DH and I spend $250 a month for the two of us for food only, plus another $100 a month on household items, pet food/supplies, and stock up items.  (We have two cats and an English bulldog that eats A LOT.)  In order to keep me out of the grocery store, we joined Sam's Club just a few weeks ago.  Although the prices are higher on many things, I've found enough good deals on pet food and meat to make the membership worth my while.  My biggest problem with staying on budget is wasting food.  I find myself planning my menu and buying all the perishables to fix my recipes and then something comes up at work and I end up at the office until 9pm and the groceries just go to waste.  Unfortunately, there's no way to predict which days I'll end up staying late so I can't plan ahead to use the crock pot etc.  My best strategy so far has been to grill on Sunday night for an entire week's worth of meals.  That way, if the menu I had planned on didn't work out, we can always heat up a piece grilled chicken for dinner.  (DH does not cook.  He tried to make brownies in a jelly roll pan once--a fiasco needless to say.  That was the last time he was allowed in the kitchen unsupervised!  :-)  )

Mrsggb2 - A few ideas (maybe you already do these)

•  do you use a crockpot?  can use less expensive meat cuts and still make wonderful, large quantity dishes.  We only have 6 in family, but with 4 teens, I can fill two crockpots for dinner and if I am lucky, dh has enough for lunch the next day.  (if you can - go through a local farmer or meat market and purchase a larger quantitys.  More cash outlay at once, but saves in the long run).
• I agree on the cereal thing - I try to keep cold cereal to once a week (my hectic day)  Even then, the kids eat a large quantity and I still remind them to include some fruit, toast, etc. with their meal.  Eggs, oatmeal, and pancakes are all more filling.  (an Expensive breakfst for feeding 8, would start with 16 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/2 pound browned sausage, make some biscuts on the side.  In this area, cost would run around (regular grocery store prices, not Aldi's) 2.18 for eggs, .64 for milk (at $4/gal), 1.25 for sausage, baking powder biscuits - less than $1 for 24 - total for 8 people = 5.07 - add a piece of fresh fruit and you have a full meal for around $1 per person). 
• Lunches - not sure if you do these at home or what, but make your own roast beef, ham, turkey and slice for sandwiches.  You have enough people, you probably don't need to freeze much.  However, use the best cuts for sandwiches and pieces for stews/casseroles, soups.  Include a piece of fruit for sweet.  Need crunchy - try pickles (Sams club or make your own), I do include pretzels or saltines (one of my kids favorites) sometimes I make pudding or meatless pasta salad as a side.
• Sounds like you figured out the bake extra and freeze thing already - keep it up

Planning menus for weeks at a time really helps, and if you don't already, enlist the kids help with meal planning and prep.  My oldest (17 ds) quickly realized the value of learning to cook and plan menus.  He is really a good cook.  He makes a really good crockpot chicken that is chicken the first day, then use the remaining pieces the next day to make a crockpot casserole (usually add more veggies and sometimes more chicken or turkey or other meat).  DD (15) helps out by browning large quantities of hamburger and freezing appropriate quanties for me for quick meals on nights I am tired.

I think 250.00 a month for food AND another 100 for other items is reasonable.  I have been trying to do all of it for 250.00.  I have to really revisit my budget again this weekend and do some tweaking.

I like your idea to do all the cooking on Sunday, it makes it easy for the week.  But I do a lot of that and my DD is like, Aw mom, again!!!  Its hard to keep her happy.

I have really gotten tired of the pasta or rice side dishes so I am opening some beans and using them.  I hope it will be a healthier choice and cost effective as well.

Man o Man... budgeting is difficult at best!

jenny,

Here's the site where I learned how to make my own yogurt:

http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/cheese/yogurt_making/YOGURT2000.htm

It's great, and easy to follow. One change is that I don't always use mason jars--i just set the pan right into the cooler to set. I do this especially if I am using it to make cheese. If you go through a ton at a time, I'd just sterelize a pickle jar and use that.

 Have fun with it!

That's A Stretcher!

This post has won a TASsie award.

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My husband gets two 6 packs of Henry Weinhart's root beer a year, and we buy pop probably twice a year beyond that. If we have it, we drink it, and we don't need the corn syrup and junk anyway, not to mention the extra expense.

Stopped buying "pre-packaged" foods (meals you just stick in the micro or oven) except for occasional frozen pizza and/or chicken nuggets. No more hot pockets, banquet meals, etc. We are healthier, too, now! ($10 to $15 saved)

We pretty much never buy these now, and find them too salty, sweet, insipid. When we want cookies or cakes, we make them. I'm even planning on experimenting with crackers and graham crackers.

stopped buying deli lunchmeat except on good sales. We eat leftovers for lunch instead of sandwiches ($5 saved)

This is a huge one, too. We buy cheese in blocks, so we don't use the deli for that, and it takes a sale and a coupon for us to get meat at the deli. However, if you have a Grocery Outlet near you, you can often find those meats for very little money.

Snack items were cut back to occasional bag of plain chips or pretzels (mainly for lunches) ($3-4 saved)

I think we've bought snack crackers, pretzels and chips about 10 times in the last year.

Cut back on boxed cereal; ate more oatmeal ($3 saved)

We make pancakes and waffles on the weekends in triple batches and freeze the extras with parchment or wax paper between them in a freezer bag, and toast them during the week. We cook oatmeal or grits, eat eggs and toast, and I make my own cereal (granola and a fake grape nuts) that we eat for quickie breakfasts.

Cut back on alcohol ($10 saved). We still occasionally splurge on a bottle of wine but I get the $6 bottle rather than a $10-$15 bottle. DH does drink beer but only 1-2 on the weekends so a case lasts quite a while.

I'm the only one who drinks in our house, so we buy alcohol pretty rarely. We've splurged a few times, but mostly get $2-10 bottles of wine. Liquor lasts forever in the house.

We do a lot of these things. We shop for fresh food instead of packaged. I make just about everything we eat, including bread, cookies, cakes, snacks, mayonnaise, yogurt, pickles, relish, jams, jellies, preserves and cereal. By doing that, we are able to buy locally raised meat, wild caught local fish and shellfish, organic, pasture fed, raw dairy, lots of organic produce, etc. We're still able to keep our grocery budget under $700 (that's our holiday budget, usually we spend around $650) pretty much every month for our family of 7 (we're adding number 8 next Tuesday), including food, paper products, cleaning supplies, diapers and feed for the chickens and ducks, too.

We raise chickens for eggs and some meat, ducks for eggs, honeybees for honey and we're trying to grow some of our own herbs, vegetables and fruit. We also glean. Blackberries grow abundantly where we live, and we pick them to eat, to make jams, preserves and syrup, to freeze for winter, to make pies, muffins, etc. We also know of two parks where you are allowed to pick fruit for free, blueberries and crabapples, and we use those in much the same way. We have a trade going with a friend who raises organic veggies, I give her eggs, she gives us produce. Same thing with a friend who has an orchard, we leave one of our hives there to pollinate and he gives us fruit. I do most of our shopping, and shop the loss leaders, in season. So, we get produce in season on sale, and are able to get much of it organic. I stock up on staples, freeze meats and put just about everything to work. What we can't eat goes in a bag in the freezer for the stock pot, if it can't be used there, it goes to our chickens and ducks, and if it's something they can't eat, we put it in the compost for our garden.

We are fortunate to have several sources for locally grown meat, some of it pasture raised, some of it organic. It is not any more than the regular price at the grocery store, and sometimes is less. When it is on sale, I buy lots and freeze the excess. We buy in bulk, since we are a larger family, and use Cash and Carry to get the kind of deals people get at Costco without paying for the membership. Also, our grocery store offered a credit card that gave double reward points in their loyalty plan, as well as giving us a 15 cent discount per gallon of gas based on how much we spent. We put everything on it, bills, student loans, and pay it off each month, which gives us rebates of about $90-100 each quarter that we can use to shop at the grocery store where we do most of our shopping.

Cash and Carry, Grocery Outlet, a local market which has high quality, but expensive, goods, yet has great loss leaders which we take advantage of and Trader Joe's, if you can believe it, are where we find our best deals outside of our less expensive grocery store. The secret of shopping Trader Joe's and not spending too much is to buy ingredients rather than packaged goods; they have great prices on dried fruit, nuts, maple syrup, condiments, frozen veggies, cheeses, dairy, pasta and such. The Cash and Carry and Grocery Outlet are near where we go to church and have bible study, so we hit them when we are already in the area. I make a twice a month trip to TJ's, shop only weekly at our grocery stores, and time my purchases from farmers and fishermen locally to be on the same days, as well as being on days I'm in the area already.

I have given up going to all the different grocery stores. I shop at one major grocery store, one small market, locally. I menu plan and do grocery lists, and make sure I do one big trip a week instead of lots of little trips. This saves us on gas as well as on impulse purchases.

Sorry this is long winded, but this is the biggest area I save us money. Most of our bills are fixed, but saving on groceries and on gas helps, as that is something we can control somewhat. Oh, and I also make our laundry detergent, fabric softener and many of our cleaning supplies. This takes pennies on the dollar and only a little time for a huge payback. Many recipes and ideas can be found on my blog, too.

Regards,
Ranee

"She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands." Prov 31:13

http://arabianknits.blogspot.com/

 Budget 50 dollarsa week or 200 a month for a family of 7. 

Reality is more like 280.00.  This month I bought 300 dollars in food to last two months.  I bought 300 +lbs of food.  50 lb oatmeal, 100 lb soy beans for soy milk, yogurt and tofu.  45 lb rice, 50 lb lentils and 50 lb split peas.  25 lb raw sunflower seeds to sprout.   plus I have the garden and chickens.

Ranee, If/when Pat sees this post of yours, it deserves a "Tassie" award!  (It's an award for an outstanding post.)  Yours in Him, Deb

Deborahmichelle:

Ranee, If/when Pat sees this post of yours, it deserves a "Tassie" award!  (It's an award for an outstanding post.)  Yours in Him, Deb

Regards,

Ranee

Yes, I agree with everyone, AWESOME POSTING.

I am glad you found this site Ranee, its been really good to me that last few weeks as I am trying to unravel my debt and a plan.

Okay - here's the deal all.  I did not make the 250.00 again this month for grocery.  I am not sure what it is that I am doing wrong.  But... I have given myself 300.00 a month for both of us now.  Actually, when I look at some of the things that sent me over the edge each time, it was things like Yogurt (Yoplait, even with coupons) and frozen berries, and fresh fruit.  I was going to a really cool produce stand, but I found that since I only went there every couple of weeks (its kind of far) I bought too much and ended up throwing some stuff out and that made me sick.  So now.. I looked at my most recent reciept and for 2 bananas, 4 apples and 4 peaches it was almost 8.00 at Vons.  That is a lot!!!  But none of it will get thrown out.  I am going to consider more canned fruit for me during the day and maybe fresh for DD. 

So... now I tweaked my budget to reflect the grocery increase, and my gym fee.  Now... I have less to snowball.  I can live with that.  What I need to concentrate on is finding a "comfortable budget".  One that I can pay my living expenses, pay some debt and not feel so stressed.  One that I won't need to use any more credit cards!  That is the big one.  Quit digging that hole.

Heavy sigh... okay I think I will try this budget.  Did you all feel like you had some tweaking to do when you first came to your senses?  Did it take time to get your stride???  I hope it's not just me!