Food budget

We went and did our weekly grocery shopping yesterday and we posted on facebook that we spent $22.68. It actually turned out to be $23.28 because I forgot about some celery that we bought at a different store! Anyhow, readers Roxanne and Susan seemed like they want a little more detail.

As you know, we don't eat out very often so the expenses you see for a months worth of grocery shopping really are to feed us for the whole month. Obviously the monthly amount fluctuates somewhat due to possibly stocking up on a good deal, or whether or not a weekly purchase might end up being done on the last or first day of any given month.

And obviously groceries are cheaper in Mexico than the U.S., and cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada. To give you an idea, we spent an average of $200 a month on groceries over the last six months in Mexico. However, while in Canada and the U.S. during the April to September period last year we averaged $426 per month!

What do we eat? Well, not much for breakfast...I usually have a big bowl of cornflakes, while Ruth has a bowl of porridge of some kind. Then, later in the morning we have some fresh fruit. Either an apple, or some cantaloupe or pineapple.

For lunch, it's sometimes a sandwich made with whole wheat bread for me, and gluten free bread or a tortilla wrap for Ruth. Or, we have egg wraps made with corn tortillas with lettuce and cheese. We don't eat any processed cheese, just a block of cheddar (while outside Mexico) or Chihuahau cheese (while in Mexico). Or, we have leftovers from dinner the night or two before.

Dinners are pretty varied but we go through a lot of chicken and fish. We usually buy a big bag of frozen tilapia and Ruth has a variety of recipes that she uses to bake it. And chicken is used to make stir fry or grilled chicken breast. Occasionally we buy a whole chicken and roast it and that does three or four meals by the time you use leftovers and make soup. Or she makes a casserole of some kind. Last night we had jambalaya and there is enough left over for two more meals and a lunch.

And when in Canada and the U.S., we make sure we buy a lot of stuff on sale. Rarely do we buy any kind of red meat unless it's on sale, in fact we probably don't buy any kind of meat unless it's on sale!

We hardly ever buy any processed foods or prepared meals. Cooking is done from scratch. We rarely buy sweet stuff although I do like Ruth's chocolate chip cookies that she bakes from scratch. Snack food usually consists of peanuts or mixed nuts or corn tortilla chips and salsa.

And just for fun, what did $23.28 buy us yesterday?

• 1 kilo (2.2 lbs) of ground beef
• 1/2 kilo (1.1 lbs) of pork loin
• 1 whole chicken cut into pieces (didn't weigh it, but I'd say it was small-medium)
• 280 grams of turkey breast slices
• celery stalks
• bag of potatoes
• bag of onions
• bag of carrots
• green pepper
• bag of tomatoes
• large cauliflower
• small broccoli
• a cantaloupe
• two mangoes

The meat came to 213 pesos ($17.04) and the fruits and vegetables came to 78 pesos ($6.24)

Any questions or comments, feel free to ask!

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