Yeah I had the same thinking with my comment below (above?, wherever it is now). I don't cut corners with food, that's the one place (and maybe my tech gadgets..). I saved a few hundred moving to another place, and then another hundred getting rid of cable I rarely watched.
I fully agree. Food is such a fundamental (and enjoyable!) aspect of your life, why would you cheap out on it? I realize that wasn't the intent of this exercise, but given the recent number of "how I don't waste money on food" articles, I think it needs to be said.
The benefit you get from good food (which doesn't even have to be all that expensive) far outweighs whatever money I spend on it. Food is the only thing in my life that I do not set a firm budget for. I eat what I want, when I want, because food lends a richness to my life that no amount of cable TV or internet news trolling can equal.
To extend beyond this point a bit: of all the things that people really need to get rid of, it's cars. I recently moved to a new city and wondered if it was really time I got a car - nothing fancy, just your average middle-class sedan. Turns out between ownership cost, insurance, and gas, the car would be chewing up $15-20K per year (more likely $20K than $15).
And for what? So I can sit on a clogged freeway, gas-brake-honk my way to work every day, and repeat in the evening? No thanks.
Instead I paid a bit extra (couple hundred bucks a month) to live in a denser area with great transit coverage. Imagine what that money can do for your average individual/family. $20K of extra discretionary spending a year? Holy batman!
"Food is such a fundamental ... why would you cheap out on it?"
Because once you've trimmed everything else, that's what's left to trim some more.
I agree that food's great stuff - but seriously, we can still get plenty of great-tasting food without paying for all the processing and additives. Most of the rest of the world knows that; we've been owned by decades of advertising.
Are you sure? Don't know how in the US, but in Europe, organic food (ie, without additives and much better quality) is usually a bit more expensive.
I don't necessarily mean Whole Foods, or alike. Even if you go to a small farmer with few acres of land, and get the meal from him it is, because of the scale, much more expensive than a large farm with one pig per square meter and all being fully automatic.
"Even if you go to a small farmer with few acres of land, and get the meal from him it is, because of the scale, much more expensive than a large farm with one pig per square meter and all being fully automatic."
And yet it would still occupy such a tiny part of our income... That's the point I was trying to make. Yes, you can reduce your grocery bill all to hell - but in the end if you break down your living costs, things like rent, car, etc, all cost vastly more than what you pay for food. If anything start optimizing there, where a dollar saved won't nearly result in as big a loss of quality of life as it would if you took it out of food.
Sure, if you are really broke, then yes, the food budget must go - I've been there myself. It just strikes me as odd when people with perfectly good incomes (even GREAT incomes) insist on eating cheap, crap food.
That's true. Sometimes it is, though, part of the lifestyle.
Also, people have more problems with losses than looking for more profits; and, food is much more "visible" spending than, say, insurance.
I mean, every time I go to a grocery and spend few euros, I "feel" this money. Even if my food budget is still smaller than my health insurance, accountant, rent etc.
