Food Budget - What Are You Eating?

[gettinthere]

Cruising coastal usa, avoiding prepackaged food as much as possible but not scrimping on eats. Including cleaners, paper products, condiments, seasonings, alcohol, snacks, occasional steak, pork loin, etc. we're a little under $500/month

[NornaBiron]

We spend an average of €250 a month for two of us to eat well, that's about $325 at today's exchange rate. We have a pseudo-vegetarian diet, eating meat only a few times a month. I bake bread and cakes on board and make all our meals from scratch (we do carry some canned goods but only for emergencies). Our diet has changed completely since we left the UK and we are both healthier as a result. If we want a steak we'll have one but we no longer feel the need to have meat every day. The budget includes all our household goods and beer/wine/spirits too, so we do pretty well I think, we certainly don't feel that we're deprived or on survival rations.

[Pelagic]

Here in the Philippines, I find that once we are out cruising, local fruits, vegetables, poultry and eggs around the islands are cheap and delicious.

You get a lot from the sea and it is so cheap.... or you just catch your own

Tiger prawns from local fisherman $3 per kilo, Crab is the same

[sailorboy1]

sounds like the $100/mo I see in a lot of budget threads is mostly some type of myth/dream

[Ram]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Here in the Philippines, I find that once we are out cruising, local fruits, vegetables, poultry and eggs around the islands are cheap and delicious.

You get a lot from the sea and it is so cheap.... or you just catch your own

Tiger prawns from local fisherman $3 per kilo, Crab is the same

Nice! I thought it was a small lobster at first!

[savoir]

To eat cheaply you really do need to lower your meat intake. After a while it becomes easy and you might find yourself eating fish once a week and red meat once a week.

The next thing is to start shopping at the local vegetable market. Every town has one so look around to see where the natives shop. I paid $10 or this lot at a town market and it lasted 5 days. The pineapple was an extravagance at $4.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Katiusha

10 feet? We found only 2 such spots in Bahamas - one was on a windward shore in some rocks and a strong current, the other one was in the out-lying islands... And even there they weren't that big.

You got skunked in the Bahamas? They practically crawl onto your boat there. We spent 2 years there and could get 4-6 pounders at will in less than 10' of water. Just got to know where...

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Janice

I would like to know what countries you are eating fresh veggies and meat for $3 a day per person. I used to keep a spread sheet of our budget but no longer do. Cook most food from scratch, buy what is the best price on each island. Best we can do is $400 per month for 2 from the Virgin Islands to Grenada.

You need to leave the Eastern Carib and get into the Western part, Janice. Our food budget was slashed drastically once we left. Whole stalks of bananas for $1-2, fresh, ripe pineapples four for $1, most fruits and veggies are almost free and widely available. Unlike the EC, they are also locally grown. Even the Kuna indians in the San Blas grow bananas, pineapples, avocados, peppers, plantains, oranges, etc.

Chicken and pork are good and inexpensive here, but beef can be pricey and low quality. Eggs are cheap and available everywhere. Fish, lobster, crab and conch need some "convincing" to get them back to the boat, but that is all part of the day's funtime activities.

In Columbia, it is almost impossible to spend more than $100/month on just food - even eating out.

If you catch fish, food here is just about free. This does not take into account beverages, canned food, food preparation stuff like foil, plastic bags, paper towels, etc. These items make up the bulk of our food budget now.

And people here in the SW Caribe who came from the NW tell me it is even less expensive up there.

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

sounds like the $100/mo I see in a lot of budget threads is mostly some type of myth/dream

You have not been listening to some of us on this thread...

$100/month is tight, but doable. A bit more than that is eating well. I am defining the food budget as excluding beverages, paper towels, etc. These items are the largest component of our budget.

You just need to go to the places where food is less expensive. Also, you need to adjust your diet to be appropriate to where you are - if you insist on prime T-bone and aged Stinson cheese in the islands, you will have a very large food expense indeed. Back when we lived on land, we never used to eat pineapples, mangos and plantains. Now they are a large part of our diet, but if we were to insist on still eating apples, plums and cauliflower like we used to, we would be paying 10x more for fruits and veggies.

Mark

[callmecrazy]

It seems a few on this thread so far can do well on $100 a month if you only count food. So, no it's not a myth.

On the budget I posted earlier, If I exclude stock-up items and all non-food stuffs, I'm just barely over $100. And that's US prices, eating meat (not steak) more than once a week, and no fishing supplement.

Can't freakin wait to get down to the W. Caribbean and live off mango's and fish thanks for the extra motivation Colemj

[Blue Crab]

This is a good read.

[zeehag]

plantains en vidrio

butter and sugar in pan...cut plntains into pieces sized for taste
cook to caremelized and glass like in pan. yummmmmm.

with leftovers, add onion, garlic, poblano chile, rice and brown. add coconut water, corn, pineapple juice to make rice properly cooked. last minuet, add chopped yellow or orange or red bell pepper. yummmmmmmm. excellent with fresh fish.

[avb3]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

sounds like the $100/mo I see in a lot of budget threads is mostly some type of myth/dream

Up here in the cold white north (it's snowing outside today) and all food is shipped in from at least 1500-2000 miles away in the winter, my monthly food budget varies between $95 and $150, averaging $118 in the last year.

That includes lots of veggies and fruit, whole grains and some meat. Remember, it has to feed a 228 lb 6'4" body, so there is only so much scrimping one can do. No booze or pop helps a lot keeping the budget low, and no processed foods period.

So, $100/month is doable, albeit restrictive.

[JanetGroene]

This is a great thread. Would be useful if more posts indicated how many people are eating on that budget. I don't shop every week so I experience whiplash these days in U.S. food stores. Big jumps are stunning, especially when you don't shop often. Government does not count food or fuel when reporting the rate of inflation so the real rate is hidden, but scary.

[barnakiel]

In local fruit/veg markets things can often be gotten cheaper (and sometimes for free) when we shop late hours, especially late Saturday hours - stall owners want to get rid of stock and some of them are kind and wise enough to sell the ripe stuff at what I believe is their cost (rather than throw it away, which is a practice of some local supermarkets).

Since I like most of the green stuff ripe, and since we do not use the fridge, buying 'late' is a deal both to us and to the traders.

Another way to keep veg food cost low is to buy the stuff that is in the season - I love guayava, chirimoya, papaya, avocado and mango and each of these come at a specific time of the year. This is not limited to locally grown, so we have the chestnut time (from Galicia) and grapes time (from Chile), etc..

b.