Monday, March 3, 2008

How much do you spend?

I'm curious. There was this email forward going around with different shots of families around the world with all the food they would eat for a week laid out on a table in front of them. Above each picture there was a total for how much they spent. I tracked it down and you can check it out at www.time.com and it appears to have come from the book, "Hungry Planet". The same author's previous book, 'Material World' was fascinating and I'd like to get this one as well.

Anyways, it lists the country with the highest food bill per week as Germany, with a total of 375.39 euros. At today's rate, that is equivalent to over $570 for food every week. I calculate that in groceries (not including cleaning supplies) we spend about 125 euros/week and then if you add in eating out, we probably spend 35 euros/week for a total on food of 160 euros. That is equivalent to about $240 for a family of five.

Anyone else want to weigh in? How much do you spend?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

about $150-175 a month. including eating out.

Anonymous said...

That was a great email - I didn't realize it was a book. We spend $500-700 month, including eating out, diapers and wipes for 3 children and 4 adults.

alamedero said...

I think we are at about 300€ a month on groceries (diapers and wipes included) and then another 100€ on eating out.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jason, Greetings from Germany! I can't believe that figure of 375.39 Euros is for one week. That would be about 1,500 Euros for a month. Our food budget for the the two of us for a month is 280.00 and we have quite a few guests. I make most things from scratch, but I do buy my meat, poultry and eggs at the market and my bread at the bakery. (Better quality, higher price.) We don't buy as much beer and wine as they had in the photo and we don't eat out much, say about 10-15 Euros a month for that, max. Last fall when the dairy, meat and baked goods prices were rising rapidly, the newspapers were full of diagrams that showed how LOW the food prices are here in Germany compared to other European countries. Scandinavia is much more expensive. So, either that German family is eating out a lot, or something is not accurate in the story. I meant to ask the other women yesterday at Bible Study what they spend, but I forgot. Sorry.

Wishing you a Guten Apetit from Peine,
Katy Smelser

Phil said...

I actually kept track of all our expenses last year. Groceries plus eating out for this family of 3 (plus feeding plenty of Sunday dinner guests) came to $210.13 per week. I know we could cut quite a bit from that, but we haven't.