Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Some Notes on Usage

We've been trying to keep track of some of our food consumption since October.  While we haven't been perfect at it, we've done okay.  If I multiple what we've used over the last 3 months by 4, I can get an idea of how much of each item we'll go through per year.  Here's what we estimate we'll use each year:

Toilet Paper: 365 rolls
Cereal: 24 boxes
Chicken Broth: 40 cans (we were surprised that we use that much...)
Cream of Chicken: 24 cans
Cream of Mushroom: 24 cans
Egg noodles: 8 bags
Enchilada Sauce: 200 oz (they come in 2 different sized cans)
Green chilies: 24 cans (the larger, walmart can, 7 oz, I think)
Jello/Pudding: 16 boxes (strawberry and chocolate so far...)
Mac & Cheese: 16 boxes
Olives: 20 cans
Ranch: you can never have too much ranch...
Diced tomatoes: 40 cans (probably more if we had had more)
(Rotel) diced tomatoes with green chilies: 36 cans
Gold Fish: 480 oz
Tortilla chips: 24 big bags (again, probably more--I'm not convinced we recorded all of them)
Body Wash: 12 big bottles (maybe a little more...)
Deodorant: 12 sticks
Toothpaste: 96 oz (I think...this one's a little odd--we wrote down 24 oz in Oct and haven't written anything since)

I'll use these and the other info I have for my initial guess at a year's supply, then, we'll continue recording items and make adjustments as necessary.  We'll also add other items as we recognize that we're regularly using things that aren't getting recorded (like meats and breads).

3 comments:

Jess and Jason said...

I am shocked at how much you use of certain things and how little you use of others. Like 16 boxes of mac and cheese? We probably eat that much in one month (ok, I don't eat it, but Jason and the kids do). And why didn't you count Ramen Noodles? Are they not a staple in your diet like in ours?!? I think it would be really fun to keep track of this and then compare family to family. But that would require me to actually keep track of something. Not sure I am up to that!!

We don't use body wash at all...ever...we are soap people.

And only 24 boxes of cereal?!? There are seriously days when we eat an entire box. I would say we would use at least 52, probably significantly more a year.

I am with you on the Ranch (but only Hidden Valley)

Richards in Seattle said...

I am always surprised when I go out to get something and I find out that it is gone. We use a lot of chicken broth, ketchup, and mustard in this house. I will have to try to keep track and see what we use to try to keep up on our food storage also. Good New Years resolution!

The other thing that I think needs to be included though is chocolate!

Mike and Adrianne said...

We actually didn't use body wash until Mike started getting the newspaper and doing coupons. He got some great deals and stocked up. When it's gone, we will probably go back to just soap.