2008 Actual Spending and 2009 Budgeted Spending

[NW-Bound]

To tell the truth, I have no idea how much we spend on food a month. If I ask, my wife can pull it up on her Excel spreadsheet, but she probably doesn't know off hand.

We do not pay much attention to food cost because we do not enjoy eating out, and cooking at home is cheap enough. My wife watches sales flyers from local grocery stores, and we have several within a few miles of our home. I do not watch the cost, but rather my calorie intake. Food is still relatively cheap in the US, unless you are constantly splurging.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Want2retire For the last couple of months I spent about $300/month - $350/month at the grocery store for one person, not including 3-4 restaurant meals/week. I am NOT frugal when it comes to food. I do not skimp on groceries at all, and buy whatever I want including steak and many other expensive items. Also, the food prices in New Orleans are high in comparison with some other areas in the South and Midwest. Food prices in southern Missouri, where we plan to retire, seem to be about 75% of the prices here. I would expect that your food expenses as a single man in Florida will very likely be under $350/month. If you are a little thrifty, they will very likely be under $300/month. If you are even more frugal, you could probably get them down to $200/month.

I just figured out what I spent during all of 2008, and it came to an average of $236/month for groceries, lower than I thought earlier today. Apparently my recent expenditures of $300-$350 were higher than usual.

[TromboneAl]

Our grocery bill comes to $455/month for two of us. This seems very high to me, since we we're pretty efficient.

For example, we'll load up on seven whole chickens when the price gets to $.79 a pound or less (sometimes $.59/pound). One chicken will result in one roast chicken dinner, one open-face chicken dinner, 2-4 churkey sandwich (like turkey sandwich but with chicken) lunches, plus one soup dinner from the broth (e.g. cream of celery), and one leftover soup lunch. Plus we often make beans or chili with dried beans.

$450/month comes out to $5/meal.