Cost of Living
I spent the last two and a half weeks in England on business. One of the things that is again made clear to me every time I travel to Europe is that I could not afford to have a large family if I lived there. Almost everything costs more – lots more. Like two or three times as much. If you think the US housing market got a bit unreasonable, don’t even think about buying a home in England: England had a reign of irrational exuberance for almost ten years running. For the price of my home here I think I could get a starter townhome there. It was common for most things to cost at least twice as much in the UK as in the US. I was amazed when I saw families with three or four children there because the costs are just tremendous.
One advantage of spending time in Europe is that I’m now prepared to work on restocking our food storage. Over the last several years we have allowed it to dwindle as we worked our way through materials largely given to us that needed to be consumed. Now its time to pay the piper – or somebody – to replenish it. I looked at milk. Typical food storage calculators say a family our size needs about 500 lbs for a one-year supply. Unfortunately when I look at current prices on 50 lb bags of milk I feel like I’m in England again – because the price is almost double what I last remember purchasing at. (Walton Feed – currently $150-160.) As I looked for other sources of powdered milk I came across a reference to the USDA calculated cost to feed a family of four.
Who knew? Our government is spending my hard-earned money doing such useful things as calculating how much I’m likely spending on food to feed my family. How amazing is that! So according to the USDA, if I’m "Thrifty" then my family of 10 will nibble away $1100 per month. If I’m not quite thrifty but still take a "Low-Cost" approach then we’d wind up snacking up $1400 per month. A more "Moderate" eating plan would consume close to $1800 per month, while a "Liberal" plan would gobble up $2200.
The biggest shock was not to find out that we’d been so far off in what we’re spending to starve our family, but to realize that with a food budget that size we could afford to live in Europe.
One advantage of spending time in Europe is that I’m now prepared to work on restocking our food storage. Over the last several years we have allowed it to dwindle as we worked our way through materials largely given to us that needed to be consumed. Now its time to pay the piper – or somebody – to replenish it. I looked at milk. Typical food storage calculators say a family our size needs about 500 lbs for a one-year supply. Unfortunately when I look at current prices on 50 lb bags of milk I feel like I’m in England again – because the price is almost double what I last remember purchasing at. (Walton Feed – currently $150-160.) As I looked for other sources of powdered milk I came across a reference to the USDA calculated cost to feed a family of four.
Who knew? Our government is spending my hard-earned money doing such useful things as calculating how much I’m likely spending on food to feed my family. How amazing is that! So according to the USDA, if I’m "Thrifty" then my family of 10 will nibble away $1100 per month. If I’m not quite thrifty but still take a "Low-Cost" approach then we’d wind up snacking up $1400 per month. A more "Moderate" eating plan would consume close to $1800 per month, while a "Liberal" plan would gobble up $2200.
The biggest shock was not to find out that we’d been so far off in what we’re spending to starve our family, but to realize that with a food budget that size we could afford to live in Europe.
posted by Harvey at 8:30 PM
2 Comments:
so when do u move?
Well, maybe the USDA figured pet food into the average American family's grocery bill. And maybe they figured those pets were elephants. And every US family has two.
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