Possibly off topic - food budget survey question

My husband and I average $80/week which is approximately $320/month on food. We buy most of our packaged food like cereal and pasta at Target and use coupons whenever possible. We buy the fresh food at Sprouts and try to find things that are on sale or avoid items which have gotten really expensive. This does not include eating dinner out once a week.

Ah, I had never seen those charts before either. My fiance and I are on the "liberal" plan. But we live in the suburbs outside Atlanta (fairly cheap part of the country as it goes) and both make comfortable incomes so we shop for dry goods mostly at Whole Foods and dairy/produce at Publix. (We don't buy meat. My fiance is not vegetarian, I am, and he might eat some chicken or something when we go out but that is about the extent of it.) Every now and then we get a box from the Purple Carrot but it is hard to fit those meals into my calorie goals so that is rare.

We are lately buying a lot of Kind bars and Quest protein bars and those are not cheap but we have found Target.com to have a good selection of the low-sugar Kind bars for a better price than local stores (free shipping at $25 right now) and Drugstore.com has cash back you can use like once a quarter so that is where we usually buy Quest bars. (Plus use Ebates for both sites!) Also I get a lot of subscription boxes so I am usually well-supplied with sample packets of protein powder/preworkout drinks/BCAA supplements and I almost never have to buy them separately.

So, I don't really have any advice on saving money except if you can find an international market nearby, they often have good produce, sometimes exotic stuff, for not much money if you don't mind picking through it for a little longer and if you are going to use it within a few days. When I was in grad school and on a juicing kick, a little Korean market saved me $$$.

oh wow, that's hard to say. i have 3 children (21, 19 and 7) plus a husband and myself. i would guess that i spend about $100 every few days. average, perhaps $800/mo. i buy protein powder from walmart, it's the cheapest there.

We spend about $300/m (me and 2 kids (4 and 5), but their mother and I share custody, so they are with me 2 weeks a month). We seem to be in between thrifty and low cost. However, I don't purchase any supplements or protein powders.

I spend maybe $100 - $120 week for me and my boyfriend but this includes everything including paper goods, cleaning supplies, and food and litter for our cats. They finally accept cards at Aldi now so I'm doing a lot of produce shopping there. Otherwise I do Target + cartwheel awesomeness. We meal plan which is super important for keeping your food budget down.

My s/o and I are both strict budgeters, so we're not the norm but.. about $30/wk for the two of us? Of course that doesn't count if we need something extra that week, like a new tin of coffee, or whatever. But that's our base.

I am a vegetarian and try to eat gluten free as well. Me and my wife spend probably about 200 a month.

Large family checking in. I don't have a specific "food" category, it includes groceries, household items, pet care and stuff, that runs us about 1,400 a month for between 6-8 people, depending on the time of year. Not limiting what we buy. In times of low money i have fed 6 for $50/week but it's not sustainable forever, at some point you have to buy olive oil and spices, and fruit.

Oh I wish. In my home there are 3 teenagers, a very physically demanding job of being a roofer (he eats about 3500-5000 calories a day) and me who trains 6-7 days a week. We spend approximately $1000.00 monthly. Goes fast but we stick to mostly clean /non processed foods.

Amerane wrote: »

Apparently I'm below thrifty...for one person, I spend about $35/week on groceries with individual weeks running anywhere from $17 (this week) to $50. All in all, it's right about $140/month.

That's amazing! I spend that much on fruit alone

$800 to $900 a month. I'm eating better which equates to more fruit, veg and protein, plus a construction worker husband, a teenager and when he's home from college, my 20 year old and his girlfriend! This figure doesn't include any extra I buy in the way of protein shakes, bars or a salad for dinner when I don't eat what I'm making for them.

I have 4 in our household right now, and I'm pregnant with our 3rd child. We usually spend about $500 every month on groceries, but the "grocery budget" also includes diapers, pull-ups, wipes, ect...
I will say, for good, pure protein, it will be expensive. My hubby and I just spent about $600 on protein powder, bars, pre workout and other things. The good thing is is that it should last us about 4 months!
Anyways, that's where we factor in! We also just got stationed in Italy with the military and have only been able to shop on the base commissary, which is a bit more expensive...
At home, I was able to shop at Kroger and use their BOGO's, then I'd only spend about $300 a month!

Household of 7, blended family. Hubs has a physically demanding job, I'm very active and pregnant, we have full custody of his twins (14), and my kids half of the week (13, 10, and 8). During the school year, I spend between $120 and $160 a week on groceries, and during school breaks this easily becomes closer to $200-$250. I meal plan, which makes a big difference. I'm a big fan of budgetbytes.com - she has some great recipes.