pleased with food budget

[Retire2013]

I am so pleased: I brought our food budget in this month at $469. For a reference point, January 2005 was $771. In 2005 I wasn't just buying everything--I'd buy store brands, avoid steak and scallops (both of which we do love!). All hail to Aldi!
Wonder how much lower I can go??

Congratulations! I have a couple of questions: is this food budget for 2 persons? Is it only for home cooked meals? How often do you eat out? Do you have pets? Does it include pet food also?

Thank you for sharing.

 

[FIREd]

We don't try to minimize our grocery budget, because what we eat is a big contributor to our health, and we don't compromise on quality. So don't feel bad about spending (investing) money in an area so important to your well-being.

That is how I see things as well.

Food is also a source of pleasure for us. That alone makes it a worthy expenditure.

 

[Meadbh]

My grocery bills for January so far add up to $141. That includes cleaning products, toilet paper, etc. It also includes organic meat and vegetables. I hosted one dinner party, which turned out very economical because the leftovers lasted several days. And I only ate out twice, for a total cost of $39. So let's say $180 in total. I need to buy coffee, fruit and milk today, so let's estimate $200 for the month. Bills do not include wine, which is not sold in grocery stores here.

I have never calculated food bills in the past but estimate that I would have spent as much or more at the grocery store while working. The difference is that I would have bought more processed food and thrown out a lot more wilted vegetables and mouldy cheese. I would also have eaten lunch out most days and eaten dinner out more frequently because I was too tired to cook at the end of the day.

I am finding that home cooking is both cheaper and more satisfying in ER and probably healthier too.

 

[Grigori]

Wife and I spend $800 to $900 a month on food including restaurant meals two or three times a week. We are trying to cook more and more at home with lots of vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, salads, and little or no fat and salt. We figure treating food as our medicine will wind up saving us money down the road on doctors, pus we'll enjoy retirement more is we are healthier. Neverthess, it's nice to know that we several hundred dollars to play with if we reduced our restaurant eating, and cooked even more from scratch.

 

[walkinwood]

I am so pleased: I brought our food budget in this month at $469. For a reference point, January 2005 was $771. In 2005 I wasn't just buying everything--I'd buy store brands, avoid steak and scallops (both of which we do love!). All hail to Aldi!
Wonder how much lower I can go??

Do you need to go lower?

We don't have an Aldi here, but planning meals around seasonal items or those on sales seems to be helping - as are Costco & Sprouts.

 

[skyvue]

I averaged $254 per month (single) last year for groceries. This includes all things I buy at the grocery store not just food (cleaning supplies, detergent, etc....). It does not include eating out which I track under "Entertainment". If I included eating out it would about $100/month more.

 

[freebird5825]

I really cannot estimate my monthly grocery costs, because our shopping habits are both seasonal (pre-winter stockup) and impromptu (Mr B gets a hot tip about a good sale on meat).

Aldi's is our primary shopping destination for periodic purchases. We will occasionally take a trip to a larger town 35 miles away to take advantage of sales like the most recent mission to buy full racks of pork ribs for $1.99/lb. I buy my specialty cheeses and canned goods at a wholesale-retail combo food store, single-site and privately owned. It services local small restaurants but allows the public to buy also.

I know I could tally up the yearly grocery bill from my monthly credit card statements but...I spent my entire career chasing numbers, so I am taking the lazy route.

I am, after all, FIREd.

 

[SumDay]

Good golly--$100? How skinny ARE you?
Seriously, I'm amazed.

Ack, should have clarified: I haven't spent over $100 PER WEEK yet in January. And we were easily approaching $150 a week before that.

Sorry, didn't mean to scare you.

 

[obgyn65]

My food bill is very low. I eat sometimes at the clinic (when drug reps bring food) or I get a quick salad. I guess my monthly food bill is about $100-$300.

 

[palomalou]

Retire, I love your picture! No pets, and we hardly eat out. Not once this month. When we move eating out and food budget will be separate line items, but the bottom line is affected either way. Where we are, there's only every chain restaurant you could name to choose from, and it's easy to eat at home when I can do twice as tasty, twice as healthy, for way more than 50% less. I also really enjoy cooking, so it is not a penance.
Sumday, happy to hear that is per week!
Walkinwood, we don't need to go lower, but when we look at our retirement budget, something spouse says is that we could trim back in case of a lengthy economic plunge, which led me to think, "Hmm...can we?"

 

[Marita40]

I'm just starting to track expenses carefully. My grocery bill (I'm single and live alone) came to $159.00. this January. That includes paper/cleaning products. I have a separate budget line for personal care items (shampoo, etc), cat food, and eating out. Eating inexpensive things like oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, an egg for lunch, etc. goes a long way--as does shopping at Aldi. I'm eating better now that I'm budgeting carefully.

 

[Tree-dweller]

To know our food expense, I'd need to go line-by-line on each and every receipt. Then what? We try to balance frugal and a few 'luxuries we can afford' - I really can't imagine that seeing the actual $$$ number would change our buying habits. Would we skip the occasional Rib-Eye if it was a 'high' number (and what's 'high'?)? Would we buy Rib Eye more often than we do if it was a 'low' number? Why" We have Rib Eye as often as we really feel like it. We stay within our overall budget (I just add up monthly withdraws from the two accounts we spend from). Good enough for me.

-ERD50

About the way I feel, for now anyways. If circumstances change, requiring a closer (i.e. more detailed) look at the budget, I'll deal with it then, but for now, for us, DW and I are OK with knowing that we're conscious of the "healthfulness" of what we eat, and we know how to shop for deals.
Of course, I do make a distinction between food shopping and dining out. Dining out is "entertainment" for us, and that we do track.

 

[audreyh1]

Dining in is entertainment to us too, now that we are retired and have the time to cook some awesome meals.

 

[NotMyFault]

Dining out is therapy for me. Every Sunday before church we drop the kids at bible school and go to breakfast. We get to relax and enjoy coffee and a meal together. It is by far the best $20 a week to come out of our budget.
So I guess you retired folks experience this everyday?

NMF

 

[NW-Bound]

Many of us take pleasure in making our own meals, and trying different dishes now that we have the time, just like the post above yours indicates.

See this long-running thread: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/what-did-you-eat-today-54956.html.

Occasionally, a home-cooking thread like this pops up: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/cooking-questions-64397.html.

 

[NotMyFault]

I wasn't talking about the food. I meant the hour of quite relaxation with my wife over a cup of coffee and an omelette. When you are w*rking and raising two girls you have to plan for those moments and enjoy them to the fullest.

NMF

 

[NW-Bound]

Quite a few people are child-free, and only the job stress was what kept them from enjoying a meal, whether at home or dining out.

Even people with children like ourselves tend to be a bit older when we could retire, and that means the children are already grown.

It's constant relaxation in retirement, baby!

 

[NotMyFault]

[QUOTE="NW-Bound;

It's constant relaxation in retirement, baby![/QUOTE]

See now your just rubbing it in.

 

[NW-Bound]

See that we even had children, raised them, and turned them into good tax-paying citizens. Surely, we can sit back now and gloat.

 

[NotMyFault]

See that we even had children, raised them, and turned them into good tax-paying citizens. Surely, we can sit back now and gloat.

You have earned the right. Enjoy.

 

[NW-Bound]

The relaxation is not truly constant, as it does get interrupted by market swoons, and replaced by periods of terror as in 2008-2009. Quite a traumatic experience, really, to many of the posters here.

I still had earned income then. The next downturn will not be taken in the same cavalier manner.

 

[Live And Learn]

I am so pleased: I brought our food budget in this month at $469. For a reference point, January 2005 was $771. In 2005 I wasn't just buying everything--I'd buy store brands, avoid steak and scallops (both of which we do love!). All hail to Aldi!
Wonder how much lower I can go??

Congratulations ! Thats pretty amazing. My average spend for DH and I is around $520 a month. This excludes pet expenses, but does include toiletries and paper products. I work pretty hard at getting to this number by shopping in 2 or 3 stores a week and buying sale items. Generally EVERYTHING I buy is on sale - I very rarely pay retail cost except for store brand items and Aldi products (which, to me, are a "always on sale" price). Getting to $470 would be awesome ... I have a new goal

 

[RonBoyd]

We spent $6,984.89 on Groceries* last year or $582.07 a month average. Of that amount, $2,130.28 was Wine & Liquor for those keeping accurate score (after all, alcohol is a food item when you come right down to it) or $177.50 a month average.

(*The above figures are strictly food items -- items put in the mouth and swallowed at a regular meal -- and does not include any other items, such as vitamins or minerals.)

 

[haha]

I spent $4500 on groceries last year, which is less than I spent several years back. Partly it comes from finally learning how to cook chicken so it will be edible, partly from not living as close to a decent fish market as before, so I eat a little less fish.

I feel that this is plenty good enough. No sense saving money so Our Uncle can just confiscate more from me one way or another.

My appetite will never damage me financially. My only real economic vulnerability comes from societal socio-economic pressures, and not much can be done by the individual citizen about these.

Ha

 

[House Divided]

We (my DW and I) have a budget of 575 / month for groceries (food, paper products, cleaning supplies, and over the counter drugs) which is 13% of our budget, but we averaged 545 / month in 2012 and eating out is in our entertainment budget. They are building an Aldi’s in our town across the road from the Wal-Mart Supercenter, I wonder if they will start a price war? Remember Wal-Mart price matches!