How much do you spend on food?

larose05

I have been tring to eat all good food and its going well but man I feel like I'm spending a lot of money on food every week. How much do you normaly spend on food for a week or a month? Thanks for the help

brraanndi

Check this out, some people are spending a crazy amount -
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1092660-how-much-are-you-spending-in-groceries?hl=grocery#posts-16888115

jennaworksout

we spend about $800 for 2 people a month ....insane , we may eat out 1- 2 times a month, rather cook myself so I know what i'm eating

RoyBeck

The cost of food here in England is getting so expensive. Dread to think what I'm spending tbh.

iechick

We have a grocery budget of $90 a week/360 a month for a family of five, which includes packed school lunches for three kids Monday-Friday. That does not include eating out once a weekend (we spend around $20 for that meal)

michellechawner

i spend about 200-250 a month for just me.

And the cat is $40 a month (Prescription food, renal failure).

keem88

it varies a little but generally it is the same. i shop for my boo and i, mostly vegetarian foods but i do buy chicken and sausage for him since he likes meat in his mouth

i used to just shop at shoprite and do shop at home since i can shop by all the sales and unit prices right in front of me, generally that is anywhere from $165-$200, depending if i need feminine items, hygeine stuff, tp etc. if it's just food it is closer to $165 for the monthly shop. i do go back to the store about 3x a month for produce (about $10-$15 per stop, i stock up on frozen veg so usually i just get lettuce, mushrooms, zucchini, cucumber, peppers, pears, grapes, apples, bananas) - potatos and onions i get the 5lb bag at once and store them in a dark cool spot that way they last, much cheaper. also go back a couple times for more bread, milk and eggs (about $14 per visit). overall for the month, about $240-$250 for 2 people.

recently i shop now between shoprite and save a lot, and i have 2 coupon apps where i can email them and print them, as well as coupons from the paper and the ones printed out at the store. save a lot is awesome if there is one near you, bananas are 49 cents a pound, huge watermelons are 3.99, a gallon of milk is 2.99 and name brand cereal is 1.79 a box so i get stuff like that there, then do the rest at shoprite. some people i know have huge bills, i find that if i go to the store more frequently i do spend more, which is why i generally just buy everything at once, except to go back for produce, milk eggs and bread.

emmalzthompson

Im terrible at this, its just me and my four yr old, and i spend about £70-£80 a week on the two of us, not taking into consideration lunchs out ..... I plan my meals but need to learn how to plan them and in-corporate foods i use for one meal into another meal I.E : If I buy a load of broad beans but only use them in one meal that week, they go to waste!

sunfirelynn

I spend any where from $80.00 to a $100.00 a week...

threesixten

Way way way too much. It's pretty much food/entertainment budget wrapped into 1.

Joehenny

1500 a month. Protein is expensive.

CaliforniaBarbie

We budget around $400 for the month, about $100 per week, sometimes we hit 450 sometimes barely 200 it normally depends on what my husband wants, when i lived alone i found that i didnt even go food shopping every month it would be like 2 months later and i would be like "man i havent been to the store in forever" but i kinda have to feed my man, i do all the shopping if it was up to him he would buy useless things that would cost an arm and a leg.

TinaBaily

I'm feeding a family of 4; 2 adults, an 18 yr old male and a 15 yr old girl. I do all the shopping and all the cooking, and we average $365/month on groceries (only edible food, not toiletries/paper goods/cleaning supplies) and about $200/month, give or take, on eating out. I shop the sales, stocking up on often used items when the prices are rock bottom, and we are lucky to have Bountiful Baskets in our area for our fruits and vegetables. (You can learn more about them at bountifulbaskets.org, if you're interested. They save me a lot of money and inspire me to cook with more vegetables than I did before starting to use them.)

ETA: I'm quite good at stretching meat for my family so that we get protein, but just enough, and everyone is satisfied. For example, I can get 3 or 4 MEALS out of a single chicken:

1st) roasted chicken, with each of us having a single piece of meat (1 breast, 1 drumstick, 1 thigh...)
2nd) casserole of some kind with chicken in it, either using beans, rice or noodles as a base
3rd & 4th, etc...) use the picked over carcass and the neck (I always save my poultry necks), make a big pot of chicken broth with it, debone the broth, holding onto the meat, and turn some of the broth into chicken soup. I use empty cottage cheese and sour cream containers to freeze 2 cup portions of chicken broth for making soup and adding to recipes. It is healthier, tastier, and has as little sodium in it as possible.

I buy beans from the bulk bins at my grocery store, and rice in 20lbs or larger bags. These types of purchases, if these are items you use frequently, will help you stretch your grocery money.

I_mustacheU4pancakes

1500 a month. Protein is expensive.

Im guessing that includes an entire baby calf
at the start of each month. Or whey protein dipped in gold flakes?

NoAdditives

My family of 6 (weight lifting dad, breast feeding mom, almost 5 year old, 3 1/2 year old, 1 1/2 year old, 1 month old) spends about $150 a week. We eat mainly organic food and I cook most of our meals from scratch.

ETA: we don't buy much meat since my husband is a hunter.

SuperSexyDork

We spend about $400-500 a month on food for a family of 4 (excluding eating out which isn't a regular occurance and pet food).

I'm super careful about planning for it though. I go through the sales ads and plan meals out for the week based on what I have on hand and what's on sale. I also buy extra of things that will keep when they're on sale, as long as they're things that I normally use. For example, I buy meat in bulk when it's on sale (like chicken breasts this week for $1.88/lb or London Broil 2 weeks ago for $2.49/lb), separate it into what would normally be enough for a meal, and freeze it.

bridgie101

NZ$ probably don't mean much to you lot. I and my daughter attempt to come in under $80 at the mo. This involves a lot of stirfry. And we're both on diets so not ploughing through the bread/peanut butter the way we otherwise might.

Veges are dear, but they're cheaper than meat. If you fill a stirfry with the cheapest vege in the supermarket you can get a lot of goodies into you without it costing toooo much. Another trick I use for stirfries is to scramble about 1 - 1/2 eggs each, pour in a tiny bit of ketjap manis and make a very quick kind of omelette in a non-stick pan. Then I cut that into slices and throw it in the stirfry. It's extra protein, extra bulk and extra flavour.

Symonep

I'm in Australia and I spend about $1500 a month on groceries for a family of 6

NoAdditives

1500 a month. Protein is expensive.

I sure hope you added an extra 0. If not, I can't imagine how one person could spend the that much on food.

cwolfman13

About $150 - $200 per week (2 adults and 2 kids)...sometimes it's a bit more if we're doing a big re-stock of the meat locker, particularly if we're needing to buy fish.

IMHO, it actually seems like more because we're plopping it down all at once...but when I actually look at the budget, we actually spent more before eating out the way we were and hitting the grocery store multiple times per week due to not planning meals. We rarely eat out at restaurants (only when someone watches the kiddos) and shop for the whole week save for a couple odds and ends that we usually forget. Ultimately, eating "better" has saved us money. A lot of it's just perception.

MrsFowler1069

Depends partly on what all is available. Right now, with two adults in the house, eating very little meat, getting a huge amount of free produce from my friend's big garden - right around $225-250 per month. When we have to start buying produce again for the season, it will obviously go up $50-100 or so monthly.

Last Winter, with four adults in the house and only my husband and I working....I could feed everyone all month on about $350, cooking almost everything from scratch, but there was also a lot of "filler" - rice, pasta, bread, and potatoes, etc! Not really ideal, but no one went to bed hungry. We barely eat that stuff at all now because we just don't love it and we have better choices available. When things are tight, I also make more soups, chilis, casseroles, etc.

Luckily, we have a Winco, which is really cheap for food items, and am able to make good use of their bulk bins for almost every "dry goods" item and spice. In addition to our staple items from produce, most of what I buy is seasonally cheap or on sale. We work in the garden and bring home bags of veggies every week. I'm not much of a coupon clipper, but I do try to shop smart. Not using a lot of meat really keeps the bill down, too - although I know that's not a workable option for everyone.

We also utilize the day-old bread store - the loaves that are $3-4 in the store are 5 for $5 there, sometimes even less. I try not to go to the store more than necessary - usually just one big trip per month and then once per week or so for fresh items. I have an upright freezer so when we buy a bunch of bread or when meat is on a really good sale price, I have the opportunity to stock up a bit. I'm grateful for that.