So I was reading this article:

http://www.bundle.com/article/do-childr ... ommsn=true

and the 2nd slide got my attention. Monthly median grocery bill $171(without kids) or $173(with kids). My wife and I average 375-425 a month(our 3 month old son doesnt eat real food yet so that doesnt factor in) and thats for food only. We also spend $50-75 a month at walmart for TP, soap, shampoo, etc.

How is the median $171??? We do eat meat once a day(usually dinner) but its almost always on sale when we buy(try to stock up on chicken when its on sale, fish etc), and we hardly ever eat steak or salmon or any of the more expensive ones. We dont eat frozen dinners or even buy very many snacks(try to eat healthy). We make extra portions and take leftovers to work for lunch almost every day.

I just dont see how one can eat off 171 a month unless your eating tuna and romon(sp?) noodles every other meal. Even if we cut out meat it would still be 225+.

What are you guys average monthly food bills?

If you don't eat out that's awesome for two people.

Also if you live in a high cost of living area, food maybe much higher than the "median".

If your food budget fits within your budget, I wouldn't even worry about it.

$170 is about $40 per week. We spend $20 on fruits and veggies alone. A gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a couple pounds of chicken, a box of cereal and I'm already at $40. I think we spend about the same as you (I don't track our expenses so I have to guess). It must depend on where you live. Bundle used to let you break some figures down by region, income, household size, etc. In fact that used to be the whole point of the site. I couldn't find where that data is just now.

I read on another p.f. blog that the average household spends $850 a year on beverages. That's $70 a month right there. Different sources, but nevertheless, the numbers just don't add up.

I have seen challenges on other boards, where people try to feed their family for $50 or less. This must be one of those things where the number is off or it's not tracking what we think it is.

We rarely eat out(1-2x a month).

I have budgeted for the food expenses we have but I just feel like maybe i'm missing something here or over spending.

Ya i'm not sure where the numbers came from. $50 or less.... wow... I like saving money but not enough to deprive myself from enjoying a basic pleasure in life(eating good food).

That's the problem with averages, you just don't know what they are averaging or including to arrive at that amount. I think that number is whack, because personally I don't know any household that come close to that number for eating. I probably was around that 20 years ago when I was in college, but as I lived with 3 other people again, again that number wouldn't represent the household. Maybe it includes people who spend no money on food because of food stamps? or lots of single people? People who buy almost all their food via take out or restaurants? Except for an extremely frugal family I know who spends maybe 300-400 a month, all the other families I know spend way more than that.

http://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/h ... -paycheck/

According to this visual, average US household of 2.5 spends average of 289 per month on grocery (eating in) only 7% of income!!!
I think the one time I calculated it our family we spend around 20%. Maybe we aren't representative. That 7% does not include eating out, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, house supplies. If included those things as well, you get about 7552 per year or 629 per month. Which is still a lot less than what we are spending combined on our grocery and restaurant. I guess I still would rather economize in other areas than cut back in this area.

There's got to be more to that. I can see all sorts of trouble with using the median for that. The median would be the middle value of all households. Given the number of truly poor households, and those on food stamps, I suspect you'd find that the distribution is highly skewed and the median is a fairly meaningless statistic.

That said, my wife and I seem to spend significantly less on groceries than most people when the subject comes up on here. We've averaged around $250 a month for the last few months and less than $300 per month for 2011. That includes all groceries and household supplies. We don't eat much meat and almost never buy name-brands. We eat a lot of fresh veggies and so forth. We don't really try to save money, it just works out that way.

By the way, that basket they show in the picture is going to cost almost the whole weekly budget by itself. Of course I realize they just pulled up a stock photo but if it had any relation to the article the basket would be full of veggies, generic rice, and so forth.

We also know from other sources that the "average" American household eats way too much meat, processed food, sugar, and other stuff like that. Those things are not only unhealthy but are also expensive. Given what is known about the American diet, that number on the slide must be wrong.

Yeah, this number is statistically useless. You don't know if they're including non-foodstuffs that come from a grocery store (i.e. shampoo), eating out (my grocery bill would be that if I ate lunch out every day and some evenings too!), etc. If there's a membership involved to buy in bulk, you don't know the cost of that (Costco is cheaper, but you have to be a member after all).

I'd also note that you really need to look at this sort of thing regionally. The median cost of groceries in San Francisco or NYC is going to be way different than a rural town in Kansas. Living in DC, I know whenever I visit family and friends in MI, we load the car up on the way home at random Super Walmarts[0] because the food is often as much as half price. Hell, even on a smaller scale, I bet NYC and San Francisco are seriously different -- cost of living is probably different, but SF is in the middle of the cheapest damn produce in the US. And on that note, I would love to see the averages for grocery cost per borough of NYC to see if that's different. Also, note that people in Manhattan probably buy different food than people in Queens due to availability.

So yeah, do what works for you, and if anyone finds a better benchmark, I'd love to hear it.

[0] Sadly, my ethics do have the occasional price. I'm very sorry to the small midwestern towns that I treat as third world countries.

$40 to $80 a week, but that includes cleaners, shampoo, soap, diapers, etc...

If it was just food, then Id say $20 to $50 a week, depending. We are oppurtunistic shoppers, and tend to load up when there is a good deal on something we use often. So it varies.

The budget allows $400 a month for groceries, but we almost never hit that.

Remember, even if this number is accurate, it's the MEDIAN, not MEAN. Half of americans spend less than this each month, half spend more. I am easily in the half that spends more, but I live in Boston and I have enough food to eat every day. I also have the luxury of spending a bit more on excellent produce and high quality foods.

It's no surprise to me that half of americans are forced to spend that amount or less on their grocery bill. It's a sign of the times.

I can't seem to get my grocery bill down below $100/wk, no matter how hard I try. We're even having vegetarian meals now! This is a huge sacrifice to two people who would cheerfully be carnivores if we could survive like that. Granted, we are in the NYC-area.

The amount we spend weekly varies a great deal depending on sales. We may stock up once a month on meat if there is a great sale. However, we try to never spend more than $100 per week. We rarely eat out. We shop at Aldi's and almost never buy brand names, but we live in a very expensive area.

I target a cost of $3/meal. 2011 came out to $3.28/meal.

In absolute terms, for all of 2011 my wife and I spent $4,826.52 on groceries and $2,364.43 on restaurants, for a total of $7,190.95.

On a monthly basis that comes out to $402.21 for groceries, $197.04 for restaurants, and $599.25 total.

This is an area my wife and I have been trying to work on lately. We have been been able to cut it significantly by planning out or meals for the week and then making our list. This helps in three ways: 1) we buy only what we plan on using for the week; 2) we don't end up throwing out food that spoiled before we used it (which we used to do a lot); and 3) we know what we are eating each night so no more "What do you want?" "I don't know, what do you want?" "Let's just go grab something from [insert resturaunt]".

Still, a rough guess would be about $700 to $800 a month. Which I guess isn't horrible, as it includes three meals a day for each of us (we take our lunches to work and rarely eat out anymore), but given the numbers posted above, its pretty high.