the kids' hair (except that Lester cuts Dean's hair)
• Shops for/orders the kids' clothes/shoes
• Arranges doctor's/dentist appointments
• Handles retirement matters
• Handles almost all school-related stuff
• Researches and buy developmental stuff (toys/books/educational stuff)
• Picks out kids' clothes 
• 8 times out of 10, cleans the bathroom
• Plans and maintains ours and the kids' social calendars
• Buys gifts
• Reads to kids, plays with them (I do more singing and more "purposeful" play, I'd say, meaning I plan out what things we're going to play [because I'm TYPE A!] and Lester does more freestyling play.)
• Is stricter about discipline
• Sets goals/rules for family

As you can see, we do pretty well when it comes to fairly evenly dividing up the tasks that comprise running a household/maintaining a family. And we do it (mostly) without consternation or argument. Although as the chief laundry-doer, Lester probably would say my inability to put my clothes away after he's folded them is a major pet peeve. I do suck at putting my clothes away. Sorry, Les.

(Yet another reason why I need a new house, with a huge walk-in closet, where I can hide all my sins!)

Anyway, I look at this list and what it says about us --and the example it's setting for our kids -- and I am pretty proud of us. Yay for fair divisions of labor! Yay, us!

Note: I also look at this list and think:

Who does the real cleaning? (Miss Teresa, the once-a-month housekeeper. Sadly.)
Who the hell cleans out the oven? (No one.)

How do you guys divide up the work? Is it purposeful or accidental the way things fall in your house?