How much do you spend on groceries?

[Cerveza mas fina]

I've been keeping a spreadsheet the last two months to see how much we actually spend on groceries in our household. It's a bit early but the average now is 600 bucks per month.

This is for a 3 person household. 95% of the food is organic (basically only non organic if there is no organic version available).

We've started eating meat only once a week a while ago and I want to see how this will impact the spending as organic meat is a bit more expensive.

How much do you guys spend on groceries?

[TVC15]

What’s that?

I was spending just under 50 bucks a night on booze from Early January to mid-March. Probably just slightly less per day on food.

[Cerveza mas fina]

About $300 a month.

Does booze count as a grocery? If so that's probably smoothed $50-100 a month.

I think it mostly counts yeah but I guess for arguments sake you can leave it out for this

[Momo]

i only buy burgers and hot dogs.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Like $1000 but most of that is on candles

[jorma]

I currently make too much money to care about budgets and shit. I have no idea. 

Now that i'm about to quit working for a living i'm going to have to pay a bit more attention to shit like this i guess.

[chronovore]

I did this a long time ago, need to do it again now that salaries and whatnot have changed around a bit.

IIRC we had about US$600/mo budgeted for dinners, and assumed that 80% of the time a couple lunches could be salvaged from dinner leftovers.

When we were effectively on a single income (hers), I took over household duties and tried to trim our food budget as much as possible. I found we had a lot of groceries which went bad when we were plush, but I managed to limit the amount of wasted food substantially when funds were low.

[archnemesis]

I don’t keep track of the cost, but I’m guessing it’s about $800 per month for the five of us.

[ToxicAdam]

I try to shop 4-5 times a week and keep it around 30 bucks each time.

It's more work, but it helps me manage the spending better and cut down on waste. When I was only shopping twice a month, there would be a lot of food that would go uneaten or forgotten about.

[BlueTsunami]

Prob 75 a week. All protein all the time.

[bork]

$150-$200 per week on average for two of us.  Feel like it's a bit high and have been cutting stuff out recently.

[samfish]

About 600/month. I know we could make some cutbacks, but having little kids is expensive. We go to the wholesale store whenever possible since you save some money there. The area we moved to last year is a lot nicer, and that's reflected in the grocery store prices. It sucks.

About $150 of that is on the baby. Once she gets off formula in about 6 months, we should save some money. My son is also allergic to dairy and eggs, so we have to shop for allergen-free foods, which also gets expensive.

[nachobro]

$150-$200 per week on average for two of us.  Feel like it's a bit high and have been cutting stuff out recently.

This but per month for the two of us. Probably helps that I only buy meat when its on super sale (b1g1 or b1g2) and just freeze it. When I do get meat I get it in bulk so that adds like $75-100.

[Cerveza mas fina]

$150-$200 per week on average for two of us.  Feel like it's a bit high and have been cutting stuff out recently.

This but per month for the two of us. Probably helps that I only buy meat when its on super sale (b1g1 or b1g2) and just freeze it. When I do get meat I get it in bulk so that adds like $75-100.

I did this last month with organic chicken breast, got like 4 kilo 

And then this month i bought a few kilo organic coffee beans.

[nachobro]

yeah i'm considering just getting a membership to costco or another bulk store and doing a shop there for some stuff. i used to get one for free with my amex and it was great but I dunno if I want to actually spend $60 or $80 or whatever it is on a membership to a store.

might just wait to see what the amazon prime discounts do for whole foods first. supposedly it's going to be 10% off everything for amazon prime members, plus you get 5% back for using their credit card.

[TakingBackSunday]

I try to shop 4-5 times a week and keep it around 30 bucks each time.

It's more work, but it helps me manage the spending better and cut down on waste. When I was only shopping twice a month, there would be a lot of food that would go uneaten or forgotten about.

This is mostly what I do, unless the lady and I are consciously meal-planning.  When I do the 4 day a week grocery run, it's usually around 120 bucks a week, so around 480-500 a month.  When we meal plan, its a bit cheaper just because we only plan on dinners, never really breakfast (we just buy bananas and yogurt for daily breakfasts)  Like 70 bucks for one week's meals.

I buy beer every couple days or so which adds another 10 bucks on top of these.

[ToxicAdam]

yeah i'm considering just getting a membership to costco or another bulk store and doing a shop there for some stuff. i used to get one for free with my amex and it was great but I dunno if I want to actually spend $60 or $80 or whatever it is on a membership to a store.

might just wait to see what the amazon prime discounts do for whole foods first. supposedly it's going to be 10% off everything for amazon prime members, plus you get 5% back for using their credit card.

We did Sam's Club for years, but I didn't feel like it was worth it. You get "deals" but it often involves buying way more than a family of 2-4 needs or buying "variety packs", which inevitably has some unpopular (ie. bad) products shoved in with the good stuff.

It's was a great place for canned fruits/vegetables, chicken breasts and paper products (towels, toilet paper, etc). That's about it.



 

[Cerveza mas fina]

I have a organic membership at a national chain, for 10 bucks a month I get 20% off on all organic stuff.

This saves a lot of money, but I still pick up some items in other stores that have them for a third of the price

[Cerveza mas fina]

yeah i'm considering just getting a membership to costco or another bulk store and doing a shop there for some stuff. i used to get one for free with my amex and it was great but I dunno if I want to actually spend $60 or $80 or whatever it is on a membership to a store.

might just wait to see what the amazon prime discounts do for whole foods first. supposedly it's going to be 10% off everything for amazon prime members, plus you get 5% back for using their credit card.

We did Sam's Club for years, but I didn't feel like it was worth it. You get "deals" but it often involves buying way more than a family of 2-4 needs or buying "variety packs", which inevitably has some unpopular (ie. bad) products shoved in with the good stuff.

It's was a great place for canned fruits/vegetables, chicken breasts and paper products (towels, toilet paper, etc). That's about it.

These meal plans never seem like a good idea, but being unemployed I do have a lot of time to cook now so...

[nachobro]

cooking is a huge stress relief for me, so i enjoy doing it. if we had kids it'd probably be more of a hassle but for now i like it quite a lot.