The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: SingleMomDebt on February 01, 2017, 09:45:16 PM
-
After reading Root of Good's One Month of Groceries post (http://rootofgood.com/one-month-of-groceries/), I was curious about how much everyone budgets and/or spends each month on food (all) and household supplies.
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget?
Monthly Food Budget*?
Monthly Household Supplies Budget?
Comments:
*includes groceries, eating out, coffee, bars/alcohol, etc... All food.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 ppl + 1 cat
Monthly Food Budget? $600
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? inc. in food budget
Comments: I find my monthly budget doable. Little restricted since I include household and other in this category. I work full-time, but have adequate hours after work to cook up a good meal. I am utilizing weekends to batch cook lunches and/or prep for meals and shop with a grocery list in hand. But if that doesn't happen, the spending tends to increase to supplement small sides or cups of coffee from my work. I would like to increase my budget approx $50-$100.
-
4 people plus 1 large breed dog
$1150 per month average
includes cleaning & kitchen supplies
this includes eating out which we do only 1 time per week at a cheap cost
dont buy much processed food; we do buy a lot of fresh produce, meat and seafood
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults (with wildly different diets due to medical and preference reasons)
Monthly Food Budget? Goal: $300 ($200 grocery + $100 take out) Reality: $600 grocery spending + $100 take out budget
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included in food budget
Comments: I hoard way too much food. I love cooking and I'm always too excited at the start of the month get more ingredients for dishes I've missed during the month (or new ones I want to try) while trying to eat down my pantry stocks. The new rule I'm trying for this is to ask: will I die if you don't buy this? Unless I have zero food in the house (has never happened and I don't expect it ever will) then this should help cut my spending. I try to use what I have but I need to force myself to do so more. I should probably break the household supplies into another budget category but I'll have to look into it.
-
$600CDN/month
- all food for 2 adults
- house supplies
- cat food + litter
- not incl booze
Eating out = $200/month budgeted [not including vacations or holidays], but we often don't use up that full amount
We both work a lot and live in a HCOl area. Once I downshift/FIRE I plan to spend time optimizing our grocery cost. I currently go to 1 store and just do the best I can there vs. going to multiple shops which are each better/cheaper for specific items.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 1 adult+1 5-year old+2 large dogs+1 cat
Monthly Food Budget? I estimate spending around $550-600 (No set budget on food. I don't restrict any food based on cost including meat but we don't typically eat much junk food)
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included in food budget
ETA: Above numbers do not include eating out. That's maybe another 150-200/mo.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 ppl 1 small dog
Monthly Food Budget*? January $356.00 in groceries - $56.10 restaurant
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? we didn't spend anything on household goods last month, but we budget $15.00 per month. Somehow we have a huge stockpile of cleaning supplies so we only really need toilet paper for the next year or more.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? Two humans, one cat
Monthly Food Budget*? $400--we rarely eat out but Mr. Mandalay has developed a 7/11 coffee habit :(
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? $200--includes Poe's food and litter
-
2 people
Last year we spent 661/month on food, alcohol, restaurants, household stuff.
Only about 75$ per month was restaurants, and ~$100/month was household stuff (this may be a bit high - I classify anything bought for the house in this category, from toilet paper to furniture). Rest (~486) was food and booze, including a CSA box, costco stock ups, etc.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults male & female mid 20s
Monthly Food, Household Supplies, Eat Out Budget? Goal: $200 Actual: $206.35 (20 month average)
Comments:
We almost never and I mean really almost never eat out and we shop and batch cook for the week on Sundays. For our shopping we first go to wholesale club (Sam's Club) and get things like meats, milk, stuff for salads, eggs, fruits/veggies and other stuff which we can use a larger quantity of. We then go to grocery store and shop for things I only need small quantities of and shop for sales and BOGO items. I have learned which shelf stable items have become staples of our diet and recipes and will stock up when they go BOGO at our local grocery store (Publix). Therefore, I will basically always pay half price for things like cereals/granola/oats, peanuts, pasta & red sauces, diced tomatoes, canned soup, bread, coffee, snacks & chips, and beer & soda (for the rare occasions we drink those). I also as a general rule don't buy liquid calories except milk and this cuts a surprising amount from a normal grocery budget. Our food budget is something I work hard to keep very low while also trying to stay reasonably healthy and tasty.
Jun-15 $232.71
Jul-15 $209.43
Aug-15 $197.68
Sep-15 $228.58
Oct-15 $197.01
Nov-15 $206.42
Dec-15 $81.64
Jan-16 $229.00
Feb-16 $201.48
Mar-16 $91.70
Apr-16 $279.45
May-16 $265.80
Jun-16 $206.57
Jul-16 $240.09
Aug-16 $189.84
Sep-16 $164.80
Oct-16 $318.06
Nov-16 $190.56
Dec-16 $188.54
Jan-17 $207.65
-
i dont budget ut we ride around 300 when not drinking ... go up to 550 if we're drinking. we drink too much.
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
this begs the question of how do you spend that much money then? this should equate to a very low budget if you dont bbuy packaged food. dry beans are cheap. meat and veggies bought on sale are cheap. so how do you get to 800? does it inolve the buzzword organic which makes food cost 2x what it should for no added value?
-
One adult female
Two older teen males
One large breed dog
$420 budget: includes food for all, school lunches, and cleaning supplies.
$100 for entertainment, so eating out falls in this category.
This is a new budget the past two months after realizing I was spending too much on food. I tried packing their lunches, but it was not cost effective as they were eating the school stuff before it could make it to school. The kids eat non stop. One of them is very active, and I don't food shame them.
I would sometimes go over. Bringing cash in my budget, and leaving bank card at home solved that.
I've also put every dollar in a category and put it where it needs to go automatically, so it cannot be misused. All my bills are on auto and I don't even know when it's pay day anymore now that I use cash for food, fuel, and entertainment.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 ppl + 1 cat
Monthly Food Budget? $500 - Actual $800
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? $100
Comments: This does not include eating out. We are happy with what we spend there. We tracked every single item in the month of January and thought that we could find some glaring holes. We could not. We actually spent over $1100 but some of that was stocking up on paper towels, tp, & meat. Food just costs a lot for us. I could quit eating vegetables...they don't have many calories. lol. Health may suffer for it though. I can't eat bread or many carb based foods. Most of the groceries are meat & vegetables.
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
this begs the question of how do you spend that much money then? this should equate to a very low budget if you dont bbuy packaged food. dry beans are cheap. meat and veggies bought on sale are cheap. so how do you get to 800? does it inolve the buzzword organic which makes food cost 2x what it should for no added value?
The question I have is how everyone else gets this so low. Our spending is about the same. We live in a higher cost of living area but that shouldn't account for that much. We tracked every single item last month and didn't see any particular item that stood out. Overall, we could maybe find $100 we could have trimmed such as skipping seafood (2 meals). We also cook from base ingredients. Not organic or anything special. I don't eat many carbs though. Especially breads & fruits which can be cheaper sources of calories & nutrition.
-
Just me...$350 a month for both. Includes coffee and alcohol. Does not include sit down restaurants, which I don't frequent on a monthly basis. Does include hospital cafeteria runs and the occasional Starbucks.
-
2 people, one large dog and 3 small dogs. Our food only for people is 400. Our dog food is 150. This does not include eating out which we usually do about 1x/week and spend about 60 each time.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults male & female mid 20s
Monthly Food, Household Supplies, Eat Out Budget? Goal: $200 Actual: $206.35 (20 month average)
Comments:
We almost never and I mean really almost never eat out and we shop and batch cook for the week on Sundays. For our shopping we first go to wholesale club (Sam's Club) and get things like meats, milk, stuff for salads, eggs, fruits/veggies and other stuff which we can use a larger quantity of. We then go to grocery store and shop for things I only need small quantities of and shop for sales and BOGO items. I have learned which shelf stable items have become staples of our diet and recipes and will stock up when they go BOGO at our local grocery store (Publix). Therefore, I will basically always pay half price for things like cereals/granola/oats, peanuts, pasta & red sauces, diced tomatoes, canned soup, bread, coffee, snacks & chips, and beer & soda (for the rare occasions we drink those). I also as a general rule don't buy liquid calories except milk and this cuts a surprising amount from a normal grocery budget. Our food budget is something I work hard to keep very low while also trying to stay reasonably healthy and tasty.
This is very inspirational. I really want to start getting our groceries down to south of $300/month This helps me put my feet to the fire. I'm going look into costco for meats and cheeses that may really help. Thanks for sharing.
-
Family of 3, one of which is a 2 year old that eats a lot and drinks a ton of milk. Our budget is $600 and it includes everything mentioned.
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
this begs the question of how do you spend that much money then? this should equate to a very low budget if you dont bbuy packaged food. dry beans are cheap. meat and veggies bought on sale are cheap. so how do you get to 800? does it inolve the buzzword organic which makes food cost 2x what it should for no added value?
The question I have is how everyone else gets this so low. Our spending is about the same. We live in a higher cost of living area but that shouldn't account for that much. We tracked every single item last month and didn't see any particular item that stood out. Overall, we could maybe find $100 we could have trimmed such as skipping seafood (2 meals). We also cook from base ingredients. Not organic or anything special. I don't eat many carbs though. Especially breads & fruits which can be cheaper sources of calories & nutrition.
we're a family of 2 and run around 300 including tons of packaged foods but for the most part we eat meat beans and veggies - packaged foods are for the weekends. if we only ate meat beans and veggies i think we could make it work for around 200 or so...
Keys for us
We only buy most things on sale and if its a good sale and can be stocked up in a freezer like meat we buy a lot
We shop at aldi for almost all produce. unless its cheaper at the local grocery store.
Pricing
Chicken breasts - sub 1.49 per lb aldi runs this special or cheaper for fresh that you can individually freeze 1 time a month
bought half a cow for around 3 bucks per pound
Aldi Milk - 1.98
Aldi OJ - 1.69
Aldi fresh green beans 99c/lb
Aldi Dry Beans 99c/lb
Aldi goat cheese 1.99
Aldi brick cheese 1.49
Aldi cauliflower - 1.19
Aldi Roma's - 99/lb
Aldi Brussels - 2.19/lb
Aldi Pork butt - 1.49 or less per pound
Aldi Pork loin - 1.49/lb or less
Ground turkey - 2/1.2 lbs
Aldi boneless skinless chx thighs 99c/lb
its all pretty cheap but aldi is a big player if you dont have one near by the grocery store produce isnt nearly as cost effective
i know 2 growing teenage boys can eat alot but i just have a hard time believing its 500 more in food per month than 2 grown adults.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 7 ppl + 2 cats + 1 dog
Monthly Food Budget*? $900
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? $750
Comments: We are a blended family so the kids are at exes houses for about 30% of the time as well and we still go through that much. Usually things like 3-4 gallons of milk a week, 3-4 lbs of meat every two or three days in our Instant Pot.
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
this begs the question of how do you spend that much money then? this should equate to a very low budget if you dont bbuy packaged food. dry beans are cheap. meat and veggies bought on sale are cheap. so how do you get to 800? does it inolve the buzzword organic which makes food cost 2x what it should for no added value?
Have you ever fed teenaged boys??
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
this begs the question of how do you spend that much money then? this should equate to a very low budget if you dont bbuy packaged food. dry beans are cheap. meat and veggies bought on sale are cheap. so how do you get to 800? does it inolve the buzzword organic which makes food cost 2x what it should for no added value?
Have you ever fed teenaged boys??
i was a teenage boy i still stand by the fact that based on what the poster said they eat their budget should be much lower.
to me this is a classifier people hide behind to not optimize.
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
this begs the question of how do you spend that much money then? this should equate to a very low budget if you dont bbuy packaged food. dry beans are cheap. meat and veggies bought on sale are cheap. so how do you get to 800? does it inolve the buzzword organic which makes food cost 2x what it should for no added value?
Have you ever fed teenaged boys??
i was a teenage boy i still stand by the fact that based on what the poster said they eat their budget should be much lower.
to me this is a classifier people hide behind to not optimize.
boarder I'd agree this is a decision to "not optimize" in our case. At some point not having arguments about eating the same bowl of beans again is worth the extra money. Certainly our tune would change if we needed to tighten up but we look for sales, buy in bulk and have cut the spending from about $2,000/month or more in the last year. If you are going full MMM we are doing poorly but we still manage to save 15-20% of our income (and funneling another 10% to college savings) buy choosing not to optimize.
-
we're a family of 2 and run around 300 including tons of packaged foods but for the most part we eat meat beans and veggies - packaged foods are for the weekends. if we only ate meat beans and veggies i think we could make it work for around 200 or so...
Keys for us
We only buy most things on sale and if its a good sale and can be stocked up in a freezer like meat we buy a lot
We shop at aldi for almost all produce. unless its cheaper at the local grocery store.
Pricing
Chicken breasts - sub 1.49 per lb aldi runs this special or cheaper for fresh that you can individually freeze 1 time a month
bought half a cow for around 3 bucks per pound
Aldi Milk - 1.98
Aldi OJ - 1.69
Aldi fresh green beans 99c/lb
Aldi Dry Beans 99c/lb
Aldi goat cheese 1.99
Aldi brick cheese 1.49
Aldi cauliflower - 1.19
Aldi Roma's - 99/lb
Aldi Brussels - 2.19/lb
Aldi Pork butt - 1.49 or less per pound
Aldi Pork loin - 1.49/lb or less
Ground turkey - 2/1.2 lbs
Aldi boneless skinless chx thighs 99c/lb
its all pretty cheap but aldi is a big player if you dont have one near by the grocery store produce isnt nearly as cost effective
i know 2 growing teenage boys can eat alot but i just have a hard time believing its 500 more in food per month than 2 grown adults.
Thank you. We are about 10 miles from an Aldi. Never been there but will check it out. We are walking distance to a Costco. The prices are good but still usually in the $4/lb range for meat. Veggies are a great price when we can buy the quantity but some of those still come from Target. I have found bone-in chicken thighs for 99c/lb.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 1 human and 1 cat
Monthly Food Budget*? I'm at £75 a month in groceries. About the same eating/drinking out
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included in above, I favour reusable cloths and tupperware rather than consumables
Overall it helps I'm a veggie, and I naturally like cheaper meals. I could get it cheaper if I wanted to, but I think I'm doing well.
I also eat out say twice a month, and have drinks out maybe few times which is the same again. Again, this could be cut back, but is mainly socialising.
-
we're a family of 2 and run around 300 including tons of packaged foods but for the most part we eat meat beans and veggies - packaged foods are for the weekends. if we only ate meat beans and veggies i think we could make it work for around 200 or so...
Keys for us
We only buy most things on sale and if its a good sale and can be stocked up in a freezer like meat we buy a lot
We shop at aldi for almost all produce. unless its cheaper at the local grocery store.
Pricing
Chicken breasts - sub 1.49 per lb aldi runs this special or cheaper for fresh that you can individually freeze 1 time a month
bought half a cow for around 3 bucks per pound
Aldi Milk - 1.98
Aldi OJ - 1.69
Aldi fresh green beans 99c/lb
Aldi Dry Beans 99c/lb
Aldi goat cheese 1.99
Aldi brick cheese 1.49
Aldi cauliflower - 1.19
Aldi Roma's - 99/lb
Aldi Brussels - 2.19/lb
Aldi Pork butt - 1.49 or less per pound
Aldi Pork loin - 1.49/lb or less
Ground turkey - 2/1.2 lbs
Aldi boneless skinless chx thighs 99c/lb
its all pretty cheap but aldi is a big player if you dont have one near by the grocery store produce isnt nearly as cost effective
i know 2 growing teenage boys can eat alot but i just have a hard time believing its 500 more in food per month than 2 grown adults.
Thank you. We are about 10 miles from an Aldi. Never been there but will check it out. We are walking distance to a Costco. The prices are good but still usually in the $4/lb range for meat. Veggies are a great price when we can buy the quantity but some of those still come from Target. I have found bone-in chicken thighs for 99c/lb.
aldi will run bone in for as low as 29c per pound. here their ads run wednesday to wednesday. You can use their website to see the ad. so you can see what produce is on sale that week. You will be able to see the fresh meat special buy sales 1 week in advance on the website.
you're likely going to save much more money than costco i think they are way overrated ... Aldi FTW for all food would likely cut most peoples budgets by 50% if they didnt even look at the local grocery ad to shop loss leaders.
-
- Feeding/supplying 2 people, wife (120 lb female) and myself (175 lb male).
- Monthly GROCERY budget: $500
- Monthly grocery budget includes household supplies, coffee, and beer bought at a grocery store. Liquor stores, coffee shops, fast food, restaurants, and bars go into our "Everything Else" budget item.
We eat about 2 lbs of meat (6 oz cooked for her and 8 oz cooked for me for each lunch and dinner) per day, mostly in the form of chicken thighs, pork shoulder, and ground beef; we also eat 5 eggs (2 for her, 3 for me) each day for breakfast, plus a bit of bacon, spam, or bacon added in. We go through a similar weight in vegetables each week. We each do strength training 3-5 days per week, and a 3+ mile run or 5+ mile bike ride probably once a week.
For reference: our total "Food & Dining" (which includes the separated out items above) in 2016 was $10,816, or $902 per month. We do enjoy restaurants and alcohol; spending on those categories has gone down every year and likely will go down more this year.
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
this begs the question of how do you spend that much money then? this should equate to a very low budget if you dont bbuy packaged food. dry beans are cheap. meat and veggies bought on sale are cheap. so how do you get to 800? does it inolve the buzzword organic which makes food cost 2x what it should for no added value?
The question I have is how everyone else gets this so low. Our spending is about the same. We live in a higher cost of living area but that shouldn't account for that much. We tracked every single item last month and didn't see any particular item that stood out. Overall, we could maybe find $100 we could have trimmed such as skipping seafood (2 meals). We also cook from base ingredients. Not organic or anything special. I don't eat many carbs though. Especially breads & fruits which can be cheaper sources of calories & nutrition.
I suspect that the reason your spending is higher is some combo of teenagers, HCOL, and meat. We live in the highest of HCOLs, and I love to cook, and we also eat very well. We are only 2 people (and not teenagers), and when I remove alcohol we spend $112 a month on a CSA + eggs, and ~$275 on other food (so just under half what you spend). We actually don't eat much meat (maybe 2x a week?), but we like to have dinner parties and make fancy things, and I'm constantly trying new recipes that call for specialty items (I try to keep it to a dull roar). The occasional splurges add up.
I went back and looked at the Root of Good post about groceries, and i was struck by how much packages food and out of season fruits and veggies they purchase. We make our own bread and baked goods and salad dressings and granola and hummus and salsa, and so my purchases are usually dried beans/grains/flour, nuts, canned goods, dairy, oils, occasional meat/seafood/tofu, and the aforementioned weekly CSA.
-
2 adults, 2 kids (1 and 3 in full time daycare where lunch and two snacks are provided by daycare M-F)
1 large breed dog
Monthly grocery spend around $700 excluding dog food and household supplies and booze (We don't drink any more and the drinks in our groceries are club soda, tea, coffee, milk and alcohol free beer)
Dog food is $40/month
Eating out/coffee $20-40 per month plus $20-100 meal expenses for DH when he travels for work. Mostly we manage with packed meals but that doesn't work for 3 day trips so sometimes he does have to buy restaurant/hotel bar meals but he does get per diems so I don't usually include the expense. I have noted it here though a of course that brings our grocery bill down a little bit if he's not eating home food a few days a month.
I do have a few dietary restrictions, no wheat, eggs, corn and minimal dairy. as I do most of the cooking, we all have rice pasta, spelt pizza dough etc. I make most things from scratch like pasta sauces, pizza dough, muffins, hummus , etc. A few convenience foods as we are both working full time. Lunch is always leftovers, buying lunch out for me is a rarity.
Oh, and we're in 🇨🇦
-
I don't budget. But these are my 2016 averages per month:
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 1 human adult (cat expenses are tracked separately)
Monthly Food Budget? $778 for ONE person!
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Hard to tell - not tracked separately. Some is included in grocery, some isn't.
One note is that my state/city taxes all goods at 9%, so my total is closer to $714/month before tax (which isn't really that much better). I eat out a fair amount, and I drink alcohol. Groceries are $370/mo. I eat simply and make most things from scratch, but I like quality ingredients and spend more to buy expensive dried beans, CSA fruits and veggies, and local meat because they taste better to me. I don't do organic.
Also, I'm cool with spending this much, and not really trying to improve right now (2016 was actually a big improvement over 2015 and 2014).
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 1 adult, no pets
Monthly Food Budget? $120*
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included in food budget
Comments: I don't budget for eating out, I prefer to think of any time eating out as coming directly out of my monthly savings. That helps me decide if it's really worth it or not. Last year before instituting this policy, I was at ~$100/mo eating out, so far this year it is much lower (~$25/mo). Hopefully I can keep it there!
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
this begs the question of how do you spend that much money then? this should equate to a very low budget if you dont bbuy packaged food. dry beans are cheap. meat and veggies bought on sale are cheap. so how do you get to 800? does it inolve the buzzword organic which makes food cost 2x what it should for no added value?
Have you ever fed teenaged boys??
Aww, thanks for defending me!
Very high COL area, no Aldi or other discount grocer, a fair amount of gourmet ingredients (although we buy them at Trader Joe's, so they're ... less outrageously expensive), and we try to buy responsibly raised meat, but not too much of it. We're totally not optimizing on the food -- I decided I could bash it back to $100-$150/week (the rest is delivered milk and that half steer, which I've split into a monthly amount).
Interesting that the responses seem to be bimodal -- lots of folks with "high" grocery budgets up around mine (per person), some folks striving for and/or achieving half that.
From memory, our menu this past week:
Breakfasts: coffee, milk, cereal (from TJ, so $2-$3/box), granola (which I make), soaked oats, pancakes, all with fruit
Breakfast fruit this week was two $1 pineapples and a $2 box of blueberries
Lunches: sandwiches, leftovers, bean cheese & spicy pico quesadillas for lunches, with oranges/apples. Big salad for me of celery, apples, blue cheese, walnuts, and dried cranberries (chopped salads last several days).
Dinners: tonight was a pasta carbonara baked in a springform (smitten kitchen), salad. This was an experiment, and contained some fancy-pants ingredients.
tomorrow: sausage, lentil, (frozen)kale soup with croutons made of the leftover bread from this week
red curry beef and cabbage, steamed rice
pozole (chicken & hominy stew), cabbage and carrot salad
burgers, sweet potatoes, green beans, salad
peanut noodles (tofu, veg)
tuna steaks (we try to have fish once per week, these were on sale for $5 or $6/lb), potatoes & greens & garlic, some cooked vegetable. Upside-down orange cake.
Looking this over (and comparing to boarder's list), I see a couple of things:
1. We try to eat fish once or so per week. We never find OK fish for under $5 or $6/lb. We live in the center of the country, and I'm the creepy lady who asks to smell the fish if I think it looks questionable.
2. Our vegetables (especially in the winter) are more like $3 - $4/lb, and we eat a pound to a pound and a half per dinner, typically. I do look at the sales flyers before I head out, and I do plan ahead of time to have meals based around whatever's on sale.
3. We're all absurdly active. We eat a lot. Side effect of not driving during the week, possibly.
4. I'm a bread snob. We buy a loaf per week, and it's freakin' expensive at $6 per largish round loaf. I've spent entire winters working on mastering bread baking, and mine is decent, but not as good. I've decided the stuff I buy is worth it to me. (Bring on the catheter and the motorized armchair, please.)
5. That half steer? Grass-fed, grass-finished, I've met the ranchers and had a friend who's a grassland ecologist look at the ranch. I've also walked through the "processing" facility, and am happy with the way the animals AND the people are treated. We're willing to put our money where our mouths (literally) are, in this instance. Basically, same story for the milk, which arrives in glass bottles like we're totally fancy people (or regular people 40 years ago), then the glass bottles go away again, courtesy of the milk fairies who come and go in the dark. Those two are probably $40/week, right there. I am not unaware of this, and we could cut it if necessary, but right now we can afford it, and it's part of how we support our community and put our money where our values are.
This is a cool thread -- thanks!
-
~$200 on groceries
~$25 household supplies
~$250 going out/alcohol (100% discretionary)
-
^Total's between SO and I, no childmonsters.
-
Our total costs for groceries, restaurants, and household supplies averaged out to $305/month last year. Two adults. The breakdown:
Groceries + household(toilet paper,etc) - $226/month
Snacks, treats, soda - $44/month
Restaurants - $22/month
Grain CSA - $8/month
Costco membership - $5/month
I see some people including pet supplies also - we keep that separate. Last year Anthony (the cat) cost us $336, or $28/month.
-
We're up from a few years ago, honestly because of increasing prices. Averaging ~$320-350 a month for all home-cooked food, household supplies, coffee, alcohol, and pet food for two adults, two giant breed dogs, and three cats.
That amount does not include eating out (or getting a takeout $5 pizza from Little Caesars). That happens about once a week.
We don't buy beef because of the cost (I just quit buying when it went over $2 a pound) and don't buy pork because it sets off my husband's gout. So that saves a lot, actually. Our meals are veggie or vegan when that seems to occur naturally, and the rest feature poultry or venison when we have it. I'd say 3-4 meals a week feature meat in some form. That's suppers only; breakfast is invariably PB on toasted homemade bread and lunches are leftovers for me and a much-loved homemade trail mix for him.
-
Pork is the price of chicken or cheaper on sale. And ground beef is sub 2/lb alot now. I'm not sure why steaks and other whole cuts haven't fallen though. The price of cattle indicates they should have.
-
Pork is the price of chicken or cheaper on sale. And ground beef is sub 2/lb alot now. I'm not sure why steaks and other whole cuts haven't fallen though. The price of cattle indicates they should have.
I may look back at ground beef, then, thanks, though we've been enough years without we don't really miss it other than in better cholesterol numbers. But decent ground beef is probably better for us than the occasional ground turkey I buy (usually use TVP instead of ground meat, or use ground venison if I have it).
I know pork is the price of chicken, and it was a real dietary/budget loss for us when we figured out it was a significant gout trigger for my husband, but one meal isn't worth a week and a half of near-crippling pain for him (and I've never much liked most pork myself).
I do wish whole cuts would drop! A venison roast with root veggies is arguably better than the same beef roast, but there's just no steak substitute.
-
Pork is the price of chicken or cheaper on sale. And ground beef is sub 2/lb alot now. I'm not sure why steaks and other whole cuts haven't fallen though. The price of cattle indicates they should have.
I may look back at ground beef, then, thanks, though we've been enough years without we don't really miss it other than in better cholesterol numbers. But decent ground beef is probably better for us than the occasional ground turkey I buy (usually use TVP instead of ground meat, or use ground venison if I have it).
I know pork is the price of chicken, and it was a real dietary/budget loss for us when we figured out it was a significant gout trigger for my husband, but one meal isn't worth a week and a half of near-crippling pain for him (and I've never much liked most pork myself).
I do wish whole cuts would drop! A venison roast with root veggies is arguably better than the same beef roast, but there's just no steak substitute.
thats why we buy half cows. my uncle is a farmer in northern kansas. says you can get a half a cow for 2.50/lb in the freezer right now.
-
Last year we averaged $960 a month on all food and drinks including dog food and $300 on household.
Plus we averaged $245 on eating out which includes any birthday meals, any corner stores, anything not eaten at home.
This is for a family of 6 plus two big lab dogs.
We are on a mission to lower this and last month we did substantially. We will see what we average out at the end of the year.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? - 1 adult
Monthly Food Budget*? - ~$200
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? - less than $10
-
Pork is the price of chicken or cheaper on sale. And ground beef is sub 2/lb alot now. I'm not sure why steaks and other whole cuts haven't fallen though. The price of cattle indicates they should have.
I may look back at ground beef, then, thanks, though we've been enough years without we don't really miss it other than in better cholesterol numbers. But decent ground beef is probably better for us than the occasional ground turkey I buy (usually use TVP instead of ground meat, or use ground venison if I have it).
I know pork is the price of chicken, and it was a real dietary/budget loss for us when we figured out it was a significant gout trigger for my husband, but one meal isn't worth a week and a half of near-crippling pain for him (and I've never much liked most pork myself).
I do wish whole cuts would drop! A venison roast with root veggies is arguably better than the same beef roast, but there's just no steak substitute.
thats why we buy half cows. my uncle is a farmer in northern kansas. says you can get a half a cow for 2.50/lb in the freezer right now.
Yes, but I won't pay $2.50 a pound for a rare splurge, so I certainly wouldn't buy a half cow's worth of it at that price.
-
My housemate just moved out last month, and I'm in the process of trimming my budget, so here's my before and (theoretical at the moment) after:
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget?
Before: 2 adult females, 4 cats
After: 1 adult female, 3 cats
Monthly Food Budget*?
Groceries:
- Before: averaged around US$600
- After: I've put $375 in the budget but am actually aiming for $300. All cat expenses have been separated out. This month I'll be researching more frugal food shopping options (checking out Aldi's, Costco, etc.), so by the end of the month I should have a better idea of what I can really achieve.
Eating out:
- Before: averaged about $222 (madness!)
- After: aiming for $50
(I also have a category for "spending money," which is weekly cash in hand for whatever miscellaneous little thing I might need to grab. Mostly it tends to go for food and drink, though, so I should probably just roll these two categories together. "Spending money" for this month is $60. Previously: $100.)
Monthly Household Supplies Budget?
- Before and after: included in groceries.
Comments:
We used to eat a lot of take-out--like seriously, at least twice a week. There was a whole tangle of anxiety, depression, assorted health issues, and interpersonal dynamic that's not worth getting into but that kept us from doing much cooking, so we bought a lot of prepackaged food--or, when we did cook, we didn't tend to make the smartest choices, and often there was a lot of waste. My housemate chipped in some toward groceries and eating out, but I paid the lion's share of it (...more like the whole pride's :P ). Anyway, I'm excited to be on my own and making new habits. I actually *do* like to cook, when I'm not navigating around someone else, so I'm looking forward to it!
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults, 2 boys under 10, 0 animals
Monthly Food Budget*? $840 (includes beer & wine)
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? included in food budget
We also budget $130 for eating out (covers one restaurant trip per month -- wife and I order alcohol, we all like multiple appetizers, etc.)
We hadn't really looked closely at grocery spending in a few years (groceries / clothes / gasoline were lumped together in the budget as necessities) but at the end of December I noticed that we had spent about $6300 on restaurants (that's not a typo) last year but didn't have a ~$5K surplus in the bucket we included groceries in. We decided to track our grocery bills again in 2017 and we spent $798 in January and $120 for a restaurant trip. We agreed that January would be a baseline grocery spend, and we'd try to improve on that going forward. I *think* that a lot of the "missing" money was just food we'd throw away (wife would still grocery shop to cook 21 meals per week, but in actuality she would only be making 15 because of the restaurant spend). I went through our deep freeze the first week of January to take an inventory and threw out a full garbage bag full of old meat -- I stopped tallying up the price tags once I hit $300. My wife is actually excited about meal planning again, and it turns out none of us miss the bi-weekly restaurant trips or fast food. I'd like to see us get to $700 month for our grocery bill.
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
...
this begs the question of how do you spend that much money then? ...
Have you ever fed teenaged boys??
...
Interesting that the responses seem to be bimodal -- lots of folks with "high" grocery budgets up around mine (per person), some folks striving for and/or achieving half that.
...
This is sorcery. Your grocery spending is 50% lower than mine, you're at $200 per person and I'm at $300 per person (+$50 per person for take out), and you have teenagers in the house. Also, we're not active at all (I aim to fix that but I am from the southern hemisphere so that's not going to start during New England winter). Plus we mostly shop at Walmart so I really have no excuse...I have to get my spending under control.
-
My kids are long grown but when they were teenagers 3 boys can eat a lot of food. It is amazing. I never bought less then 3 gallons of milk at a time.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults
Monthly Food Budget*? $340 groceries - $70 date activities including non-food stuff - we don't track any eating out numbers paid for by our spending cash ($80/each) but we mostly use that for hobbies
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? household supplies included above, but we have another $20 for toiletries
Comments: medium cost of living, protein at 1-2 meals/day for me 2-3 meals a day for him, limited processed food but not cooking from absolute scratch, infrequent alcohol purchases, frequent social potluck meals.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults 3 kids ages 9,4,1 + 1 dog and 12 chickens
Monthly Food Budget*? $540
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included in Food Budget
To be honest, not sure how my DW does it, but we always seem to eat so good at home and still have money left over for eating out twice a month.
-
3 people (2 adults + 1 toddler), $350 for groceries + eating out. $50 for household supplies. We are adding a dog to our family soon, I expect to add another $50 or so.
-
How many people? 2 adults and three teenagers, plus guests several times a week
Monthly spending: $930
This includes food, alcohol, and household goods such as cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, toilet paper, toothpaste. Groceries that were bought to make Christmas presents also are included, though I doubt that averages to more than $20/month.
I think of myself as pretty frugal on groceries; I cook from scratch and shop at Aldi, plan meals around the sales flyers, etc. But my spending is way higher than a lot of people here. Teenagers do have something to do with it; my 17yo would happily eat a pound of bacon for lunch if I let him. Also, we decided last summer to stop buying factory-farmed meat, eggs, and milk, and that made a noticeable difference.
ETA: Eating out averages an additional $30/month. We only eat out for something like the local school's fundraiser spaghetti dinner, or lunch or coffee out if we forget our cup/brown bag at home.
-
I had teenaged girls and they were fairly light eaters (but for a while I was convinced that I was the only mom in the neighborhood who bought tampons because there was always some random school friend rummaging around under the bathroom sink for supplies.)
But the guys who came over... my favorite story is the kid who came downstairs and confessed to me that he realized he had eaten all 12 of the muffins I had sitting on the counter.
-
But the guys who came over... my favorite story is the kid who came downstairs and confessed to me that he realized he had eaten all 12 of the muffins I had sitting on the counter.
This is my 10yo (nearly 11yo) twin boys. 18 muffins can be gone in 12 hours and I'm lucky if I get one. I'm scared for when we reach the true teenage years!
-
Number of people: 2 adults, 2 middleschoolers, 2 cats & a large dog
Monthly food spending: fluctuates between $425 and $594
Eating out: included above
Cleaning supplies, toiletries, etc: $10 a month included above
I guess we are middle of the pack in our food spending. Who wouldn't like to spend less? We try to limit our fresh fruit spending to $20/ week, which is hard sometimes every day. We'll know we are in that financially abundant stage when we can each eat three nectarines/apples/ oranges/mangoes/ or a cup of dates every day and not feel the pinch. Can't wait!
-
2 adults and 2 cats in Switzerland
We try to spend max 150 CHF per week for food and household supplies, but it excludes lunch for one of us as this is varies too much. Usually it is between 120 and 130.
Cat food is in the best case around 70 CHF per month when I plan in advance. I'm thinking about buying cat food across the border.
Eating out is way too expensive here for it to be a regular activity.
-
2 adults and a child
Groceries + household items bought at grocery store: $400-$500/month. I'm starting to look at receipts to break these two categories, but the household stuff is probably between $20 and $50 depending on when its time to buy certain items. We spend between $50 and $100 on eating out.
-
Between two adults we budget for and spend each month:
£200 ($250*) on groceries
£30 ($38*) on household goods.
Groceries doesn't include alcohol as that comes out of each of our own "slush funds". I probably average another £50 ($62) a month on alcohol out my own spending and my partner drinks almost nothing. This also doesn't include eating out of which I average <£20 a month and my partner significantly higher as she often doesn't find the time to make herself sandwiches, and goes out to eat with colleagues on a Friday.
Household goods includes things like washing powder, shampoo (if a reasonable brand/price, otherwise a mutually agreed difference is taken out of the respective slush fund), toothpaste, ladies monthly "hygiene products", kitchen equipment, and so on.
*at today's exchange rate
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults 2 kids ages 9,7, 1 cat
Monthly Food Budget*? $1000AUD or $770USD
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included in Food Budget
We eat really well and eat take out once a week on Friday nights. That is included and costs around $20-$30.
DS and I are celiac and dairy intolerant, so I do buy some specific GF flour and make treats for us.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults 2 kids ages 4, 5
Monthly Food Budget? $200. Usually averaging closer to $180
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? $35 for laundry soap, small repairs, etc; $20 for personal care items; $20 for fun activities (parks, museums, eating out, etc).
It always boggles my mind when people post their $400-900/mo food budgets, because I can't imagine spending that much. We used to be at $100/mo (before kids were really in the picture), and have slowly crept up to where we are (budgeting $200, spending about $180). Part of that increase is an intentional effort to put more red meat into the meal plans (and more meat in general), as my wife has sometimes felt that she wants more meat, but can't have it due to budgetary restrictions.
-
APowers- Tell us what your menu looks like! I can't imagine your low numbers. I would love to know how with our 4 kids!
-
It always boggles my mind when people post their $400-900/mo food budgets, because I can't imagine spending that much. We used to be at $100/mo (before kids were really in the picture), and have slowly crept up to where we are (budgeting $200, spending about $180). Part of that increase is an intentional effort to put more red meat into the meal plans (and more meat in general), as my wife has sometimes felt that she wants more meat, but can't have it due to budgetary restrictions.
I know. I honestly don't even know what we'd buy if we had to increase our $230 budget to $500. I guess we'd have to switch all our tasty homemade stuff to expensive, inferior commercial versions, and stop cooking entirely? Buy the most expensive option available for every single option? Shop solely at Whole Foods? Set a few bills on fire every grocery shopping trip? Even back when we bought 100% organic and had it hand delivered INTO OUR KITCHEN (we were so lazy we literally ordered everything online and gave the driver a key to our place), we were only spending around $400/month.
-
APowers- Tell us what your menu looks like! I can't imagine your low numbers. I would love to know how with our 4 kids!
Link. (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/cutting-food-expense-what-is-your-food-budget/msg497697/#msg497697)
Attached is a more recent snapshot of our food expenses. Average = $188/mo
The menu is pretty plain. Oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, leftovers for lunch, [Protein + Veg + Carb] in some combination or other. I should note that our 4y/o is sensitive to wheat(gluten) and dairy, so we don't use much butter or cheese. Which makes me a little sad, because all the rest of us love cheese; we try not to make the 4y/o feel left out. We splurge on gluten-free (GF) pasta, bread, and flour, which allows us to do stuff like pancakes and spaghetti/pasta and sandwiches. Having to be mostly gluten/dairy free is kind of a drag sometimes, and adds a little bit of extra expense overall (maybe $10/mo on average).
Lately, we've been on a pork binge, since I found three pork shoulder roasts @ $0.87/lb. They've been a week's worth of meals, plus extra meat packed and in the freezer, plus a quart of rendered pork fat to use for cooking/stirfrying later, plus broth to use in cooking rice/lentils.
Some other typical examples include:
Chicken, rice, mixed veg
Chicken, potatoes, cauliflower
"Rice soup" (rice + veggies in a rich broth)
Tacos
Lentil soup (usually w/tuna)
"taco rice" (rice w/taco meat/veg + appropriate flavours)
"taco fries" oven fries topped with taco meat, shredded lettuce, etc.
-
I am working on significantly improving this this month, so don't have a full month to report. I had been averaging $70/week at Aldi's, plus maybe another $25/week for fill-in-the-holes that Aldi's doesn't have. But today was a total fail, because I was supposed to leave town this AM and my trip canceled last-minute, and suddenly I now have a week's meals to make and am apparently feeding 8 people for the Superbowl today. So Aldi's was $100, and I think DH dropped close to that at Wegman's. Just poor planning and rushing (but at least we bought stuff that will get us through half of next week). So basic groceries I would guess $450, plus $25-40 in staples from Amazon. Numbers include food, household supplies, OTC meds, and cat litter, but not cat food (special vet kidney diet).
We are 2 adults, one teen, one preteen in a growth spurt. We eat very well - generally low-carb, lots of meat/dairy and fresh fruit/veg. Recovering addict from Wegman's deli and cheese shop -- current version is one thing at a time instead of multiples, and more Aldi's havarti instead of Wegman's Pierre Robert. In addition to the above, my real luxury is milk/butter/buttermilk/eggs from the dairy, which probably runs $100/mo on my new reduced approach. I am still figuring out where this will land -- I used to spend a ton on the grass-fed meats and fancy OJ, but am now cutting it down to the things where I can really tell the difference and the $ is worth it (milk/butter/buttermilk -- Aldi's $0.69 eggs are too good of a deal to justify $3.95 on the dairy's version, and the dairy's OJ is so expensive it makes name-brand fresh-squeezed look cheap).
So all in all, I am shooting for $600/mo. on groceries/supplies. We have also significantly cut back on eating out - so far, one Friday family dinner out and one Saturday date night fancy restaurant. My goal is not to cut that entirely, but just to cut out "cheap" meals -- I.e., no dropping $50 because I didn't plan/didn't feel like cooking/etc.
-
After reading Root of Good's One Month of Groceries post (http://rootofgood.com/one-month-of-groceries/), I was curious about how much everyone budgets and/or spends each month on food (all) and household supplies.
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget?
Monthly Food Budget*?
Monthly Household Supplies Budget?
Comments:
*includes groceries, eating out, coffee, bars/alcohol, etc... All food.
My monthly average for 2015 was $243. 2016 was $272. One person, no pets.
In addition to groceries, my numbers include:
All restaurant food (fast food, carry out, and sit down)
Alcohol
All toiletries
Cleaning supplies
Some over the counter medicine
Other miscellaneous household items like batteries and oven mits.
-
2 adults (I'm 36 wks pregnant now) + one 3 yr old
$350/mo - includes household supplies
Last year was a bit higher since we purchased a whole cow and whole pig (which we split with 2 other families, so 1/3 each). Including butcher's fees this came out to $5.17/lb for beyond organic pastured beef, which is comparable to organic ground beef at my Costco. But, we got all kinds of cuts, not just ground - our 14 cu ft chest freezer is still very full, since we eat about 3# of meat a week which seems to be far less than our neighbors/peers. A few times a year we buy 5 whole pastured chickens from a small farmer we've gotten to know ($15-25 ea depending on weight), and I get 3 gallons of raw milk per week through a herd share ($130/mo). I buy identity-preserved dry beans in bulk, heirloom flour & amazing olive oil from Jovial, organic cheeses from Costco as well as a few other bulk purchases like rice and quinoa (and household goods like TP), and sustainably-caught seafood from vital choice or alaska gold.
We also garden about 75 sq ft for vegetables, with plans to expand this year. I shop for fresh vegetables and fruit at a local organic store whose values align with mine, and I pay about the same as I would elsewhere by buying vegetables that are in season and on sale ($1.49-2.49/lb). Speciality foods there are definitely expensive, but choosing local and seasonal is a great way to save. My husband hunts so that has often supplemented our meat purchases. I love foraging just for fun, but it can turn out to save $ and add diversity to our diet, too. One way I think I save money is by avoiding "kid" food purchases - I don't buy snacks or things that are individually wrapped, for eco reasons as well as $ and a feeling that these products condition children to want junk food in colorful packages.
We could definitely lower our food spending by giving up the organic/local/sustainable choices, but we try to shop with our ecological and social values in mind.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? Two humans, one cat
Monthly Food Budget*? $400--we rarely eat out but Mr. Mandalay has developed a 7/11 coffee habit :(
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? $200--includes Poe's food and litter
Least the 7/11 coffee habit is an inexpensive one!
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults male & female mid 20s
Monthly Food, Household Supplies, Eat Out Budget? Goal: $200 Actual: $206.35 (20 month average)
Comments:
We almost never and I mean really almost never eat out and we shop and batch cook for the week on Sundays. For our shopping we first go to wholesale club (Sam's Club) and get things like meats, milk, stuff for salads, eggs, fruits/veggies and other stuff which we can use a larger quantity of. We then go to grocery store and shop for things I only need small quantities of and shop for sales and BOGO items. I have learned which shelf stable items have become staples of our diet and recipes and will stock up when they go BOGO at our local grocery store (Publix). Therefore, I will basically always pay half price for things like cereals/granola/oats, peanuts, pasta & red sauces, diced tomatoes, canned soup, bread, coffee, snacks & chips, and beer & soda (for the rare occasions we drink those). I also as a general rule don't buy liquid calories except milk and this cuts a surprising amount from a normal grocery budget. Our food budget is something I work hard to keep very low while also trying to stay reasonably healthy and tasty.
Your working hard to keep it low truly shows. Especially for 3 and sounds pretty healthy. I will need to pay more attention to BOGO sales (or similar) at my local grocers.
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
I laughed at the older kid's comment. My child does this all the time! I'm always pointing out there is this and that. "but I am too lazy to make it". Exactly. haha.
-
Comments:
We used to eat a lot of take-out--like seriously, at least twice a week. There was a whole tangle of anxiety, depression, assorted health issues, and interpersonal dynamic that's not worth getting into but that kept us from doing much cooking, so we bought a lot of prepackaged food--or, when we did cook, we didn't tend to make the smartest choices, and often there was a lot of waste. My housemate chipped in some toward groceries and eating out, but I paid the lion's share of it (...more like the whole pride's :P ). Anyway, I'm excited to be on my own and making new habits. I actually *do* like to cook, when I'm not navigating around someone else, so I'm looking forward to it!
I hear ya. Been there, done that. You do what you can to get through.
-
But the guys who came over... my favorite story is the kid who came downstairs and confessed to me that he realized he had eaten all 12 of the muffins I had sitting on the counter.
This is my 10yo (nearly 11yo) twin boys. 18 muffins can be gone in 12 hours and I'm lucky if I get one. I'm scared for when we reach the true teenage years!
My teenage son used to easily put away a whole medium pizza in a matter of minutes. Be scared. Be very scared. ;)
-
It always boggles my mind when people post their $400-900/mo food budgets, because I can't imagine spending that much. We used to be at $100/mo (before kids were really in the picture), and have slowly crept up to where we are (budgeting $200, spending about $180). Part of that increase is an intentional effort to put more red meat into the meal plans (and more meat in general), as my wife has sometimes felt that she wants more meat, but can't have it due to budgetary restrictions.
I fall into this dynamic. Although my food budget also includes other and household. I usually spend about $100/per week on groceries . But I wonder the family dynamics of everyone. Adults all working full-time? Stay at home? I imagine it might make a difference. I am a single parent working full-time. While I do buy a lot of whole foods and prep some meals like work lunches, I also buy package snacks and/or food to help speed up dinner time prep.
or it could matter what people are buying bulk in. Meat vs fruit - fruit likely being less in bulk price.
-
It always boggles my mind when people post their $400-900/mo food budgets, because I can't imagine spending that much. We used to be at $100/mo (before kids were really in the picture), and have slowly crept up to where we are (budgeting $200, spending about $180). Part of that increase is an intentional effort to put more red meat into the meal plans (and more meat in general), as my wife has sometimes felt that she wants more meat, but can't have it due to budgetary restrictions.
I fall into this dynamic. Although my food budget also includes other and household. I usually spend about $100/per week on groceries . But I wonder the family dynamics of everyone. Adults all working full-time? Stay at home? I imagine it might make a difference. I am a single parent working full-time. While I do buy a lot of whole foods and prep some meals like work lunches, I also buy package snacks and/or food to help speed up dinner time prep.
or it could matter what people are buying bulk in. Meat vs fruit - fruit likely being less in bulk price.
My wife is a SAHM, but due to some crazy amounts of volunteering & kids activities, it was like she had a full time job last year, which led to our spending a disgusting amount on restaurants. Hopefully we can cut that down significantly this year, and trim a little from our grocery bill because she'll have time to do some comparison shopping and better meal planning. Our kids have been pretty quick to adapt to eating more fresh fruits and veggies instead of prepackaged crap for snacks, so I think there's some hope to make some more healthier and budget-friendly choices in the near future.
That being said, I know the mechanics of how to get my $800 grocery bill down to less than $400, but we like beer, wine, meat, and the occasional store bought bakery item. We can afford those things, so we're not willing to eat beans, rice, and oatmeal as a major portion of our diet. Frankly, if we were spending only $400/month on groceries by doing that, I would insist that my wife spend more to make sure there was some higher end items and more variety. My wife is never going to give up Jif peanut butter, Tide, the convenience of k-cups, start cleaning with vinegar, etc. She's not going to carve up a Costco rotisserie chicken to turn it into 3 meals and a pot of stock. I know that might sound a bit condescending, but we're not willing to go ultra-MMM in this area. More power to those who do for budgetary / health / environmental / dietary preference reasons, but this is an area where we choose to splurge and in some cases pay more for convenience. Luckily being debt free and generally frugal in other areas of our life allows us to do so.
-
people spending sub 400 are not eating beans and rice that would be a sub 100 diet IMO. We eat steak and chicken and pork loin etc. we eat high volumes of meat and fresh vegetables. we spend 300 a month. eggs and cheese and avocados and spinach and kale cheezits lays chips. the list goes on. "comparison shopping" is as easy as its ever been. ITS ALL ONLINE. this is so simple
1. Check the Aldi ad to see what produce is on sale - 5 mins
2. Check the Aldi ad for next week's fresh meat special buys - 2 mins(you've already checked this week's last week so you know what fresh meats you can eat or if you have to pull from your freezer stock)
3. Check the local Grocery ads for what their loss leaders are bc thats about all thats worth buying there. - 10 mins
4. check the weekend special ad from the grocery store - 2 mins
Grocery shopping isnt rocket surgery.
i think its one of the laziest things people try to get buy with just saying its b/c i want all these fancy things. NO its laziness.
-
<snip>
Grocery shopping isnt rocket surgery.
i think its one of the laziest things people try to get buy with just saying its b/c i want all these fancy things. NO its laziness.
I'll own up to the laziness factor. My wife and I are (up until last month) horrible meal planners and when we decided to cook at home most times it involved a one-off trip to the closest supermarket to grab ingredients for that meal.
But 31 days means 93 meals in a month. If you're spending $400 a month to feed 4 people, that's $1.08 a meal per person. A very reasonably priced $15 bottle of wine per week and two 12 packs of $15 not total swill beer, and 4 $1.79 gallons of skim milk for the kiddos, and you're down to 81 cents per meal for food. I just looked at my local Aldi's ad. Chicken breast is $1.49 per pound for their 5# value bag. Google tells me an average chicken breast weighs 5.25 ounces. So a chicken breast is roughly 49 cents, leaving you 32 cents for two sides, dessert, condiments, a salad, a sheet of paper towel to clean up after the kids, and a few squares of toilet paper to deal with the consequences of consuming solid food. Obviously you make it work, so it can be done, but I don't have the self-discipline to not just solve the problem by throwing money at it.
-
15 dollars isnt a reasonable bottle of wine. thats a fancy pants expensive bottle of wine.
i assume the rest of your reasonablity follows this assumption above
-
But 31 days means 93 meals in a month. If you're spending $400 a month to feed 4 people, that's $1.08 a meal per person. A very reasonably priced $15 bottle of wine per week and two 12 packs of $15 not total swill beer, and 4 $1.79 gallons of skim milk for the kiddos, and you're down to 81 cents per meal for food. I just looked at my local Aldi's ad. Chicken breast is $1.49 per pound for their 5# value bag. Google tells me an average chicken breast weighs 5.25 ounces. So a chicken breast is roughly 49 cents, leaving you 32 cents for two sides, dessert, condiments, a salad, a sheet of paper towel to clean up after the kids, and a few squares of toilet paper to deal with the consequences of consuming solid food. Obviously you make it work, so it can be done, but I don't have the self-discipline to not just solve the problem by throwing money at it.
I usually slice the chicken before serving, and I find that if I do that, each person tends to self-serve about half a breast. (I am only feeding adults.) You don't need a whole chicken breast worth of protein at every meal unless you are working out heavily every day. So that's 25 cents for chicken. Pasta at about $1/lb, enough for 4-6 meals, so call it 20 cents for pasta. I make most of my own sauces, but call it another 10 cents if you don't. Add whatever vegetable is on sale that day. I don't serve dessert unless it's homemade, clean up with kitchen towels instead of paper, etc. I don't see why you need meat + 2 sides + salad + dessert at every meal. You're assuming meat every day - I typically serve fish once a week, chicken twice, and vegetarian the other days. Plus you're assuming that breakfast and lunch cost as much as dinner, so in reality you have a higher budget for dinner and less for breakfast/lunch which are cheaper.
It's completely possible to feed an adult on an average $1/meal. You can decide that's not something you want to do, but that doesn't make it impossible, and it doesn't mean we're eating nothing but beans and rice either.
-
15 dollars isnt a reasonable bottle of wine. thats a fancy pants expensive bottle of wine.
i assume the rest of your reasonablity follows this assumption above
it sounds as if you are trying to call someone out unjustly boarder42. did you not mention that you spend $250/m on drinking alcohol? IMO $15 bottle is decent. I think if one is to spend money on drinking it should be of value.
-
15 dollars isnt a reasonable bottle of wine. thats a fancy pants expensive bottle of wine.
i assume the rest of your reasonablity follows this assumption above
it sounds as if you are trying to call someone out unjustly boarder42. did you not mention that you spend $250/m on drinking alcohol? IMO $15 bottle is decent. I think if one is to spend money on drinking it should be of value.
We spend 0 currently. We used to spend that much. Good beer and food wine fall into different categories. Many studies have been done and very few. Meaning less than 1% of people can really distinguish between good wine and cheaper counterparts. Bottle appearance effects people.more than the wine inside. I'm blind taste studies people who were wine experts could not pick out the expensive wines.
-
I'm all for people having non mustachian tendencies just don't make excuses for it and try to make it sound reasonable when it's not.
-
15 dollars isnt a reasonable bottle of wine. thats a fancy pants expensive bottle of wine.
i assume the rest of your reasonablity follows this assumption above
it sounds as if you are trying to call someone out unjustly boarder42. did you not mention that you spend $250/m on drinking alcohol? IMO $15 bottle is decent. I think if one is to spend money on drinking it should be of value.
I took no offense. One of the best things about this forum is that people challenge you on what you consider "normal" or "reasonable". Hearing other viewpoints is how you get ideas to improve, even if you don't implement every suggestion. I would have never thought of slicing chicken breasts up before serving to see if we would eat less, and thanks to Raenia I have an experiment to run later this week. Implementing boarder42's ad check / store visit routine seems a bit of a cumbersome process and we've always chosen the convenience (laziness) of shopping at one store. Dragging two little kids into multiple stores while grocery shopping is a PITA, and we generally dislike Aldi's (admittedly due to the taste of their processed foods compared to name brands, and we should be eliminating most of those items from our diet anyway), but it might be worth seeing if their meat and produce prices are low enough to make a special trip there worthwhile. I do have a goal of cutting our $840 down to about $700 this year, so a bunch of the information in this thread is going to be considered.
Back to booze -- We will generally drink the ~$8 price point for gewurtztraminer (the only white I actually enjoy) / riesling / moscato / chardonnay, but we prefer slightly more expensive reds that are usually in the $12 - $20 range. The Kirkland old vine zinfandel that was at Costco for $8.99 a bottle a few months ago was pretty good, though, and we bought a case of it. My wife and I find that we can tell the difference between a $4, $8, $15, and a $25 bottle, but we're generally unimpressed with anything more expensive than that. For reds, the $15 - $20 price point is the best value (flavor / price) for us. We have a handful of "go-to" wines, and we buy them whenever they are on sale. I am a total beer snob and while I can enjoy fizzy yellow garbage (Bud / Miller / Coors) around the fire pit with the neighbors, I prefer higher end craft beers and enjoy trying new ones frequently. Should I probably drink less and save some money? Sure. Do I want to? Nope! And if my choice was tap water or a $4 bottle of red wine, I would probably choose the tap water, lol.
-
15 dollars isnt a reasonable bottle of wine. thats a fancy pants expensive bottle of wine.
i assume the rest of your reasonablity follows this assumption above
it sounds as if you are trying to call someone out unjustly boarder42. did you not mention that you spend $250/m on drinking alcohol? IMO $15 bottle is decent. I think if one is to spend money on drinking it should be of value.
I took no offense. One of the best things about this forum is that people challenge you on what you consider "normal" or "reasonable". Hearing other viewpoints is how you get ideas to improve, even if you don't implement every suggestion. I would have never thought of slicing chicken breasts up before serving to see if we would eat less, and thanks to Raenia I have an experiment to run later this week. Implementing boarder42's ad check / store visit routine seems a bit of a cumbersome process and we've always chosen the convenience (laziness) of shopping at one store. Dragging two little kids into multiple stores while grocery shopping is a PITA, and we generally dislike Aldi's (admittedly due to the taste of their processed foods compared to name brands, and we should be eliminating most of those items from our diet anyway), but it might be worth seeing if their meat and produce prices are low enough to make a special trip there worthwhile. I do have a goal of cutting our $840 down to about $700 this year, so a bunch of the information in this thread is going to be considered.
Back to booze -- We will generally drink the ~$8 price point for gewurtztraminer (the only white I actually enjoy) / riesling / moscato / chardonnay, but we prefer slightly more expensive reds that are usually in the $12 - $20 range. The Kirkland old vine zinfandel that was at Costco for $8.99 a bottle a few months ago was pretty good, though, and we bought a case of it. My wife and I find that we can tell the difference between a $4, $8, $15, and a $25 bottle, but we're generally unimpressed with anything more expensive than that. For reds, the $15 - $20 price point is the best value (flavor / price) for us. We have a handful of "go-to" wines, and we buy them whenever they are on sale. I am a total beer snob and while I can enjoy fizzy yellow garbage (Bud / Miller / Coors) around the fire pit with the neighbors, I prefer higher end craft beers and enjoy trying new ones frequently. Should I probably drink less and save some money? Sure. Do I want to? Nope! And if my choice was tap water or a $4 bottle of red wine, I would probably choose the tap water, lol.
you should try the columbia crest cab that costco has i think at 6 bucks a bottle. i too am a beer snob but its not the same as wine. i think in a blind taste test you'd be hard pressed to pick out the wine you thought you liked the best vs my 5 dollar bottle of a similar grape. Same thing goes for Miller is better than Bud ... no and in a blind taste test you cant tell the difference.
My wife actually did the beer test at her work for an intern project 5 years ago. everyone wrote down their favorite beer before tasting and they were all trying to make that one win. well the finals was
1. PBR
2. Busch light
3. Old Milwaukee
no one had those beers. now can you tell a hop stoopid from a budlight yeah. or the difference in ranger piney hops from schlafly tasmanian citrus hops yes. but wine is closer to my light beer is better than your light beer. and you can find very good sub 5 dollars bottles of wine.
-
15 dollars isnt a reasonable bottle of wine. thats a fancy pants expensive bottle of wine.
i assume the rest of your reasonablity follows this assumption above
it sounds as if you are trying to call someone out unjustly boarder42. did you not mention that you spend $250/m on drinking alcohol? IMO $15 bottle is decent. I think if one is to spend money on drinking it should be of value.
I took no offense. One of the best things about this forum is that people challenge you on what you consider "normal" or "reasonable". Hearing other viewpoints is how you get ideas to improve, even if you don't implement every suggestion. I would have never thought of slicing chicken breasts up before serving to see if we would eat less, and thanks to Raenia I have an experiment to run later this week. Implementing boarder42's ad check / store visit routine seems a bit of a cumbersome process and we've always chosen the convenience (laziness) of shopping at one store. Dragging two little kids into multiple stores while grocery shopping is a PITA, and we generally dislike Aldi's (admittedly due to the taste of their processed foods compared to name brands, and we should be eliminating most of those items from our diet anyway), but it might be worth seeing if their meat and produce prices are low enough to make a special trip there worthwhile. I do have a goal of cutting our $840 down to about $700 this year, so a bunch of the information in this thread is going to be considered.
Back to booze -- We will generally drink the ~$8 price point for gewurtztraminer (the only white I actually enjoy) / riesling / moscato / chardonnay, but we prefer slightly more expensive reds that are usually in the $12 - $20 range. The Kirkland old vine zinfandel that was at Costco for $8.99 a bottle a few months ago was pretty good, though, and we bought a case of it. My wife and I find that we can tell the difference between a $4, $8, $15, and a $25 bottle, but we're generally unimpressed with anything more expensive than that. For reds, the $15 - $20 price point is the best value (flavor / price) for us. We have a handful of "go-to" wines, and we buy them whenever they are on sale. I am a total beer snob and while I can enjoy fizzy yellow garbage (Bud / Miller / Coors) around the fire pit with the neighbors, I prefer higher end craft beers and enjoy trying new ones frequently. Should I probably drink less and save some money? Sure. Do I want to? Nope! And if my choice was tap water or a $4 bottle of red wine, I would probably choose the tap water, lol.
you should try the columbia crest cab that costco has i think at 6 bucks a bottle. i too am a beer snob but its not the same as wine. i think in a blind taste test you'd be hard pressed to pick out the wine you thought you liked the best vs my 5 dollar bottle of a similar grape. Same thing goes for Miller is better than Bud ... no and in a blind taste test you cant tell the difference.
My wife actually did the beer test at her work for an intern project 5 years ago. everyone wrote down their favorite beer before tasting and they were all trying to make that one win. well the finals was
1. PBR
2. Busch light
3. Old Milwaukee
no one had those beers. now can you tell a hop stoopid from a budlight yeah. or the difference in ranger piney hops from schlafly tasmanian citrus hops yes. but wine is closer to my light beer is better than your light beer. and you can find very good sub 5 dollars bottles of wine.
Man, I truly wish this would work for me, but, yeah, I have yet to find a $5 wine I can drink. I am super-sensitive to certain flavors, especially bitter or acidic flavors, and I don't like cabs or merlot or pinot or zin (basically, if Robert Parker likes it, I find it undrinkable). It's not that I insist on froofy fancy wine; I love me a cheap Moscato d'Asti, and I have yet to find a fancy French red that I like at any price. But the only wines I consistently like are specific grapes from specific areas -- and all of those areas are on the other side of an ocean (my favorite Moscato is $5-6 in Italy, but $20+ in my store). I keep trying; just last month I was thrilled to find a $14 bottle of red from New Mexico that I liked, which may be my cheapest red ever. So my solution is more like nobody123's: most of the time I drink water or tea, and then I open a bottle every few weeks.
Then again, I'm also not complaining about how impossible it is to get my grocery budget down. :-) Wine is an optional luxury.
-
Man, I truly wish this would work for me, but, yeah, I have yet to find a $5 wine I can drink. I am super-sensitive to certain flavors, especially bitter or acidic flavors, and I don't like cabs or merlot or pinot or zin (basically, if Robert Parker likes it, I find it undrinkable). It's not that I insist on froofy fancy wine; I love me a cheap Moscato d'Asti, and I have yet to find a fancy French red that I like at any price. But the only wines I consistently like are specific grapes from specific areas -- and all of those areas are on the other side of an ocean (my favorite Moscato is $5-6 in Italy, but $20+ in my store). I keep trying; just last month I was thrilled to find a $14 bottle of red from New Mexico that I liked, which may be my cheapest red ever. So my solution is more like nobody123's: most of the time I drink water or tea, and then I open a bottle every few weeks.
Then again, I'm also not complaining about how impossible it is to get my grocery budget down. :-) Wine is an optional luxury.
Laura33, I also really hate super dry acidic wine. I have found I like a lot of Malbecs, they are are from Argentina and I tend to also like the less expensive ones, so woohoo. I also like Apothic Red it's a blend and is on sale all the time!!! Not fancy wines, but yummy.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults and 1 toddler
Monthly Food Budget*? $900-$1000 Cdn
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included
We buy lots of organic, which is really expensive here in Atlantic Canada. My wife just spent $4.89 for an organic zucchini tonight for example. The total also includes eating out (maybe $40/month and about $60 for coffee at work 2-3 per week each)I would love to have the bill down to the $700 range, but doesn't seem like it is ever going to happen.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults and 1 toddler
Monthly Food Budget*? $900-$1000 Cdn
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included
We buy lots of organic, which is really expensive here in Atlantic Canada. My wife just spent $4.89 for an organic zucchini tonight for example. The total also includes eating out (maybe $40/month and about $60 for coffee at work 2-3 per week each)I would love to have the bill down to the $700 range, but doesn't seem like it is ever going to happen.
not with that attitude it wont.. 4.89 for an "organic" zucchini really. cmon. you can feed a family of 4 for 4.89. so you wouldnt love to have it at 700 or lower you intentionally arent trying to get there through choices.
How can you feed 4 for 4.89
Cauliflower is on sale at my local grocery store 1 head will feed 4 people - 1.19
Chicken is on sale thighs at aldi - 69c per pound even at 1 lb per human that only - 2.76
we just spent 3.95 to feed a family of 4. and thats a lot of extra food in there.
until you start thinking whats on sale and cooking from that you cant reduce your spending. if you go to the store to buy ingredients for a planned meal without checking the ads and planning your meal around that AND what you have in stock then yes you'll never get there.
-
I am one adult and one cat - in GTA, Ontario, Canada
My goals for 2017 is to average:
$200 for groceries
$30 for consumables (toiletries, kitchen supplies, cleaning supplies and cat supplies)
$50 for eating out
However after spending $155 in January eating out (weekend wedding blew the budget) I realized that I would rather put that $50 towards groceries because it goes so much further. So now I am just trying to avoid eating out entirely. I'm lucky in that my friend group does a lot of in house socializing and we usually do pot luck events.
I'm tracking every dollar I spend this year and breaking it down into specific categories which has really helped me appreciate how much money I actually spend. It has definitely made me more aware of my spending, hopefully in a few months I can update and say my averages are right on target!
-
<snip>
you should try the columbia crest cab that costco has i think at 6 bucks a bottle. i too am a beer snob but its not the same as wine. i think in a blind taste test you'd be hard pressed to pick out the wine you thought you liked the best vs my 5 dollar bottle of a similar grape. Same thing goes for Miller is better than Bud ... no and in a blind taste test you cant tell the difference.
My wife actually did the beer test at her work for an intern project 5 years ago. everyone wrote down their favorite beer before tasting and they were all trying to make that one win. well the finals was
1. PBR
2. Busch light
3. Old Milwaukee
no one had those beers. now can you tell a hop stoopid from a budlight yeah. or the difference in ranger piney hops from schlafly tasmanian citrus hops yes. but wine is closer to my light beer is better than your light beer. and you can find very good sub 5 dollars bottles of wine.
Where I live, the state sets the minimum prices on bottles of wine / beer / liquor as well as dictates what can be sold in the state. When "2 Buck Chuck" was all the rage, it was $3.99 here, for example, and didn't arrive for like a year after it became popular. I can't recall seeing any reds at Costco for less than $8. Thanks for the tip, I'll check and see if the CC cab is there or in our grocery store. We have been trying some more red blends, and generally find them palatable in the $10-$12 range. We used to routinely buy wine by the case (the state allows a 10% discount if you do so), but found out we just drank it more often because it was there, so we stopped doing that. I have had a decent amount of success the last couple months pairing a wine with a mail-in rebate and an Ibotta rebate to get some for close to $5 net, but now that the holidays are over the "commodity" wines have cut back on the rebates.
I can tell the difference between Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Coors Light, and I'd put PBR ahead of them too. I actually have a 12 pack of Natty Light in my beer fridge right now ($7.99 - $4 Ibotta rebate, so $4.53 after tax) that my wife won't touch but is fine for my second or third beers of the night.
-
We are a family of four (two growing but young boys).
We have a grocery budget of $500 per month (although in 4 week months I sometimes skate through on $400 if we don't need to stock up on meat). This includes everything purchased at the grocery store or Walmart that is edible.
Our household budget is currently $40 but seems to be a bit low. This has to cover all toiletries, toilet paper, dishwasher tabs, and laundry tabs. Yes, I know we could save money using liquid laundry or dishwasher soap but with little kids it has been easier to teach them to put in one packet before starting appliances. This way even the 3 year old can turn on the dishwasher (if we get the soap out of the cabinet for him).
-
2 adults, 2 teenage boys. About $800/month, including milk delivery and the half steer we buy each year. And cleaning supplies.
It's high. But we eat out approximately never, we buy almost no convenience or pre-prepared food, and we cook about everything from fundamental parts: Meat, dried beans, vegetables. The older kid looked at a completely full fridge last week and said "why isn't there anything to eat in here", meaning "it's all basic components that require assembly, there's nothing I can grab and eat." My goal is to have an empty refrigerator on Friday evening/Sat morning before we go grocery shopping. We eat very, very well, but haven't thrown out food in a while.
We also have 2 cats, but their stuff is calculated elsewhere.
I laughed at the older kid's comment. My child does this all the time! I'm always pointing out there is this and that. "but I am too lazy to make it". Exactly. haha.
To his credit, he made a double batch (24) of pineapple-upside-down muffins a few hours later. And hid half in a ziploc bag in the way far back of the freezer, where he figured no one else would look :^)
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults and 1 toddler
Monthly Food Budget*? $900-$1000 Cdn
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included
We buy lots of organic, which is really expensive here in Atlantic Canada. My wife just spent $4.89 for an organic zucchini tonight for example. The total also includes eating out (maybe $40/month and about $60 for coffee at work 2-3 per week each)I would love to have the bill down to the $700 range, but doesn't seem like it is ever going to happen.
not with that attitude it wont.. 4.89 for an "organic" zucchini really. cmon. you can feed a family of 4 for 4.89. so you wouldnt love to have it at 700 or lower you intentionally arent trying to get there through choices.
How can you feed 4 for 4.89
Cauliflower is on sale at my local grocery store 1 head will feed 4 people - 1.19
Chicken is on sale thighs at aldi - 69c per pound even at 1 lb per human that only - 2.76
we just spent 3.95 to feed a family of 4. and thats a lot of extra food in there.
until you start thinking whats on sale and cooking from that you cant reduce your spending. if you go to the store to buy ingredients for a planned meal without checking the ads and planning your meal around that AND what you have in stock then yes you'll never get there.
I agree planning your meals around the sales is the way to go. So how do I stop my wife from going to the grocery store basically located next to her work on her way home and buying whatever she feels like? The zucchini was for a bread she is making for our 3 year old who is a very fussy eater. The cashews she buys (organic) are also killing me, twice as much as non organic. Again, these are for the little one who basically doesn't eat meat, he's a fussy eater, so they serve as a protein for him, however that doesn't mean I'm on board with that, I think non organic would be fine. I'm just going to add that while we struggle with grocery costs, we do well on most other areas.
By the way, no Aldi's around here in Canada, and we do shop for sales, however we have limited freezer space, so we can't stock up on frozen items (meat, chicken) which we don't each that much of anyway. I do also stock up on sale items when possible.
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults and 1 toddler
Monthly Food Budget*? $900-$1000 Cdn
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included
We buy lots of organic, which is really expensive here in Atlantic Canada. My wife just spent $4.89 for an organic zucchini tonight for example. The total also includes eating out (maybe $40/month and about $60 for coffee at work 2-3 per week each)I would love to have the bill down to the $700 range, but doesn't seem like it is ever going to happen.
not with that attitude it wont.. 4.89 for an "organic" zucchini really. cmon. you can feed a family of 4 for 4.89. so you wouldnt love to have it at 700 or lower you intentionally arent trying to get there through choices.
How can you feed 4 for 4.89
Cauliflower is on sale at my local grocery store 1 head will feed 4 people - 1.19
Chicken is on sale thighs at aldi - 69c per pound even at 1 lb per human that only - 2.76
we just spent 3.95 to feed a family of 4. and thats a lot of extra food in there.
until you start thinking whats on sale and cooking from that you cant reduce your spending. if you go to the store to buy ingredients for a planned meal without checking the ads and planning your meal around that AND what you have in stock then yes you'll never get there.
I agree planning your meals around the sales is the way to go. So how do I stop my wife from going to the grocery store basically located next to her work on her way home and buying whatever she feels like? The zucchini was for a bread she is making for our 3 year old who is a very fussy eater. The cashews she buys (organic) are also killing me, twice as much as non organic. Again, these are for the little one who basically doesn't eat meat, he's a fussy eater, so they serve as a protein for him, however that doesn't mean I'm on board with that, I think non organic would be fine. I'm just going to add that while we struggle with grocery costs, we do well on most other areas.
By the way, no Aldi's around here in Canada, and we do shop for sales, however we have limited freezer space, so we can't stock up on frozen items (meat, chicken) which we don't each that much of anyway. I do also stock up on sale items when possible.
Really?!?? How do you stop your wife. You get on the same page you have a conversation about it. Or you offer to do all the grocery shopping
-
How many people and/or animals fall under this budget? 2 adults and 1 toddler
Monthly Food Budget*? $900-$1000 Cdn
Monthly Household Supplies Budget? Included
We buy lots of organic, which is really expensive here in Atlantic Canada. My wife just spent $4.89 for an organic zucchini tonight for example. The total also includes eating out (maybe $40/month and about $60 for coffee at work 2-3 per week each)I would love to have the bill down to the $700 range, but doesn't seem like it is ever going to happen.
not with that attitude it wont.. 4.89 for an "organic" zucchini really. cmon. you can feed a family of 4 for 4.89. so you wouldnt love to have it at 700 or lower you intentionally arent trying to get there through choices.
How can you feed 4 for 4.89
Cauliflower is on sale at my local grocery store 1 head will feed 4 people - 1.19
Chicken is on sale thighs at aldi - 69c per pound even at 1 lb per human that only - 2.76
we just spent 3.95 to feed a family of 4. and thats a lot of extra food in there.
until you start thinking whats on sale and cooking from that you cant reduce your spending. if you go to the store to buy ingredients for a planned meal without checking the ads and planning your meal around that AND what you have in stock then yes you'll never get there.
I agree there are ways to spend less but I'm in Atlantic Canada too and those prices just do not exist. A Cauliflower is usually around $4 (at one point last year for a number of reasons, they were $8 apiece!). Same with meat, we cannot compare with the US prices. Chicken typically around the $3-$4/lb mark....I would pass out if I saw it at $0.69 /lb!
I'm not buying $4 zucchini but I work hard at our grocery budget and make a lot from scratch (we have some food limitations due to allergies) and all in, with diapers, dog food ($40-$50/mth) household supplies, coffee/dining out (minimal), we are not far off $1000/month for 2 adults and a 1 and 3 yr old who get lunch and two snacks provided to them by daycare 5 days a week. Remember $1k Canadian is a lot less than $1k USD. Just wanted to make that point when comparing Canadian spending to US. I know there are Canadians that spend less but generally by nature of our food prices and $, most will come out quite a bit higher than US equivalent. And we don't have Aldi or Lidl in many places.
-
Remember $1k Canadian is a lot less than $1k USD. Just wanted to make that point when comparing Canadian spending to US. I know there are Canadians that spend less but generally by nature of our food prices and $, most will come out quite a bit higher than US equivalent. And we don't have Aldi or Lidl in many places.
I do the conversion between USD and CAD when reading forum posts. It makes me feel a lot better about my savings and FIRE $$$ target. I travel a lot in the US and every time I go to a grocery store I look at the pile of stuff I am buying then the total on the screen and I feel like the cashier must have missed something.
-
We spend $1,000 a month on average. It is by far, our biggest expense and I've tried to get it down. This includes all household items, cleaning items and alcohol (alcohol is probably $60/month). Family of 4 with two boys, 11 and 8 (my 11 year old eats constantly). I make their lunches to take to school every day and since I work AND volunteer a lot....I do buy some convenience items for their lunches like applesauce pouches, yogurts and granola/granola bars. This adds up when we are doing 10 packed lunches a week. Also, it used to be that I could make a huge batch of spaghetti sauce and get two dinners out of that. Now, we are lucky to get one dinner and a lunch for DH. This impacts the budget a lot.
We don't eat out much.... I meal plan weekly and plan my meals around sales. I have NEVER seen deals like many people post on here, though. Our meat is expensive - the cheapest I've ever found chicken legs/thighs is $1.70 a pound. I have NEVER found meat under $1 a lb here. I do buy grass fed beef (but we only eat it maybe 2x per month).
DH comes home for lunch every day and I work from home - so this budget includes breakfast, lunch and dinner for our whole family. I also anticipate that this cost will increase as my boys continue to grow and play sports - they are active kids. OR, I'll need to cut back on something to be able to do more "scratch" cooking at home for things like granola, etc....but I don't see that happening anytime soon. It's an expense that we are okay with during this season of our lives.