The Food Budget discussion -- and a challenge!

I've gotten two comments about my food budget efforts. One from a friend of 20+ years (wow! Karen! I never counted them before! LOL) and one from my daughter-in-law. (Karen, meet Lisa. Lisa, meet Karen.) Both have the same-sized family, both include paper goods and toiletries in their shopping totals. One spends less than me (Karen) and one spends more (Lisa). Karen is in New Hampshire, Lisa in Colorado, and I'm in Ohio. So I'm asking these two wonderful ladies (and anyone else reading this who wants to join in!) to join me in a bit of comparison shopping and we'll see how our prices of groceries compare. When you get a chance, email me with the cost of the following items: 1 quart of milk 1 lb of bananas 1 can of Campbell's vegetable or vegetable beef soup 1 dozen eggs, large 1 pound of ground beef, 80/20 fat content 1 pound of boneless chicken breasts 1 can of green beans or carrots or corn 1 can of tuna fish 1 quart jar of Mayonnaise 1 box of cereal 1 50 ft box of aluminum foil In your email, if you could mention whether it's store brand or name brand, that would help. I may have mis-stated the breakfast deal around here. I do "cook" Jeff's breakfast every morning. Some mornings, it does include cereal or oatmeal. His favorite breakfast is egg, bacon and cheese on a bagel, but we're cutting back on the bacon around here. I also make a breakfast burrito of scrambled eggs, low fat cheese, little bits of ham. One morning a week may be sausage, eggs and toast or English Muffin (we use the new Thomas's 100 calorie English muffins and each eat just one half), and a second morning of just scrambled eggs and half an English muffin. It all depends on time constraints (how late he gets up, if I have Brayden here, etc.) and what I've cooked that week (I don't like to give him the same breakfast over and over). He does frequently have a bowl of cereal at night for a snack. Jeff's lunch usually is a sandwhich or a wrap, and I do buy one pound of lunchmeat a week, which is unbelievably expensive ($8 to $10 a pound!) because we prefer Boars' Head meats (no fillers or chemicals). He usually also has a small portion of baked tortilla chips, two low fat cheese sticks, and either two sugar free cookies or a yogurt or a sugar free pudding. In place of chips he also likes celery sticks if I give him a small container of ranch dressing to dip. He does also like leftovers from dinner for his lunch. This week I will probably not buy lunchmeat, since we're having roast beef, and I have a meat slicer so I can slice it for sandwiches. Dinner varies widely. I've gotten away from all meals being meat, starch, vegetable, but we do still eat fairly hardy meals. I just made up my menu for the week, so here it is: Sunday (today): Steak fajitas (with onions, peppers), Salad Monday: Meatballs (from freezer), beef gravy, brown rice, vegetable Tuesday: Roast beef (bought on sale last week), 1/2 small baked potato, vegetable Wednesday: Baked chicken breast, vegetable, salad Thursday: Lentil soup (from freezer), cornbread (homemade) Friday: Fish (if I can find some reasonably priced that he'll eat), cooked cabbage slaw, salad "Vegetable" can be canned, frozen or fresh. We eat a lot of brocolli and green beans around here, as well as cauliflower and spinach. The fish is the only thing that had to be added to my grocery list this week. I have several meals of meatballs and lentil soup in the freezer, and bought the roast beef on sale last week. Chicken breasts are also coming out of the freezer. So... are foods more expensive in different parts of the country?? Let's find out!