Shannon Yee

This fall I joined the Holistic Moms Network and have enjoyed attending the local meetings and being part of the email loop, but find some of it a bit over the top. I have to keep myself in check to not spend hours a day reading and following all the trends and ideas of ways to be healthier and greener and more natural in everything. I struggle to remember that not everything that I read or hear from these well-meaning women is truth; in fact, most of it is just speculation or humble opinions. Yet, there has been a very interesting thread about how much various families spend on food.

Apparently, most of the families that commented spend about $700-800 per month buying mostly organic produce, grains, dairy, eggs, and free-range meats. Some spend as much as $1500/month for a family of four and some as little as $350/month. Some people included soaps (laundry, dish, and body) as well as vitamins and homeopathic remedies, which I think are pretty expensive. We fall somewhere in the middle, but our difficulty in cutting back on food expenses is not in the grocery store, but in eating out. If we stopped eating out altogether, we could easily halve our food expenditures. I’m not interested in pursuing that budget shortcut just yet. I really enjoy dining out for the break it provides me from cooking and cleaning up after meals, but also for the chance to try foods that I don’t/won’t make at home.