The soaring cost of food is a real concern for many - so much so that I recently heard on the radio two different ads assisting consumers with ways to cope.

If you participate in the Grand Slam summer sweepstakes at Shaw’s supermarket, you could win groceries for a year. Think about the cost of a year’s worth of groceries for a family of four. Winning that grand slam summer sweepstakes is almost better than winning the lottery!

And the town of Newton advertised a gun buyback program. People who turned in their guns received grocery gift cards. You know food is expensive when people are willing to give up their firearms in exchange for food.

Many financial advisors recommend spending no more than 10-15% of net pay on food, including take-out and restaurants. If you live in Massachusetts and make $50,000 a year, your net pay is about $3280 a month. This means you should spend no more than $328 to $492 on groceries, take-out and restaurant food per month. Breaking that down per week, the average person should only spend $82-123. Basically, that’s a carton of eggs, a loaf of bread, and milk. 

Seriously, though, it’s not uncommon to spend $20 on a pizza. If you do that once a week, that doesn’t leave much left for groceries. Add $5 a day for coffee and now you’re eating ramen noodles every day to stay on budget.

It used to be that when a person won the lottery, they’d remark about buying a car or a home with their winnings. Let’s hope there’s enough left over to still do that after paying for groceries.