How much do you spend on Groceries?

We average $1100/mo for the two us. But that's for my tracking category called "Groceries & Beverages." So it includes about $300/mo mainly for red wine. Groceries alone is about $800/mo on average. We buy all household supplies and paper products from Amazon, so it's not included here. We only buy fresh meat and vegetables, mainly from Sprouts, the farmers market, and one other small local grocer. We rarely eat out, so virtually all meals are prepared at home. We also host all holiday/birthday type meals at our house and there are typically 8-12 people who come over each time. So we go through lots of groceries and beverages hosting these meals.
 
shopping online to save money?

Supposedly the longer one stays in a store, the more one spends. Since I have been aware of this for a long time, honestly I didn't think it was the case for me. For years I usually shopped at a mid level supermarket, at a local chain about on the level of a Krogers or Safeway which we don't have here. I don't pay much attention to prices when I shop, and buy whatever I like that is healthy for me.

However.... in recent years I have been ordering much of my food and other grocery store items online, and was surprised to find that this saves me about $75-$100 per month even though the prices on individual items do not seem especially low.

My objectives in shopping online were not to save money, so this is an interesting outcome. I am not sure why shopping online saves me money other than cutting down on impulse items. Anyway I thought I'd mention it.
 
W2R said:
Well, there are lots of options from which to pick but I go for the nationally available options. ...
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Thanks, W2R for the detailed response. That is interesting. I do recall you eat out lunch each day.

I am about to experiment with bring in more restaurant food to our house. I finally recognized and accepted that I don't really like to cook. I can cook. I like the results of my cooking when I do it. But, it just isn't how I want to spend my time. I do eat salads that I make at home and we usually have a rotisserie chicken sitting around. I also buy a few frozen meals that I keep when I am just not in the mood to cook at all.

But I find that I don't really love the salads I make (they are OK but boring) and I get a bit tired of rotisserie chicken. The frozen meals are OK in a pinch but not exciting. I find myself snacking more because I think I am unsatisfied with my meals.

For breakfasts I mostly either eat a Quest bar (I find Amazon's price lower than what I can find at stores) or a Flapjacked might muffin. I love those as they have 20g of protein and I am always trying to get more protein.

Anyway, in our new house we have many stores and many restaurants within 5 minutes from the house and many more within 10 minutes. We can also get restaurant food delivery very easily.

I am thinking about several days a week bringing in food from places like Panera (I can get 2 meals from a Pick 2), Zoe's, Luna Grill, Chipotle, Corner Bakery and other similar places where it is easy to get a low calorie meal. Also, I am going to bring home more leftovers. The other night we had dinner at Bonefish Grill and I planned to get the small salmon. But the larger serving was less than $3 more so I ordered that and then brought home about 40% of the salmon and some of the bread and had it for lunch the next day.

I think that if I do this right, it will end up not being that much more expensive than cooking at home. I will still probably do one meal at home most days where I will get a lot of my veggies (most frozen, steamable veggies). And, we will continue to eat out probably 2 or 3 times a week.

I also did an analysis of our grocery bill from August through November. I did this to see how much it would go down if we started bringing in more restaurant food (or some prepared foods from the grocery store).

Over the 4 month period, we spent an average of $737 a month on groceries. This does not include dining out.

Drinks - $160
$62 of that was coffee for DH's Keurig. The rest was mostly soft drinks (Coke Zero) and a little bit of carbonated water. I am planning on cutting this about $50 as I think we are going overboard on the soft drinks (DH and I both drink, but I drink more than him as the coffee is just him)

Breakfast foods - $102 + cost of fruit
DH make yogurt with fruit most mornings and also eats cereal. I eat the Flapjacked Muffins ($2.50 apiece from Amazon) or Quest bars (same price). I am trying hard to get enough protein and this is a good way to do it.

Fresh Fruit - $30
This is 90% DH as I don't love fruit. I do eat some berries.

Fresh veggies - $20. This is all me as I use these to make salads. This will probably go away if we start bringing in more foods as I don't love my salads and I often have to throw away some veggies without using them as they go bad.

Prepared foods - $34
This is mostly rotisserie chickens, but some are prepared salads from the grocery store. This will probably be reduced in future.

Frozen meals and frozen cooked chicken - $53
I still have a number of these in the freezer that I bought during the time period so we don't eat that much each month. This will go way down in future.

Frozen veggies - $14. I still have a lot of these in the freezer. I could eat veggies for at least a month without buying more. This is a major source of veggies for me so this will continue but will go down a bit depending on what we bring in.

Other foods to make meals - $82
This is more DH than me - probably 80% is. He makes a lot of sandwiches for him (my salads are included in the above). He also makes wraps using tortillas. We don't do a lot of from scratch cooking.

Protein shakes - $54
I have quite a few of these (about 2 weeks worth) that I haven't drank yet. I have one on the days I do weight lifting always and occasionally one on other days. I have one version that gives me 35g of protein and another is 20g. I buy them from Amazon.

Protein snacks - $47
These are Quest chips (about 20g) of protein and Kay's Natural Snacks (12g). However, I have a couple of months worth of the Kays' on hand because I bought some on sale from Amazon so I won't need to buy any for a few months. On a monthly consumption basis, I probably eat about $25 to $30 of this type snack.

Pistachios - $51
I buy 5 pounds of Antep pistachios from Amazon and usually have 1 serving a day. Price varies but this is the average over the last 4 month. I have about 2 or 3 pounds left of my last order.

Other snacks - $91
I want to cut down on these a bit. About $69 of this was snacks bought at WW. I like them as some have extra protein and they are usually under 100 calories. There was an end of year sale going on so I bought a lot at half price and it would take at least a month or longer to eat them all. Other than the WW snacks these are mostly popcorn (bagged), crackers, Kind bars and just miscellaneous stuff.

I think we can cut $200 to $300 from the grocery budget if we start bringing in more food and cut down the soft drinks.
 
hotwired said:
Love to hear some tips!
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We try to cook from scratch when we have the time, eat more whole than processed foods and eat fairly low on the food chain - lots of plants, some fish, not too much meat. I go to a couple of discount stores that are close to each other once or twice a week that get overstocks and closeouts and stockpile the best bargains. Yesterday I had three crock pots going - an eggplant casserole, veggie / bean / chicken soup, and assorted root veggies roasted with olive oil.
 
Katsmeow said:
I think we can cut $200 to $300 from the grocery budget if we start bringing in more food and cut down the soft drinks.
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I think you can, too, especially with your detailed planning and mathematical mind.

Soft drinks can really add to the cost, I agree! I never keep soft drinks in my house.

I do order them sometimes at lunch, only 16 times so far this year. So that is about once every 3 weeks. With tax and tip, a diet Coke adds $3 to the cost of my lunch. Even though I love the taste I really don't think I should have all those chemicals in diet sodas instead of a healthy glass of plain water (which is what I usually order).
 
W2R said:
I think you can, too, especially with your detailed planning and mathematical mind.

Soft drinks can really add to the cost, I agree! I never keep soft drinks in my house.

I do order them sometimes at lunch, only 16 times so far this year. So that is about once every 3 weeks. With tax and tip, it adds $3 to the cost of my lunch. Even though I love the taste I really don't think I should have all those chemicals in diet sodas instead of a healthy glass of plain water (which is what I usually order).
Click to expand...

Sometimes just need that coke zero, but usually only at home.
Only buy at a 2 for 1 sale. So each 20 oz bottle costs 49 cents.
 
We (DW and I) spend $1200/month on groceries and alcohol and misc kitchen stuff like paper towels and dish soap.

We try to eat organic and local food.
We have big garden and eat a lot from it also.
We have a chicken that gives us 1 egg /day. :)

We have no budget for eating out but we probably average $200/month.
 
W2R said:
I think you can, too, especially with your detailed planning and mathematical mind.

Soft drinks can really add to the cost, I agree! I never keep soft drinks in my house.

I do order them sometimes at lunch, only 16 times so far this year. So that is about once every 3 weeks. With tax and tip, a diet Coke adds $3 to the cost of my lunch. Even though I love the taste I really don't think I should have all those chemicals in diet sodas instead of a healthy glass of plain water (which is what I usually order).
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Oh, I agree about the diet drinks. I actually got to a point a few years ago where I didn't buy them for the house at all. I would have one occasionally when out and about and sometimes when we eat out. But, then I regressed. I am currently trying to wean myself from the caffeine so I can cut down on them. I actually do like water so it is more the caffeine than anything else.

I do sometimes put True Lemonade in my water (10 calories will cover about 32 ounces of water and has no artificial sweeteners).

One thing I pointed out to DH or my idea to bring prepared food into the house is that we will save on the drinks we usually buy when we eat out. If we go to Chipotle or Panera we will usually order a drink and, yes, it adds to the cost. But if we just get take out there we won't buy the drink so will be saving just doing that.
 
Groceries

We average right around $450/month for the two of us and having two adult guests for dinner every Sunday. We don't spend much eating out and I cook most everything from scratch. We do watch what we spend by getting the basics at the discount store and what we can't get there, we get at Walmart and Sams Club. Helps to have a freezer so I can stock up on meat sales. Pre-made food is just too expensive, UCK!
 
It's those 4/5 bottles of wine/week that kill me.
 
Katsmeow said:
Oh, I agree about the diet drinks.
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Do you like iced tea? I buy jars of unsweetened Lipton's ice tea mix for around $3 at Target and 50 packs of stevia for $1 from the dollar. One $3 jar of the Lipton's tea makes 30 quarts.
 
gerntz said:
It's those 4/5 bottles of wine/week that kill me.
Click to expand...

Kindly reclassify as soft drinks. Lord knows it ain't hard liqueur! :D
We spend a good bit extra on local, farmer's market, small stores, etc for health purposes (and support local folks). Then, I turn around and pickle my liver. Oh well, anything but dementia. :(
 
OK so I bought a Soda Stream today. I like sparkling water but it costs as much as my Cherry Coke Zero so I tend to just buy the Cherry Coke Zero which I like a lot. But, I don't like so much artificial sweetener or all the caffeine.

Anyway, after one day I really like the Soda Stream. I've had it with both plain water and adding True Lemonade to it after. Both were good. The carbonation makes it more interesting than non-carbonated water. The true lemonade was also very good (gives flavor but only 10 calories and no artificial sweeteners). I am also going to be making tea in a Keurig to get some caffeine but without the artificial sweeteners.

(I ran the numbers and we spend so much on Cherry Coke Zero and sparking water that it will only take a few months to pay back the cost and the ongoing CO2 cost is a lot less than what we were spending. We will still get Cherry Coke Zero just at a much, much reduced volume).
 
Katsmeow said:
OK so I bought a Soda Stream today. I like sparkling water but it costs as much as my Cherry Coke Zero so I tend to just buy the Cherry Coke Zero which I like a lot. But, I don't like so much artificial sweetener or all the caffeine.

Anyway, after one day I really like the Soda Stream. I've had it with both plain water and adding True Lemonade to it after. Both were good. The carbonation makes it more interesting than non-carbonated water. The true lemonade was also very good (gives flavor but only 10 calories and no artificial sweeteners). I am also going to be making tea in a Keurig to get some caffeine but without the artificial sweeteners.

(I ran the numbers and we spend so much on Cherry Coke Zero and sparking water that it will only take a few months to pay back the cost and the ongoing CO2 cost is a lot less than what we were spending. We will still get Cherry Coke Zero just at a much, much reduced volume).
Click to expand...
Wonderful! Sounds like a good way to get soft drinks without artificial sweetener or caffeine.
 
gayl said:
Fortunately no kids at home so I can get by on $20 week food (vegetarian), $30 week gas & $2-5 a day Starbucks
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Using the mean of $3.50 for "$2-5 a day for Starbucks" that's $24.50 week-

That's really something!

Spending more on Starbucks ($24.50) than food ($20)!
:cool:
 
OK, so a new thing. I've realized through looking at this thread and just thinking about our food recently that I really don't love cooking. It isn't just the cooking. It is the finding the recipe and the prep work also. There are a few things I cook and that is fine, but I don't want to do it several days a week. Once a week or so is enough.

So, we went by a Snap Kitchen and I went in there and we are trying out their dinners. These are already made and you bring them home and just heat them up. So far they taste very, very good but don't have all the calories and sodium of restaurant food. It seems more satisfying as well. I guess I can spend some of my savings from drinking fewer soft drinks on buying meals from Snap Kitchen (to be clear, maybe 3 meals a week -- not every day).
 
Katsmeow said:
OK, so a new thing. I've realized through looking at this thread and just thinking about our food recently that I really don't love cooking. It isn't just the cooking. It is the finding the recipe and the prep work also. There are a few things I cook and that is fine, but I don't want to do it several days a week. Once a week or so is enough.

So, we went by a Snap Kitchen and I went in there and we are trying out their dinners. These are already made and you bring them home and just heat them up. So far they taste very, very good but don't have all the calories and sodium of restaurant food. It seems more satisfying as well. I guess I can spend some of my savings from drinking fewer soft drinks on buying meals from Snap Kitchen (to be clear, maybe 3 meals a week -- not every day).
Click to expand...

We use Home Chef for cooking 2 meals a week with 2 days of leftovers. Yes, there is prep time, but no food shopping and one can control the healthiness of the choices. The ingredients are always fresh and some nice spices.
Perhaps a compromise to consider.
 
Dtail said:
We use Home Chef for cooking 2 meals a week with 2 days of leftovers. Yes, there is prep time, but no food shopping and one can control the healthiness of the choices. The ingredients are always fresh and some nice spices.
Perhaps a compromise to consider.
Click to expand...

I have thought about trying something like that as well. I may end up doing a combination of different things.
 
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