Grocery Bill

I found this online:


"The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the average American spent $6,443 annually food." (this was from 2009)
http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/budgeting/average-american-grocery-bill.htm

If you divide that number by 12 months and then multiply by 2.5 (number of people in your family) it'd work out to be about $1342 per month for an average American family the size of yours. Seems a bit high to me but the cost of living is alot higher in other parts of the country so that may contribute to it.

I checked and my husband and I spend about $700 a month on food/groceries. (this includes eating out) We don't have kids yet. We live in Indiana. If we had a child to feed I don't think it would be unrealistic to add another $200-300 a month. So what your spending seems pretty normal to me...

Hope this helps!

I shop for a family of 5 (3 of them kids ages 5, 3, and 2) and in the past year spend on average $350/month. This includes food, cleaning items, paper products, personal care items, toiletries, etc.

I use coupons and combine my coupons with sale items. I live in Virginia.

I spend about $600-700/month for a family of 4 1/2: Myself, Hubby, 6 year old, my elderly mother and my unborn child.


It helps to shop on a weekly basis and shop the sales at your preferred Grocer. Also... coupons. It's worth it. I saved like $35 last week alone in coupons. Maybe that doesn't seem like alot, but when you add it up, it begins to accumulate. Even if you only save like $2-3, it'll start to snowball.

Goodness, when I first read this i thought you said $100 and I was sitting here like "HOW." Growing up my family only spent ~$400 on groceries which is ~$580 adjusting for inflation.

However, you're in SoCal and with the drought, food prices are rising. Honestly,you'd get a better idea if you asked your friends and neighbors or other people in SoCal. Because the cost of groceries is very dependent upon area. What I spend in Pittsburgh is much different than my sister in Virginia and my friends in NYC.

We spend an average of $2600 per month on food for the 4 of us. (Baby not included, he's BF) About $2000 of that is spent on groceries, the rest is at restaurants/take away food, we typically eat or order out once a week. I live in NY.

WOW!!!

A little off topic, but I got our monthly grocery bill down a lot when I stopped buying paper towels and napkins like crazy each week. The boy of the house would use so much so I spent like $20 on cloth napkins and it saves us a lot of money. (And it's not that much extra work.) Stuff like that adds up and could be better spent on food - or better yet, beer!

NJ... $700-800 or so for 4 (two 6yo kids).

we spend about 1600 a month on food. My husband myself, a 12 year old, 9 year old, 1 year old, and 4 month old. So this includes formula. This does NOT include bathroom stuff (toothpaste, makeup, shampoo), cleaning supplies, petfood, or diapers. I get all that somewhere else and doesn't figure into my grocery bill. I don't cut coupons or anything resembling cutting coupons. If it's on sale great, if it's not, oh well I need it anyway. We shop at Trader Joes, Safeway, and Costco. We're in Northern Cali

5-700$ for two of us, depends on sales. East coast of Canada

I *easily* spend at least $400/month on myself here, in Southern Ontario.

We spend around $300/month for two adults and a small dog and 5 cats....oh! and my 15 yo son who is here every other weekend. This is for all foods,paper products, laundry & toiletries (which we also supply to our two daughters away at college) etc BUT I am a stay at home wife and I have the time to coupon and comparison shop. We are pretty average....I do make all of our meals at home each week except two-- one we eat out and the other we take a 'picnic' packed lunch. We do try to minimize processed foods, but are not brand specific on most things. If it can be made from scratch I will usually do that to avoid many of the boxed and frozen items. He is a server and eats "free" at his job for 5 of his lunches each week which is a help as well.

i'm single, i spend around £35 to £50 a month tops, roughly $50 to $75
near manchester england

I am in the SF bay area with my husband and daughter (6 years olf )and my food bill is about $1000 a month. If I am cooking at home a lot then it is $250 a week at the cheepo warehouse grocery store. If I am eating out, I tend to spend about the same amount a week.... my electric bill is just lower. This does NOT include household items like dish soap, laundry detergent, Kleenex, trash bags cat food/litter or the like.

Hello there! I know I have asked this before but I just did our numbers and we are spending about $1000 a month in groceries!! To me for a family of three (Wife, Husband, and 4 year old). This includes food, household items, and beer typically. So its all! Oh and we are in Southern California. So is this average or above average???

That sounds about right. I also live in Southern California. It's me, SO, his mom and my 21 year old daughter spend about that for food and household items. (no beer)

It's just my husband and I, and I don't consider dining out or toiletries/HBA items to be a part of our grocery bill. But we only spend around $200-250/month on groceries and that does include alcohol. We don't dine out a ton, but at least weekly...so if including the meals out we're still WAY under $400 per month for the two of us. Probably around $300-350 (total including restaurant meals) most months.

I think it helps that we favor store brands/generic and fresh foods like produce, staples such as rice/lentils/etc, nuts in bulk, and we don't buy meat and stick to frozen seafood most of the time. Neither of us are big snackers. But we DO have our moments...every month our groceries include prepared vegetarian patties/bacon/etc, nicer chocolate, noosa yogurt, and other items that are NOT store brands or necessities.

I'm sure a big part of it is the area I live in (Mid-South) having a really low cost of living...but when I travel and happen to check out grocery stores, I RARELY find prices that shocking so I don't know...I really think I'm just a frugal shopper to be honest. I used to be married to a different man who was morbidly obese, as was I, and we bought tons of convenience foods and a lot of prepared and packaged stuff...and our grocery bill was NEVER over $300/month. I usually spent $100 on food every two weeks and that fed us as well as some bachelor friends who joined us for dinner at least 2-3 nights per week.

But I'll add the disclaimer that I'm so cheap to me spending more than $4-5 for twelve double rolls of toilet paper just makes me cringe, and I go through 1-2 rolls of paper towels in a YEAR, if that. I am a weirdo when it comes to spending money on recurring basics and I'm the first to admit it. For example I could never just grab some hair products in CVS for $12 when I know the same thing is $4.50 at Big Lots. This is true of me whether my bank account is ultra-flush or lacking, too. No change in my crazy ;-)