I happen to do the grocery shopping for my family of four; and I would not find a weekly food budget of $126 to be impossibly challenging… if I did the following things*:
- No name brands.
- No sugary carbonated drinks.
- No treats.
- DO NOT LET A CHILD HAVE A VOTE IN THE GROCERY LIST DECISION.
- Only buy vegetables in unprocessed form.
- Cheap cuts of meats and lots of stews. As in, “brown the meat, and simmer it in the broth for a few hours, and add the cut up vegetables.”
- Plan for considerable leftovers. Which have to be eaten, not stored in the fridge and then thrown out.
- Generally accept the fact that you will be cooking, not warming up and defrosting and microwaving things.
- Generally accept the fact that you have to pay attention to your food situation, and not shrug it off.
We used to teach this sort of thing in school: it was called ‘home economics,’ and while it was already heavily watered down by the time I was in grammar school you could still see the echoes of what it must have once been. Continue reading Only DC would find the #snapchallenge to be anything BUT a snap.