Spending more money on food

[Runrooster]

I was born in a third world country where food is like 40% of people’s budgets. I forget the exact stat, but close. I grew up with parents who taught me to be frugal with food. I also grew up with parents who have heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure from a young age. It’s an epidemic in the South Asian community. Upshot: I try to eat very little processed foods, 25% of the budget is fruits, 25% is veg, rest is carbs eggs milk yogurt protein. The percentage may seem high because the total is low -$100/person/month. Once in awhile I buy Mom some ice cream or other dessert, and she’s been inhaling whipped cream on her pancakes. She also eats a frozen waffle every day. But, yeah, she has a lot of food restrictions so if she can eat something I buy it.

There’s very little that I can think to buy to increase our spending. Mom can’t eat out so none of us do. I asked a caterer to make special food for her about every month or two. Then I balk at paying extra for out of season produce. Mom asked me to buy small eggplants, at 3 times the cheap price (still only $2/lb expensive price) I bought her a pound. They didn’t look good and a pound is still enough. I love trying new things on the clearance rack, like shishito peppers once or Mexican street corn salsa yesterday. At $1 each I bought two street corn and 2 mango tajin salsa. Normal price is $5 I’d never pay that much. Galbani fresh mozz is on sale this week, but I can never use the whole thing and it’s not super healthy.

Anyway I sort of walk around the store thinking “who buys all this”. Lots of super prepared, expensive stuff. My parents don’t even like frozen veg. I bought my Dad some frozen samosas and paratha and I have to nag him to finish it. I did buy some frozen eclairs which we are still finishing and I saw a nice sale on kimbap which is like Korean sushi. I bought a frozen lasagna but it was pretty disappointing. I pull out a frozen pizza about once a month.

What do busy, health conscious mustachians splurge on in the grocery store?

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

My splurges are usually out of season fruits that I want or odd spices/not common or geographically close ingredients to make certain dishes. I, too, struggle to understand when I see so many people who shop not based at all on prices/what's on season but on they feel like in the moment.

[Zikoris]

Usually imported ingredients. I like Hungarian sweet paprika straight from Szeged. My boyfriend likes this Italian jam that's $8 a jar. The Persian grocery store always has lots of interesting bulk products I've never seen anywhere else.

Also good pure maple syrup. And Warba potatoes (they're the yellow ones with pink polka dots, and to die for). And various baking ingredients. Sometime baklava. We were buying fresh-squeezed juice for a few months until we bought a juicer. That's about it.

I'm not remotely busy though.

[Sibley]

Why do you want to spend more on food? The goal should be to minimize food costs while still eating a good diet. Sounds like you're doing that.

If you want to splurge, get higher quality ingredients for dishes in your rotation, or the ingredients for the dishes you like but don't make often due to cost. Buy the out of season produce despite the higher price. If you want, try some new recipes. Stick with cooking from scratch as that avoids the over processed foods.  But there's an inherent conflict in you saying you balk at buying out of season produce and saying you want to spend more money on food.

As for being busy - meal prep, make things and freeze them for later, etc.

[Tasse]

Fancy salad toppings. Cheeses, olives, nuts.

[GilesMM]

We occasionally splurge on an nice big Asian pear or two, but the cost is simply eye-watering.

[Runrooster]

Why do you want to spend more on food? The goal should be to minimize food costs while still eating a good diet. Sounds like you're doing that.

If you want to splurge, get higher quality ingredients for dishes in your rotation, or the ingredients for the dishes you like but don't make often due to cost. Buy the out of season produce despite the higher price. If you want, try some new recipes. Stick with cooking from scratch as that avoids the over processed foods.  But there's an inherent conflict in you saying you balk at buying out of season produce and saying you want to spend more money on food.

As for being busy - meal prep, make things and freeze them for later, etc.

I tripled my income in the last 2.5 years and have made a killing in index funds recently. I recognize that we spend well on housing (nice house in HCOL) and car (Tesla) that’s just weird to be so frugal with food. But yeah the out of season eggplants had brown spots. Not an issue right now that in season produce is plentiful. I could buy more fresh tomatoes rather than canned. I buy a low sugar jam and can’t finish the maple syrup we have. I also really enjoy food, more so than clothing say. We do buy a lot of nuts which we eat maybe an ounce a day per person. We also get good Asian pears at the Asian store, in season. Lettuce itself is something I buy on sale, I’ll eat it daily until it’s finished and then take a break.

Maybe too just buying more variety every week. They had a 3 lb bag of broccoli florets for $3 so I’ll be eating broccoli all week. One week they had 4 artichokes for $4 so I ate artichokes every other day. Or maybe the low spend is not a problem that needs fixing.

[Dollar Slice]

If I had a lot of money to spend on food I would be spending it at the farmer's market: the best in-season, fresh local produce, picked hours ago. The freshest eggs you can buy. Artisan meats (think sausages, bacon, salami, etc. as well as just plain meat). Fresh-caught seafood. Fresh pastas. Local yogurts and cheeses (some cheeses are best eaten very fresh and with no preservatives, like mozzarella, ricotta, cream cheese, etc.). High-quality breads and bagels. Maybe some time-saving prepared foods made with fresh, whole foods (at my farmer's market they have homemade soups, hummus, ready-to-heat casseroles, things like that).

These are all things I have at the farmer's market five minutes' walk from my house, and if I had 5x the net worth I have right now I would be doing a ton of shopping there every weekend. It all looks amazing but is priced accordingly.

And I would rather support local farms than Amazon or some other giant corporation.

[Runrooster]

Thanks Dollar Slice, that’s not a bad idea. When I had a similar income 15 years ago I did shop for good cheese and fancy pastry plus some produce at the farmers market. I remember the morels from the mushroom lady 

I need to get past the “not worth it” feeling. I bought mangosteens last year for a splurge and no one else would eat them. $8/pound is cheap compared to a plane ticket to Bali. I eat too much fruit as someone newly diagnosed prediabetic. I keep telling myself to have a weekly sushi/poke night but again find something else/ cheaper.