Author Topic: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?  (Read 8751 times)

Millennialworkerbee

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How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« on: March 20, 2017, 08:58:19 AM »
I'm curious how much others spend on food, per day, per person. We are spending around $8 for my hubby and myself each day, and $2-3 on the baby. Eating out skews these numbers to look like almost $11/day, but I'm not really interested in lessening the amount we eat out, at least right now.

I feel like we eat very cheaply I.e. all our food is made from scratch (at least 90%), there is 4-6oz of protein at every meal, along with lots of fruits and veggies. I don't typically shop sales except on meat.

Anyone have any numbers for me to compare mine with? What helps keep your food coat low once you get to the all fresh/from scratch cooking?

Rusty_me

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2017, 09:26:21 AM »
I've never been one to track my food down to the penny per meal but I typically spend around $7-8 a day. I hardly ever eat out, perhaps once every couple months. I feel this is pretty cheap. I think most of my savings come from cheap breakfast (oatmeal, or bulk made breakfast burrito mix). Lunches/dinners I tend to add more fillers (rice, beans, veggies) instead of more expensive stuff (meats mostly). As silly as it sounds I could cut that by $.65 a day by getting rid of my v-8 energy fusion SO EXPENSIVE! :P
« Last Edit: March 20, 2017, 09:28:57 AM by Rusty_me »

Raenia

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2017, 09:34:04 AM »
I budget groceries at $100/month for one person, which works out to $3.33/day.  If I do the calculation with the last two months of actual data, though, I get $2.70/day, or $3.20/day including eating out.  Last month was unusually low, though, due to spending a lot of nights at other people's homes being fed by them, so the $3.33 is probably more accurate historically.

As for how, besides doing all cooking from scratch - mostly by eating less meat and shopping at Aldi.  I aim to have protein at one meal a day, plus milk or yogurt at breakfast.  Usually I'll cook chicken about twice a week, fish once, plus sometimes eggs.  Each of those meals providing one dinner plus lunch the next day.  Vegetarian dinner the day I have meat at lunch.  I try to avoid out of season fruits and vegetables when possible, going with more frozen or canned in the winter when fresh is more expensive.  Other than that, lots of rice, pasta, dry beans, etc.

swick

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2017, 09:38:15 AM »
We are at about 6.50-7.00 per person, per day, CDN. We are gluten-free and primarily paleo/low-carb. Mostly everything made from scratch. I think the best way to keep costs low are figure out what your staples are and source them as cheap as you can. We have an awesome bulk wholesaler and have taken the time to get to know out local farmers.

MayDay

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2017, 10:44:04 AM »
Ours is as low as 3-4$ and as high as 6$, depending on the month.

That is with kids, but they eat as much as the adults.

Mostly from scratch but some convenience things like individual yogurts.

Millennialworkerbee

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2017, 10:54:23 AM »
As for how, besides doing all cooking from scratch - mostly by eating less meat and shopping at Aldi.  I aim to have protein at one meal a day, plus milk or yogurt at breakfast.  Usually I'll cook chicken about twice a week, fish once, plus sometimes eggs.  Each of those meals providing one dinner plus lunch the next day.  Vegetarian dinner the day I have meat at lunch.  I try to avoid out of season fruits and vegetables when possible, going with more frozen or canned in the winter when fresh is more expensive.  Other than that, lots of rice, pasta, dry beans, etc.

This is the third reminder in the past week to check out Aldi! Thanks for the reminder. I hear you on less meat but my hubby really likes it in every meal (although he is good about it being chopped/shredded and mixed with rice and beans). Less than $4 a day is awesome!

Cranky

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2017, 12:34:35 PM »
(I am a nutcase, and I have 30 years of records on my grocery spending. )

In 2016, I spent $6.40/day/person. (We have three adults, one is a vegetarian.) That's only food, not wine or toilet paper or catfood.

We eat out occasionally, but generally something casual to fast food when we are travelling.

2Birds1Stone

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2017, 12:59:22 PM »
Groceries - ~$4/per person per day

Eating out- $highly variable but usually $200-300/month between meals out and booze at happy hours.

KMMK

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #8 on: March 20, 2017, 01:20:21 PM »
About $10. In Canada.

zinnie

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #9 on: March 20, 2017, 01:30:04 PM »
$6/person per day, when I divide the monthly grocery bill by the two of us for 30 days and subtract a couple of meals for eating out.  (This also includes stuff like paper towels, cleaning supplies, and toilet paper, though.)


Zikoris

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #10 on: March 20, 2017, 01:46:56 PM »
Very consistently between $3- $4/person/day, for about five years so far. Vancouver, Canada.

FindingFI

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #11 on: March 21, 2017, 01:08:07 PM »
Groceries are fairly consistent, around $6-7 per person for 2 adults.  Restaurants tend to fluctuate much more and may contribute an additional $1-3 per person.  Like others, this also includes toilet paper, shampoo, napkins, etc.  Also worth mentioning, I have a medical condition which limits the food I can eat to something very similar to the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol, so we buy a lot of meats, fruits and veggies and very little of foods like pasta, rice, beans, etc.

Sailor Sam

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #12 on: March 21, 2017, 01:13:35 PM »
$10usd/day/person, not including restaurants. Paleo-ish diet.

BikeFanatic

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #13 on: March 21, 2017, 01:52:12 PM »
Ten dollars per person per day just groceries. If you include eating out ( take out, fast food lunches,
dining out including alcohol) then it is 17$ per person per day, Yikes!

redbird

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #14 on: March 21, 2017, 03:39:58 PM »
I budget groceries at $100/month for one person, which works out to $3.33/day.  If I do the calculation with the last two months of actual data, though, I get $2.70/day, or $3.20/day including eating out.  Last month was unusually low, though, due to spending a lot of nights at other people's homes being fed by them, so the $3.33 is probably more accurate historically.

As for how, besides doing all cooking from scratch - mostly by eating less meat and shopping at Aldi.  I aim to have protein at one meal a day, plus milk or yogurt at breakfast.  Usually I'll cook chicken about twice a week, fish once, plus sometimes eggs.  Each of those meals providing one dinner plus lunch the next day.  Vegetarian dinner the day I have meat at lunch.  I try to avoid out of season fruits and vegetables when possible, going with more frozen or canned in the winter when fresh is more expensive.  Other than that, lots of rice, pasta, dry beans, etc.

Same, though I don't shop at Aldi. My Aldi is enough out of the way that the minimal savings I'd have (I priced it out - my grocery store is VERY competitive with them) I'd spend those savings in gas for my car.

I eat beans and rice and pasta, but I certainly don't eat them for every day. Not by a long shot. What helps a lot is 1) cook from scratch and 2) be flexible in meal planning. Try to make meals around what staples are on sale. But also, make big batch meals and either freeze leftovers or be willing to eat the same dinner for several nights in a row! That saves so much money and time.

Also, don't buy drinks. I buy juice once in a blue moon when I have a craving for it and I drink tea (very cheap). Other than that, I drink water. Drinks are expensive!

spicykissa

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #15 on: March 21, 2017, 04:13:03 PM »
About $5 per person per day for 2 adults, for groceries. And we do NOT cook hardly at all. We survive on fresh fruits/veggies/salads, cheese, fancy deli meat & bread, nuts, yogurt, and some convenience stuff (canned soup, ind. microwave rice bags, boxed cereal, etc). Just realized a whole $1 of this is my energy drink habit! :(

It's another $8 per person per day (so $13 total) on eating out. We get 'fast casual' or take-out 2-3 times a week, usually local Indian, Korean, Mediterranean, etc. We go out for a true sit-down dinner (usually social with work people or for a birthday/anniversary/etc celebration) about once a month.

I find our food costs atrocious every time I see them, but I've tried cooking more, shopping cheaper ingredients, etc and we just seem to throw food away and eat out more, which is even worse! I've had some luck finding some things cheaper at our local Walmart. They seem to be stocking "up" to compete with a new Whole Foods, and now have the fancy yogurt and sparkling water we like for half the price. Maybe try doing a price book of your staples at different stores? I tend to go to Walmart one week for staples and the fancy grocery store the next week for produce, meat, and cheese only.

JoJo

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #16 on: March 21, 2017, 04:43:42 PM »
$4 per day on a calorie restricted diet (1000 call per day).   When I eat certain "deals" that I get at grocery outlet I have spent as little as $1.50 in a single day.

Retire-Canada

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #17 on: March 21, 2017, 05:02:07 PM »
$8CAD/day per person...so that's like $6USD/day. We eat like kings. So does the cat. ;)

RWD

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #18 on: March 21, 2017, 05:22:09 PM »
We're currently spending $4.80 per day per person, including dining out. Two adults. $4.49 per day per person in just groceries.

MrsPB

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #19 on: March 21, 2017, 06:43:44 PM »
We spend about $800/month CAD for 2 adults and 2 young children. That is just over $6.50 per person per day on average. That includes eating out which is very minimal and primarily coffee and a breakfast sandwich a few times a month and the odd subway. What's not included is the 2 snacks, lunch and milk that the kids get at daycare 5 days a week which is included in the daycare fee. So, if I factor in, say, $5 a day extra for that (total guess), on those days, then we are up around $7.50/day/person. We eat very well (omnivores), take packed lunches to work, and I make a lot from scratch plus we have some dietary restrictions.

dreams_and_discoveries

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #20 on: March 23, 2017, 03:02:38 AM »
For groceries/household stuff I'm at £2.50 a day for one person and a cat - veggie which helps a lot.

Spend about the same again out of the house, although this is mainly drinks/coffee for socialising and not much actual food.


Awka

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #21 on: March 23, 2017, 06:08:32 AM »
Around $400-600 a month, sometimes a bit more when stocking up. (Bulk shopper, pantry person here.)

I do not have a per person amount, as I have an almost teen boy, who swims competitively, dances, and plays other sports. Swimmers in training are ravenous beasts. My elderly mom, in contrast,  eats very lightly. We grow some of our veggies, and a sister has chickens, so we often are gifted eggs.

Edited to add: family of 3.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2017, 06:10:49 AM by Awka »

purple monkey

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #22 on: March 23, 2017, 06:48:49 AM »
High end here.  About $10 per day since SO eats out often.  I try from my end to do about $4 per day, but am challenged too.

The eating out is a stress reliever for a very difficult work environment.

I have decided that SO discussing the eating out is not worth causing more stress.

Try to work hard from my end with mitigation with other areas of the budget.

Awka

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #23 on: March 23, 2017, 07:58:46 AM »
It's really difficult to cut other people's costs.

When my son is away at summer camp, my mom + I spend almost nothing on groceries. I might pick up an item or 2 when I buy pet food, but that's it.  The joke in our house is summer camp is actually a bargain when we factor in grocery savings.

My mom and I could live on coffee, seasonal produce, cheese or pb and bread easily. Happily. Add in the fact that I have plenty of oatmeal, pasta, beans, rice etc. stored. I can't expect to force that diet on my son though, unless we had to do so. 

Spork

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #24 on: March 23, 2017, 08:07:24 AM »
My records don't specify "food"... but go down to "groceries" ... which includes lots of stuff outside of food.  Pet food is probably the most expensive there.  (edit:  LOL.  and wine!)  I know we spend $2 a day on cat food alone.  (Lots of cats!)

Anyway, groceries come out to $11.24 per person per day for the last year.
It's $9.17 per person per day over the last 5 years.

Difference between 1 year and 5: We have started trying to buy more local stuff over transported, more grass fed beef over feed lot beef, more organic over traditional, and, of course, more cats.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2017, 08:26:17 AM by Spork »

peabody58

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #25 on: March 23, 2017, 08:20:11 AM »
Wife and I are retired now and after 2 years we have the budget down to a science.

We budget $500 month for groceries, which includes basically anything we can get at Kroger's, which is a lot more than food: alcohol, paper goods, toiletries, cleaning supplies, minor office supplies, greeting cards, etc.  Love the Fuel Savings points.

We also budget $300 month for eating out.  We just upgraded our Country Club membership to a plan that gets 50% off food, but has a $60/month dues.  I expect our eating out costs to rise while our groceries lower - essentially a wash.

So using these numbers we spend $13.15 a day per person on food/eating out/Kroger non-food items.

This may seem high, but prior to retirement, we were less than $5 a day per person, saving our money like crazy to be able to enjoy retirement.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2017, 08:22:47 AM by peabody58 »

Harley

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #26 on: March 23, 2017, 08:28:05 AM »
I try to keep each meal under $3-$4 but like you said eating out drastically changes that. I have a bad habit of not liking to eat when I wake up so I typically skip breakfast.

PathtoFIRE

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #27 on: March 23, 2017, 08:30:17 AM »
Wow, thought I was going to do poorly on this metric, but I'm not too far off from the pack. I get $7.67 for 2016. That's for a family of 5, and includes grocery, any specialty grocery purchases (TJ, WF, etc), occasional alcohol stock ups, restaurants, sweet treats, and kids school lunch purchases. We obviously could improve quite a bit as about half of those expenses are categorized as restaurants, but I think my real battle will be to limit upward creep as my kids get older.

Karinajane8

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #28 on: March 23, 2017, 09:10:43 PM »
So funny, I just did this calculation today. For 2016, including restaurant spending & some skew from non-food items bought at grocery stores, our cost per meal per person was under $2. We are 2 adults and a toddler and eat too much meat! I've lowered spending by shopping at aldi and increased organic purchases. Do you have Zaycon near you? Their chicken deals are great!
« Last Edit: March 24, 2017, 07:44:01 PM by Karinajane8 »

Aggie1999

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #29 on: March 24, 2017, 08:25:57 AM »
Wife and I are retired now and after 2 years we have the budget down to a science.

We budget $500 month for groceries, which includes basically anything we can get at Kroger's, which is a lot more than food: alcohol, paper goods, toiletries, cleaning supplies, minor office supplies, greeting cards, etc.  Love the Fuel Savings points.

We also budget $300 month for eating out.  We just upgraded our Country Club membership to a plan that gets 50% off food, but has a $60/month dues.  I expect our eating out costs to rise while our groceries lower - essentially a wash.

So using these numbers we spend $13.15 a day per person on food/eating out/Kroger non-food items.

This may seem high, but prior to retirement, we were less than $5 a day per person, saving our money like crazy to be able to enjoy retirement.

Kroger? Is there not a cheaper store near you? If your Kroger is like the ones that have always been near me, they are way over priced. Example of something I like. Club Wheat Crackers are over $4 at my local Kroger. HEB less than a mile away has the same crackers for $2.88. I can't see how the fuel points Kroger does makes up for their significantly higher prices.

My routine is to bike to Aldi's for whatever I can get there. Drive to HEB (it's close but on too busy of a road for me to bike to) for food I can't get at Aldi's. Then for house hold items drive to Walmart about 4 miles away. Usually hit up Sam's while at Walmart.

dusty

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #30 on: March 25, 2017, 05:20:00 PM »
$17 - $20 / day

Single, male, no access to kitchen / fridge, active lifestyle requiring 3100 calories / day to maintain my body size.


Diet consists mainly of Fruit / tuna / oats though im currently replacing one meal a day with soylent, stabilse costs / nutrient intake.

Laserjet3051

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #31 on: March 25, 2017, 06:45:23 PM »
$8-$9 per person per day. Includes restaurants as well as non food items we buy at the supermarkets (e.g. cleaning supplies etc.). Family of 4.


travelbug

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #32 on: March 26, 2017, 02:36:50 AM »
Just worked it out at around $9 pp per day 2A2C (children eat as much as an adult). We are in Australia and gluten and dairy free, so lots of fresh, made from scratch food.

That includes all groceries, not just food and does not include eating out which we do once a week and adds another $1.50 or so pp pd. ($50 total pw)

I am pretty happy with this amount as we eat well on that amount. It could always be less, but I feel we have a great balance.

brian313313

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #33 on: March 26, 2017, 06:54:31 AM »
We're about $7/day pp - 2 people or about $100/week for both. This does not include eating out since categorize eating out as a luxury item. It does included incidentals that come from the grocery store such as cleaning products & paper products. Atlanta GA. This was over double that just a couple months ago. I can't eat grains so this is pretty good.

MonkeyJenga

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Re: How much do you spend on food per person, per day?
« Reply #34 on: March 26, 2017, 07:36:37 AM »
$3-5 a day, for everything.

I rarely buy meat, almost never eat out, and have an intense price spreadsheet.