How much do you spend on food per week?

honestlysweet

Starting with my trip to the grocery store on Tuesday, I kept tabs on how much I spend on groceries and eating out and so far, including Tuesday, Wed, Thurs and today, I have spend $208. This is stupid. We only went out twice. Once to BWW and once to McDonalds (BWW had a Blackened chicken salad-big mistake, it had 700 calories).

So I will probably spend another fifty or so before Monday, making my seven day week a total of about $260. I have a husband and grown son. They eat a lot.

Are groceries costing you more than the rent/mortgage? It is for me!

Cindym82

My boyfriend and I buy in bulk for A LOT of things to keep down cost. So our meats will cost about $150 for the month and than I get a lot of frozen fruits and veggies to last longer and we pick up a lot of sale items and stock up. It's very expensive though

LizKurz

We spend about $800 a month in groceries for a family of six, though our children are small.

Our mortgage is just over $800.

It is not at all uncommon in other countries for your food bill to be the higest bill you have, bu that's because they tend to eat better, and have less crap, including smaller living spaces, which cost less to own, heat, light, etc.

emmamcblain

Too much...

(Not grocery shopping per say, but it's still ridiculous/unneeded amounts.)

PrincessLou71186

I never tallied up our total food cost. Hubby works in a restaurant and eats dinner there five times a week so it's not as high as it could be.

Hmmm. I shall start looking into that more.

ashleab37

Before I started budgeting it closely, it was around the $300 a week mark for myself and my partner eats abut half of his meals here.

Now that I'm budgeting it closely, it's down to around $150 a week.

Fresh food is EXPENSIVE here. These numbers don't include takeout, either.

nursenessa1

75-100 per week for 2 adults

lschuttem

for myself if i pick up a lot of fresh fruit i can spend around $150 a week on myself...im new at shopping lol, i live at my parents most of the year, so im still learning how to shop...but its an expensive lesson for sure!

LenaMena87

Since my hubby is deployed it's just me and my son and I spend about $75 a week! Thank God for the commissary!!!!!!!!!!!

Celeigh12

About $100 - $125 a week for just me. The veggies are fairly cheap for what you get and I don't eat a ton of meat, but I splurge on my fresh berries, nuts, and yogurt/cheese. I don't eat much from the middle aisles of the store. Sometimes I never go into them.

pat6250

I spend about a hundred a week, but I shop mostly at Aldis, and I cook most things from scratch. That includes a weekly bottle of wine, but if we need beer, hubby gets it. There are 3 in our household. And we don't mind eating leftovers. When my son was at home and playing football, I practically trucked food in. But we were never big on brand names or convenience foods. Cleaning supplies are separate. I don't buy toiletries of cleaning supplies at supermarkets, because the convenience costs extra. And we use a lot of produce, and I clean and prepare it. It's cheaper that way.

dicoveringwhoIam

I do a lot of canning and freezing.. We are a family of 6.. We spend 300 every 2 weeks.. I meal plan and am able on that budget to cook healthy meals for my family..

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

Just me, 1 person, 150-200 a week.

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

260 for 3 people is not a lot..that's less than 90 a person. quite decent. 13 bucks a day...that's as much as you'd spend on crappy fast food.

honestlysweet

I do a lot of canning and freezing.. We are a family of 6.. We spend 300 every 2 weeks.. I meal plan and am able on that budget to cook healthy meals for my family..

Wow! You must really know a lot about budgeting! I don't know how you do it... I work full time and usually pick up ingredients for a couple days food every other day. I am used to doing that instead of shopping every week. I was raised by a French mother (raised in USA) and the French tend to go to the market every day and buy everything fresh, so I am sort of used to doing that. But I think I buy more than I need to that way, and maybe I could go less often and plan better.

badmediakarma

2 people - approximately $100 a week on groceries (we buy one thing from the middle aisles, everything else is on the perimeter and fresh, organic where possible)

Eating out is a whole different story... we eat out a lot, less than we used to but still too much. We probably spend $200 or so eating out every week. Working on cutting that down.

JoJo_fat2fab

I never tallied up our total food cost. Hubby works in a restaurant and eats dinner there five times a week so it's not as high as it could be.

Hmmm. I shall start looking into that more.

Same here, hubby eats at his job breakfast and lunch, only eats dinner at home. Our son is still a baby, so most of the food shopping is only for myself. I should start doing the math.

hesn92

Not sure... About $50 to $75 per week? For me and four year old who doesn't eat much.

sbrBirdy

Family of 5 here. We rarely go out to eat, and I cook most foods with fresh ingredients - very little boxed stuff. Our bill is typically $275 to $300 per week.

msbanana

I feed my boyfriend and myself for between $50-$80/week. This doesn't include any meals HE may chose to eat out and the occassional dinner and drinks. I don't figure those into my food budget- that's the "extras" fund (out to the bar, dinner, movies, etc...).

I keep our cost down by buying in bulk and getting "family packs" of meat. I don't shop at your average grocer, I try to shop places like Market Place and Winco as they have better deals and I don't necessarily have to by the 1000 pack and have it go bad before we use it. I don't really buy processed food either which helps with the cost. My cart is typically 2-3 cuts of meat in a large pack 12-36 pack of eggs, a crap load of fruits and veggies (fresh and frozen based on season and what's on sale), some coconut or almond milk and bulk nuts and dried fruit.

Planning out my meals really helps me cut down on cost as well. If I have a game plan when I go to the store I can easily grab what I need and get out before I start wandering aimlessly down aisles buying whatever floats my boat.

I then get home from shopping and pretty much spend the entire day prepping and cooking for the week so if I feel lazy I don't have a cop out. I'll make to go breakfasts, put together snack bags (nuts, dried fruit, almond butter bars that I make from scratch), preslice veggies and baggie them and then get the meats ready for cooking. Every dinner I make sure to cook an extra piece of meat each so we can take that for lunch the next day...

If you're curious this what an average week looks like:

Breakfast: Egg Muffin Cup
Snack: Handful of nut and a tangerine
Lunch: Leftover Chicken Breast and veggies from the night before
Snack: If hungry (grapes and a spoon of almond butter or sliced bell pepper half an avacado)
Dinner: Crockpot chicken stuffed in a roasted poblano pepper and veggies

Breakfast: Egg Muffin Cup
Snack: If hungry Cavewoman Crunch bar (homemade protien bar)
Lunch: Left over stuffed poblano pepper
Snack: Handful of nuts or sliced bell pepper and the other half of that avacado
Dinner: Pulled Pork with fresh cut sweet potato fries and steamed veg

You get the idea...

susannamarie

$40. Maybe +$10 if I go to dinner with friends.

I put two twenties in my wallet each week and that's what I have to spend at the grocery. Can't wait to get a real job. Fortunately the local groceries have occasional meat sales where I fill my freezer, and whenever I visit my mother I pick up bulk things like oatmeal. Means I don't get a lot of variety, but what the hey. It's only another year.