We are 2 adults & 2 small kids (6 & 8) as well. No allergies, no special diets, though our autistic child will only eat ground meat & has some other food aversions. We try to eat lots of veggies, fresh fruit, beans, and whole grains. I don't stress about organic/GMO, but I do try to buy minimally processed, and local when possible. I feel like we eat a pretty healthful diet. We don't eat out much (once a month?), and eating out means spending a lot of money at a nice restaurant, so I factor that under entertainment rather than food spending. I make a lot of vegetarian & low-meat dishes (~2oz of meat/person, or uses chicken stock but no pieces of meat). I make tons of chicken & vegetable stock, and use it all the time for extra flavor. Weekday food is pretty basic. On weekends I like to make something more interesting, like homemade sushi or pizza, or something from one of my specialty cookbooks. That's more expensive, but I think variety is important. In terms of lifestyle, the kids are in school, and both of the adults work full time. We bring our coffee, breakfasts, and lunches from home to work, and pack lunches for the kids.
Looking just at our grocery store bill, most weeks we spend $50/week on groceries, but that's hardly everything. Every 3-4 months I spend $200 at one time when I'm restocking on a good sale & pantry items. My best estimate for total monthly grocery spend is $450 for our family of 2 adults, 2 kids. That factors in grocery store, farmer's market, chicken feed, bulk meat purchases, and the electricity for our two deep freezers, but not the extra I spend for parties (Average ~$75/mo). I buy coffee from an independent roastery.
At the grocery store I normally buy milk, butter, cheese, dried beans/lentils of all kinds, canned beans on sale, rice in bulk, pasta, canned tomatoes, baking supplies, plain rolled oats, nuts, and condiments. I'll usually buy 1-2 specialty items per trip - pepperoni, really good cheese, nori, sushi rice, etc. During the school year I buy sandwich bread, deli ham & cheese, PB, and jelly, plus occasional treats. We regularly get carrots, baking potatoes, lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, apples, snap peas, bell peppers, onions, garlic, shallots, ginger, and bananas. I stock up on frozen produce when it goes on sale, especially corn, peas, spinach, lima beans, and broccoli.
At the farmer's market or one of the nearby farmstands, I get produce, specialty meats like sausages/bacon, eggs if I need extra, and local cheeses. We have our own chickens, from which we get eggs and occasional meat & chicken broth. I can factor in chicken feed, but it's harder to factor in time & effort. We buy our beef and most of our chicken from local farms. We bought half a steer about a year ago and still have plenty left. The steer averaged to 6.75/lb. Chicken is 4.50/lb, and we go through about 2 whole chickens/month. Definitely not cheap, but these are from very-local farms, everything is pastured, though not certified organic, and I know the people raising the animals personally. We garden, so might eat tons of zucchini & tomatoes in the summer, and greens in the fall. It's hard to factor in gardening costs as well since most of it is time & effort.
Looking back on the menu for the past week, a pretty typical day was:
Breakfast: Kids - Oatmeal (plain oats/cinnamon/brown sugar), Adults - coffee, 2 eggs with a big pile of sauteed frozen spinach
Lunch: Kids - sandwiches, apples, raw vegetables, & pretzels. Adults - Leftovers from the night before
Dinner: Red beans & rice - Made about 16 servings for a total of ~$5. We ate it for lunch 2x, we had it for dinner 2x, and I froze a few single servings for later lunches.
Snacks: Fruit, raw veggies, cheese, yogurt, popcorn (plain kernels popped on the stove with butter & salt)
I have 2 Instant Pots and I use them all the time. They are great for making chicken/vegetable stock, homemade yogurt, braised meats, rice, and cooking dry beans. We eat TONS of beans & rice based dishes. The reason I have 2 is so on a weekday I can set rice in one, beans in the other, then walk away and work on other stuff for 45 minutes. Come back, and dinner is ready with almost no dishes to do.
Some have meat, but it's a low amount per person.
- Red beans & rice
- Red chili & white chili
- Southwest style black beans
- Several Indian dishes made with chickpeas or lentils
- French-style lentils