What does the average four-person family spend on food in a month? In a year? How much does a two-person household spend on food? How much does your family spend? How much of this is for groceries? How much for dining out? Do you make an effort to control food spending, or do you simply buy what you feel like? Do you use coupons? Do you grow your own food? I’m not so much looking for advice, but gathering anecdotes. I’m curious about general habits.
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251 Responses to “Survey: How Much Do You Spend on Food?”
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I believe my wife and I spend a lot on food. There are only two of us in the household, but we do entertain often. We generally have people over once or twice a week. We throw a large party every couple of months. (For example, we’ll have a fifty-person gathering on Independence Day.) We dine out about once a week. We eat well. Food is important to us.
I just ran some rough numbers, and it appears that we spend about $400/month on groceries (including household supplies like laundry detergent, etc.) and about $200/month dining out. That’s $600/month on food for a two-person household. That’s a lot of money, and obviously an area where we can try to save.
But, as I mentioned: food is important to us, and this is a luxury we’re not willing to forego completely.
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I seem to spend about $400 a month on groceries and it’s just for me!
I make my own bread and pizza dough.
I don’t buy junk food.
I don’t ever use coupons.
I don’t buy in bulk because I walk to the nearest grocery store about once a week (I live downtown in an expensive city).
I spend A LOT of money on steak and lamb and chicken and lots of cheese and fish and crab and lobster and juice and nuts and fresh fruits and vegetables (I drank 8 litres of Tropicana juice this week!)
When I was a broke student I got by eating $0.39 cent packs of Mr. Noodles and drinking tap water and working as a television and film extra for the free meals.
I think it’s time to find a balance somewhere in the middle..or get a raise
Food is one of my only luxery items and I too am not willing to forego it.
ps…I hope you keep this blog up..I am enjoying following along
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My two-person household used to spend $250/month on groceries and $100/month dining out.
My wife is now pregnant and our monthly groceries have increased to about $350/month.
We’re frugal in some ways (comparing prices, buying store brands, looking for good sale prices, cooking most of our food from scratch); but we don’t coupon-clip and we do buy a fair amount of organic produce. We don’t entertain much. We live in Seattle, and do almost all of our shopping at one store.
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My boyfriend and I have been living together over a year now, and I buy all the groceries while he pays for dinners out more often. It used to be the case that I’d buy a ton of food, maybe even expensive organic stuff, and we’d never eat it. We’d eat out probably 7x a week, which of course was very expensive. Now I’m making an effort to learn to cook more, and even when I don’t cook we find stuff around the house to fix for ourselves. I haven’t run the exact numbers yet, but I’m pretty sure we’re saving money on the whole, especially since I pack both our lunches all workweek. I’m focusing on buying more practical items that I know we’ll eat. I’m also making an effort to use coupons and store “value cards” and such, though we don’t get any real food coupons at this point because we don’t get the paper. I’m trying to figure out if it would be worth buying the paper just to be able to clip and use coupons… not sure about the math there.
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In our family of 4 (daughter-2, son-4, me-preggers, and husband), we spend $310 on food a month. That’s our budget, and it includes all toiletries. On top of that, we budget $70 a month for “entertainment” which includes eating out, movies, etc. I’d love to spend more on eating out, but there’s not much wiggle room in our finances.
Nevertheless, this budget allows for a lot of variety at the grocery store, because I can’t stand eating the same things over and over. We have fresh fish, good meats, and especially fresh veggies. No one’s complaining. I mostly buy what I feel like, but I try to watch sales here and there–not always. I don’t use coupons, and there are a few things I buy at the warehouse stores, such as cheese, diapers, soap, etc. These are still factored into the grocery budget.
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Elizabeth again–
I need to add that my husband gets free lunches at work, 6 days a week. I’m sure if that weren’t the case, our grocery bill would be higher. We also do not buy juice, which some parents think of as a necessity. We believe the kids are better off without it.
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I forgot to answer a couple of my own questions.
We do use coupons, and I’ll have a post about that someday. (I’ve been working on it for a month, and it hasn’t appeared, so I’m not promising anything soon.) My wife is a coupon master.
We also grow tons of our own food. That, too, will be the subject of a future entry. We grow fruits and berries and herbs and vegetables and flowers. I suppose we don’t save a ton on food, but we never have to buy strawberries or raspberries or, in the summer, tomoatoes…
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My wife and I spend $150-$200 on groceries each month, $50-$75 on eating out. We have a 10-month old, but I don’t think our numbers have changed drastically since his arrival. The extra grocery expenses probably balance out with eating at home more often.
We cut coupons, wait for sales when buying non-essentials, and stock up a bit when we see bargains. We don’t restrict ourselves, but we don’t go crazy either. Somewhere in between. With the baby, our eating out tends to be driven by convenience and fatigue rather than leisure.
I’m always amazed when I see people walk through grocery stores picking up items without looking at the prices. One friend at work buys the same brand of bread every week, no matter what the price. Even if we won the lottery I think we’d still check the ads every Sunday and buy sale items…
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I just ran a report my finance software for the food category, which has several subcategories. For the last twelve months, our family (me, my wife, and our infant daughter) spent exactly:
1) $7473 on groceries (including toiletries, cleaning supplies, and other stuff bought along with our groceries), or an average of about $620 per month. Our daughter was bottle-fed for a good part of the past year, making our grocery bill a bit higher than usual.
2) $318 on delivery or take-out food, or an average of about $26 per month.
3) $1686 on dining out, or about $140 per month.
4) $629 on snacks (i.e. convenience store purchases, coffee in the mornings, etc.), or an average of $52 per month.
All of these numbers are in Canadian funds, so knock off about 10% to convert them to the USD equivalent.
While these numbers probably seem high, bear in mind that I track my expenses quite closely, so I know that these numbers are accurate and complete. Unless you track all of your spending to the penny, you’ll never know how much things are costing you.
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To make my response a little more complete:
-We don’t grow any of our food
-We rarely use coupons
-We entertain about four times per year
-We purchase generics whenever possible, with a few exceptions (cola, dishwasher detergent, paper towels).
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Family of five, one income. We spend around $350 US / month for groceries.
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I probably spend $30 to $40 CND a week, but this can vary since I don’t buy groceries every week. I buy what I need and always bring a list. I don’t really use coupons but I do check the flyers, mostly just looking for inspiration. I always shop at the same store though, so it’s not like I need to shop around for the best deals (I don’t have a car and I walk to the store closest to me, but I also visit the local farmers market on Saturdays sometimes). I am single and live alone and I only eat fish, so not buying meat helps. I rarely buy pre-packaged or pre-cooked food. I generally don’t buy in bulk or buy something just because it’s on sale, because I don’t have a lot of storage room. I have no problem buying store brand, but I will spend the extra dollar or two on something brandname if I really like it.
I cook a lot, but I do find it hard living alone to buy vegetables, since a lot of them come in large bunches and I find it hard to use them all up. So I don’t eat a lot of fresh vegetables, but I do try and eat a lot of fruit. I also do not buy junk food on a regular basis.
As for eating out, I just say no most of the time, and I almost always bring my own lunch to work. Sometimes at work I’ll go buy a snack if I forgot to bring something, but that’s rare. I bring my own tea bags, or make my own coffee from home most of the time as well.
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my wife and i spend waaaay too much on food and dining out. i struggle with it all of the time. actually i guess we probably spend about $600/month on dining out, sometimes more if there is a big occasion to celebrate, and also we entertain large groups often, especially in the summer. we could probably save $1000 a month if we cut down on entertaining and eating out.
we also spend a little more on groceries than most people, but i feel like you are what you eat and we do try to buy high quality meat fish and produce, not so much junk. that does not stress me as much.
luckily we are mostly debt free besides our mortgage, and put away 15%, or i would really be stressed. i guess we could do even better, but right now we are young and foolish.
im just being honest.
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For two of us (plus nursing baby) I can’t tell exactly how much we spend on food, but I know it’s no more than $120/week. (Even before we moved in with the inlaws.)
We designate $120 cash/week, but $20 each is to keep and personally use however we want, guilt free – so that leaves $80 specifically *meant* for groceries or eating out.
$80/week = $320/month = $4160/yr
We don’t pay any special attention to eating out, buying spendy (usually local and organic) etc. We simply pay attention to how much cash is left. We also grow A LOT of food (and will hopefully have our own small farm one day).
Living with the inlaws means way less of our money goes toward food – so we’re cutting back the weekly cash to $100, and get an extra $20 savings each month.
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Oh yeah, we use coupons probably 1% of the time.
We eat out about once every two weeks. (I love it, my husband could generally care less.)
We also often have extra cash left over, which is either divvied up between us for free spending, or put into a shared pot for fun money, and sometimes thrown into savings if we’re feeling especially conservative.
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On average, I spend about 160 a month on food, I never go out to eat, and pack all my meals for work.
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I spend too much, that’s for sure. It’s just me, I’m not good at grocery shopping and then using things before they go bad. I tend to eat out for 2 out of 3 meals in a given day, so I’m paying too much (~$7 per meal) and eating unhealthy to boot. It’s definitely my biggest money sink that needs to be addressed.
I believe I’m in the $4-$500 range per month, just to feed me.
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I highly recommend checking out the Consumer Expenditure Survey, which breaks down expenses by category and income for average US citizens. I was looking for average food expenditure numbers recently while modifying my own budget and found it a useful starting point.
I’m a single guy in my late-20s in a relatively expensive urban area. (My experience has been that location matters more than anything else in determining a reasonable food budget.) I budget $10 per day for food, including groceries and eating out, and find that a pretty comfortable level. I have a quick light breakfast at home in the mornings (Muesli + Soy Milk = .68/bowl), cook a simple meal with fresh ingredients for lunch or dinner ($2-$4), and cook again or eat out for the other meal ($2-$8). The days that I eat at home all day or skip a meal tend to save enough money to cancel out the times I eat out more, or more expensively.
Cooking at home is not always a great deal for me, because most things go bad before I can use all of them. Where I live, daytime temps this time of year reach 110F regularly, and I don’t cool the house for the 9-12 hours a day I’m at work, so non-fridge items don’t keep well either during the summer.
Given time and space constraints, growing my own food isn’t practical, and I’ve found that the time I spend finding, clipping, organizing, and using coupons generally outweighs the amount of money they save. I tend to select items based on ingredients and nutrition first, taste/asthetics second, and price last. This is all limited by whatever amount I have in the budget for shopping — if there’s $60 available for groceries one week, I try to get the best nutrition I can afford for $60, even though that means less quantity.
It seems like it would be easier to eat for significantly less per person if there were two people in a household, where one had the time/energy to focus on more elaborate cooking than I can manage by myself.
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We (fiance and myself, late 20′s) used to go to the local grocery store at least 4-6 times a week. Then, a few years ago, we got a Sam’s card and immediately noticed a huge savings. I think we spend about $250 a month in groceries now, and that’s for two people and buying in bulk (replenishing things on a rotation as they run out, such as the bucket of laundry soap or the bag of frozen chicken breasts). My parents used to spend about $400 a month (Sam’s also) when I was a kid (4 person family), so I don’t think we’re doing too terrible.
We only eat out when we work washing cars for cash at the Infiniti dealership on Saturdays, just as a treat. It’s very rare that we go out otherwise to eat.
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Congrats on the Wall Street Journal story!
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I track my expenses in all categories each month and spend an average of $120 per MONTH for one late 50′s woman. I bake own bread, each lots of fresh produce, beans, low fat dairy. VERY little junk food. Make own hot chocolate from scratch, bake own brownies.
Not only is the food bill low, I’ve lost 27 pounds slowly over 4 years and keep my blood pressure low enough to avoid meds.
Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin were my starter examples, amplified by Amy Dacyzycn.
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From 1/17 to 3/27, I spent exactly $707.74 on restaurant food and $240 on groceries. Or roughly $5k on food… wow. Since then has been a *lot* better. $500 total on groceries and $500 on restaurant food – over 3 months.
Single person, no coupons at all. Started visiting the farmers’ market since it restarted, that has helped some.
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We just finally put a budget together, and discovered that our family of four spends about $7-800/mo on food, not including eating out, which varies so wildly as to be untrackable.
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I never thought I would be on the high end. Family of three; we cook five nights a week, I eat free two nights while my husband eats frozen dinners, I never pack a lunch, My husband always packs a lunch, and breakfast consists of cereal.
My Grocery bill (food & toiletries), not including eating out, can range from $120-160 per week! That’s more than $500 per month. How Bob eats on $160 a month is beyond me.
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We are a family of 3 with one more due in January; we strive to spend no more than $100 a week on groceries. Some weeks we do well, others not so well, but it usually balances out to $400 a month.
We cut coupons but use them irregularly, and we do bulk warehouses for diapers, meat, pasta, and other things we use a lot. I find I spend more than necessary when I go there so I try and go rarely!
We almost never eat out, my husband packs a lunch every day, and I do all our cooking. We grow some of our own food but since we just moved to a new area, my garden isn’t quite established … even then it’s mostly just tomatoes, fruit, some peppers.
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I found this website trying to determine a reasonable amount to spend each month feeding a family of 4 (two growing boys, my husband and myself). Our 1st month of recording all our spending on our budget spreadsheet has been a huge eye opener. This month on groceries and dining out we spent well over $800 w/ a good bulk of that on groceries. I don’t clip coupons (not yet), but I think I’m going to start. I hope to budget around $300 – 350 on groceries and around $200 on dining out per month – starting next month. We’ll see how that goes. I have to STOP the dropping in the supermarket more than once a week – it’s blowing the budget BIG TIME!
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YTD expense for family of six in Northeast metro:
Groceries: $10,741 = $1342/mo
Dining Out: $2,932 = $366/mo
We don’t use coupons, and these totals do not include approximately $2,500 in dining from a family vacation in January.
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We spend about $550 per month on groceries and about $125 on dining out (we both work from home and/or pack lunch and rarely eat out except for the occasional pizza with the family.
We are a family of 4 living in Hawai’i where the grocery prices are VERY high as everything non-perishable is flown in. We try to use coupons but don’t use most prepackaged coupon items except for a few toiletries and detergent, use farmer’s markets, grow some of our own and shop into multiple stores for the best deals of the week.
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Correction: that should be everything perishable is flown in-non perishables are shipped but Matson keeps raising shipping rates for their barges as well so costs keep increasing.
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I tend to be a penny pincher for everything EXCEPT food. My wife and I both love food, we both can/have cooked quite often in the past at home, however with our current (last 2 years) work patterns we have tended to eat out an awful lot. My wife does in-house appointments and tends to find herself out-and-about most of the day form 9am->7pm. I work in downtown and leave around 7 and get home around 7. We both hate getting home, having to cook a meal, and then clean up after it … so we tend to eat out. A lot.
On the average we have spent roughly $51.71/day on eating out or around $1577.29/mo. Because we have eaten out so much, our overall grocery bill is around 185.50/mo. When we end up going to the grocery store I won’t necessarily clip coupons, however I do look for sale items. Still, if it’s something I have a craving for … it’ll end up in the cart.
Now, having said that, we have recently cut back on our expenses again in order to start saving some money. We are down to roughly $10.57/day ($322.43/mo) on eating out. First thing to go were those daily lattes, snacks, and nightly dinners. We didn’t cut the budget down to zero (yet), because we are both fairly honest with ourselves and realize that sometimes it’s still just easier for us to stop someplace and pick up a quick lunch if we are in a hurry. Still, it’s an improvement. Our grocery expenses went up, but not to much considering – around $368.50/mo or so.
Our current 2 person out-of-pocket expenses are now averaging around $690.93/mo or so. Expect in the next month or two after we have gotten a little more use to it again, we’ll be back down around $450/mo or so. Bad habits are hard to break, but once you start looking at the cost of things … you can see a quick return.
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To be honest we don’t track our grocery/eating out bills. We need too b/c it is a huge amount(>$1k/mo family of 6). My wife is the queen of fast food with the kids. She has her own parking space and is greeted by name at McDonald’s/Wendy’s/Burger King/etc.
I work at a bulk Warehouse so I am always picking up the milk/cheese/meat which is usually less expensive on my way home.
I cut coupons out of the newspaper for items we already use (i.e. Campbells cream of chicken soup) but usually forget to use them by the time I get to the checkout.
I also believe that the region of the USA where you live greatly affects your grocery bill. The cost of 1 gallon 1% milk here is $1.79 and is a staple in our diet. It might be $2.50 in Seattle…?
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In Hawaii our price for a 1/2 gallon of organic milk is $5.99
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i have a family of five and shop at a commisary so i have the benefit of tax free food and many times the food is greatly reduced in cost. After reading these responses i am wondering how so many of you budget so well. I spend an average of 150 a week on groceries. that includes toiletries, pet food, cleaning supplies and occasional non prescription medicines. I wonder how the lower spending families do it. i know i do buy about 25 dollars each pay day worth of unneccesary items but that is still bringing me to 500 a month.
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I don’t have a clue yet (just about to try to reconstruct it by looking at reciepts) what we spend on food but I’m sure it’s way more than I want to, not even counting eating out.
I would not be surprised if the two of us are spending over 1500 per month on food, not counting eating out. Part of that is because we eat mostly organic, but that’s not enough to account for the big bill.
My wife does the shopping and rarely looks at prices. The concept I can’t get across is “sure we have to eat food but we don’t NEED to eat $11/pound smoked salmon, shitake mushrooms…
… you get the point.
We’re being killed by what someone called “the latte factor” — that “how can you make a fuss about a little luxury now and then and anyone this one item doesn’t cost that much.”
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Well i think my moms spend about $500-$600 on food. There is 6 people that live in my house. Then there are 2 dogs and 1 cat. To me thats not a lot for 8 people!
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This is a difficult one to answer, for myself at least. I have a family of five {and 40 animals} What we spend on food various from season. on the average we spend $200 every two weeks split between the grocery store, eating out, the farmers market and “pick your own” farms. We raise fruits and vegetables, poultry and eggs. The big ticket items are beef and milk, which we hope to remedy that soon buy purchasing 2 milking cows. I spend at least ½ our food total on butter, milk, meat and cheese. I do not use coupons, and rarely eat out.
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Spending only for myself, I buy roughly $100-120 of food each month, add another $30-50 or so for dinners and lunches out. This is a very basic diet of sandwiches, fruits & veggies, and I can’t go without cereal! I try to find food for 15 cents/oz or less, and only rarely use coupons.
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I am married and have three kids and tend to spend between $ 800-1000 per month on groceries, toiletries, and cleaning supplies. I buy a lot of fresh veggies and fruit but I also buy too many packaged and/or prepared dinners, including a lot of bottled water and canned soft drinks. Steaks, chicken, and salmon don’t even cost as much as the prepared food sometimes can. I know I need to cut back but I never feel like I have enough time to prepare every breakfast,lunch and dinner. I also spend about $ 200 monthly on take out/dining out.
My husband probably spends an additional $ 200 monthly on groceries and dining.
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These are some interesting figures from people, fun to read.
I took a glace at my spending, and lately I have been averaging $250 a month for food, and that includes eating out. Bringing my own lunch to work has saved at least $100 a month. And being single has saved on eating out. : )
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Two 22 year old college grad students living in CO and we spend ~$800-900/mon on food. That includes EVERYTHING (coffee, dining out, groceries, etc.) We eat out for lunch only when we don’t have time to pack one (once per week). We eat light a breakfast every morning such as cereal or bread (go out for breakfast once per week). Cook dinner at home 5 nights a week (the other two we usually get something quick like sandwiches, Chipotle, Noodles, pizza). So, this is a very honest answer. We never snack, sometimes we have dessert and don’t ever buy junk food. We hardly ever have something in the house that can be eaten without cooking it or making it.
I have a really hard time believing other people can spend so little. What am I doing wrong??? We are hungry and definitely don’t eat too much. And none of our food ever goes to waste so it is all consumed. I am pretty good at figuring out new meals that include ingredients that are on sale too.
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My expenditures on food vary greatly throughout the year, depending on my teaching and travel situation. From September through May may monthly expenses probably average $250-$350, with very little of that for restaurants. However, I spend a bit more during breaks in Dec.-Jan. and mid-March (due to restaurants), and a bit less in Sept.-Dec., Feb., Apr., and May (my “frugal” times). I also have an interest in fine wine, and the expenses above reflect that.
My spending on food tends to spike upward in the summer, as I travel a lot, usually for work. My food expenditures for last June, when I was working in Spain, were around $900! (However, I received a food per diem for the job… whew!)
In general, I’m fairly frugal most of the year, and since I’ve been drinking less wine lately (I have lots of project deadlines), I expect expenses to hover around $200/mo. or so during the teaching season.
I should note that I save close to 25% of my middle-class income in tax-deferred savings, and my only debt is a fairly low mortgage. (I bought less house than I could afford.) I also save another 5-10% of my income for stock purchases or other savings. I don’t have television/cable, cell phones, and other such media expenses. (My internet service is free through work.) I take a commuter bus to work, and I don’t buy non-food items or services unless I really have to. In other words, except for food and some travel expenses, I am a cheapskate. I love to cook, so food is a form of entertainment for me, and good food is essential when I travel. During my teaching months, I shop frugally and buy in bulk, but I also treat myself to more expensive things such as protein powder, cheese, fresh berries, etc.
I don’t use coupons, but I do comparison shop. And when I buy in bulk, sometimes I hoard. I have lots of paper towels, dish liquid, and cereal in storage, for example.
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Household : 2 people
Dining out : $105/month avg (on credit card, cash dining is not tracked)
Groceries : $525/month avg
This is from the past 12 months per quicken tracking. We don’t track cash purchases (we both get a ‘cash allowance’ at the beginning of the month to spend on whatever we want).
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[...] How much do families spend on food? How much has the average person saved for retirement? Do others balance their checkbooks every month? Every week? Every day? When shopping for homes, how much time do people take? [...]
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My fiance and I have a budget of $400 a month for all food and household goods. We both love to cook and make almost everything we eat from scratch. I make my own bread and pizza doughs, cakes, muffins, sometimes ground meats, preserve our own salsa and pasta sauces in bulk during times when ingredents are in season and we buy locally from the organic farms. During the summer we typically dont have much of a surplus due to buying lots of fresh fruit.
However, most other months we have about $50 left in our budget so every few months we will take a trip to a warehouse club and buy in bulk (especially for household goods).
If I see a deal for whole chicken at $0.89/lbs, I’ll buy 5 or 6 chickens, debone and fillet a few of them and freeze everything, including bones for soups and stocks, although I dont do any coupon clipping and generally dont compare prices between stores.
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Because I eat mostly organic and I am gluten-intolerant and have other food allergies, my grocery bills are higher than they would be otherwise. However, I am cooking from scratch and eating at home more than I used to. I’d guess that I pay about $400 per month for food, which includes eating out. For reference, I am single, and I live in one of the most expensive areas in the country.
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My husband and I have 8 kids, 4 of whom are teens, and we spend $600-700 per month on groceries, including pet food. We eat out rarely, probably spending $50 a month total… We have a huge garden and I can a lot of produce so that helps a lot.
Mary, mom to 8
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This is one area that continues to annoy, confuse and interest me.
Family of four (myself, husband, two kids under 5) and we shop at the commissary like another commenter (tax free, food at a lower price, and admitedly the fresh stuff sometimes doesn’t last but a week) and we spend easily $600 a month on food – with eating out once a month, maybe. I’d like us to spend around $400 and the months when we do, we end up spending even more the next month.
I’d like to use coupons, but I don’t. We decided to not eat out at all for a few months and see where that takes us. We are very good about buying on sale and also on stocking up when there is a sale. We don’t mind cooking and use the crockpot a lot.
Right now our pantry, fridge and two freezers are stocked full and we may be able to go a month until needing to really shop (not talking about milk or bread) again.
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Oh and when we do eat out it ends up costing us anywhere from $50-80. We went to meal planning and for the past few days it’s been going well. LOL
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This has been very interesting. I’ve been married 15 years and have 4 kids ages 14, 12, 9 and 6. I’ve always wondered what the average family spends on groceries per month and how we compared. I’ve tried all kinds of things over the years to save money and don’t feel like any of it has been very sucessful. I’ve always felt guilty about what I spend on groceries.
Currently we live in the mid-west. I’m a busy stay at home mom. I make most everything from scratch. We rarely buy soda, we don’t drink coffee or alchohol. We eat out or get take out/fast food mostly when our schedule is really hectic. We’ve tried a garden, but the bugs took it over this year and we didn’t get much out of it. I do clip coupons about 1/2 the time. I mostly shop at Wal-Mart with a monthly visit to Sams Club, and Aldi because they are further from my house.
We track our spending pretty carefully, and my most recent spread sheet for this calendar year shows us spending an average of $927 per month on groceries including all household cleaning, paper, and personal hygiene items. Our average eating out per month is $246 and that includes one month long vacation visiting family and 2 or 3 weekend family trips to visit friends.
I would like to spend less, but don’t want to become a miser. We like to invite people to dinner, and contribute food items generously to school and church functions.
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It’s my wife, myself and my 9 month old and we probably spend about $250-$300/month on food. We probably eat out twice a month or so, and we don’t eat much ready-made food. We get bulk food that doesn’t spoil quickly (flour, noodles, frozen meat etc.) from Costco, and do weekly or every-other weekly trips to the grocery store for produce, bread, milk and whatever else we don’t want 50 Lb. packages of.
We did garden this year, but it wasn’t very productive (we forgot to weed most of the time). The fruit trees and neighbors gardens surplus did get bottled or dried.
We don’t use coupons much, but we do try to buy a lot when things are on sale
I pack a lunch to school and work every day.
For the 9 month old, we buy flaked cereals and formula, but cook and/or blend our own potatoes, yams, peas, bananas, pears, apples, and whatever else we think Ryan will like. Baby food is crazy expensive.
–Michael
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Wow, how does everyone manage to spend so little? I’m a single guy in my late 20′s living and working in SF. I am very conscience of what I eat(No fast food, No processed food, No frying food, no trans fat food). I like to stick to buying real food. I spend about $115 a month on groceries (this includes my breakfast, dinner, snacks, misc household items). I usually go out for lunch which adds up to $120 a month. So a total of $235 but this does not include protein shakes, vitamens, and supplements. Which are over $100. I find it hard to believe that some single people are living off $100 a month. They must be eating off of the $1 McDonald Menu everyday. I’m just thankful that I am not a coffee/soda drinker.
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Wow! I am absolutley amazed at how little people can spend on food! I have to say that Stuart and Heather sound the most reasonable. I was wondering how much I should be spending on food each month. There is me, my husband, our four kids, ages 6,8,10,12, a handful of cats and a couple of dogs. We don’t use coupons as I think they are a pain. We take the entire family out to eat a couple times a month and it is usually close to $100 a time. My husband and I try to go just the two of us now and then and we usually spend about the same on just the two of us. Then, we eat pizza almost once to twice a week. We rarely eat fast food, though. My husband and I like our occasional alcoholic beverages. And none of us are very overweight. I am the only one, in fact, by about ten pounds. We try to not buy too much junk food, and only drink diet sodas, with no calories. I am not even sure how much we spend on groceries, but I bet I’ve got you all topped. This may sound weird, but thank you for sharing your information. This will be a good starting point for me in devising a family budget. I am trying to figure out how much we should spend and on what. Food is one of the obvious areas that I think a lot of us spend way too much on. I know I certainly do. I hope I can find a good compromise between saving money and not sacrificing too much creature comfort.
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Another set of 22 yr old grad students, but we live in NY state. I track groceries really well, since I pay for them, but I don’t know how much we spend eating out, since my finace pays for that, among other things. (We go out maybe twice a month and don’t order in delivery, and maybe 3-4 days a week get lunch on campus.)
Groceries for two people:
Aug: $401.95
Sep: $286.63
Oct: $286.81
Nov: $241.41 (as of the 26th)
August is a little higher since that’s when we moved here and needed to stock up on essentials. But I’m not sure how to get the budget any lower. I buy the store brand of nearly everything, and buy extra of things that go on sale if I know we’ll use them. I’m actually now going through our receipts to see what little extras have been adding up. We don’t buy sodas or snack foods for the most part, and while we’re both in decent shape we don’t get any specialty health foods, either.
So far, the best thing by far that we’ve done for the food budget is sign up for the ‘value cards’ at the local grocery stores. By using them, it’s like getting a week’s worth of groceries free every ten weeks. (Or, conversely, it would be throwing away $80 every ten weeks without using the cards.)
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