Eating (Pretty) Well on a Budget

After a discussion was opened on social media by a friend about food spending, I realized a lot of people like Greg and me, couples with no kids, spend a lot more on groceries than we do, like $100 or more a month. And that doesn't even count the costs spent on eating out. After seeing this discussion, I was curious about national averages. I found this breakdown from the USDA about food costs. Including all our food costs, even eating out, we are about $80 under the low-cost average for a family like us. Looking just at grocery costs, our average monthly grocery cost is about $90 less than the thrifty plan on the breakdown. Obviously, every person's situation is different and not everyone has the time or desire to make things from scratch to save money, but if you want to see about saving a little bit of money on food without couponing, I thought I'd share some of the things we do to keep our food costs down. I'm no accountant or chef and I don't claim to be an expert on budgets, but given that we eat our fruits and veggies, meat and even seafood a few times a month, and spend much less than the national average, I thought I'd share the things we do to keep costs down.