So about 50c a day........ that's more than worth it on meat savings alone, nevermind the financial benefit of being able to freeze leftovers and the convenience of keeping frozen foods so your shopping habits are not dictated by your shelf space.

Btw, last night's dinner was another cheapie:

Jacket Spuds (75c) with butter (50c) beans (1.50) cheese (75c) bacon (50c) onion (10c) -$4.10ish. and cereal for the kids after swimming again.

Looking at our menu, we're not doing so well on the veggie count this week. must address that tonight....

If we have nothing on except the two fridges (both large with freezers) and a few appliances on standby with the computer on, our energy bill is 6 cents per hour. I don't think fridges cost that much to run. The oven sure does though. That's up around 50 cents an hour!

plus the initial cost of the second freezer...

In my freezer are two packs of 500g minced beef (similar to ground I believe) @ £1.94 each
1kg = £3.88 or $6.25
1kg = 2.2lb
$2.84/lb Edited thanks to Ali's better maths

This is low fat steak mince from the reduced cabinet though, which is why I bought two.
The sell-by date was the date on which I bought them, and froze them same day. So they are decent mince, and not Value Mince.

Value Mince (from which you have to skim half the volume in fat - I don't knoow what chuck is, but I don't think it's this) is £2.50 per kg.
£2.50 = $4.03
1kg = 2.20lb
$1.83/lb

SG, I think you've got an error in your calculations for the first group re: lb to kg ratio.

You were completely right - I've edited it to show the right amount.
I'd worked it all out (no mean feat for a women as baffled by numbers as I am - what with having to convert EVERYTHING!) and then lost the post.
So I re-did it all again in a minor strop.
Thanks for noticing and making the re-do make sense :)

a 20 CF freezer is fucking enormous. Those figures are also for older freezers. A new energy star 22cf freezer uses about 500kwh per year. We pay .05 per kwh that's $25 a year.

We actually have a 14CF freezer and it uses something like 375kwh /yr we keep it full (more efficient) and in the basement where the temp is between 50f-70f all year.

5 cents is cheap, too.

which is also barely significant, given how long they last.

- - - -


Seems to me like a whole lot of people* got a whole lot of excuses for spending too much on food. Which is fine, your money, your choice. My point was merely that it's possible to eat well on a grocery bill of that size. Maybe not everywhere and maybe not when you have special dietary needs, but your average family in an average cookie-cutter neighborhood in average suburb can do it, so I see no reason to disbelieve that that is the average a family spends on food.

(*not necessarily posters here and no individual is targeted by this comment, I have no idea who shops in bulk and who owns a chest freezer and I'm assuming those pointing out the downsides of this approach are more about playing devil's advocate than defending their personal habits mmmmkay)

You're proof it can be done. The question of the 13.1% being average, I'm not so sure. I'm not even convinced $50,302 is the average income, I'd have to look that one up. Or maybe it's average for the sample group?

I was merely pointing out some things that may not have been included in the numbers.
Sorry for attempting to be accurate.
My food costs are far below the average. If I took out the "treats" we have on the weekend, It would be even less.

Oh, I just thought of one more. Did they include school lunches in the current figures?