The economics of Paleo

[JonathanH]

I was going through my monthly expenses, and decided to track my per meal cost since going paleo. It may not be the most accurate estimates, as it only contains 2.5 months of spending.

My grocery spending seems to be pretty stable at about $500 a month.

Eating out costs me approximately $250 a month (with a pretty high deviation, one month it was about $200 and another it was closer to $350, which was skewed by a business trip to Chicago which required eating out as I had no access to a grocery store or cooking facilities)

Not surprisingly, the biggest consumers of my income were the various grocery stores (Publix, Kroger, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Farmer's Market), as well as Flip and Urban Pl8 (they consume about 90% of my eating out spending, ha!)

Some of the eating out numbers are a little inflated, because I was paying for more than one person + alcohol, so I suppose I could take about $75 as a rough estimate of those costs, leaving me with $175 a month on eating out.

Breaking it down on a per meal basis (30 days, 3 meals a day) gives me an average cost per meal of $7.50.

Eating out cost per meal: $25
Cooking for myself cost per meal $5.94

I can reasonably assume that since I eat about 1.5 times what a normal person eats per meal, that other peoples' cost/meal should be lower.

Before paleo I used to eat out a ton more (but this often consisted of fast food), so we will say my average cost of eating out then was lower, say around $13. If I increase the number of meals I ate out to 45 (this includes lunches @$9 a pop and sometimes breakfasts @$5 a pop at my work cafe), my cost of eating out balloons to $585 from $175. Assuming my grocery bill stays the same cost per meal (which is probably not true), my grocery cost per month is $267, leading to a grand total of $852 a month on food.

Let's recap: $852/month before
$675/month now

That is an extra $177 a month in my pocket + the immeasurable benefit of eating healthy and being rewarded with the satisfaction of my own tasty food creations. Paleo doesn't just make sense for your body, it makes sense for your wallet.