Eat for $30 a Week Challenge

Calculating the Cost per Serving
In her book,  The Complete Tightwad Gazette, Amy Dacyczyn writes at length about the need to calculate the price per ounce (or pound) of products, and then multiplying that amount by the number of ounces used in order to make a valid decision about the overall value of the product.  Amy is a black belt tightwad, and her books have been my constant companion over the years.

I mention this because in this $30/week challenge, I am not going to the store daily and spending $4.29 per day on food for me.  Instead, I pooled all of the money for the three of us- $90, and bought items in bulk.  The biggest price savings come when you purchase food in bulk.

We are eating oatmeal for breakfast this week.  At the store this week, the oatmeal cost us $2.59 for a 42 ounce container.  That price comes out to .06 per ounce.  At 4 ounces of oatmeal per person, the price of the oatmeal is coming up to .24 per person. 

Our oatmeal is made with water and not milk, so that takes the price point down considerably.

Our meals yesterday:

Breakfast:
Oatmeal :  .24/ person

Lunch:
Tuna Salad:  (Can of Tuna, 75 cents, 5 cents of mayo, 5 cents of mustard, 1 stalk of celery at .10, 5 cents of pickle relish.)   The salad made enough for lunch for 2 days:  48 cents
Flat Bread: .25
Banana  .20

Dinner:
Bean Soup:  This one is more difficult to figure out.  I used an 80 cent bag of dried beans to make a soup back in July that was filled with onions, tomatoes, and peppers from my garden, so the veggies in the soup came up to no expense.  I froze half of the soup in July, and had stored it for dinner on a day when I was subbing.  We have had at least 10 servings out of this batch of  soup, from the first time we made it as well as this time, so I'm going to price it out at 8 cents per serving.

Total:   $1.25.

I'm not sure how healthy this is.  There are no dairy products in here, and my fruits and veggies consist of what was in the bean soup and a banana.