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A reasonable grocery budget
Ok, so this is a topic that I don't generally bring up with my friends, as people tend to be a little touchy with anything related to finances BUT since we're relatively anonymous on this board, I thought some of y'all might be willing to talk grocery budgets. Back when it was just my partner and I, we usually spent about $400 a month but now that we're a family of four, we're spending about $600 a month (though that does include detergent, cleaners and diapers). Is that somewhat normal? And are groceries just way less expensive in the US (I'm in Canada) because I keep finding these pages online (american) where people are talking about spending $400 a month for a family of six, etc. And their big tips seem to be to clip coupons and buy meat on sale. Umm...we don't even eat meat! We do eat a buttload of fruit and some fake meat substitutes (veggie dogs and such) but also lots of beans, which are dirt cheap because we buy them dried and cook them in our pressure cooker. I make bread in a bread machine every second day and we eat lots of oatmeal and homemade granola - also cheap. I just don't see how I could cut costs much more and still feed my family healthy food.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on -
Not going to lie, after rent food is our biggest expenditure. I'm not going to say what the figure is, but it's a lot more than $600. We've not been good at making it a smaller figure and eating the kind of food we like to eat.
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Permalink Reply by hermit crab on -
We're right around $600 for three people too. My husband buys deli meat and we eat some fish as a family, but our biggest protein expense is fake meat (stupid expensive delicious Morningstar Farms veggie burgers!) I finally bought some vital wheat gluten to see if I could make my own seitan, which would cut down on that expense. Haven't had a chance to try yet - will report if I have a major home-made veggie-meat breakthrough.
I have to run to work so I can't look at this as thoroughly as I'd like, but I know that we currently collectively spend a historic low on food right now - here's one graphic (of who knows what source, sorry for the randomly grabbed link) that shows how in the 1950s we spent nearly 30% of our budget on food and now we spend less than 15%. The rush to cheaper-cheaper has had predictable effects on food quality and safety.
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Permalink Reply by Zealflyer on -
Yes, and though I try to be "frugal" with the grocery budget, I still want us to eat healthy food. DS eats yogurt pretty much every morning and I always go for Liberte (when on sale) or another gelatin-free brand. So that's a bit of an expense around here. We have the vital wheat gluten too and sometimes make our own seitan. It's all work though and with our kids the age they are, we sometimes need to just crack open a package of veggie ground round. One thing we do make ourselves is veggie burgers though because they're so easy and also stupid-expensive at the store.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Mama on -
We spend about $450 on food for a family of 4 (no diapers but including cat and dog food and $50 a month on milk). I kept it much lower (about $250) when I was clipping alot of coupons, but we ate a lot more processed food. Fresh fruits and veggies are expensive!
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Permalink Reply by Zealflyer on
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See this is my issue with coupon clipping - it's always for processed foods. I guess I'll just have to accept the fact that if we're eating tons of fresh fruits and veggies, the budget will be what it is.
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Permalink Reply by Mommy Monster on -
Ours is probably double that.
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Permalink Reply by ks on -
I haven't crunched the numbers lately, but we definitely spend at least $600/month or a bit more on the four of us, plus two cats.
Our biggest items are milk, meat (mostly chicken and fish, which are pricey--especially the fish), and fresh produce. I do use coupons sometimes, if I have them for something I'd buy anyway, like the kids' cereal , and for things like toiletries. I try to minimize the processed foods I buy and while I don't go out of my way to buy the most expensive things when I do, I do look at ingredients lists before I look at price (which I will happily admit is a total privilege and I'm very lucky to be able to do so), and a lot of the time, the things with the least processed sugar and fats are the more expensive brands.
And all of that adds up, because eating healthily is expensive.
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Permalink Reply by kommishoner on -
We've gotten our costs down a lot in the last six months by switching to one of the local-ish big box store chains for groceries. I don't know what the monthly cost is, though, since I don't buy groceries. I would estimate around $500, but that's a really rough estimate. We tend to buy the generic brands and buy a lot of "base" foods like pasta, meat, canned beans or tomatoes, and produce. We did all that before, because the life duet is diabetic so can only eat maybe a third of the volume when he eats processed foods because they're so high in carbs, plus he really likes to cook. The box store has gotten our costs down a LOT, which has been good. I'd like to go back to supporting a more local market when our finances improve, but until then I'll take what we've got. ;)
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Permalink Reply by Lady Grey on -
We spend, on average, about $200 per week. Some weeks it's $140, some weeks it's $250. And that's just groceries, not the big box stores, but may occasionally include dog & cat food if bought at a grocery store. After mortgages and child care, it's our biggest expense. The weeks we spend only $140 are the weeks that there's nothing in the fridge by Friday evening. Two adults, two kids, two cats, and two dogs in our symmetric household. We also take our lunches pretty much every day and eat out on the weekends only once or twice, usually.
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Permalink Reply by DLBK on -
We also spend about $200/week for the three of us, not including eating out (one meal/week perhaps). We buy lots of fruits and veggies, and they're expensive.
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Permalink Reply by mightyninjamom on -
Yeah, we're up there. We get our meat delivered from a farm once a month, to the tune of $225. The delivery usually includes a dozen eggs, as well. I don't buy any other meat, unless I need something specific, which is not very often. I cure my own bacon, and mix up my own breakfast sausage, so we don't have to buy those, either.
Produce and dry goods runs me about $185 every other week or so. We don't buy a lot of processed food, so coupons don't help us out too much. We get a CSA basket when it's in season, so that cuts down some of my costs, because I'm not having to buy much in the way of supplemental produce. I bake my own bread and typically will make my own granola. I'm trying to convince the kids that breakfast cereal isn't all that, but they still don't believe me.
More and more, I'm determined to learn more about how to garden, if only so I can give my budget a break.
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Permalink Reply by wookie on -
Family of 5, probably close to 800 a month. We rarely eat out. We pack almost all our lunches but the kids get breakfast at daycare. I wish I could say we don't eat much processed food but I work 10+ hour days, my husband even more so. It's better in the summer when the produce doesn't taste like plastic.
Coupons don't exist in Canada the way they do in the US.
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