What Does Your Food Cost per Day?

[aloevera1]

Hi all,

I found myself in a couple of discussions with people where the expectations regarding food cost per day per adult are wildly different. I want to check what the range is here.

I am sure this has been asked many times but since then we've had tons of inflation and I don't see any recent topics.

Could you please provide your realistic average over the last year or so? Here are the parameters:

- Food includes all food, that means restaurants, takeouts, McDonalds, etc. are included.
- Whether you are in LCOL, HCOL or somewhere in the middle
- If you have any special dietary needs, e.g. don't eat meat or have to buy gluten free products
- Any other details that make your food budget an outlier, e.g. "I hunt so I don't buy any meat in the store" or "work pays for half of my meals"

The estimate doesn't have to be super precise, just looking for a ballpark.

Super curious!

[GilesMM]

Average for groceries for typical Americans is $300-400 per person per month and about the same for dining out.

[NotJen]

Here are some of my actual numbers from years past.

pre-FIRE: LCOL, no special dietary needs, includes alcohol, 9% sales tax on all food
2014 - $37.00/day - first joined MMM
2019 - $24.50/day - more mindful spending, but still lots of dining out and alcohol

post-FIRE: MCOL, no special dietary needs, includes alcohol, 0% tax on many foods
2023 - $7.40/day

[Tasse]

Average monthly grocery spending June 2023-Sept 2024: $375

Average monthly restaurant spending over the same time: $301

For our two-person household and approximating 30 days per month = $11.27 per person per day.

We don't cook meat at home, but sometimes buy it at restaurants (sushi in particular). No other dietary restrictions.

Most of that time was spent in a MCOLA. This average also includes some unusually high months for us (an extravagant celebration one month, stress around the death of a parent over several months).

We've recently moved to a LCOLA and expect the number to drop. This month we've spent under $150 so far, so under 25% of the average even though we're 50% through the month.

We try not to spend dumb money on food but it's not something we're super careful about.

[EvenSteven]

For 2024
2 Adults and 2 kids
MCOL
No special dietary needs
No special effort to keep food costs down

~$300/mo Costco food
~$400/mo from other grocery stores (Trader Joe's, the local Asian market, local grocery chain)
~$150/mo restaurants

Total of ~$850 per month

[TheFrenchCat]

For 2 adults and one 9 year old, MCOL area:

$550 average per month at grocery store.  This does include the occasional household good, like soap, but not too much.
$300 average per month at restaurants/takeout.  We have been recently getting better, so this is more like 200 now. 

We don't have any special dietary needs, but we eat way more snack foods than I'd like.  I'm trying to get this down a bit.

So $9.44 per person per day.  I'll have to keep this in mind compared to the cost of one restaurant meal when we're tempted to eat out for convenience.

[mspym]

Two adults, averaging $800NZ a month, which works out to be $13 per person per day. That felt like A Lot to me when we moved here but according to national grocery stats we are on the low end of the spectrum - food is just really expensive here. We do save some money by having a garden and mostly eating produce out of that and trading produce with my sister.

[the lorax]

another NZer - ours works out to $NZ14 per day per person- that doesn't include alcohol but does include 2 cats and 1 teenage male - teenage males being the most expensive category according to the national research study ;)

[Cranky]

3 adults, MCOL - $8.33/person/ day. This includes cat food, cleaning supplies and wine. We eat out maybe once/month? We got Chinese takeout recently for a birthday.

[SunnyDays]

One person, in MCOL area in Canada, about $10 CAD per day.  Rarely eat out, includes paper products.  No special dietary needs.  Grocery prices are quite high here compared to the US.

[ixtap]

He is gluten free, dairy free and potato free (luckily other nightshades OK).
She is low carb and spinach free (which means when we do go out, she can't just order a salad because most have mixed greens and most mass produced arugula is actually a spinach hybrid)

We eat a ton of nuts and seeds.

I also just realized that while we eat in most of the time we are visiting family, we have been picking up the grocery bill more often and we now spend more on groceries when visiting family than when we are home.

All told, it averages out to ~$15/person/day, especially when I use errands as an excuse to eat out.

[travelbug]

Family of 4 with two teens, one a teen boy who eats a lot as he trains every day... We spend AUD$16pp per day. MCOL.
We don't eat dairy and two of us don't eat meat. Heaps of fruit, veg, seeds and nuts 80% organic.
We eat out once a week on average, generally Thai or Japanese, which is included.

[Zikoris]

In 2023 we spent $6,035 for the year on food for two people, which is about $8.25/person/day. This year we've spent $4,643 and it's day 291 of the year, so we're trending downwards at just under $8/person/day.

I don't believe in the concept of HCOL/LCOL, so I'll just say I live in Vancouver and you can assign whatever label you see fit.

We don't eat out very much. We eat restaurant food about once or twice a month, though often not full meals - more like going to a cafe with friends, etc. Our grocery shopping also includes a fair bit of non-food items, which we stopped manually splitting out in 2020. Paper products, some personal care, and cleaning supplies are all in there.

We're both vegans and I do bulk meal prep every weekend to prepare all our food for the week. Otherwise we don't put in that much effort. We don't buy convenience food or stupid shit.

[Omy]

HCOL area. Two of us. Approximately $10 per person per day.

[Jade]

We're in the UK and spend approx £35 a week for two adults Inc cleaning / toiletries. In dollars that's about $45 a week, and $6.42 a day or £5 a day for two. So I'd guess somewhere between £3-4 without toiletries etc so £1-2 each (0.7 USD - 1.4 USD).

We live in the SE of the UK. Not HCOL like London but not the cheapest place in the UK. We don't eat much meat or drink or eat out. We buy a couple of gluten and lactose free bits.

[Tasse]

I'd love to hear about the conversations that led you to start this thread @aloevera1. How much do people think food should cost per day?

[MaybeBabyMustache]

Around $10/day. That includes two adults (one who eats gluten free) & two teens, one who plays a lot of sports. DS18 just moved into a college dorm a few weeks ago, so we purchased groceries for him for the majority of the year. This number includes all of the meals we've purchased for other people when eating out, so it's not super precise. We tend to pay more often than not.

[FireLane]

I live in HCOL New York City in a household of two adults and one fast-growing boy.

My son has some food allergies and my wife has developed some dietary intolerances (mostly dairy and red meat). I like to buy organic and fair-trade products where I can get them and where the price premium isn't too extreme. I do all the grocery shopping and meal planning and try to make at least half our meals vegetarian. I do Costco runs every two to three months to stock up on bulk goods and plan most meals around whatever's on sale that week.

I pulled all my grocery spending since 2020. I found that, notwithstanding post-pandemic inflation, our food bill has been pretty damn consistent, so I'm pleased with myself:

2020: 20.96/day
2021: 18.91/day
2022: 20.65/day
2023: 19.44/day
2024 so far: 20.27/day

[Catbert]

I recently tracked grocery spending for 13 weeks.  I average $80 a week for two people.  We don't eat a ton of meat, but don't follow any particular diet or have any restrictions.  This does not include eating out once a week. 

[wenchsenior]

Total consumables + household products in the pandemic and post pandemic years have averaged US$1000-1300 per month for two adults. It's trending upward over that time with inflation... so was closer to 1000 during pandemic, more commonly 1300 now.

I have some special dietary needs (higher protein than I might otherwise naturally eat) and we don't 'watch our cost' on groceries, just buy whatever we want.

I almost never eat out (either restaurants or fast food) unless traveling. But my husband buys food out a lot both while at work and while traveling, so that skews our totals up notably (I've tried to convince him to pack a lunch but given up).

Booze is included in this total. We don't drink much booze anymore, but what is drunk is mostly him.

So e.g., my total cost of that ~$1200 per month is roughly 350-450$, while his is about 750-850$, which goes to show how much eating out runs up a bill. He also does eat 3 meals a day if at home, while I eat 2. He also snacks a bit more though neither of us are big snackers.

ETA: I guess that works out to roughly 13$/day cost for me, 27$ per day cost for him.

[Morning Glory]

My categorization has really slid. My rough estimate for 2023 was 11,079 includes all spending from grocery stores + places like Walmart/Target/Costco so there's a lot of household supplies and random items in there. We have 2 adults, 2 boys who eat as much as adults but get some free meals at school,  and 1 dog.  That breaks down to 7.59 /person/day. We don't eat a ton of meat and rarely go out. I drink a little wine which is included,
but didn't include my husband's $$ whiskey habit which is easy to track separately because we have ABC stores here.

[tooqk4u22]

We are a family of five (essentially all adults as kids are all late teens) and we are at about $8/day/person excluding eating out and alcohol but that includes all household/toiletry/non-food grocery items as we don't break stuff like that out.

[Log]

Groceries and dining out combined (including coffees, drinks, random pastries and other treats here and there) has come out to $21.73/day for the period from the beginning of this year to the end of September, which I see makes me a real spendy-pants in this thread. Not being such a tightwad about dining out has been one of my major forms of lifestyle inflation since I began earning a real income, and it brings me a lot of convenience and happiness. My family rarely dined out when I was growing up, so it feels like a real luxury to me. I stick to relatively cheap (by SF standards) fast-casual kinda food, very rarely do I go to a fancy sit-down restaurant.

Living with roommates, I don't have a lot of space to store ingredients, and I don't enjoy cooking for just myself anyway. So I buy lots of convenience foods (bags of salad, ravioli, frozen pizza, etc.), and I don't stress about eating out a few times a week. By grocery shopping minimally for just a few meals at a time and not buying a lot of ingredients to cook with, I essentially never have food waste. I might spend less money cooking more at home and throwing some wilted veggies out here and there, but it would still bother me.

I get a free lunch almost every Saturday and Sunday after volunteering in the mornings, so I usually try to run out of perishable food around Friday, and shop again on Monday.

Imagining my ideal lifestyle, I imagine this number will continue to go up, not down.

[aloevera1]

Thank you everyone for your responses! It's very interesting to see the distribution :)

As for me, our household cost last month was about $10 per day per adult, including restaurants. There were some work paid meals but I imagine we rarely go above $15. We are price conscious but also indulge in some fancy ingredients like avocados or expensive meat.

@Tasse, to answer your question, I had a discussion with my SO who thought that the range of $15 to $20 is reasonable. His statement is somewhat confirmed on this thread. To me his range is way too high, if you are not eating out frequently.

I was personally anchoring around $5-7 range. I think that's also because I am used to eating like a student and also because I am oblivious to inflation since I am not the one doing most of the grocery shopping. 

When I asked my IRL friends about their estimates they were around $15 but they don't track their expenses so they could be really off.

P.S. Tasse, your screen handle went from Russian propaganda agency to "the cup" in German. I find it really cute :)

[Tasse]

P.S. Tasse, your screen handle went from Russian propaganda agency to "the cup" in German. I find it really cute :)

It's "cup" in French too! Better than Italian, where it means "taxes"...

[Loren Ver]

Our numbers are really dirty but it is around $10/person/day.
We have in the expected budget: $170/month eating out and $410 groceries.  At the end of September were were over on eating out (-$162) and under on groceries ($584).
 
This includes things that aren't food: anything bought at a place that sells food (so the last time I was at costco I got a floor cleaner on sale for $60, that's in the food budget because I am too retired to itemize). 

This cost per person per day is what I mathed out for DH and I, two adults living in a MCOL area that eat out some, but eat at home a lot.  It doesn't include when DH pays cash for eating out, he likes really cheap food, so I just rounded us up to cover that. 

But we also pay for other people too, and that's in the eating out budget - we take out an entire friend group for Christmas every year.  We host holidays for more than 2 people.  We celebrate babies, promotions, retirements, etc all of that coming out of the restaurants budget.     

I find this interesting, IIRC, when I started doing things on my own in the early 2000s, my dad said food made at home should cost you about $1-2 for breakfast and $2-3 for lunch less than $5 for dinner.  Even with the passage of time, inflation and all that, we've only crept up into the high end of that.  I haven't sat down to do those numbers since I was in my first apartment with a sale ad and a calculator trying to make the numbers work. 

Loren

[RWD]

$5.46 per day per person (2 person household) average over 12+ years of tracking. $6.80 per person per day over the last two years.

[skp]

We spend $800 a month at grocery stores and Walmart.  We rarely eat out. Walmart includes stuff like toilet paper and batteries.

[RetireOrDieTrying]

Single guy, about $700/mo. or so. I freely admit I accept the right-now cost of high quality foods vs. the later-on cost of poor health choices. Lots of organic fruits and vegetables, raw nuts, fresh fish, non-homogenized milk, etc. Pretty high, but I'm completely at peace with it.

[Bee21]

Family of 4. About 12 per person per day. We cook at home and eat a lot.

[bacchi]

In 2023, we spent $9.68 per person per day. That's everything bought at grocery stores, including cat food, toiletries, soap, etc.

[kenner]

Not quite done with 2024, but as a single woman I'm currently at ~356/mo so just under 12/day.  2023 was 376/mo so just over 12/day.  That's everything 'food' which includes both groceries and eating out as well as anything else bought at the grocery store, ex. laundry detergent, toilet paper, soap, etc.  HCOL area (at least according to google, I'd put us more MCOL but I may be anchored incorrectly there) and I'm relatively active given that my job isn't, but aside from when I host cooking club (1-2x a month) I don't do much in the way of fancy meals--a lot of rice-based stuff like vegetable stir fry and curries.  Not vegetarian or dealing with any serious allergies, though.

[Tasse]

What does hosting a cooking club entail? That sounds fun.

[Runrooster]

Our family of 3 is around $4/person/day.  That includes one adult and two senior citizens who don't eat as much.  My Mom has allergies to conventional salt which means she can ONLY eat home-cooked food; even social events we pack her food.  They eat dessert daily, which I do not, but I eat fancier meat and produce.  Desserts have a negligible amount of salt so we can purchase those pre-made.  We don't buy organic or free-trade, and have a produce centered Asian store which is maybe half the price of grocery stores (if you buy what's on sale).  Otherwise, its a VHCOL area.  I'm starting to loosen up the purse strings, paid $9 for 2 small papayas, which was hard but saved me a trip to the other grocery store where they were on sale.  I spent $5 on 4 pears for Mom - but then I spent $19 on pomegranates for myself, should last a month. Even so, I'm averaging around $80/week plus maybe $50 at Costco once a month, not bad.

[Blue Skies]

We are around $10/person/day as a family of 2 adults, 2 teens.  Two eat gluten free, and mostly eat food made from scratch at home.

[kenner]

What does hosting a cooking club entail? That sounds fun.

Basically a group of us gets together once a week and tries a recipe that's different in some way than what we'd normally cook for ourselves (theoretically, anyway--we've been doing this for ~15 years now so there are occasional repeats of favorites).  Originally we were all singles and it was as much a chance to try new recipes without risking a week of potentially crappy leftovers as anything else, but at this point there are some couples/families involved too that I probably wouldn't see very often otherwise.  Hosting rotates around, and whoever's hosting in a given week provides all ingredients which is why those are usually the most expensive weeks for me, but trying to arrange everyone except the host bringing things was enough of a pain logistically that it just wasn't worth it.

[Jade]

Our family of 3 is around $4/person/day.  That includes one adult and two senior citizens who don't eat as much.  My Mom has allergies to conventional salt which means she can ONLY eat home-cooked food; even social events we pack her food.  They eat dessert daily, which I do not, but I eat fancier meat and produce.  Desserts have a negligible amount of salt so we can purchase those pre-made.  We don't buy organic or free-trade, and have a produce centered Asian store which is maybe half the price of grocery stores (if you buy what's on sale).  Otherwise, its a VHCOL area.  I'm starting to loosen up the purse strings, paid $9 for 2 small papayas, which was hard but saved me a trip to the other grocery store where they were on sale.  I spent $5 on 4 pears for Mom - but then I spent $19 on pomegranates for myself, should last a month. Even so, I'm averaging around $80/week plus maybe $50 at Costco once a month, not bad.

We eat similarly to your family (and at a similar cost) due to food intolerances. Though it's difficult for the person with intolerances, it definitely keeps the budget down and makes you eat healthier!

[tooqk4u22]

What does hosting a cooking club entail? That sounds fun.

I did a supper club for several years with a couple friends, it was awesome.  The three of us had professional jobs that lack creative outlets, and we all enjoyed cooking.  So we decided that once a quarter we would rotate the host house.  Host was responsible for main entree and drinks/accoutrements, and then for the non-hosts one would be responsible for an appetizer and the other a dessert.

Main rule was that it all had to be made from scratch and goal to be elevated (i.e. no chicken fingers).  It was fun to try and out-do one another and amp it up each time.  Honestly, the meals were on a level of five star restaurants and got really creative with unique ingredients.  It was not cheap to host, but so worth it. 

Spouses were the beneficiaries for sure. It also gave us a real appreciation of how difficult is for real chefs to create a menu, meal prep, etc.

[Tasse]

What does hosting a cooking club entail? That sounds fun.

Basically a group of us gets together once a week and tries a recipe that's different in some way than what we'd normally cook for ourselves (theoretically, anyway--we've been doing this for ~15 years now so there are occasional repeats of favorites).  Originally we were all singles and it was as much a chance to try new recipes without risking a week of potentially crappy leftovers as anything else, but at this point there are some couples/families involved too that I probably wouldn't see very often otherwise.  Hosting rotates around, and whoever's hosting in a given week provides all ingredients which is why those are usually the most expensive weeks for me, but trying to arrange everyone except the host bringing things was enough of a pain logistically that it just wasn't worth it.

Does everyone pitch in on the cooking? I imagine there are limitations on how many people it's helpful to have. And do you make enough to send people home with leftovers, or is the point that it all gets eaten that day?

[Runrooster]

Our family of 3 is around $4/person/day.  That includes one adult and two senior citizens who don't eat as much.  My Mom has allergies to conventional salt which means she can ONLY eat home-cooked food; even social events we pack her food.  They eat dessert daily, which I do not, but I eat fancier meat and produce.  Desserts have a negligible amount of salt so we can purchase those pre-made.  We don't buy organic or free-trade, and have a produce centered Asian store which is maybe half the price of grocery stores (if you buy what's on sale).  Otherwise, its a VHCOL area.  I'm starting to loosen up the purse strings, paid $9 for 2 small papayas, which was hard but saved me a trip to the other grocery store where they were on sale.  I spent $5 on 4 pears for Mom - but then I spent $19 on pomegranates for myself, should last a month. Even so, I'm averaging around $80/week plus maybe $50 at Costco once a month, not bad.

 
We eat similarly to your family (and at a similar cost) due to food intolerances. Though it's difficult for the person with intolerances, it definitely keeps the budget down and makes you eat healthier!

My costs are not in the ballpark of your $.70-$1.40/day, though I think you might have converted to dollars incorrectly.
Our costs are lower because we don't eat out, but higher because of the intolerances/issues.  My Dad eats everything and cheaply, I like to splurge, my Mom need special foods.  Plums are on sale this week but she wants pears and clementines.  In any case, $4/day is still very low, and I'm trying to un-train the frugal habits.  It still hurts a little when I spend a lot on something I know is cheaper elsewhere; I was trained young in the Amy Dacyzyn price book concept.  It's interesting to read about people spending $20/day, which seems unreal to me.  I buy a ton of produce - enough that my Mom complains it's too much - but focus on whatever's on sale this week.

[Tasse]

Recall that the OP asked for people to include both groceries and restaurants. My groceries cost about $6.25 per person per day, but my food total is $11.27. I suspect something similar is going on for the $20 folks.

[Jade]

Hi @Runrooster interesting to learn more and about you being in the army (btw I think you're right about my dollar coversions!!)

my OH deserves the credit for our low numbers, he made me a frugal convert when we met when I was very spendy with no frugal habits! Now though I find it easy and don't feel deprived at all. I think because like you guys, we don't eat out because of intolerances that automatically keeps things way down compared to a lot of folk. We sometimes have to train ourselves out of the frugal habits too to let loose a little!

[Runrooster]

Hi @Runrooster interesting to learn more and about you being in the army (btw I think you're right about my dollar coversions!!)

I’m Not in the army, not sure where that came from.

[Jade]

Hi @Runrooster interesting to learn more and about you being in the army (btw I think you're right about my dollar coversions!!)

I’m Not in the army, not sure where that came from.

I thought you said army rather than Amy.. speed reading doh.

[economista]

Over the past year grocery total has been $7802 and eating out total has been $3153 for a total of $10,955. That is for 4 people (2 adults, 2 children) and 2 of us have celiac. So $7.50 per person per day, including more expensive gluten free alternatives.

[Freedomin5]

We are at approximately CAD$6.50 per day per person for two adults and one child. HCOL area. No dietary restrictions. We don’t drink alcohol and eat out about twice a week.

[kenner]

What does hosting a cooking club entail? That sounds fun.

Basically a group of us gets together once a week and tries a recipe that's different in some way than what we'd normally cook for ourselves (theoretically, anyway--we've been doing this for ~15 years now so there are occasional repeats of favorites).  Originally we were all singles and it was as much a chance to try new recipes without risking a week of potentially crappy leftovers as anything else, but at this point there are some couples/families involved too that I probably wouldn't see very often otherwise.  Hosting rotates around, and whoever's hosting in a given week provides all ingredients which is why those are usually the most expensive weeks for me, but trying to arrange everyone except the host bringing things was enough of a pain logistically that it just wasn't worth it.

Does everyone pitch in on the cooking? I imagine there are limitations on how many people it's helpful to have. And do you make enough to send people home with leftovers, or is the point that it all gets eaten that day?

Depends on the day (and the host) for cooking....in the beginning there were 3-4 of us regularly, now there are 7 if everyone shows up (not counting kids, but usually if kids are around it's because we're at the house of one of the people with kids since they're all still young enough to need toys and consistent supervision).  I can't think of any case where we've had 7 people cooking at once, it'll be a couple cooking and the rest in the vicinity chatting and occasionally getting drafted to chop/find the thermometer/etc.  None of us have homes where the kitchen is split off in a way that doesn't let everyone be around the cooking even if they aren't helping which makes things easier...mine is probably the smallest (if there are three people you'd best watch your elbows) but even then the table is five feet away.

And leftovers definitely depend on the recipe.  Sometimes we finish everything off (that's usually what we're aiming for, just to save the rotating tupperware), other times we're staring at the remains of a recipe that says 'serves 4' and are forced to conclude that they judged by four large men who'd just spent the day working on a farm.  We've gotten a lot better at estimating over the years, though.

[index]

We have a 2 person household but we entertained 4 aditional adults + kids  33 days this year.
Groceries are about $13.07pp (2x300+4x33 = 732 person days)
Restraunts were $8.67pp (600 person days)
Wine was $5.29pp (732 person days)

All told about $27pp