Out of curiosity, for those of you who track budgets….how much do you budget per month for groceries? For how many people?
Note: by ‘groceries’ I am including things you would buy in a supermarket environ that may not necessarily be food….things like toilet paper, aluminum foil, band aids, dishwasher detergent,etc….stuff you normally buy in a supermarket.
How much per month in your family of how many people?
Reason i ask, wife and I budget $400/month to feed the two of us and I was wondering how that stacks up elsewhere. (And yes, if there’s some room left at the end of the month, that grocery budget includes food storage.)
I’m single, no kids and I budget $40 a week to live on $10 a week to go into “backstock.” What I actually spend each week and month can be all over the map, but at the end of the year things average out to $200 a month.
Typical is $200 for just myself. I only cook about 60 meals a month though. I also only store what I eat regularly, so if what I eat happens to be on sale I’ll spend much more sometimes.
I was on vacation for 9 days recently, but I’ve only spent $40 in the last month at the grocery store, excluding beer. I stocked up on 180 bottles while on vacation. Just been picking up fresh veggies and fruit. Been eating everything else out of the pantry lately.
For us it is $800 a month. We are a family of 10 (wife and myself and 8 kids), so I think we do pretty good. Now there is a lot of stuff we don’t have to buy because we have two very large gardens, probably total of the two is around an acre. We raise two steers every year and butcher those ourselves and I usually get 2 or 3 pigs every year right from the farmer. He calls me when he has one with a broken leg and I give him $20, shoot the pig and take it home and butcher it. We also average around 6 deer every year. We used to spend $250/month on milk alone but now we have 3 goats that we milk and we prefer that to cows milk, plus we make a lot of cheese too. The chickens lay around 20 eggs a day, so we have extra for the kids to sell so they have a little spending money. We work hard around here to save on this stuff and I bet we cut our grocery bill by way better than 1/2. It is really satisfying to see those shelves in the fall full of corn, beans, tomatoes, pickles and 4 chest freezers full of meat.
Wow…….$400 a month for two adults and three kids. That also includes food for long term storage. We rarely eat out too.
I average about $100.00 per month for 1 person that includes stocking up.
Average spend of $325/month for wife, teenage son, cat, and me over the last year.
It’s about $300 a month for myself and my brother, and that includes pet foods, cleaning stuff, etc.
(Hangs head) I’ll go through $200 per week when I have my son the last three days of the week and about $125 per week without him. That’s only putting 2-4 28 oz cans of veggies away for rainy weeks like this week when I won’t get paid for another three days. Elbow Mac, white rice, ground meat, and tomatoes/tomato sauce is what we go through the most.
Our regular budget is about $400/week that my wife uses to run the house. She will occasionally purchase prep items (I usually take care of that and it’s $300-400 per month). Normally we have 2 people in the house, with my grandson’s here for 2 meals (3 on weekends) 5 days a week. Since my daughters are single/divorced we now prep for 10. The last 4 years have allowed us to put in most of the supplies I think we need for 10 people for a year, so we should be able to cut back on consumables and for a while purchase more of the durables we will need.
There are two of us, and we average $450 per month (in North Carolina).
We have 2 adults and a toddler and the budget is $400 a month. We recently increased it from about $250 to allow us to eat more meat, fresh veggies and fruit. That does not include food storage.
Guess it’s about $350 for 1 1/2 people but that’s converting direct from SA rands. The GF and make separate purchases and don’t always live\eat under the same roof. While we’re not part of the caviar and Veuve Clicquot set (I find caviar too salty) we don’t budget as tightly as we could.
We spent about $1000 per month for a family of four, two of which are are teenage boys. We only eat out maybe once or twice per month the rest we cooka t home. I’m a frugal/cheap person, but food is the one area I do not skimp.
Family of 5, we average $600-$700 a month. We have about a 100lbs of beef from a local farmer so that cuts the bill down some. My wife has had success with couponing but has not made time to do it regularly. When she was doing it regular we were going about $500 or less for groceries.
It’s me, my wife, our toddler and our infant. We budget around $600 a month for groceries, which does not include restaurants, but does include non-food incidentals that we buy at the grocery store or Costco while shopping for food. We also buy a half-side of beef once or twice a year, and I can bring home 50-100 lbs. of fresh caught salmon and halibut a year if I’m lucky.
$700-$800 a month for two adults.
Does your $400 a month include cleaning supplies? Paper towels? Toilet paper? Detergent? Etc…
The post rather clearly says “Note: by ‘groceries’ I am including things you would buy in a supermarket environ that may not necessarily be food….things like toilet paper, aluminum foil, band aids, dishwasher detergent,etc….stuff you normally buy in a supermarket.”
Jesus… relax, dude. I’m not standing on your lawn!
Your post is still vague. Does your food budget also include food for the dog? Or is that considered “pet budget” and not grocery budget? For a GSD, you’re likely spending 5-10% of your budget on dog food, unless you’re buying ‘Ol Roy at Walmart.
Are you buying free range chicken? Or just the Tyson budget breasts?
How many times a week do you eat, out, and Is that included in the $400?.
Are you buying all generics, eating pasta and beans every night and wiping with only one square of toilet paper per flush?
I still can’t figure out how you’re only at $400 a month? We don’t even drink soda, and we’re still spending twice what you’re spending.
Sorry, man…I wasnt trying to be a dick and I didnt mean for it to come across that way. i was just surprised because, to me, it was *right there* and so hard to miss.
We are on the Dave Ramsey Plan step 3 right now. We are currently up to $800 a month. Me, Wire and two teenage boys. When we started budgeting 2.5 years ago, we started with $500. Looking back at our budget, it started increasing steadly since 2011 to what it is now. We also started buying more canned goods in 2011 and starting becoming more prepared. But I believe it is mostly because of food prices increasing.
No worries. Friday night and I was half-awake and skimming. My bad.