[Lups]

Originally Posted by Run Silent

Don't feel bad. Mine had a croissant, a hot dog, and an orange for dinner last night. And the night before. Because she's four and only likes about 8 things.

Haha, I won't. Mine will eat anything, I'll just get harsh feedback if onions or carrots, or God forbid, potatoes are not perfect.

I do remember the time I made them try a hotdog.

"We have to eat with our hands, and the flavour to enjoy is ketchup and sugar. I do hope father wises up and finds us a new mom".

That kid was 7 then.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by Lups

I do remember the time I made them try a hotdog.

"We have to eat with our hands, and the flavour to enjoy is ketchup and sugar. I do hope father wises up and finds us a new mom".

Be thankful that your kids did not do what a former co-worker's kids did to her many years ago. She served stew for dinner, and they didn't like it. One or both of the kids called the government child protective services hotline, saying that their mother was not feeding them. The local Social Services department does not have a sense of humor, and subjected her to surprise house visits and refrigerator inspections for a year before they concluded that there was no child abuse going on.

With the new mandatory reporting laws in some areas now, a kid even jokingly mentioning something like this to their school teacher could land them in foster care before the end of the school day.....

[Lups]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Be thankful that your kids did not do what a former co-worker's kids did to her many years ago. She served stew for dinner, and they didn't like it. One or both of the kids called the government child protective services hotline, saying that their mother was not feeding them. The local Social Services department does not have a sense of humor, and subjected her to surprise house visits and refrigerator inspections for a year before they concluded that there was no child abuse going on.

With the new mandatory reporting laws in some areas now, a kid even jokingly mentioning something like this to their school teacher could land them in foster care before the end of the school day.....

Oh, we have those in Finland too.

My second youngest told to her teacher he was made to work so much he didn't have time to eat or sleep or to do homework. The teacher called me, after a month of hearing that.

"He told me gets soup at times, but bread only most days."

...

Some mild shouting happened here. I knew the kid was pissed with me ordering in lunches but he still got a home baked breakfast, and an early supper and dinner every day. For sure, they had to eat TV dinners for a month after school but that's not exactly starving...

And I know I've raised food snobs, but they should be made to live with McDonalds for a month. Four meals, but skipping lunch while serving things to eat is starving in Finland.

[Colodano]

Rounding up a tad on most bills from the grocery stores, even though they also include the incidental household needs, looks like I spend 4-500 a month for myself and a 4 year old. We eat most meals at home, so only 20-75 a month on eating out.

Color me baffled at the OP estimating 1250 a month for an average house, while living in So Cal. Here in the Denver area, the average rent or mortgage is much closer to 2200 a month for a single family home, hell most 2 bdrm apts are close to 2k a month.

[WestRace]

Originally Posted by CLABRO

OP, I lived in LA for 3-4 years and I didn't know anyone who had a modest home with a mortgage of only $1,250/month nor did I ever see one.

Even just a 1,400 sq. feet house is $500,000 +. Unless you put down 60%.

I bought my home during the housing crash and I live in a rather modest neighborhood. I only put down 20% when I bought my house. And my house is somewhat smaller than most homes.

[Savageenterprise]

Originally Posted by 2000cs

I know a lot of families that don’t earn that much, and they all eat. Some do hunt and fish to supplement, most also have chickens and a garden (the real kind, not a city garden).

To be honest I wouldn't really know as it's just me, my wife and a baby. I'm just saying if you go out once per week to a restaurant or do take out, that could get really pricey. I'm sure as a family grows larger they start to cut that stuff out more and more because it becomes so costly.

Also where I live you need a minimum of 150k-175k household income to live comfortably. If you're only making 50k a year household here your poverty level. I'm sure that's a totally different dynamic in the midwest or something. We get raped in property/school taxes over here

[Savageenterprise]

Originally Posted by Colodano

Rounding up a tad on most bills from the grocery stores, even though they also include the incidental household needs, looks like I spend 4-500 a month for myself and a 4 year old. We eat most meals at home, so only 20-75 a month on eating out.

Color me baffled at the OP estimating 1250 a month for an average house, while living in So Cal. Here in the Denver area, the average rent or mortgage is much closer to 2200 a month for a single family home, hell most 2 bdrm apts are close to 2k a month.

Right? I thought the same thing.....0% chance of a mortgage being $1250 here in Long Island. I had an 1BR apartment in a slightly seedy area before I bought my house. $1200 per month plus cable.

[lsturbointeg]

This thread lol!

Family of 5 here. My 3 boys are grown ass men who basically eat like there's no tomorrow. You know that scene in Lord of the Rings when Pippen says "Pippin: What about breakfast?
Aragorn: You’ve already had it.
Pippin: We’ve had one, yes. What about second breakfast?
That's my boys but it's like that from morning to night so we shop Sam's Club literally every week cause we have to buy stuff in bulk. Don't get me started on my Protein supplements cause they dip into that too! So I'm going to say we spend a good few $ thousands of food related items

[PoorLurker]

Originally Posted by WestRace

I live by myself and my monthly food cost is about $500 dollars conservatively. I don't know whether that's high or low. So if you have a family of four, that could easily be around $2000 dollars? For comparison, my monthly mortgage for a modest house is only $1250, which means potentially a house hold food budget will be a lot higher than their mortgage and since the mortgage is fixed, due to inflation, the food cost/mortgage will just going higher and higher in the future.

Wait until you have two kids in day care and pay $2,000 in child care fees.

There's $5,250/mo net to cover mortgage, food, and daycare. $97k gross pay just to cover those three expenses.

Add in a realistic mortgage, car payments, multiple types of insurance, property tax, and

[G35POPPEDMYCHERRY]

Originally Posted by lsturbointeg

This thread lol!

Family of 5 here. My 3 boys are grown ass men who basically eat like there's no tomorrow. You know that scene in Lord of the Rings when Pippen says "Pippin: What about breakfast?
Aragorn: You’ve already had it.
Pippin: We’ve had one, yes. What about second breakfast?
That's my boys but it's like that from morning to night so we shop Sam's Club literally every week cause we have to buy stuff in bulk. Don't get me started on my Protein supplements cause they dip into that too! So I'm going to say we spend a good few $ thousands of food related items

mans gotta eat to grow

[ASAP]

I live alone but in a very central area in a major city... I am a bit too lazy to make my own food all the time plus that is quite inefficient... but let's say if I did, an M5 lease would be on the books...

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by PoorLurker

Wait until you have two kids in day care and pay $2,000 in child care fees.

There's $5,250/mo net to cover mortgage, food, and daycare. $97k gross pay just to cover those three expenses.

Add in a realistic mortgage, car payments, multiple types of insurance, property tax, and

Yeah between Mortgage, childcare (3 yr old and 7yr old after school for an hr), property tax and food we're at $5k easily, really easily, may be closer to $5,700 with take out meals and the odd lunch etc.

[Run Silent]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Yeah between Mortgage, childcare (3 yr old and 7yr old after school for an hr), property tax and food we're at $5k easily, really easily, may be closer to $5,700 with take out meals and the odd lunch etc.

This sounds about right. I live in a pretty rural area and I still pay over $10,000 per year in child care for one kid.

[UncleWede]

Saturday, wife and I went to HAPPY hour, then walked across the street and got ice cream for dessert. $125.

Boys were not happy when we got home, no carry-out.

[Gray_Panther]

$20-26 every saturday for a trunk full of fruits and vegetables from the public market which is worth the 45 minute round trip for me.

$40-65 at grocery store for meats and everything else.

We eat out once a week or every other week.

Just for me and my woman for now until we have kids.

[PoorLurker]

Should ask what is your monthly restaurant bill haha

That should be alarming for many

[Rmtt]

Originally Posted by Gray_Panther

$20-26 every saturday for a trunk full of fruits and vegetables from the public market which is worth the 45 minute round trip for me.

$40-65 at grocery store for meats and everything else.

We eat out once a week or every other week.

Just for me and my woman for now until we have kids.

Same here....we eat out once a week as a splurge meal. Everything else we cook. Probably spend about $175-$200 a week at the supermarket.

I do use supplements, but not as much as I did in the past.

But we are "empty-nesters". Only debt we have is our mortgage and it will be paid off in about 7 years...maybe sooner depending on how my yearly bonuses go.

But we have 3 vehicles, take a really nice vacation once a year, and a few mini-vacations (Bed and Breakfasts) each year.

We live in the southeast on the NC/SC border near the mountains. Cost of living is pretty cheap. We are 1 hour away from snow skiing...and 3.5 hours away from the beach.

We bought our house in 2006. Since they developed the street behind us and opened up the new equestrian center, our property value has risen almost 40%.

Plus we still own my wife's house near Boone that is located on about 65+ acres of land that her parent's own that they and her brother have also built houses on.

Her and her brother each got a little over 2 acres to go with their houses, and the rest gets divided between the grandkids when they are gone.

Biggest problem with that scenario is that property value is going up astronomically there as they build these huge vacation homes each year. And taxes are higher in NC than they are where we are in SC.

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by Run Silent

Well - you live in Iowa. I imagine your selection of other activities to spend money on besides drinking is limited.

Originally Posted by Alfisti

This fucking cracked me up

Well, he isn't entirely wrong...

[spazzyfry123]

Originally Posted by PoorLurker

Should ask what is your monthly restaurant bill haha

That should be alarming for many

Yeah we don’t need to talk about it.

[Ximian]

This is one of those things where I'd rather not look at anymore or set goals. If we try to eat meals at home for a whole month, we end up eating out 3-4 days of the week. With younger kids, it's easier to just grab food somewhere and not worry about cleaning up. Even with grocery deliver services like Shipt, there aren't always enough hours in the day for everything.

Neither of us drinks alcohol or coffee so it does save us a ton of money.