I like being a little financially voyeuristic now and then, so I figure some people will appreciate this...
Here is a table of all food spending for my family. (It includes hosting dinner parties and birthday parties, but i figure that balances out with the amount of times we are at other people's houses for parties).
"Junk" includes cookies, crackers, chips, etc.
"Misc" includes jelly, peanut butter, dressings, soup, etc.
| 2014 01 | 2013 12 | 2013 11 | 2013 10 | 2013 09 | 2013 08 | 2013 07 | 2013 06 | 2013 05 | 2013 04 | 2013 03 |
Total | $442.14 | $796.35 | $451.77 | $515.88 | $396.05 | $488.12 | $607.15 | $452.14 | $471.34 | $319.13 | $347.39 |
Baby | $0.00 | $6.83 | $0.00 | $11.78 | $1.90 | $11.78 | $17.14 | $23.56 | $30.82 | $26.79 | $10.98 |
Baking | $0.00 | $10.82 | $20.12 | $6.97 | $0.00 | $21.30 | $9.52 | $22.63 | $0.00 | $20.45 | $11.70 |
Bread | $47.60 | $81.84 | $34.99 | $41.26 | $53.23 | $36.35 | $40.64 | $49.08 | $36.03 | $25.22 | $21.17 |
Dairy | $111.35 | $72.05 | $69.89 | $78.23 | $78.99 | $71.79 | $98.43 | $73.70 | $68.31 | $51.09 | $46.12 |
Drinks | $10.16 | $90.68 | $19.95 | $18.93 | $9.97 | $39.51 | $30.04 | $19.54 | $64.10 | $10.77 | $39.49 |
Fruit | $113.50 | $103.72 | $72.24 | $82.75 | $68.46 | $66.14 | $71.20 | $66.34 | $61.60 | $45.24 | $24.76 |
Junk | $36.47 | $56.36 | $40.71 | $54.23 | $44.02 | $75.80 | $34.49 | $20.03 | $35.81 | $5.98 | $27.46 |
Meat | $34.53 | $147.08 | $91.48 | $65.53 | $95.09 | $96.92 | $140.01 | $42.81 | $54.34 | $64.67 | $65.80 |
Misc | $33.40 | $21.23 | $46.65 | $27.56 | $0.94 | $23.49 | $38.76 | $29.41 | $43.85 | $12.46 | $20.34 |
Veggies | $22.58 | $59.39 | $19.13 | $34.26 | $19.28 | $11.95 | $78.95 | $65.08 | $28.10 | $31.18 | $35.06 |
Restaurant | $32.55 | $146.35 | $36.61 | $94.38 | $24.17 | $33.09 | $47.97 | $39.96 | $48.38 | $25.28 | $44.51 |
I have a family of 4 (4yo/1.5yo) and buy 90% of my groceries at Sam's club, including produce. I have itemized and categorize all my grocery spending for about 1 year and have spent $98/week over that span (note: restaurant spending only adds another $12/week). We eat lots of fruits, veggies, meat, and some junk food.
We focus on:
- limit spending on prepared food (cookies, chips, basically anything that someone else makes)
--- this includes pizza dough, bisquick mixture, etc.
- make things (bread, cookies, chips!, crackers!, bisquick mixture, be creative); the kids love to help out here
--- pro tip: make extra waffles on sunday morning and freeze for the week
- make dinner every night and use all leftovers
- determine how much it costs to make your top 10 meals and then make the cheaper ones more often
--- pro tip: throw in some non-meat meals (pasta fagiole, chili, pizza, etc), which will inherently cost less
- buy in bulk when you can store the extras
--- pro tip: price compare store brands with costco/sam's bulk pricing on name-brands; the results are seemingly random
- eliminate expensive items (for us this was gatoraid, fancy breads, etc)
- eliminate or severely limit expensive meals (lobster, fillet, etc)
- go to the store 1 time/week except milk, buy only what is on your list
- bring lunches with you on outings (don't rely on fast food... ever!). 1 trip to mcdonalds will cost you a week's worth of lunches.
- bring lunches to work
- don't beat ourselves up over our December spending! yuck.
Note on itemizing your food purchases: writing down every item and cost gave me a much better sense of what each item is costing and I was easily be able to eliminate or replace expensive items. This occurred after a few months. My original intention was to temporarily itemize my food spending, but the payoff has consistently been worth the small effort.
Enjoy.