Family Dinner Is Served

Good afternoon! Speaking of a chicken in the pot . . . the weather is a bit cooler and damper here now. When that happens I always start thinking about hearty comfort foods like beef stew and chicken pot pie. Home made, of course! Hence, chicken pot pie is on the menu for tonight!

Seriously, I think it might be important to spell out just how much food costs. Let's say you eat at a fast food restaurant every workday for lunch. That is approximately $5 per meal, $25 per week, and $100 per month!

Let's put some perspective on this. If an average household income is somewhere around $60,000 pretax, and you remove approximately 25% for taxes and benefits, then the average family is left with approximately $48,000 annually or $4,000 monthly. What is a fair budget for food?

If 30% of the monthly family income (pretax) goes to mortgage or rent ($1,500), that leaves the family with $2,500. Now subtract about $400 for utilities, $200 for gas for 2 cars, $200 for auto insurance and $100 for miscellaneous costs. The average family is now left with $1,600. Assuming that this family has great health insurance through work, and no one in the family is sick, has a chronic illness requiring medication, or ends up in the emergency room for broken bones, they have $1,600 left for savings, groceries and clothing!

Gee, $60,000 doesn't sound like much money now, does it!

Let's assume that this average family is very good about saving 10% (about $500 after taxes) for a rainy day (and there will always be plenty of those!). The average family now has $1,100 to buy groceries and clothing.

If 2 working adults are buying lunch out every workday, that eats up at least $200 of the budget, leaving $900 now to buy clothes and groceries. What will win out? Clothes are expensive and groceries aren't cheap!

Okay, I'll stop dragging this out. I think you get the picture that working with a budget in mind can help prevent those nasty ballooning credit card bills and save you big headaches!

If the average family could feed themselves for approximately $10 per meal, that is $30 per day, or $900 per month!

Now the average family has about $200 for clothing!

That is just one reason why cooking family dinner at home is so important!

What about those dishes? Those are called character building chores!