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Cook for Good average meal prices

meal plan	average meal
Thrifty	91 cents
Green	$1.57
Local	$1.76
Food stamps	$1.99

These figures are for the average meal cost per person using the Cook for Good summer menu plan.

Cook for Good cart costs for a family of four in July 2010

The cart cost is what you actually pay to get the food you need, starting almost from scratch. For example, you have to buy a whole bottle of corn oil to get any corn oil, but you will have some left at the end of the month. The per meal cart cost is $1.33 thrifty and $2.03 green. So even the cart cost using mostly organic, sustainably grown ingredients is just 4 cents more a meal than the food-stamp allowance.

meal plan	week	month
Thrifty	$77	$410
Green	$132	$716
Local	$148	$743

All items pass my sanity test. The green list includes conventional versions of the items that cost a bare fraction of organic versions: sugar, baking soda, yeast, and salt. The list of insanely expensive items continues to get shorter. If you can afford to pay five times as much for organic sugar, go for it. You'll be supporting an important trend that will eventually make it affordable for the rest of us.For some ingredients, my test stores don't stock organic or sustainably grown versions: wheat germ, corn, peaches, and watermelon.

Lowest thrifty prices ever, organic up from last year

The previous record low meal cost was 97 cents per person in August, 2010. Given my struggle two years ago to make it on a dollar a meal, I'm shocked by the average meal cost of of 91 cents. The lowest green meal costs were $1.46 last July, compared to $1.57 this month. This is the first month of tracking local prices, so no comparison is available.

Bargains. Fruit and vegetables are near their seasonal low prices. Flats with 18 pints of spray-free blueberries cost just $15. For the same price, you could get a half bushel of perfect peaches. Dairy products continue to fall. Condiments are down: mustard, tahini, soy sauce, and vinegar. Other surprising bargains abound:

• Fresh, juicy organic ginger is down $2 to $5.99 a pound. That may sound like a lot, but just a half-pound all month elevates the quality of many meals.
• Rancho Gordo's Yellow Indian Woman Beans are down 85 cents a pound from last year.
• Although I'm don't buy bananas in the summer, the prices are shockingly low: 50 cents a pound conventional and 79 cents a pound organic.

What costs more? Sugar continues to climb, now $3.44 for five pounds from $2.57 last August. Thrifty dried beans were up a few cents a pound across the board. And my thrifty store quit carrying chick peas and tahini, so those prices are for organic choices from Whole Foods.

Baking sane. Two more green items pass the sanity test: Whole Foods 365 brand has baking powder at the same price as the thrifty store brand. I'm also including corn starch made with non-GMO corn at $2.69 for 12 ounces.

About the Weekly Food Cost Graph

The Cook for Good grocery prices use the summer menu. The graph also shows the most recent USDA prices, in this case from June 2010, using the prices for a family of four with two adults, aged 19 to 50 and two children, one 6–8 and one 9–11. It also shows the the food-stamp allowance for a family of four with no other means in North Carolina.

Since months vary in the number of days they have, the Cook for Good plan is based on four weeks (28 days) worth of menus, plus three "extra" days. The ingredients for the extra days comes from food purchased in the cart but not used during the first 28 days. Use the meals in these extra days for longer months, to share with friends or family, or just as backup just in case you drop a pizza or put way too much hot pepper in the chili. See the menu plan for details.

See comparisons for previous months here: May 2010, March 2010, January 2010, November 2009, August 2009, June 2009, and April 2009.

Cook at home vs. eating out

Of course, cooking at home is vastly less expensive than eating out. For example, the U.S. government allows its employees to spend $61 a day to eat out a day in my town: $11 for breakfast, $16 for lunch, and $34 for dinner, up from $51 when I started tracking costs in January 2009. Knowing the area, I'd say that's quite a reasonable rate for good but not fancy restaurant meals.

... but using the Cook for Good way, that $61 would be enough for more than three weeks of thrifty meals!

and thirteen days—nearly two weeks—of green meals. Tip: To get a feel for how the grocery prices in your area compare the grocery prices shown here, compare the U.S. Government per diem allowance in your area to the one here in Raleigh, North Carolina. But whether your area is more expensive or less than mine, I'm sure that if you Cook for Good, you will save money and enjoy wonderful meals.

Where do the savings come from?

• Almost all the food is cooked from scratch, with the exception of packaged burritos, canned tomatoes, and hot sauce.
• The recipes and menu plans use low-cost foods in season.
• The beverages are tap water or home-brewed tea. It's a very easy change to make if you are drinking bottled drinks of any kind. See the Good Drinks page for more about the savings.
• Time is your friend. For example, by starting bread dough the night before your bake it, you can use just half as much yeast, cutting the cost of the most expensive ingredient in bread.
• It's vegetarian. Of course, you can choose to add some meat or fish and still keep your costs very low. For example, roast a chicken on Sunday and then make chicken and rice later in the week, top your red beans and rice with some sausage, or have a tuna-salad sandwich on Friday.

You could save even more!

• Shop the sales. Buy only what you need plus the rest of the month's worth for anything that is on sale. For example, if you need three cans of tomatoes a week, buy three the first week if they aren't on sale. If they go on sale the next week, buy nine more to get you through the rest of the month. The Cook for Good prices show any sales that were happening at the target stores on price-check day, but they don't show the sales that happen over a whole month.
• Use coupons. The Cook for Good prices show the discounts from the free loyalty cards, but no savings from coupons. Just make sure that the time and money you spend to get, find, and use coupons is worth it. You might get better and more certain savings by just making some bread or making peach ice-cream base to use in the winter when fruit is scarce.
• Stock up. I also bought only the food I could use that month, while you could stock up on sales if you have the money and space. For example, yeast is usually on sale in December since that's such a big baking month. It keeps for months.
• Grow your own. At least grow lettuce, radishes, summer squash, basil, and chard. You can grow these in containers on a balcony. Green beans, peppers, cucumbers, and kale are also very easy to grow. Lemon balm, rosemary, and chives will come back year after year with little or no effort. Of course, home-grown tomatoes are more trouble but oh so rewarding!