Why 400?

At first glance, $400 seems like a lot of money. $400 represents a good day of shopping or a fantastic pair of shoes or new window treatments for my dining room. A lot of money, but I chose it because it seemed like a number that I could wrap my head around. A nice round number, $400 for 4 people. $100 per person for a month of food.

My ultimate goal is to make it from January 4 to February 3, an entire 31 days. As we live our experiment, we may need to adjust the date to January 31. I don't want my young children to starve or become miserable. Either way, this is going to be a huge challenge. $100/28 days equals $3.57 per person per day or about $14.29 per day for the family. If we can stretch our experiment out for the entire 31 days, the daily budget slips down to $12.90 per day.

And that doesn't count our extra challenges. Scott and I have decided that if we are going to limit our food finances, we must still live our lives in a normal way. We must perform several tasks throughout the month.
1) We must entertain at least 4 people in a social setting. (I have budgeted $40 for food & wine)
2) We must go out for a night of fun. (We can attend only if we can budget and save $30)
3) We must attend our regularly scheduled events, and if we eat anything, we must pay for it out of our budget.

All of these expenses must come out of our $400 effectively bringing our daily food budget down to $11.79 for 28 days or $10.65 for the entire 31 day period. $10.65 seems like the cost of a lunch at a casual dining restaurant, not the daily food budget for a family of 4. Is this even possible? What in the heck will my family eat?

Tomorrow's post: The Rules.