December 13, 2004

10:12 AM

How much do you spend on food a week? What is the ratio of eating out and eating at home you do to arrive at that number? What is the least a couple can spend per week and still eat well? How does one transition from eating out every meal and being pretty clueless in the kitchen to eating in (saving lots of money) but without spending hours and hours making food and cleaning up? How do we do this without TV Dinners, microwavable foods etc?
posted by wtfwjd? to (31 comments total)

A lot of questions. If you're willing to make your own food, a single person can eat healthy for under $10 / day without too much trouble.

...without spending hours and hours making food and cleaning up? How do we do this without TV Dinners, microwavable foods etc?
The 'Cooking with n Ingredients or Less' books are a good start for finding quick, easy recipes.
posted by driveler at 10:17 AM on December 13, 2004

Well, if you want to eat well, you're not going to save so much money. King crab is $20 lb. Organic angus is $10 lb. Etc.

But you will probably eat healthier, and cooking it is a skill you should really learn.

Before buying lots of cookbooks, think about stuff you like. Go to Epicurious, print a few menus, and then go to Whole Foods and get quality ingredients. Buying a lot of groceries and then having your recipes taste like tire will be disappointing.

One you go through a few, get a cookbook of stuff you like, and practice the same recipes a few times.

Eventually, like anything else with practice, you'll be ok in the kitchen, and you'll be able to breeze through the store without a recipe.

Suggestions? Thai food is fun and easy. French food is a nightmare for a beginner.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 10:21 AM on December 13, 2004

This is a pretty broad question. Putting a specific number to it is impossible without knowing (a) where you are and (b) what restrictions you have.

But, some thoughts as a guideline:

- Plan your meals out several days in advance, if possible. You'll quickly find a lot of ingredient overlap, which makes buying cheaper (generally). Shop for a whole week at a time.

- Make things that can be eaten for a few days. Soups, stews, and casseroles all keep for a long time and almost always actually get better with a little age.

- Avoid the urge to make pasta dishes constantly. Yes, it's cheap and easy, but a pasta-heavy diet is bad for you.

- Learn portion control! If you cook more food than you need and you can't/won't save it, you'll either throw it out (a waste) or eat it (bad for your diet).
posted by mkultra at 10:28 AM on December 13, 2004

If you are completely unacquainted with the kitchen, the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book is a pretty good place to start. It isn't gourmet food as such, but then again, if you're just starting, gourmet is a bit ambitious, isn't it?

"Many recipes feature make-ahead directions or quick-to-the-table meals."

When we got married 20 years ago, my wife's kitchen experience was very limited, and this book helped her out a lot. We still use it regularly.
posted by Doohickie at 10:29 AM on December 13, 2004

I spend £10-12 a week, so $20-25. Meat is expensive, and I'm a poor student, so I only have it once a week or so and I make large batches of things and freeze them. Most of my meals work out at less than £1 each.
posted by Orange Goblin at 10:31 AM on December 13, 2004

I don't know what I spend on food, although I know it's more than I ought to spend. I eat out usually 3 or 4 meals a week (Friday lunch, Saturday lunch and dinner, and occasionally a meal on Sunday) and prepare the rest for myself. However, if you think that cooking and cleaning up requires "hours and hours," you're in for a treat cooking for yourself. Not every meal is Thanksgiving dinner. It's a rare and complicated dinner that has me doing active prep of more than 25 minutes or so, including cleanup.

I keep a big bag of IQF chicken breasts from Costco in the freezer, and it's pretty much the best thing I've ever done. Pop one of those bad boys into a pan or the oven, or defrost it in the microwave and prepare as desired. They never spoil and go for about $2.10 a pound, a damn sight cheaper than fresh (at least in my neck of the woods). Make it with some pasta, rice, veggies, maybe sauce it up, deep fry it... easy as pie, and quick cleanup.

As far as recipes go, I don't use them too often for entree-type preparations, although Allrecipes has a nifty search-by-ingredient feature, so if I've got chicken, ginger, and peanut butter (!!), I can get some jumping-off points.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:32 AM on December 13, 2004

When we were in college, we fed four people three squares daily, plus one for dinner, five to six days a week, on $130.00-150.00 per week. If you are just starting out, even for two people, you will probably spend this amount getting a "base" of stuff to start off with. You may want to look at some cookbooks that have a "Basic Pantry" list in them ( I can't find one right off hand) and use that, or quiz someone whose cooking you like and think is healthy. Cooking Light kept me alive in college, and they put out a cookbook every year, as well as the magazine, which we get monthly.

General tips, from my experience:

1) Do the receipe the way the book says once or twice, then start changing things.
2) Meat can be frozen. Just remember to use it. If you buy say, six bits of chicken, break the package up and put two bits to a freezer baggie. Defrost as needed.
3) I may get stoned for this, but you can microwave easy things like broccoli. Fresh veggies, tablespoon or so of water. Microwave safe dish, vented Saranwrap. Zap! Steamed veggies.
4) Leftovers, if good=tomorrow's lunch. Invest in Rubbermaid.

Hope that helps!
posted by Medieval Maven at 10:37 AM on December 13, 2004

1) No processed foods.
2) Farmer's market for produce, buy local and in season. For really cheap, visit your local grocery stores and figure out which have the best banged produce, then trim the rotted bits off. This takes a lot of time.
3) Make stews, casseroles, etc. Freeze in single meal sizes. Takes time, but not much attention. I used to do all my cooking for the week on Sunday afternoons. Bean stews are cheap, and you can keep cooking them until you get the spicing right.
4) If you want cookbooks, get them from the library. If you have to own them, buy them at library booksales.

20 years ago, I fed two people on US$5 a week for over a year. You don't want to go there.
posted by QIbHom at 10:38 AM on December 13, 2004

Post-script: We ate well. I would eat (and do still make) the food we ate in college now. Feel free to email me if you would like a few "starter" type receipes. Trust me, if we managed to not burn our apartment down, anyone should be able to master this. :)
posted by Medieval Maven at 10:44 AM on December 13, 2004

3) Make stews, casseroles, etc.
QIbHom is right. We make a large dinner sunday night (chili, lasagne, or stirfry, etc.) and then it's left-overs the rest of the week. Friday is reserved for dinner out with friends. Of course, the hard part is planning a menu and then sticking to it.
posted by pepcorn at 10:50 AM on December 13, 2004

The above suggestions are good, and I have another one that might sound somewhat weird...but it's worth a shot!

Try looking for camping or backpacking recipes, either via google or try something like the NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) cookbook: http://www.nols.edu/news/press/040126cookery.shtml

Anything geared for backpackers is pretty much guaranteed to be quick and easy, with minimal fussy ingredients, and will likely fill you up.
posted by handful of rain at 10:56 AM on December 13, 2004

I'm not sure what we spend a week on food, but it's in the $30-50 range for two of us, depending on how many staple items we have to restock. We eat out once a week in addition whch is usually a $15 pizza or chinese food; we have few eating out options. We don't eat a ton of meat, but we eat some. We have a kitchen that is well-stocked with staples and this keeps shopping trips down and it means that we're rarely out of food, just sometimes out of food that we like. My short list of tips:

1) Eat food you like If you eat out a lot, think about what you like to eat out and try to eat similar foods in your house. Even if you eat cheeseburgers and fries out, it's much easier to make them in the house, often tastier, for significantly less. I second libraries for good test cookbooks, if you find one you really love, go buy it. I hate to admit that an old boyfriend bought me Cooking for Dummies one year and I found it pretty helpful.
2) Clean as you go Working in the kitchen this way makes post-meal clean ups much less onerous. While the rice is boiling put away all the food you took out. While the veggies steam, move all the dishes to the sink or dishwasher, etc.
3) Buy in bulk This can be the obvious grains and stuff like sugar, rice, lentils, granola, but can also be things like dried fruits, herbs and spices [MUCH cheaper this way], syrup, dish soap and soy sauce. If you have a "dented can" store near you, use it to stock up on soups, juices, baked good and canned veggies. Avoid pre-packaged and processed foods since these are usually not a good value and contain a lot of starches and salt that you might not otherwise want or need. Look for sales on spendy items and buy a lot of it when you see the price drop, buy generic instead of brand name and see if you can tell the difference.
4) Use your freezer If you make something you like, next time try to make more of it and freeze/reheat it. A reheated lasagna with a fresh salad and bread can be an amazing meal with basically zero prep time and little clean-up for that meal. You'll get used to economies of scale like this as you do it more and it makes cooking at home easier to deal with when you realize that your advanced work basically bought you a night of almost no cooking and almost no dishes.
5) Shop once a week! Try to plan out meals in advance, even with broad strokes, and plan in leftovers from one meal to include in a next one. A classic example of this is the end of the week stir fry using veggies from one meal or a bit of extra meat that you didn't cook up from an early meal. This way you're not at the store every day [time-consuming] and buying entree-type foods every night [expensive]
posted by jessamyn at 10:59 AM on December 13, 2004

Great advice here.

For me, the 'eating-out' budget and the 'grocery' budget are two separate line items. I pretty much regard eating out as a form of entertainment, and plan it accordingly.

My grocery budget rarely exceeds $160 a month -- and I eat really well. But I love to cook, and I think you actually have to cook in order to keep food costs low. Convenience foods cost more because they are charging you for the convenience. So you might want to work on basic cooking skills. Cooking isn't that hard and doesn't take that much longer than processed food when you have some good skills. Some of my strategies(sorry, a lot of them are the same good advice posted above):

1. Whole foods only. Not the market, the concept. I don't buy any noodle mixes, 'helpers', bake mixes, frozen dinner mixes, etc. These are a ripoff, and what you can make tastes better as well as being cheaper.

2. Build a pantry full of staples. That way, even with only one new ingredient from the market, you can come up witha great dinner any time. Arthur Schwartz' cookbook What to Cook When You Think There's Nothing in the House to Eat is an excellent resource for this. Canned tomatoes, beans, pastas, spices, rice, grains, flours, oils, nuts, capers, olives, and the like last forever, and using them in small quantities, the investment in a pantry really pays off. If you buy multiples of canned tomatoes, beans, grains, pastas and such when they're on sale, you save big and they can sit and wait for you to cook them one day.

3. Trade variety for quality. I generally eat the same basic simple breakfast day after day. Lunch tends to be soups, panini, salads, or casseroles that I make in quantity and eat for dinner the first night, then freeze some and bring some for lunch a couple days in a row. This is real, yummy food and wayy better than Subway. When I don't have something like that, I take cheese, crackers, veggies and hummus - a great lunch. Dinner is where I spend most of my time and budget. I get chicken or salmon a couple times a week and build different meals around them.

Once you get rolling on the planning and cooking thing, it almost never happens that you open up the pantry or fridge and say 'there's nothing here'. It's more like 'OK, if I just pick up some Italian sausage and rosemary tonight, I can make lentil soup.' Everything else is stocked and ready to go.
posted by Miko at 10:59 AM on December 13, 2004

Digs Magazine, targetted at the post-college pre-kids crowd, has some good recipes and articles on food and they assume that you know nothing. The chocolate truffles are sooooooo good and soooo easy (but don't tell anyone, they look and taste impressive!).
posted by heatherann at 11:01 AM on December 13, 2004

Do you have a Trader Joe's nearby? They have stuff in their frozen section that is great when I don't feel like really cooking. Things like Red Pesto Farfalle, which is like $3 for a big bag that can function as a big dinner for two. Or, as I discovered the other day, something called Potato Medley, which is touted as a vegetarian entree. It was yum.

I don't work outside the home (so you'd think I have the time) and there are times when cooking an actual proper meal makes me want to scream. So I like to have that frozen stuff on hand to make quickly. It's a damn sight better than the frozen crap you get at a regular grocery store.

And I'll second Cooking Light -- I've found some really yummy recipes in there that don't take too long.
posted by sugarfish at 11:07 AM on December 13, 2004

There've been questions on AskMe before along the same lines--make sure to search the archives, there's good stuff in there.

But drawing on those questions, you will basically get two kinds of responses. One type of person will tell you to buy frozen food in bulk, buy cookbooks designed for beginners, and start easy, working your way up, slowly modifying the recipes. With frozen meats and simple recipes (stir fry, etc.) cooking every day is easy in this way. This crowd really digs Asian cookbooks (though coming from an Asian family, I can say that real good Asian food is really, really hard to make and takes forever.)

The other type of person (me, and some folks above) will tell you to buy a more advanced cookbook (in my case, Chez Panisse Menu and Chez Panisse Cafe) and go to Whole Foods or something similar. The argument they / I will make is that good, simple food means working with good, simple ingredients. In fact, I / these people argue, cooking is really easy, especially when the food you start with is really fresh and tastes great anyway!

(There's also a middle-of-the-road position, which involves planning leftovers into your meal plan, and planning out meals ahead for the week. This always seems to me like an advanced, high-level approach to cooking, especially if you don't actually know how to cook.)

Really the route you take depends on which half of your question--eating cheaply or eating well--you care about more. My girlfriend and I, both grad students, probably spend about $70/week on groceries from the Whole Foods and hardly ever eat out. This is definitely an extravagance on our income, but on the other hand we eat really well and have fresh, organic groceries every day. (We also live in an East Coast city, where everything is crazy expensive.) There are also only two of us, we work all the time, and cooking is a pleasant break from work. If you're feeding a family then your priorities will be different (though I would tend to think that fresh organic meat and, especially, produce would be even more important if you're feeding kids.)

IMO, you should learn how to cook, because it's not that hard to cook really good food and it will add a whole new dimension to your life. You won't be Julia Child or Alice Waters or Nobu, but it's good to know how to do easy stuff like roast a chicken, make good potatoes, make a roast, grill fish, and generally cook well with fresh ingredients on a regular basis. So, my advice:

1. Pick up Chez Panisse Menu, Chez Panisse Café and Chez Panisse Vegetables. Read the whole book first, including the preface, for each one! Menu has complicated, multi-course menus, but there are some easy recipes in there, and it gives you a ton of tasty ideas. Café has really easy recipes using only a few ingredients. And Vegetables has recipes for each vegetable, broken down by season, so you can buy a veggie at the store and trust that there'll be a recipe for it at home.

2. Pick out a couple of recipes you want to make and choose a Saturday or Sunday to give one of them a go. I found it fun to pick an easy menu from the Menu cookbook, since you know it'll be tasty. On Sunday afternoon, settle down to make a really good meal. This gives you Saturday to shop and to pick up kitchen stuff if your kitchen is a barren wasteland.

3. After a week or two of really good Sunday dinners, you'll be psyched to go to the grocery store and load up on good groceries. It usually seems to me that cooking is like working out--you have to excited about it and committed to quality for it to work in the long term. You'll get bored and disheartened really quick if you learn how to make one or two things over and over again, night after night. Good, fresh, exciting food is easy and will keep you cooking instead of going out.

So, basically, I say approach cooking as a hobby first, and make it an ingrained part of your routine as you get better at it. Learn to make really good food that you love every now and then, and as you get more comfortable you'll be able to work it into your daily life. I remember when I was in high school some athlete-type kids I knew were taught this mantra: "Food is fuel, not fun." I think it should be the opposite: approach home-cooked food as fun and you won't want to go out as much. Eventually it can become your day-to-day fuel.
posted by josh at 11:07 AM on December 13, 2004 [1 favorite]

Spices are the spice of life. Once you lay out the small chunk of change for some base spices, you can cook healthy, cheap & tasty for months. Indian food is a good example: one meat (not required), a vegetable or two, and spices. Easy to prepare and cook. You might have trouble finding real spice sellers, but if I can find real cardamon pods and black mustard seeds in Nebraska, nobody should be complaining.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:20 AM on December 13, 2004

I'd love to find some hard data on what the average family spends for food each month, sorted by income, etc. Will post if I locate it.
posted by mecran01 at 11:23 AM on December 13, 2004

I did this transition a few years ago, it won't be that hard for you.

1. Start out by learning how to make a couple of things really well, like chili or spaghetti sauce. Try at least one new recipe a week to gradually add to your repetoire. I also use Allrecipes pretty frequently.

2. If you aren't used to cooking regularly, don't make the mistake of thinking "This week I'm going to cook at least five meals!" You'll buy groceries with the best of intentions, and they will end up going bad. Take it slow.

3. Generally anything with a fat content will freeze well. Meats and cheeses, anything with a cream base. When I cook, I usually make at least double portions; we eat one for dinner and either freeze the other or have leftovers in the next day or two.

4. Consider buying a rice cooker. I often make a lot of rice at the beginning of the week, and then later in the week I just have to make an entree.

5. Consider buying a slow cooker. Very nice to have dinner waiting for you the minute you walk through the door.

6. I try to avoid prepared foods whenever possible because I'm highly sensitive to MSG, and you wouldn't believe how many things they put it in these days. I always keep things like frozen veggies from Costco or Trader Joe's on hand, because they can be easily added to recipes (think soups/stews), or steamed/microwaved for a quick vegetable side dish.

7. After you've built up your cooking skills and recipe base, start reading the grocery store ads. Buy the meats, etc that are on sale, even if you don't intend to cook them this week. It helps that we have a stand-alone freezer (which we keep in the garage), so we can really take advantage of meat on sale. I usually take a look at what I have on hand once a week, and then choose a menu from there. It helps to do this when I've gotten the ad, because I can say "Oh, I've the ingredients to make arroz con pollo on hand, and chicken is on sale this week", etc, etc.

Finally, as to eating well; I guess this depends on how you define eating well. We eat at home at least five days a week; one reason is our budget demands it, but another reason is I know exactly what goes into my food, at least when it's being prepared. The food is good and healthy, so I think we eat pretty well.
posted by vignettist at 11:31 AM on December 13, 2004

A lot of people will say you can’t eat cheaply AND well, but the point where value meets quality is different for everyone; the goal is finding the right balance for yourself.

We’ve cut our food bills nearly in half over the past year by reducing the frequency of restaurant lunches and carry-out dinners. If you want to take that step, it will require some cooking and planning ahead, but nightly dinner does not have to involve “hours and hours” of cooking and cleaning up. I can make a yummy rice pilaf in 20 minutes while marinated chicken grills outside or on the George Foreman grill (do get one if you don’t have it, it’s a superb invention). Or steam some veggies (yes, the microwave is fine for that) while something else cooks in the oven. Or turn a chicken and a few veggies into a yummy stew in a slow cooker. It doesn’t have to be all hands-on; and it doesn’t have to take hours of you standing at the stove.

Planning meals ahead does help, and doesn’t have to be complicated. Say you buy a pack of, oh, fresh dill, for a specific recipe – if you already have some salmon at home, and maybe some potatoes, that’s three uses already (you can find specific recipes later), and the remainder can be used in a vinaigrette. That’s not something you should expect to know right away, but just keep in mind that it will come in time and it will increase your food-shopping value exponentially as you progress.

Money-saving tips:
- Red meat is expensive. If you use it sparingly and stretch it with rice (cheap) and vegetables (cheap), you’ll not only save money but eat healthier as a bonus.
- Don’t think you have to live on rice and beans. Even treating yourself to the occasional home-cooked tuna steak will cost about 1/3 what it would if you ordered it in a restaurant.
- Focus on the outside perimeter of the grocery store. That will save you money and give you a healthier diet by default. Fruit, veggies, lean meats, eggs, etc. can be good values. Prepared salad dressings, marinades, etc. are full of preservative crap and are a waste of money; you can make way better ones for a fraction of the price.
- Pay attention to prices when you shop. It may sound obvious, but I never used to do this, and letting two $5 baskets of berries get mushy before I used them was a common occurrence in our house. Now I still buy them, just not as frequently, and I make sure to use them when I do buy ‘em.
- Look for things on sale and stock up. I do buy meat on sale if it’s a good cut, and freeze it for later. In the time it’s freezing, you can amass a few recipes for that particular cut.

Someone suggested not cooking more food that you’ll eat, but I do that intentionally and freeze the leftovers. It’s a nice way to have a fast dinner that’s not processed frozen packaged food.

If I were to suggest one cookbook, it would be “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman. It’s easy to read and has a wide range of relatively healthy, relatively simple recipes, and lists variations of basic recipes so that you learn what goes with what. I’ve never had anything turn out badly from this book. It’s definitely worth buying if you’re going to cook regularly, in my opinion.

I also recommend watching a few episodes of “30-Minute Meals” on FoodTV. This show is not for all tastes, and it’s certainly doesn’t achieve gourmet status by any means, but I’ve picked up lots of time-saving tips from it. For weeknight dinners, it’s helped a lot.

I hope this makes a bit of sense. Just know that the most daunting part of cooking is the thought of starting. Once you're in the habit; it becomes second nature. Good luck!
posted by boomchicka at 11:34 AM on December 13, 2004

We budget $80/week for spending on food, which as josh says, sounds terribly extravagant. But we do eat nearly all local, organic food, which of course means we are eating the best ingredients we can find.

Also, we rarely spend that entire budget, and have a savings account for the leftover money - we let that pile up so we can buy a quarter of beef or a whole pig, etc. Buying meat in bulk is a great way to bring down your overall costs: we get organic Angus for $2.89/pound in the quarter, and organic pork for $1.89/pound.

My advice is this: every Sunday, roast a chicken for lunch. Save the leftover meat for sandwiches, and boil the carcass that afternoon and make stock for soup. Now you've got lunches for the week nailed down.

If you have a local farmer's market, it will likely be on Saturdays. Make it a Saturday morning event. Go early, and shop for things that catch your eye and will go well with your chicken: potatoes, parsnips, fresh tomatoes, sweet potatoes, spinach, beets, carrots, cabbage, onions - whatever's available and in season. You can use these things in salads or soup.

Learn to make sauerkraut. Even if sauerkraut isn't your thing, learn the concept: fermented vegetables are ridiculously simple to make (strain whey cultures out of yogurt and add a tablespoon to a 1-quart jar full of crushed, grated vegetables spiced to your taste) and very nutritious. Try making kimchi or curtido - nearly every culture has its own "sauerkraut" style vegetable, and there's a galaxy of flavors to explore.

Investigate sourdough. It makes baking your own bread cheap and practical, and like the fermented vegetables, there are endless variations for you to explore.

Finally, make your own cereal. Mix dry oatmeal with roasted coconut, roasted almonds, ground flax seed (not too much), dried fruit, raisins, dates, etc. Pour milk on top of a bowl of it, and you've got a great start to your day. Plus you can throw some jam on top for a fresh flavor.

Email me if you'd like more information.
Good luck!
posted by rocketman at 11:48 AM on December 13, 2004 [1 favorite]

James Barbar, The Urban Peasant, has books that are filled with delightfully simple, quick, and delicious meals that require minimal prep.

I believe my wife and I eat very well on less than $250/month combined. Most of what we eat is prepared entirely from scratch; indeed, I can't think of any prepared foods that we'd eat.

Good food doesn't have to be fancy food, btw. Hell, my favourite food is bean burritos: can't get easier than that! Even a top-notch standard dinner can be as easy as tossing garlic, ginger, lemon juice, and a chicken breast in a frypan; tossing fresh veggies in a steamer; and nuking a potato. French onion soup is just sliced onions, broth, and a bit of flour. Bread is way cheaper, and much much tastier when it comes out of the bread machine.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:59 AM on December 13, 2004

I enthusiasticly agree with Boomchicka. "How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman got me started in the kitchen (at least beyond what my mother had taught me) and it's worth the money. He covers alot but not all, so it's a great primer but not the end all be all of cookbooks.

All in all the advice already posted is *good* advice. In general you shouldn't be spending "hours in the kitchen cleaning up" if you plan ahead and don't make it complicated. If you don't have a dishwasher plan that into your time for cleanup, but otherwise I could come home at 5, have a meal ready at 5:45 and dishes done and drying by 6:30. Not too shabby when you consider a similarly long meal at a restaurant would cost you 5x the cost of a home cooked meal.

One of the most important things to do if you are trying out new recipes is to read the recipe several times. If you are preparing things from more than one recipe, I cannot stress enough how important it is to read ALL of the recipes and plan when you will do what. Those 5 minutes you spend thinking will prevent 30 minutes of waiting for the baked potatoes to finish while your sauteed chicken breasts get cold. :^)

I spend on average $70US/week total (breakfast, lunch and dinner are all had at home since we telecommute) for me and my husband including one night of a slightly over-the-top dinner for a friend who lets us use his washing machine in exchange for a Sunday night meal. :^) We are omnivores so that $ includes meat (although usually not red meat unless it's on sale.)

The key is to buy ONLY what's on sale unless you really really can't get buy without it, if it's really good buy lots and freeze, and shop the perimiter of the store (as a general rule of thumb. ) Once you've had from-scratch brownies (which are no more complicated than from-box brownies) you'll never go back to Duncan Hines and it's way less expensive.

Don't be intimidated. Just go easy and try simple things, you might be surprised at how good simple food can be! If you got other questions drop me a line, my site is in my profile.

Good luck!
posted by absquatulate at 12:07 PM on December 13, 2004

We spend between $60-$110 per week; groceries only. We don't eat out often enough for me to count it. We spend $20 per week on take out.

How little you can spend and still eat well depends on where you live and how much trouble you are willing to go to. Purchasing the basics is cheaper but requires far more planning and preparation.

We cut down on eating out/getting take out a lot by moving someplace where it's not convenient. Obviously we didn't move for this reason, but it was an added benefit. We also instituted new recipe night, where we'd try any crazy thing, even if it took forever and was crazy hard.

Over time you will find things you like to make over and over again and other things you make only for special occasions. Going from not cooking any of your meals to cooking all of them every day is not going to be a one-step process; it will take you several weeks to transition.
posted by suchatreat at 1:55 PM on December 13, 2004

I third the Bittman book, he focuses on inexpensive, easy and tasty. I eat out once or twice a week and I make it count when I do, which means making it a social occasion and ordering things I wouldn't make at home. I also save the wine drinking for home, not only does it make a home cooked meal seem special but it costs a fraction of what it would if I had the same bottle in a restaurant.

I do most of my cooking on the weekends when I have the time, so I can just grab things and heat them up midweek. The roast chicken idea above is a good one but maybe a little rough on a beginner. Pot roast is nearly foolproof, so is meatloaf or chili. Roasted vegetables are easy and can go with almost anything, and I always have some salad fixings around.

Dairy products are as expensive as meat, if you can trim down on those you'll save a bundle. Fruit can be surprisingly pricey, but less so if it's in season.
posted by cali at 2:20 PM on December 13, 2004

Some friends gave me Simple to Spectacular (which was co-written by Mark Bittman). They have multiple versions of each recipe, for example, from basic scrambled eggs to Scrambled Eggs with Caviar and Creme Fraiche. The simpler recipes are easy to make and you can ease in to the fancier stuff.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:05 PM on December 13, 2004

We spend $120.00 to 150.00 a week at the grocery store for two people, but that includes paper products, grooming products, soap, beer and wine-- call it around $100 of which $20 is fresh produce and another $20.00 is dairy.

We very seldom eat out, less than once a month, because it is invariably disappointing.

Just before shopping, I make up my menu for the week. While I eat meat about 2 to 3 times a week, the (skinny) SO eats meat every day, so generally I plan meals around chicken, pork, sausage and beef. I cook about 4 main meals a week with the off days being leftovers. I also make a big batch of vegetable soup (my breakfast) and cookies for his lunch. He eats sandwiches, roll ups, and egg, sausage and cheese burritos for lunches and breakfasts.

We expand our repertoire through cookbooks I check out of the library and recipes he finds in magazines and the newspaper (although the newspaper recipes are frequently disappointing.) Some of our best times have been cooking together, although he never tried cooking before he met me.

A typical week for us:
Monday: lasagna
Tuesday: leftovers
Wednesday: Pork roast, broccoli, and scalloped potatoes
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: honey garlic chicken, rice, green beans
Saturday: leftovers
Sunday: Fajitas
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:19 PM on December 13, 2004 [1 favorite]

About $110/wk on average for 2 adults and one toddler, but this includes toiletries and other household items. We watch the sales and stock up on meat to freeze when it's cheap. We plan our meals to be something like one high effort, three moderate effort and three low effort meals. We push vegetables a lot to try to avoid getting into a meat-first pattern. We have about 2 dozen regular meals that we cycle through, each of which has many variations so they don't get too old. For example - we'll do frittata (crustless quiche) every other week or so, but we'll put all kind of different things into it.
posted by plinth at 5:23 PM on December 13, 2004

though coming from an Asian family, I can say that real good Asian food is really, really hard to make and takes forever.

I'm curious what is meant by this - I had a chinese housemate (from Shanghai, lived there up until grad school) for 3 years and we did a lot of "real" chinese cooking. Some of it was complicated as you say, but quite a lot of it (e.g. most of it) wasn't. I'd actually compare the average complexity to be about the same as for my (American) mother's day-to-day cooking. Perhaps you mean some other part of asia, or you are excluding the kinds of things that get eaten on a day-to-day basis?
posted by advil at 5:49 PM on December 13, 2004

A lot of great ideas in the posts above.

1) $30/wk for 1 (San Francisco; less in non-metropolitan)
2) Eat out less than 1 meal per week
3) It depends on diet preferences and region but for a couple in San Francisco, probably $60-$100/wk.
4) Stick with easy recipes and slowly build a collection of recipes you like. As a couple, you can split the prep/cooking/cleanup duties and also take turns picking out new recipes to try. Invite friends over to cook and share meals, recipes, and tips. Overall, keep it fun and enjoyable and don't focus on the cost factor -- the food costs will come down on their own.
5) Have one last TV dinner party and never pass through that supermarket aisle again :)

Extra comments/tips:
- Portion bulk meat purchases before freezing so they'll defrost quickly. I shape ground meats into thin patties (1/2-lb patties for easy reference) before putting them in a large freezer bag. With thick beef cuts, cut horizontally to make thinner cuts and then section. Frozen bulk shell-on shrimp and chicken tenders also defrost quick.
- A bit of chopped fresh herbs just before serving goes a long way. Grow them in pots (or yard) if you can.
- A big pot of soup/stew/curry on a Sunday evening covers a few weekday meals and tastes better with each reheating.
- You can stir fry anything. except cheese.
posted by junesix at 6:52 PM on December 13, 2004

USDA report on household food expenditures

I have yet to see a family of six spend less than $300 on food for a month. There was a thread here or in the blue on food storage--storing serious quantities of food. This can be a very good thing, but it's very weird to some and requires a lifestyle change. However, if you buy all of your "food storage" on sale, then you're investing, in a sense. And you consume less because there is less impulse shopping.
posted by mecran01 at 11:03 PM on December 13, 2004