How much do you spend on Shabbos?

tichellady

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 1:14 am

About $60 a week. We often have guests for one meal and one meal out. Guests always bring a side dish or dessert or wine and the same when we are guests. I make my own challah. I could spend less if we needed to and could spend more if I had less time to cook the way I do. We are all amazing for making shabbos every week! It's a lot of work and takes mental and physical energy. I also feel blessed that we have so many choices when making a Shabbat meal- produce, meat, chicken , fish, dairy, eggs, etc. my ancestors were happy to have challah and an egg on shabbos.

amother

Orange

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 1:53 am

It's very easy to cut down on food costs:
No takeout
Make challah, dessert, dips. (And dessert doesn't have to be fancy either with expensive ingredients).
Don't serve red meat.
Limit store bought/manufactured items like kishke, mixes or the "ready in 5 minute" rice boxes. Or prewashed lettuce.
Don't serve multiple starches (remember challah is a starch!), or serve deli, liver, cholent and chicken, and Both eggs and fish.
Cut your menu and you cut the cost.
I happen to be budget conscious. I often have guests so obviously those weeks cost more but only due to more of the same not fancier). We try to eat healthier type foods too so we spend a lot on veggies. Some weeks are also more because we use more ready made stuff.

etky

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 4:10 am

Probably about 250 Sh on an average week, without guests. With guests it's quite a bit more.
The chicken alone for both meals (it's our staple, we rarely have meat or fish) is usually about 100 Sh or more.
I make everything myself. The only prepared item is the bakery rugelach that we like to have for Shabbat morning and that usually costs about 40 Sh.for a kilo. Still, even homemade food costs plenty of money to make ....
That said, we always have leftovers for weekday meals and some items, like cake and kugel, I'll freeze half for another Shabbat. I also often pack up Shabbat leftovers to send home with my father if he's spent Shabbat with us or to take to him the next day. So it's really hard to isolate the expenses that are purely for the one Shabbat.

amother

Brunette

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 7:32 am

This shabbos I spent $355 for a family of 4. I spent $140 at the grocery store and DH spent another $40 on specialty food he likes at the table. $20 at the fish store. $45 for chocolate. $30 for flowers. $80 for a cleaning lady to help me cook.

I have the cleaning lady an extra day just for shabbos prep. The chocolates last a long time as I only eat one or two on shabbos morning. OTOH, I did not count the scotch or wine because we had it in the house.

DH likes a variety of dips on the table. He takes only one or two spoonfuls of some of them, so I don't bother to make them. We end up throwing out most of them before they are finished.

I make our baked goods, and I am a pretty good baker, yet DH feels the need to bring home cakes for shabbos morning.

nywife

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 9:33 am

amother wrote:

I'm curious- how much do you spend on groceries the rest of the week?

amother

Orange

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 12:06 pm

watergirl wrote:

I'm assuming these people eat at their parents a few nights a week.

A bit insulting...(no need for insults!). let me explain.
In my calculations are things that I buy food wise FOR shabbos. I don't buy magazines, flowers etc. I don't buy chocolates as someone else incorporated into their amount.
I buy milk for the week- so it's not counted. The amount we drink a day is tiny, especially on shabbos. I buy fruit and veggies as part of my shabbos bill- but if I happen to use up leftovers I don't count that one stalk of celery I had bought for midweek soup that was wilting in my fridge. I wasn't going to buy it for shabbos but I had it. It was going to spoil because I forgot about it until I went to reach for the zucchini. I also budgeted that into "weekday food costs".

The big reasons we are so low cost is we try to be. No multi course meals. It might look like kiddush, challah, soup, chicken, vegetable dish, carb. Then dessert which is fruit and/or cake. All homemade. (Ok, I usually buy just chumos but it lasts more than a week. So cost split between two weeks. Same with grape juice). If having a bunch of people we might add in a second carb and vegetable, but then it is not "our regular shabbos cost". If we just have 1-2 guests nothing really changes. Especially as many of the guests are invited on shabbos as they had nowhere to go :-).
No liver, fish, deli, eggs etc.
no need (IMNSHO) for a bunch of courses, lots of dips etc. I will get dips (or make them) if we have lots of guests who will be waiting for me to ladle out the soup. I'm slow at it :-).
But if it's just us? Looking at so much food is sickening and leads to waste, unhealthy eating habits etc.

And no one leaves us hungry. We have leftovers.

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 2:41 pm

I find things cost much more out of town, where I live, than the prices I am seeing here.

Two slices of salmon fillet for $7?? Here salmon is $13 a pound at the kosher grocery. I can get it from Costco for $8 a pound, but I still don't get enough from one pound to feed my family.

Gefilte fish is $5 per loaf at Costco (you buy two at a time), but the one brand they carry has gluten and I'm gluten free. Gluten-free gefilte fish is $9 a loaf. (So we have gefilte fish rarely.)

4.50 for a whole chicken? Even at Costco, a kosher chicken (Empire) is around $12. It's sometimes cheaper --- around $10 --- at the kosher grocery if it's on sale, but that happens only once in a while.

Who was it who said they bought cholent meat for $5 or $6? Even the cheapest cut of meat is $10 a pound, and I find I need at least a pound and a half in the cholent for it to be filling.

I don't buy dessert or dips or kugel or salads or cut-up fruit. I make side dishes myself. But even a simple side dish like sweet potatoes and apples costs a lot, when sweet potatoes are $1 a pound and apples are $1.70 a pound or more. I can easily spend $5 just on that side dish. Fruit and vegetables are expensive. Of course I can cut back cost by only cooking the cheap vegetables like carrots and cabbage, and sometimes I do, but when I have some nicer vegetables (cauliflower, mushrooms, peppers) on Shabbat, or have a melon for an appetizer ($3 or $4 easily), costs go up.

And teenagers eat a lot!

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 2:48 pm

Just wanted to add: even just fruit for dessert is not cheap. Grapes are actually one of the few foods that I find are cheaper out of town than they were when I was in NY, but when you buy a bunch of grapes, that can be close to $8 right there! Again, you can go cheaper and prepare a pineapple ($3 or $4), but I truly don't see how you can prepare two Shabbat meals plus something for breakfast plus something for shalosh seudot for some of the prices that people are quoting here.

rachel6543

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 3:12 pm

I make simple, easy meals. I would say I ususlly make shabbos for $20-$30 max most weeks. And this includes leftovers we can have on Sunday or Monday night. But that is for only 2 adults and one child. Costs just a little more if we have guests.

We mostly eat chicken for shabbos, which is generally cheaper than red meat where I live. I occasionally will make red meat for a Friday night, but when I do it's a small amount, we're not big meat eaters.

I rarely buy dips or challah for Shabbos - only when I don't have time or there's a good sale. Most of what I make for shabbos is usually from scratch. And I make small portions. One ducan Hines cake mix can make 2-3 small cakes. I freeze the extras. One batch of cookies can dessert for 2-4 weeks because I freeze extras.

tichellady

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 3:33 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

it's a long time since I made a Duncan Hines mix, and I actually never found them that inexpensive because you have to add oil and eggs, but I don't remember one mix making a few small cakes. I remember it making one moderate-sized cake.

Maybe we're all just big eaters.

She is only making cake for two adults and one child. Obviously your expenses for a family with teenagers are going to be more than hers. I have learned from this thread that everyone spends and eats different amounts. It's not a contest! I would not enjoy shabbos without guests, vegetables, fruit salad and soup so we have that, even though it costs more. We can afford it, so why not splurge for shabbos if you can.

amother

Orange

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 4:45 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

I live OOT as well and still keep costs down. It also depends on where OOT you live. I don't make anything for breakfast or SS- unless I had guests coming but we just have something simple and scrounge in the fridge because we aren't hungry! Challah and chumos, guacamole (homemade).... Super simple because we aren't hungry. I know it's supposed to be a meal but on the winter there's no time!
Plus you mentioned gefilte fish- we don't make it because of the cost and people don't like it really...

I also shop around- I don't just shop at frum stores. Sweet potatoes for instance by me are usually less than a dollar.I buy what is on sale, and if it can last a week or two I stock up for the next week!

I want your recipe for SP and apples please!!

amother

Brunette

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 6:14 pm

nywife wrote:

I'm curious- how much do you spend on groceries the rest of the week?

About $300 a week including Chinese takeout on Sunday. Plus I stock up and buy food in bulk including cases of beef and different types of chicken. That is not included in the weekly food bills.

We waste an enormous amount of food. If I don't have the variety and the type of food he likes, DH will go out and buy takeout which costs even more. He leave the house and get steak from a takeout out place

amother

Orange

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 6:41 pm

amother wrote:

Whoa, how do you manage? I would feel so hurt if DH bought takeout if he didn't like dinner. How do you deal with the budgeting aspect?

JoyInTheMorning

Mon, Feb 01 2016, 9:26 am

Orange amother, sorry for not responding before. Here's the recipe:

3 large sweet potatoes
1.5 - 2 apples, depending on size
handful of raisins
cinnamon to taste

1. Peel and cut up sweet potatoes, larger than a coarse chop, but smaller than chunks.
2. Peel, core, and cut up (coarsely chop) apples.
3. Toss with a handful of raisins. Sprinkle with a lot of cinnamon, to taste.
4. Cover tightly (either with foil or the lid of a pyrex dish) and bake in 375 oven for around 1.5 hours. You do not need to add liquid, because the sweet potatoes and apples release their own juices, but you must cover tightly because otherwise the liquids evaporate as they're being formed and they don't serve to self-baste the dish.

I got the recipe from someone who told me she didn't peel the sweet potatoes or apples. But I like it's better when everything's peeled.

Despite the lack of added sugar, this is surprisingly sweet. If you find that it's too sweet, cut down on the raisins or add a squeeze or two of lemon juice.

Enjoy!