How to save money on food?

[slim 1,530]

We do waste lots of food too. Thats because my husband doesn't want to eat leftover foods, every leftovers after we eat end up on the trash. Even the raw meats that we stocked on the freezer he throw it away after 1 week. So we go grocery shopping every week and we spend $50 to $70. On his days off we dine out and we spend $30 to $50 a meal.

That's a FAT budget! (It's nice to enjoy only the freshest of foods. Once I hit that lottery, I'm right there with you.)

[IrinaNMike 0]

Irina and I are closest to the $600-for-two budgets. $100 is spent on my personal taste for nice imported cheeses and coldcuts. Another $100 is fruit. Irina never got to eat as much fruit as she wanted when she was living in Siberia, and now she is crazy for it. Every weekend we are at the local Farmer's Market buying berries in the summer, apples and pears in the winter. Also, after two years in the US, we still spend a maddening amount of time in the supermarket on what she calls "doing research", always ending up with a few new items that she wants to try.

Despite Irina's tendency to behave like a kid in a chocolate store, I am spending less money on food than I did when I was single, because she can't bear the thought of paying money to someone else to do something that she could do herseslf. (I guess that's another Russian thiing). As a result, we almost never eat out, and we very seldom buy packaged baked goods, preferring to bake our own. She also makes her own jam and jellies from scratch and pickles herring by herself.

I"m not counting the money I spend on good wine, or the money we spend on our two overfed cats. I'm too embarrassed to admit how much gets spent on the cats. Irina tried her Russian recipes for pets (kasha in chicken broth, etc.) but they didn't like it, and their willpower proved to be stronger than hers.

[palilover 1]

I dont even want to know how much i spend on food in total per month. I think I figured it out something like $200-ish. I seldom eat at home as I'm single and NEVER home long enough to cook. I go home only to sleep and then right back to work again. So I always eat on the go. I never get the little frozen $1 meals in the freezer section anymore cuz I'm hungry 20 mins later. THen I only end up going out to eat anyways which was what I was trying not to do in the first place. So I just gave up and only eat out:) Prob is.....I'm getting sick of all the restaurants around my workplace, LOL