Cost of meals?

How much should an economical meal at home cost?  I know it will vary depending on the type of food and location, but what is a reasonable range?

I think that microwave meals @ $2.50/meal + fruit or whatever else you eat with it makes for kind of an expensive meal for one person.  Other people tell me that's not a bad price for a meal.  What's a good benchmark?

When I was on a tight budget and was spending about $25.00 a week on grocery, my meals averaged about $1.20 each.

Now they probably average about $2.00 each meal.

I rarely dine out. I buy groceries once a week (sometimes more if I forgot somethng or making a special recipe) and the cost is about $100.

I'm trying my hardest to not shop at Wal-Mart to get fresh produce, meats and seafoods. 1/3 of that feeds my bf.  I have Breakfast, lunch dinner and many snacks. I'll say I eat 6.5 times a day with my bf eating occassionally:

7 days a week; 6.5 meals: 100/7=14.28 a day/6.5=roughly $2.20 a meal

i recently calculated my price per day which include 6-7 mini meals...and i came up with a total of about 11 dollars per day or 335.00 per month...which gives me about $85 per week. 

if you were to have 3 frozen meals a day (not advisable) 3 pieces of fruit and 1 bag of salad that would be 7.50 plus about 5 dollars...so that's 12.50. I don't think that's really all that expensive.

yeah, I have no idea, maybe it's really not expensive.  I was curious how much something like a sandwich and a fruit and yogurt would cost, but I'm too lazy to do the math for the sandwich.  I was mentally comparing it to soup & toast, which I eat really often, and it seemed a lot more expensive. 

I hear about these people who feed an entire family on $100/week or less and wonder how that is possible.

I really hate spending money on food.  I ought to get a part-time job at a restaurant just for the free food (one that allows that I mean).

Original Post by spoiled_candy:

When I was on a tight budget and was spending about $25.00 a week on grocery, my meals averaged about $1.20 each.

Now they probably average about $2.00 each meal.

What was/is a typical meal for you then and now?

Original Post by huggitbear:

yeah, I have no idea, maybe it's really not expensive.  I was curious how much something like a sandwich and a fruit and yogurt would cost, but I'm too lazy to do the math for the sandwich.  I was mentally comparing it to soup & toast, which I eat really often, and it seemed a lot more expensive. 

I hear about these people who feed an entire family on $100/week or less and wonder how that is possible.

I really hate spending money on food.  I ought to get a part-time job at a restaurant just for the free food (one that allows that I mean).

sometimes it seems that it's almost cheaper to feed a family because when you're making large quantities it's easier to make the price per serving less. cooking for one person may be cheaper overall, but per serving it's not since you have to buy things in smaller quantities, which is more expensive.

if you think about a 3 dollar loaf of bread, you can get 12-13 sandwiches out of it so that's abotu .25 for the bread, maybe .50 for the protein filling, and .25 for the veggies. a yogurt can be .75-1.00 and a can of soup can be $2 by itself. a piece of fruit is like .35 or so. So a meal of a sandwich, yogurt and fruit is about $2.00 and soup and toast is about the same. just depends on what you're using in the sandwiches, the kind of bread you use, and the brand of yogurt, type of fruit, etc.

I average about $5 a day just cooking for myself.  I buy things priced completely at opposite sides of the spectrum.  I buy my carbs completely in bulk ($5 5 lb bags of rice, $2 whole loaves of bread), cheap milk (or sometimes the really expensive Greek yogurt) for dairy, fruit and vegetables only when on sale (or really expensive veggies that are always really expensive, like dried shiitakes or seaweed), and extremely cheap cuts of meat ($.50/lb chicken meat) or really expensive seafoods (roe and shellfish) for my proteins.  For me, I find that if a food isn't really really cheap for me to buy, I might as well spend my money on something really decadent and splurge on something really worth my money.

I make my own breads, rolls, pizza dough.  This cost about 70 cents a batch of dough.
I buy quinoa and chai seeds at the bulk store.

Typical day would be...
Breakfast - balkan yogurt, piece of fruit, honey.
Lunch - fake crab sandwich with spinach or PB and spinach sandwich or a grilled cheese sandwich.
Snack - fruit, maybe some cheese or chocolate
Green leaf tea.  Coffee at work only because it is free.

Diner - varies on what I can find cheap. 
Usually tofu (real meat or chicken if on sale), quinoa, veggies
If ham is on sale, I will make a pea soup out of it.
Chicken makes a nice stew.
Beef and a package of ramen noodles with some veggies cut up makes a nice stir fry.
If I feel like making noodles I will make veggie lasagna.
Tofu chili with lots of beans.
Last night it was tofu, stuffing with carrots and cranberries.

I still buy groceries like I was on a tight budget.  I only buy enough fruits and veggies to last a few days.  Lucky that the produce market is four blocks away and that they are cheap.

i do somewhere between $5-6/meal, about $125/week. I eat almost exclusively sandwiches to the point that I go for the slightly more expensive bread ($.50 for a fresh roll, instead of 8 prepackaged for $1.50), meat, etc.

Honestly you have to eat and if you have the extra couple of dollars you might as well make it worthwhile. As I try to loose weight it becomes more important to enjoy every bite.

Original Post by huggitbear:

I think that microwave meals @ $2.50/meal + fruit or whatever else you eat with it makes for kind of an expensive meal for one person.  Other people tell me that's not a bad price for a meal.  What's a good benchmark?

Food in the US costs less than food elsewhere - there's no way I could buy a microwave meal for $2.50, at the very least I would be looking at about $7 (plus fruit). To buy a loaf of bread in New Zealand would cost me around $4 - $7 because we don't have the agricultural subsidy system.

A homemade meal could cost me as little as $2 for something like a basic soup but that was on a very tight budget - usually I'd spend around $3 - $4 and that's making everything from scratch.

Yeah, true, I forget how good we have it here.  Stuff is so expensive in other countries.  In fact, stuff is even more expensive in other parts of MY country.  Sounds like I'm doing pretty well actually, so I will stop feeling guilty :)  I just hate spending money on food, and it's one bill that can be so flexible that I'm always trying to find ways to trim it.  Sometimes I get discouraged when I realize there really isn't much more I can do to trim it, unless I start doing things like canning and making my own bread, etc.

Original Post by huggitbear:

How much should an economical meal at home cost?  I know it will vary depending on the type of food and location, but what is a reasonable range?

I think that microwave meals @ $2.50/meal + fruit or whatever else you eat with it makes for kind of an expensive meal for one person.  Other people tell me that's not a bad price for a meal.  What's a good benchmark?

Well it is more of an issue of value you get for those 2.50. For that price I can create a pretty tasty concoction with crab meat, oats etc.

UD