How much did pesach food cost you?

gilamom

Tue, May 03 2016, 1:45 pm

Family of six, stayed home for seder and almost every meal plus lots of guests-I think we had to have spent at least $1500-my biggest regret is looking over my receipts later on and seeing how much I spent on fruits and vegetables which was the bulk of my food shopping, I could have saved a lot of money going to a chain supermarket or even Costco rather than buying them at my local kosher grocery store.

Regarding the person who spent $15,000-I heard someone saying Pomegranate supermarket was selling already boiled eggs and pre-salted water this Pesach, I guess if you're buying things like that I could see it adding up pretty quickly!! LOL

amother

Bronze

Tue, May 03 2016, 2:50 pm

amother wrote:

Wo! Bli Ayin Hara!

Im now less interested in the cost of food.

How much was spent on cleaning and cooking help? How many helper people, how many hours each?

Are your parents Rabbi and Rebbitzen of a Shul, and have an open house kind of thing, and this is their community's expectation?

If not, whats their yearly income, (being that youre anonymous)?

All the cooking was done by the hostess and female adult guests (7 or so). Everyone helped a lot!!!!
The only outside help was the cleaning lady, who did come by every day for a couple of hours.
Lots of elegant disposable dishes where used to lessen the workload (adding to the cost Very Happy

)
All the guests were family-no community hosting situation.

Sorry, I will not discuss income, but this did not put them into debt, if that's what you want to know.

To the amother wondering about ready salt water etc. from Pomegranate. That was not the case at all, since we don't eat too many ready products on Pesach.

amother

Azure

Tue, May 03 2016, 3:36 pm

amother wrote:

When you think of it, $15,000 for 30 people averages $500 per person, and thats not outrageous.

Hotels charge way more.

A Pesach stay in a hotel for 30 people, with 7 couples, would be minimum $30,000. $15,000 is a bargain for a crowd like that over Pesach!

watergirl

Tue, May 03 2016, 3:46 pm

amother wrote:

Its no bargan! Hotels charge more because they do all the work! When you work your tuches off, the cost is less.

amother

Gray

Tue, May 03 2016, 4:56 pm

Its not so crazy if you think of it - 15K for 30 people if eating very well.

If I bought a roast for $50 to feed 6 - 8 people = $9 per person.
$9 * 30 = $270 roast per meal and that is for a lower end meat. A more expensive cut of meat would run much more a meal.
We also used about 2 bottles of wine each yom tov meal and 1 chol hamoed. They would need 5 - 10 bottles of wine per meal. Plus the wines could have been much more expensive.

Don't ask why I have the time to estimate expenses that I have no clue how much they were

Yom tov Meals:
Fish: $60 - 100
Meat and Chicken: $150 - $300
Wine: $200
Vegetables: $100
Papergoods: $60
$600 - $700 per meal * 8 = $5264

Maror: $150

Grape Juice: $100

Breakfast: $60 * 8 (especially if eating cheese snacks daily and yogurts) = $480

chol Hamoed Suppers:
meat and Chicken: $100 - 200
Vegetables: $100
Papergoods: $40
Wine: $100
$350 - 450 * 4 = 1600

chol Hamoed Lunches
$300 * 4 = 1200

Snacks and chocolate: $500

Fruit: $1000

Matza: $1500

Drinks: $320

but that is only about $12,000

But wine and chicken for 30 people can run much higher depending on cuts of meat purchase and quality of the wine

naturalmom5

Tue, May 03 2016, 5:04 pm

amother wrote:

Wow, that's 2000 a person
For that $, you could of had all those meals PLUS
Tea room
Nitely Viennese tablke
Lavish kiddushim
Swimming
Jacuzzi
Golf
Tennis
Nitely entertainment
Concerts
Great lectures
And more..

thunderstorm

Tue, May 03 2016, 5:08 pm

amother wrote:

Its not so crazy if you think of it - 15K for 30 people if eating very well.

If I bought a roast for $50 to feed 6 - 8 people = $9 per person.
$9 * 30 = $270 roast per meal and that is for a lower end meat. A more expensive cut of meat would run much more a meal.
We also used about 2 bottles of wine each yom tov meal and 1 chol hamoed. They would need 5 - 10 bottles of wine per meal. Plus the wines could have been much more expensive.

Don't ask why I have the time to estimate expenses that I have no clue how much they were

Yom tov Meals:
Fish: $60 - 100
Meat and Chicken: $150 - $300
Wine: $200
Vegetables: $100
Papergoods: $60
$600 - $700 per meal * 8 = $5264

[b]Maror: $150[/b]

Grape Juice: $100

Breakfast: $60 * 8 (especially if eating cheese snacks daily and yogurts) = $480

chol Hamoed Suppers:
meat and Chicken: $100 - 200
Vegetables: $100
Papergoods: $40
Wine: $100
$350 - 450 * 4 = 1600

chol Hamoed Lunches
$300 * 4 = 1200

Snacks and chocolate: $500

Fruit: $1000

Matza: $1500

Drinks: $320

but that is only about $12,000

But wine and chicken for 30 people can run much higher depending on cuts of meat purchase and quality of the wine

Why in heavens name was Maror 150.00 for 6-8 people? I spent $6.00 for the same amount of people.

amother

Orange

Tue, May 03 2016, 5:22 pm

watergirl wrote:

Are you all saying that you had meat so often over pesach? We had chicken. No meat at all. I cant be the only one.

We had a lot of meat over pesach. But only because we have a friend in the meat business and he lets us buy wholesale. Any cut of meat for about $10 a kg. Thats less then I pay for chicken. We ate a lot of steak. Otherwise I would stick to chop meat and chicken and maybe one roast over yom tov.

wifenmother

Tue, May 03 2016, 5:32 pm

Bizzydizzymommy wrote:

I always serve chicken at night and meat by day...Chol Hamoed I stuck to chicken and a bit of ground beef.

Same here. And it isn't cheap.

I don't think most of the initial posters included hand shmura matza plus erev Pesach matza for each kaara. We average 2 lbs. of hand shmura matza per person over 8 days and that adds up too.

mha3484

Tue, May 03 2016, 5:44 pm

Its hard for me to calculate because I did not use everything and some things I get a case of which saves me money throughout the year. I buy big boxes of plasticware, foil pans etc and that lasts me until next pesach. I am wheat free so I get a case of pesach gefilte fish. I should not have to buy that for the next few months.

I would say I spent around $500 on actual pesach items that got used that week. I bli ayin hara was not as tight this year so I was able to stock my freezer and pantry with some sale items.

amother

Mustard

Tue, May 03 2016, 6:24 pm

amother wrote:

I didnt eat at any meals at home.. but at one relative, each person was served a veal steak on the bone, chicken, 3 different types of fish. Also, around 3 bottles of wine were finished at every meal. (sometimes it was a $60 bottle..)
no where near 30 ppl, but yes I can imagine it cost the 15,000 without a cook or mashgiach

One such meal is fun and over the top.
But I was once served like that at a weekend shabbos simcha at a hotel. By the second meal I was gagging on the food and couldn't stomach it.

amother

Gray

Tue, May 03 2016, 6:46 pm

My calculations above were for 30 people - not 6. I was trying to convert my own expenses for a a family of 30. (and going a bit overboard - we had simple breakfast and didn't spend on so many expensive items and our matza cost us around $50 ($8\lb), not $1500 ($20\lb)).

We spent probably $6 per person on pre-checked stalks of maror for our family (really 4 adults, 2 big kids and 2 smaller kids) for both nights - this was with lots of padding in case we didn't measure correctly, we ended up using the leftovers for salad, but that is what we bought. I was figuring out for a family of 30 how much it would be....

How did you spend $6 on maror for 6 people - unless it wasn't pre-checked. I think each bag was $6 or more and we used about 5 bags. (but bought 6 just in case). We pre-weighed the lettuce before so I know we didn't eat way too much. (We don't use horesradish just the green stalks)

Personally we eat meat every meal. Our family minhag is no chiken on Pesach AT ALL (yekke) So we use meat for soup, appetizers, main etc. Even if it wasn't our minhag, my DH does eat kazayis meat and cup of wine at every meal on yom tov and each day of chol hamoed. But on Pesach it is even more difficult because I can not pad it with chicken.

I tried to shop sales and the week after Purim one store had meat for between 4.99 - 7.99 per lb for decent cuts (first cut brisket, french roast, brick roast, minute roast, corn beef, etc so I stocked up then). In many ways the roasts at the cheaper price points were cheaper then serving ground beef, especially once the other ingredients were added.

amother

Brown

Tue, May 03 2016, 7:06 pm

A close family member of mine probably also spend about 15,000 dollars this Pesach.

She hosted her married children. She probably had between 28-35 ppl at each meal including chol hamoed.

She used 250 lbs of potatoes
Over 850 eggs
18 big bottles of oil
24 bags of sugar..
Over 100 slices of fish

Plus over 65 lbs of matzah.
Wine, grape juice meat etc etc