Monthly Grocery Bills

Ok, there was a thread about this a while ago, but it really didn’t have that many posters. My goal is to see how much other T-Men and T-Vixens are paying on groceries a month, b/c for most of us this is where our greatest caloric requirements come from. Things I want to see:

  1. Monthly bill in USD (if you live elsewhere please state so), well, I’ll accept Canadian $$ too. (please state how many ppl this is for).

  2. How many calories you consume a day (what types too), this will just put #1 into perspective.

  3. If a significant source of your daily caloric requirements come from supplements, how much are you using (exclude things like surge)

  4. What in your opinion are the best value for money food stuffs??

  5. Any tips you have for fellow T-People to keep their bills low.

I am doing this cos I am a poor college student who wishes to be able to afford surge, hehe, so I wanna see if I really am that bad off, anyways…

  1. $350 or so and that’s for my roommate and myself

  2. I eat about 3000 cals per day, and 50-60% of that is protein, 20-30% fat. and the rest carbs.

  3. A protein shake w/ every other meal, so 3 or 4 a day.

  4. Be damned if I know, doing this to find out!!

  5. Damn college town has no sam’s club, so I am stuck with Kroger or Walmart. fucking blows!!

Now its your turn!!

  1. I’d say $300-400 CDN (just myself)

  2. 4600 cals / day

  3. No supps beside protein powder and multivitamin

  4. Egg white cartons $1.97 /500mL and Tuna $0.97-0.99 / can. I eat tuna and eggs with eggwhites every day. Lots of protein little fat and carbs, and easy to absorb.

5)Shop around for good quality fish/chicken/turkey/meat. Even if it tastes disgusting eat a lot of tuna if you can’t afford anything else (ignore the Hg content which isn’t all that high in canned tuna regardless of what crap you read)

Don’t have time to answer all of your questions, but many grocerty stores put a lot of their meat drastically on sale early in the morning before they put out the new meat. You can often pick up nice quality for student prices.

Ask your local meat department butcher when they do these type of things.

Based upon your grammar skills, I would agree with you that you are a poor college student. :slight_smile:

As for eating, I don’t consume any protien shakes, pre or post workout drinks or anything special. I just eat regular food and have been very happy with the results for many years.

I spend about $30-$40 dollars a week CDN.

I eat abour 3800-3900 calories per day. I have to admit I am not that precise when measuring the portions out. Flame away kids. I know how much cals I roughly eat.

Follow Massive Eating on p+f then p+c alteration.

The best bang for the buck is definitly tuna cans, for 77 c and cartoned egg whites. They are pretty much pure protein. As far as meat goes, I eat alot of it, but that is because I can get it for next to nothing through a family friend. So I have a freezer full of strip loins, chicken breasts lean ground beef and lean ground chicken. That is really nice.

I would also nominate 1% cottage cheese as a cheap source of good protein. I buy a container for like $1.77 CDN. That lasts me usually about 2 days.

Good cheap carb sources is easy. Oatmeal, whole wheat pasta. Yams are cheap. whole grain rize.

I only consume the protien shakes post workout ONLY. It is too expensive on your budget to be consuming so much. If you are tight on your budget cut down your supp spending and up your food spending. You will get more out of it. Then u will be able to afford surge b/c u will only be using it about 4 times a week. It is the same amount of weight as regular big bottled protein powders, just packaged better.

If you want to have lean cuts of meat, the best thing to do is to find a local butcher and inquire about his prices. Sometimes, his overhead is lower and he will be able to give you good pricing. So…exercise that option if you have it.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

T

cool, thx for the tips. And avoids roids, leave my grammar skills alone!! I’ll leave the fancy writing to the english majors, us engineers actually have to use our brains.

ND, you’re getting assraped if you’re paying a buck a can for tuna and you eat it often. As long as it’s just chunk light anyway.

I don’t know where you get your tuna from…but every store around my area sells it for 99c to $1.47. I haven’t found any discount stores that go for 77c regularly. Once in a while I see it for 87c and I buy 40-60 cans when that happens.

PS. I’m in Toronto, so that’s in CDN dollars.

like suggested by others I eat lots of egg whites, can tuna (white albacore when possible), and cottage cheese. Like you I don’t really have the money for surge either. Instead when I buy my protein I look for the cheapest and best quality whey blend I can find and then find a semi cheap creatine/dextrose combo to purchase with it.
Also like TOTrev and Avoids Roids both said supps are too expensive to be using for meals throughout the day just mix em and drink after your workouts. Use the money you will save from that on some good chicken or lean beef.
Hope this helps.
Eat cheap, lift hard, and GET BIG.
DA

Deer meat. I ask for it, beg for it, plead for it. People always seem to be happy about giving me stuff they killed and always seem happy to eat it.

And it’s free and very lean.

Ren, I don’t want to discourage you, but compared to me, you are eating quite cheaply already. I’ve read that Wal-mart has really low grocery prices. The bigger volumes at Sam’s and Costco aren’t always cheaper.

The bad news is that food is expensive and always will be. The good news is that college is short. For the rest of your life, your food budget shouldn’t have to be so squeezed.

If you have more time than money, take up fishing as a hobby. We have 2 freezers full of fish my husband speared.

Avoids Roids, I can’t resist. Consider the following revision to one of your sentences:

As for eating, I don’t consume any protein shakes, pre- or post-workout drinks, or anything special.