Possibly off topic - food budget survey question

vikkihogan

Oh I wish. In my home there are 3 teenagers, a very physically demanding job of being a roofer (he eats about 3500-5000 calories a day) and me who trains 6-7 days a week. We spend approximately $1000.00 monthly. Goes fast but we stick to mostly clean /non processed foods.

Amerane

Apparently I'm below thrifty...for one person, I spend about $35/week on groceries with individual weeks running anywhere from $17 (this week) to $50. All in all, it's right about $140/month.

Cynsonya

Amerane wrote: »

Apparently I'm below thrifty...for one person, I spend about $35/week on groceries with individual weeks running anywhere from $17 (this week) to $50. All in all, it's right about $140/month.

That's amazing! I spend that much on fruit alone

RodaRose

Hubby and I both work sixty hours a week. We buy "convenience" and read to eat foods like rotisserie chicken and some pre-cut or packaged produce.

KDar1988

$800 to $900 a month. I'm eating better which equates to more fruit, veg and protein, plus a construction worker husband, a teenager and when he's home from college, my 20 year old and his girlfriend! This figure doesn't include any extra I buy in the way of protein shakes, bars or a salad for dinner when I don't eat what I'm making for them.

JeromeBarry1

Yesterday I bought a 3lb package of chicken that cost nearly $19 at Wal-Mart. That blows a hole in any household budget. The chicken had no injected salt. It was Perdue Harvestland brand. For my goals, which include low-sodium, it was worth the price, but I won't often buy it.

My 'budget' for shopping at the grocery store is odd because the 3 other people want strange crap and I want good stuff. Those 3 are not in bad shape and I am so I guess it's all my fault.

deadlifts_and_lipstick

I have 4 in our household right now, and I'm pregnant with our 3rd child. We usually spend about $500 every month on groceries, but the "grocery budget" also includes diapers, pull-ups, wipes, ect...
I will say, for good, pure protein, it will be expensive. My hubby and I just spent about $600 on protein powder, bars, pre workout and other things. The good thing is is that it should last us about 4 months!
Anyways, that's where we factor in! We also just got stationed in Italy with the military and have only been able to shop on the base commissary, which is a bit more expensive...
At home, I was able to shop at Kroger and use their BOGO's, then I'd only spend about $300 a month!

mom22dogs

Holy crap people spend a LOT of money on food! I'm single and it kills me to spend about $130 a month on food. I might eat out once or twice a month, but that only adds on about 30 bucks for twice a month eating out.

ashliedelgado

Household of 7, blended family. Hubs has a physically demanding job, I'm very active and pregnant, we have full custody of his twins (14), and my kids half of the week (13, 10, and 8). During the school year, I spend between $120 and $160 a week on groceries, and during school breaks this easily becomes closer to $200-$250. I meal plan, which makes a big difference. I'm a big fan of budgetbytes.com - she has some great recipes.

Soy_K

mom22dogs wrote: »

Holy crap people spend a LOT of money on food! I'm single and it kills me to spend about $130 a month on food. I might eat out once or twice a month, but that only adds on about 30 bucks for twice a month eating out.

Children seem very expensive! I have a large elderly dog and cook her food and have to buy her medicine, so I guess I have another "dependent" too. $130/mo seems very reasonable!

SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage

CrabNebula wrote: »

I stopped buying protein powders and bars once I got my Instant Pot. It makes Greek yogurt for very cheap, much cheaper than powders/supplements/some other forms of protein. I can make a few days worth for $1.70.

I will often buy pork loin instead of BS chicken breast because it is cheaper for basically the same macro profile, though occasionally, they will have split breasts for as low as .89 a lb and I will pick that up and trim, debone, and deskin the meat myself. It has the added advantage that I can boil the bones for broth and additional meat I use for pulled chicken or enchiladas.

@CrabNebula could I have your yogurt recipe please? I have an Instant Pot too and I would love to give it a try for yogurt.

We used to spend much more money on food, around $600/month. Then I determined that doing a big grocery shop once a month was costing me too much in waste, so I now do a smaller shop every week. We now spend about $400-500 a month. We live in Canada (BC) where I understand everything is more expensive. We definitely feel it with groceries.

Lounmoun

Soy_K wrote: »

mom22dogs wrote: »

Holy crap people spend a LOT of money on food! I'm single and it kills me to spend about $130 a month on food. I might eat out once or twice a month, but that only adds on about 30 bucks for twice a month eating out.

Children seem very expensive! I have a large elderly dog and cook her food and have to buy her medicine, so I guess I have another "dependent" too. $130/mo seems very reasonable!

I would say my child wasn't a big eater until she hit puberty. Before that her portions were much smaller than an adult portion. A child is another person in the household so not really more expensive than an adult would be... or in your case a large dog.

When our 2 smaller dogs were alive we fed them homemade food and they went through at least 5lbs of chicken per week plus other foods and treats.

CrabNebula

You pour a gallon of whatever percentage fat milk you want in the IP, close the lid, hit the "Yogurt" button, hit "Adjust", and it should say "BOIL". Then it beeps to confirm and that's all you have to for 15-30 minutes. Once the milk is sterilized, you can take the inner pot out and put it in an ice bath to cool to 115F or cooler. You can leave the milk in the IP to cool, but be warned, it takes forever. Then put the milk pot back in the IP, add 1-3 tbsp of plain yogurt with live cultures (I started mine just with Costco's Greek yogurt), and put the lid back on. Hit the "Yogurt" button again and set an incubation time. 8 hours is long enough and really, I've left it in there up to a day with no real difference in the end product. Once your yogurt is ready, you can strain it with cheesecloth or I use a nut milk bag hanging from a tripod. Once it is the consistency you like, take it out of the bag/cloth and put it in an airtight container in the fridge. I save some of the whey for making breads and pizza dough and to feed my sourdough starter.

Once you have gotten started, you can reuse your yogurt for bacteria starter culture over and over and over until you manage to destroy it somehow. But the bacteria are pretty hardy creatures. I haven't bought any Greek yogurt period since I started this back in October. It is all self-sustaining.

I've only managed to screw up one batch out of the probably 50 I have done. That was only because I got lazy about time and the milk did not stay properly sterilized. You will know as soon as you open the pot who won the bacteria battle. In that one case, it definitely was not the good kind. YICK. Again though, it took a pretty big leap of laziness on my part to achieve that. Yogurt making in general is pretty forgiving and mostly idiot proof.

tooru

I spend about £25-£30 a week on myself only. So £120ish a month. Before I started dieting, I was spending about £250-£300 a month

mjwarbeck

A family of 5: 2 adults and 3 boys (12, 7, 2) and we probably spend 1000 a month on food. Food here is more expensive than in the US as a rule.

Pawsforme

We don't really have a budget, but I probably spend around $200-$250 a week. That's for two adults, one teenage boy here full time and college boy home occasionally. And it includes household supplies and some pet supplies (two cats and a dog). The dog gets home-cooked food but doesn't eat a lot. But I don't buy things like protein powder or bars since we prefer less processed, more "real" food. IDK which is more expensive.

Machka9

Never really paid much attention ... maybe $200-$250 a week? That's for the two of us, my husband and me here in Tasmania.

And that's not counting eating in restaurants a couple times a month.

EleeseahM

$350 a month as of now. I will admit i buy a lot of junk food and freezer meals. Stuff that goes quickly but adds up. I will no longer be buying animal products or junk as of next week. I feel like ill cut that in half.

Kullerva

I live blissfully alone and usually spend under $200 on food and necessities (laundry soap, cleaning supplies, etc.) I bought myself a BIG protein powder jar a few months ago and still have over half of it. I only use it if I've had an insanely difficult workout or if I'm in danger of not hitting my protein goal. Even though the only meat I eat now is fish, I never have any problems getting the protein I need. I'd say protein powder is a "nice to have" thing, not a necessity (unless you're bulking heavily--then it probably is.)

Diesyable

It does depend mostly on where you live, what you are buying, and what stores you shop at.

Our household spends about $200-$300 a week on food on average for 5 people. This is getting a good portion of our stuff on sale, price-matching when available, and non-organic produce. Living in Canada, a good chunk of our produce is imported, especially during winter and early spring as we typically have a short growing season. A package of frozen fruit is usually about $9-12, for a 1 kg bag. On average we spend about $50-$100 on produce a week which is almost half of our food budget, and it is not a whole lot. Meat is typically what gets us the most, when we find it on sale we buy a lot at once, separate it, and vacuum package it. Pork is one of the cheapest for us we have noticed, with the exception of bacon which is usually around $6 for a single package if it is not on sale. Though we love chicken breast, a package of 4 is usually around $12 which can add up real fast. I was going to buy a whole chicken the other day until I saw they were around $15 depending on the weight, which I thought was absurd, especially considering it wasn't even grass fed or free range . Turkey is another thrifty one as well if you can get it for under $1 a pound. Usually those sales only happen around Christmas, thanksgiving, and Easter, but if you can spare the freezer space it is worth it. Though if you do live in an area where your hydro is expensive during the day time I don't really know how that factors in with the oven running for that long. I don't know how much of an issue hydro is for other places in the world, I know ours is around $350 per month (with gas heating in the winter time).