Eating within your income (2805)

How much should you spend for food? While there is no single answer, there are guides to help you estimate what you should spend. Spend enough to give your family nutritious meals they enjoy eating.

Most families should spend about one half their food money on meat, poultry, fish, eggs and milk. One-fifth of the money should go for fruits and vegetables. Divide the rest about equally for grain products, fats, oils, sugar and sweets, and miscellaneous spices and beverages. Today, many families spend a disproportionate amount of money on soda. Soda lacks nutrition and knocks a big hole in your food budget. Cold dry cereals also carry a high cost you need to consider.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food and nutrition staff has figured the cost of four food plans: thrifty, low-cost, moderate cost, and liberal, to help families estimate how much they might reasonably expect to spend on food. The USDA refigures the dollar amounts for each plan monthly, using current food prices. Contact your extension’s Family Living Agent for the latest figures and then compare the national average with your spending. Choosing a food plan appropriate for your family depends mostly upon family size, age, and income level.

There are other things, however, to consider in selecting a target spending level for your family:

- Do you place a lot of emphasis on food?

- Do you eat out often?

- Do you entertain frequently?

- Do you plan to spend only a small amount of time cooking?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, your family may be spending more than a reasonable amount of the family income on food. Eating out inflates your food budget. Using convenience foods to cut time spent cooking costs more money. You pay for convenience!! You must decide if it's worth the cost.

Key steps to control food spending include improved planning and self-discipline when you shop.

For more information on this subject, Please visit the College of Agricultural Sciences Publications Web site.

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