How much do you spend on food?
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We usually spend about $300/month on groceries (including cleaning supplies). This topic made me curious, so I checked and last year we spent about $800/month on food, including groceries, fast food, and restaurants/bars.
It is usually just my husband and I, but restaurant spending can include other people. We live in Texas.0 -
6 ppl here near chicago. I spend $100-$125 per person, per month. Between $600-$800/month and it includes all household items, health and beauty items and b/l/d for all 6 of us.0
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I know this will vary greatly depending on lifestyle, household size, and where you live, but I'm curious to see how much other people are spending on food. Really, I'm trying to figure out if I'm spending a ridiculous amount of money. I'm trying to reel in our budget in other areas, and I'm wondering if I should start slashing the food budget as well.
I live in New England and am feeding just myself and my husband. At this point, we would be considered middle aged. I cook nearly every night, so we don't eat out too much. Breakfasts are eaten at home before work, and lunch is packed and taken to work, generally left overs from the previous night's dinner. We do occasionally buy lunch instead of brown bagging it, and order the occasional take out, but it's pretty minimal.
Since I do the majority of the cooking, I'm also doing the food planning and grocery shopping. I spend, on average, about $150 - $175/week. This comes out to $600 - $700/month. I have on occasion gone over $200 for a week's grocery trip. Likewise, I sometimes come in at the low $100's, and one miraculous week I managed to keep us just below $100 (I think it was something like $98 and change, so not much below). This cost does include toiletries and other non-food stuff I pick up at the supermarket.
Does this sound normal? What are others spending?
If I could spend $200/month (not including toiletries) on myself eating some organic produce and all humanely raised meat and dairy, I think there's room in your budget for cutting. Here are the first few things that come to mind.
1. What are you doing for protein? Assuming you're an omnivore, chicken is the cheapest, especially when whole, bone-in/skin-on, and/or dark.
2. How much convenience food do you buy vs making from scratch?
3. What do you drink?
4. If you eat cereal, boxed cereal is way more expensive than something like rolled oats.0 -
Now I feel ridiculous, lol. I spend around $150 a week just for myself. I shop at Kroger and only buy organic, humanely raised meat, and no processed foods. But I am new to this. I don't eat out at all though.0
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strong_curves wrote: »Family of 4, we spend between $200-$250 a week including toiletries/cleaning stuff. About 90% of our meals are home cooked, we all pack lunch and breakfast. The majority of the foods we buy are fresh, we don't do a lot of canned and frozen. The foods that cost the most for us are the meats/fish. We like good steaks, salmon & shrimp. We do eat a lot of chicken, good thing chicken is cheap. I feel like we spend a lot but I have no idea how to lower our food bill and still eat the foods we like to eat.
@strong_curves : same here!
Perishable goods have gotten very expensive. And just like our larger society, the middle is being chipped away. There are two 'classes' of groceries now, we try to buy the better, more humane, organic & grass fed options; the dollar stores springing up have cheap food options but some of those are downright scary. We eat the same ratio of our meals from home. There are three of us & a college age daughter who visits. I can't get it below $200 a week even when I'm super careful.0 -
Usually get the family value pack of meat at the local butcher shop, which costs less. Super market for everything else, I spend 30-70 a week depending on what I need.0
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I spend about $60-$80 for myself. I shop at Trader Joes & Safeway and live in MD. There are things I don't skimp on, like Fage Greek Yogurt which I consume everyday. And quest bars a few times a week.0
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It's hard to say what we spend because out of my husband's paycheck, we use exactly $150.00 every two weeks. We are a family of seven and live in Idaho.
But really that's not our true grocery budget because we use about $500 out of our tax returns for the fall case-lot sale at our local grocery store, so stock up in addition to my paychecks (I sub, so not a lot of money and not consistent but it helps) plus I allow an extra hundred every two weeks from our savings during the summer when I'm not subbing.
Clear as mud?
We probably average a little over $400 every two weeks for our family. When money is tight I do use only $40-50 a week for fresh produce and we utilize the extra I buy during the case-lot sale.0 -
Family of 5, 3 teens, average $600/month on food. We have some dietary issues. I bake a lot from scratch, shop Meijer, Aldi, Sam's & Fresh Thyme, buy on sale & stock up, also garden in the summer & can/freeze stuff, including saving bones to make & pressure can broth. We rarely eat out.0
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Easily 1000 a month for a family of 5 (three boys with voracious appetites)
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Between me, my husband; and my daughter (the biggest eater) in New England we can easily spend $100 per week. I basically budget $400/mo and spend that on mainly Aldi or Asian groceries. We make most of our own foods and rarely eat out. We also grow herbs indoors. If we do meat, it's usually chicken, rarely beef, but we also like differs meats like tongue or we go to butchers to get rabbit etc.0
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We spent $110 this week for 3 people. We $100- $150 each week for food is normal for us.
We eat all our meals from home except one meal a week. We do eat meat but eat beef rarely now. We eat meatless meals several times a week. We do not buy organic stuff or do couponing.0 -
Usually about $75-$120 per week for me.0
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I also spend around $60-80 for one person per week. I do not buy meat, though.0
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We're in the Bay Area, so spendy living here, but I spend approximately $100 a week on groceries (that's just food, not staples like shampoo, dish soap, etc) + we get an organic food box delivered every two weeks at $25.00 a box, and so far that box has been very worth that money. Once a month, I'll drop $50 on meat that I freeze, and I just watch the stores for the best sales deals on boneless skinless chicken breast, etc.
Oh, and in the summer, I grow my own zucchini, tomatoes, beans and peas, etc. Took a bit of investment initially to get the soil built up, but it was worth it.0 -
I'm feeding only myself and I live in California. I average about $60-90/week including toiletries. The higher weeks are when I have to restock on protein items (either powder or bars) or am cooking for a group of people. I cook pretty much all of my meals - I eat out only a couple of times per month.0
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I live in Alabama and spend between $150 and $175 every two weeks on what I need to make my planned meals. The caveat is that I buy meat in bulk whenever possible so that's often not included in my budget. I buy boneless/skinless chicken breasts in 40lb cases every 3-4 months and there is one local grocery store that will run one-day specials on large cuts of other meats. For example, I bought a 15lb sirloin tip roast for less than $2.50/lb and then brought it home and cut it down into stew meat chunks/ground beef myself. I am off work every other Friday, which happens to be my normal grocery shopping day anyway, so I'll hit the store early to score the manager's special meat that's been marked down. Then I plan the next round of meals around what I know is in the freezer.0
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I'd say for two of us we spend between 75-150 a week, and hubby takes lunches 50% of the time. We aren't huge eaters tho, and most of our groceries consist of veg, fruit and meat. I like to buy large family packs of chops and chicken, then split them up and freeze them, making it easier to go the odd week without needing to do groceries. Once it's warm enough, I grow most of our veggies, which really drops the grocery bill in the summer.0
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It is just me and my husband in chicago area. If we don't plan out our meals ahead of time, we spend around 120-150 a week. A lot goes to waste then though because we end up not using some of it or it goes bad too fast to figure out what to do.
Since we have started planning meals, it has gone down to 80-100 a week, and the 100 is for weeks we are buying more non-food items like ziplocs, tp, paper towels, etc. We have started just doubling our dinner recipes to take with for lunch the next day, so we are able to buy things a little more in bulk or at the very least use all of what we buy.
That doesn't include eating out though. Usually we will go out to dinner once every two weeks and the other weeks we will order in one day.0 -
Northeast US as well, but too far south for Hannaford unfortunately
For myself and (human garage disposal of a) boyfriend we average $180 per week. I also give away a main dish every two weeks or so to my parents.
Once every two months we will stock up on meat at the local butcher, which offsets the cost of a trip to Whole Foods every two months. I would say that one out of every 6 produce items we buy are organic (for example this time of year the organic oranges taste better). I only buy antibiotic free chicken and wild caught fish, but wait for a sale a Big Y to stock up on those. Few convenience foods, maybe 10% of our overall purchases on a 'naughty' trip.
We eat out 2 times a week (one lunch and one dinner) and probably average $400 per month on that.0
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