Average Ottawa Grocery Bill for 4

[grantmeaname]

If you won't buy less expensive meat despite what anyone says, you could always just eat less of it. You'll get good at cooking lentils and pinto beans before you know it, and you'll save a whole sack of money. Have you considered that? You could try and serve vegetarian meals once or twice a week, or you could try meals that don't take very much meat in them -- think about sausage and cheese omelets in the morning with an ounce of sausage rather than eggs with three sausage patties. Get my drift?

[chatsc]

Yes, that is exactly how we balance it now (quality meat, much less often, and we seem to appreciate it more).  Lentil tacos and tofu stirfries are a beautiful thing!

I do realize that if I am going to be stubborn about this issue, then I must balance it somewhere else.  To be honest, the appeal might also be the butcher that we go to.  In today's world it is nice when a store owner asks how your kid's soccer tourney went, or if you want some of a certain product, because he remembers that you really liked it last year.  Or he saved some sale item for you, because it was a good deal and he knows your kids like it.

I appreciate the ideas and the advice and I will try them, because groceries seem to be the one thing that gets away from me every month....that and kids sports activities but that is a whole other forum topic....

[grantmeaname]

I see you're big produce eaters, too. How much have you thought about gardening to keep those costs down?

[chatsc]

we have a kitchen garden in the summer, not much of it makes in the house though, between the kids and the rabbits, but we try.  in ottawa, we have ok farmers markets too,  with actual produce starting in early june to mid october.  it is the winter that kills you!  One year I tried freezing broccoli and green beans, but they came out really soggy.  I ended up using them for soup over the year, but they were not very palatable on their own.  Maybe this year I should look into that, to find out what i did wrong.

Either way, if the cost of groceries is my biggest concern in life, my life must be going pretty well. 

I will stop my rant about cursed Walmart meat and get on with my day! i have some muffins to bake before the school bus comes....

[grantmeaname]

Either way, if the cost of groceries is my biggest concern in life, my life must be going pretty well. 

I will stop my rant about cursed Walmart meat and get on with my day! i have some muffins to bake before the school bus comes....

Now THAT is a mustachian attitude!

[meadow lark]

Re: soggy veggies when defrosted - a lot of veggies need to be blanched before freezing, not sure if you did that.
  This thread makes me grateful for our cheap food. 

[grantmeaname]

For real, we eat like kings on $50/week for a house of 4.

[Ottawa]

Just added up over the past 5 months our average has been $475 per month.  This includes food, diapers, dishwasher soap, shampoo, deodorant, baking paper, laundry detergent etc...I would guess that we are around $400 per month of food only...and that is ridiculously luxurious.  And, as I said, we don't eat out at all.  We make enough dinner to take as lunch the next day.  Also, I have a small zojirushi rice cooker at work that a colleague and I use almost everyday!  Just bought bagged Calrose rice at TNT yesterday on sale at $9 for 18 pounds (I bought 3 of course!)

[chatsc]

475$ includes diapers!    a month!

I see I have a lot of work to do....

[Ottawa]

Here's another reason I'm not that keen on fish...
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2013/02/21/seafood-fraud-study/?hpt=hp_c2

I don't know why there's such a furore about horse meat in beef!  ;-)

[KimAB]

Chatsc- I don't know if you've tried to make your own GF bread, but I am of the opinion that it is hardly worth it (there is no GF BREAD)

There are mixes that aren't bad.  I use Celiamix (Celimix?) or Kinnikinick mixes.  They are about $10 usually and make ten loaves of bread.  I've always done them in muffin tins, though, on muffin top pans which makes it more like a hamburger bun.

DD is strictly GF and I am more grain free/ paleo which I find a lot easier to manage than GF. 

Like I said in a different thread- I know I could spend less on groceries, but what would I be eating?  Packaged crap!  I would rather feed my family vegetables than a bag of noodles in pseudo-sauce powder that I got with a combined sale and coupon and only cost 25 cents...

[chatsc]

KimAB, that is a good point.  It is only me that has the gluten issue and i only eat one loaf of gf bread every 2 weeks, give or take. 

It is the dairy free that is pricey,  my youngest cant tolerate dairy yet (all my kids have grown out of it) so it is coco milk or goat milk yog, rice, soy or coco milk.  Daiya cheese, etc.  I find that harder than the gf issue.  we have some nut allergies in our house too, but that doesnt really affect much.

I have decided to stop whining about the cost of food.  I stopped today to buy the family 2 doz bagels at a local bagel shop and it was 16$....it has gone up in price since last time i was there, but the kids were very grateful for warm toasty fresh bagels for lunch. Obviously I am not that dedicated to getting our grocery bill down to bare bones.  Sometimes you gotta live a little and maybe groceries are it for us.  In a month, I consistantly spend 20-25$ a month on cucumbers, 20$ on broccoli, 45-50$ on apples, 100-150$ on meat, etc.   Looking back at my reciepts, I was more intersted in the variety and remembering watching kids eat asaparagus for the first time or remembering the fancy dinner we made for someone's birthday, not the price. 

I will retire myself from this thread because my actions are not matching my words and I understand how that can be frustrating for the other readers.

[N.]

We are a family of 4, two boys 5 and 7, and spend $850/month.  Toronto area (Burlington).  We barely eat meat, we make everything from scratch, and we can't put a dent in that grocery bill.   I blame dairy prices partly.  We drink 8 litres of milk per week, go through blocks of cheese, lots of yoghurt.  $200/month in dairy, easily. 

We drink nothing but milk and water, no juices or anything.  Loads of veggies, which can get expensive in winter.  Fruit for the kids, but always what's on sale and in season.   Eat a fair bit of fish and shrimp, but always buy when on sale and stock up.  We shop at Walmart Superstore, and Fortino's for produce.

Because we shop at Walmart, that $850 includes toiletries, cleaners, dish/hand/laundry soaps, etc, but that can't be THAT much of the bill to make it so high.  I try to separate clothes, sporting goods, etc into separate bills and classify separate in Mint. 

Maybe my project for 2012 needs to be separating non-grocery even more to see where we're at.  Frustrated!

Finally! Someone who speaks my language. I separate costs though lump kitchen and basic toiletries supplies in with groceries (paper towels, compostable bags for city compost pick-up, bio-degradable j-cloths, toilet paper, etc.). I'm at $900 for two active teenagers and two adults in the Burlington area.

Perhaps I'm not reading enough replies, but most households seem to be counting fairly young mouths. Currently you're at ages 5 and 7... wait until they turn 12 and 14 (never mind sleep-overs and friends dropping in!)... they'll be gnawing on your cupboards and you'll wonder what hit you.

[StarswirlTheMustached]

So, we...
*only buy meat on sale; normally only cook it once a week.
*make our own everything (bread/breakfast muffins/etc -- and the bread's made with cheap store brand all-purpose flour, too, not the locally grown and milled organic stuff I'd dearly love to use)
*watch for produce sales and buy in season, store for winter

And don't come near these budgets with just the two of us; we spend more like 100-150$/wk! Geographic variation in COL? I can't imagine Ottawa's that much cheaper. Same province, same pricing, right? Is it just too damn fancy cooking?
Of course, we lump pretty much all consumables into "groceries" but I really don't think tossing the odd thing of laundry soap into the grocery cart is what's killing me, here.

[Ottawa]

Back to the article...I voted for the under $500 category (of course).  Unfortunately, this poll does not allow for the number of mouths being fed (3 in my case).  I would also like to see some more binning of the under $500 vote.  As Mustachians, nobody should have a grocery bill over $500 even with a family of 4!

Update!  Well, seems I was a little hasty in my assertion :-)

Our grocery bill is now running $597 on average over the last 12 months.  I'm not exactly sure what the causes are, but I'm guessing a combination of:
1) Price inflation
2) Daughter eating more (including lunches to take to school - instead of daycare)*
3) We are getting more spendypants in this department?

*Daycare costs have plummeted from 650-700 per month to less than 200...