How much do you spend on groceries per month?

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xjackie83
xjackie83 Posts: 23 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I read a lot of personal finance blogs. Maybe it's a problem I have, but I just love reading how other people spend their money. It seems like with a lot of the blogs I read, if it's only 1-2 people they spend around $100-$200 on groceries. I've been trying to widdle away at my grocery budget. Between myself and my husband we spend around $300/month. We really try to limit eating out to maybe 1-2 times a week so nearly all our meals are made at home. On average, our 90 meals a month (3 meals a day, 30 days a month) we only spend $3.33/per meal.

Still, I wonder if we're overspending. How much do you spend on groceries?

Edited to add: Since I love financial blogs so much, maybe I'll love fitness blogs too. Please link up your favorites!

Replies

  • LittleMissDover
    LittleMissDover Posts: 820 Member
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    £240 ($361) a month on 1 adult, 3 children for 4 days a week and 2 adults 4 children the other 3 days.
  • tommygirl15
    tommygirl15 Posts: 1,012 Member
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    300 dollars for two people sounds pretty reasonable. I'm single and I spend anywhere from 150-250 a month. I buy mostly organic so I spend a bit more than the average person.
  • capnlizard
    capnlizard Posts: 73 Member
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    I spend an obscene amount of money on groceries each week, mainly because my husband eats a TON. He spends a solid two hours at the gym (minimum 30 minutes of running, hour of racquetball, followed by an hour to an hour and a half of lifting, kettle-bells, etc), so he burns through a lot of calories in a given day. We both eat breakfast and dinner at home almost every night (occasionally we will do subs or salads from the sub shop, but we live in a really rural area, so there aren't a lot of restaurant options), and we both bring lunch and snacks to work with us every day. I would say that I probably spend between $100-150 per week on groceries, sometimes even a bit more:noway: . Because we eat mainly protein and produce, I have been trying to be better about buying lean meats when they are on sale and buying produce that is in season, which has been bring down costs significantly. I was also diagnosed with a dairy allergy a few months ago (not lactose intolerance, that would have been WAY easier), and I initially went a little nuts experimenting with all kinds of expensive and highly process substitutions for dairy, before realizing that I didn't need anything other than vegan yogurt and almond milk.

    Since we are both more into staying in than going out, and frankly, we don't feel like driving so far to go to a movie, neither the hubbs nor I have much of a problem spending a bit more on food. We would rather cook for ourselves and have friends over for dinner on the weekends, so our grocery budget most likely balances out other expenses.
  • now_or_never13
    now_or_never13 Posts: 1,575 Member
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    My husband and I tend to spend anywhere between $35 and $75 a week on our groceries. That does include household supplies... so toilet paper, paper towels, water softener salt when needed, laundry stuff, etc. This is to feed two adults and one dog.

    We don't buy much meat anymore as my husband is the only one who eats it so that helps keep the budget down a bit. Every few weeks I do buy a tub of protein powder though. We have a few veggies and fruits that we buy each time we go shopping however we try to buy what's on sale. I got spaghetti squash last week for example because it was on sale. $3 and it gave two large dinners along with one lunch (I mix it with spaghetti and some other veggies). We try not to buy a lot of processed foods but when we do we also go for the cheaper brand.

    Some weeks we spend a bit more than normal if something is on a really good sale. Eggs were recently half price so we bought three cartons. When a store was closing recently we spent about $60 but got 6 large containers of coffee, enough soup/Chunky/Chef Boyardee to last my husband a few months for lunches, a ton of garbage bags, laundry soap, etc so that has saved us a ton of money recently. Every few weeks we go to Costco as well and spend about $60 depending on what we buy.

    For us $300 would be too much. I would say on average we spend no more than $200 a month on groceries and household supplies.

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