How much do you spend on Groceries?

[ocdokie]

Made me look. Mint says that as of today (Nov.30), in 2018 DH and I have spent $377 per month on groceries, with $80 per month on eating out. There's just the two of us.

[COcheesehead]

About $500 - $600/month for two. Mostly shop at Costco. Don't really skimp on anything. Buy organics, quality proteins, lots of fish, but little in the way of prepared foods. I think those types of things can really escalate a food bill.

[Sunset]

About $321 for two per month.

[RetireAge50]

For 2 people we consume over 100,000 calories per month. I think we spend less than 1 cent per calorie.

[ShokWaveRider]

Here is my Spreadsheet, Jan to Nov. Resp. I do not know how some of you can spend so little.

Jan. ------> Dec.
Food: 508.97 529.87 437.13 412.02 592.44 641.09 321.77 540.86 493.09 486.12 564.23 0.00
Jan. ------> Dec.
Wine & Liquor: 54.68 84.91 274.58 120.47 130.54 158.84 104.32 22.41 195.60 21.26 154.58 0.00

[big-papa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by candrew Wow, $400/month for a family of 4 - including a teen and pre-teen - is very impressive! When our boys were that age, we swore it would be cheaper for us to pay their rent than their feed bill. For DW & I - we average about $525/month for food, including the occasional meal out.

Very impressive! When I was between jobs 5 years ago, I was budgeting $800/mo for 3 of us. I know we could have done better, but DW just wasn't on board with the program. Not a spendthrift by any means, but also totally uninterested in the details of our budget...

[NYEXPAT]

We are a family of 4 (13 y/o and 3 1/2 y/o boys) + 1 cook/nanny/housekeeper. We are in a HCOL area within a LCOL country and spend $800/mth for groceries/household items. We spend at least that much on dining out and nowadays's virtually nothing on alcohol.

[jim584672]

Around $200 a month.

[Chuckanut]

Since I started eating more real food and less processed food, my bill has gone up. But, I am not sure what it is - probably $300 a month per adult.

[haha]

For me, about $400/ month. This is food prepared and eaten at home

Ha

[FANOFJESUS]

$500 a month for two lots of organic. We live it up in the food department others things we don't care so much about. $80 of that is eating out.

[happy2bretired]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FIREd I budget $400 a month for one (includes cleaning supplies, paper products, basic wine and beer, etc...). But my food expenses have been dropping. I am simplifying my diet (I loved to cook a large variety of food when I was married but it is not so fun now that I am single). And I am lowering my meat consumption. The goal is to move towards a more plant-based, seasonal, and streamlined diet. But I still favor what I would call "high quality ingredients".

That sounds like me too. I used to cook more but not anymore. After cooking for so many years, it just seem like too much work for one person. I don’t eat much meat anymore either. I think when my husband was alive, I always tried to please him with the meat. Now I don’t buy hardly any.

[Teacher Terry]

We spend between 300-400 for 2 people which includes our cleaning supplies. We eat out twice a week for a additional 400/month.

[pacergal]

We budget between 600-1000 per month, that includes toiletries, cleaning supplies, sometimes even clothing from Costco or Target--I don't separate out the receipt!
We have our kids over several times a month so I allocate more in the budget for "groceries"
I have a set monthly budget total for everything, so if the month gets longer than the money allotted, we slow down on purchases. Unless its a "blow the dough" moment!

[Another Reader]

I must be incredibly cheap. Averaging about $115 per person a month so far in 2018. That includes some but not all of the paper products plus toiletries bought at a grocery store. You can't allocate purchases in Personal Capital, so Costco spending goes to different categories depending on what the primary purchase was. Restaurants average $40 per person. Was less, but when McDonalds rolled out their mobile app with $1.00 sandwiches, that raised the spending for a couple of months. A $1.00 Egg McMuffin is a lot cheaper than home made... No alcohol here.

[karen1972]

$900 a month and that includes everything: Dinner out, vacation meals, toiletries including shampoo/soap, liquor and groceries.

$650 if I try to factor in just groceries with maybe some toiletries added in, the remainder is alcohol ($75), eating out ($150), and coffee/fast food ($20).

It use to be almost double that but we've cut down on the frequency of the more expensive items by a lot. We may be able to shave another $100/month off but probably not much more than that without impacting our standard of living.

We don't eat anything with dye, artificial sweetener, or chemicals so every item tends to be a little more expensive and none of it runs coupons. Luckily the trend is catching on and companies like Heinz have come out with things like their Simply 5 line, Just as an example, you figure regular ketchup is 6 cent/oz, Simply runs 9 cent/oz on sale, vs their organic line runs 20 cent/oz.... so now I only pay 3 cent/oz more vs. 14 cents, it adds up when you have to add it to everything you buy that is canned/bottled/jarred/frozen.

[jjquantz]

For the two of us over the last 12 months:

Groceries: $306/month
Wine & Beer: $30/month
Eating out: $423/month

Most of the occurrences for eating out would be breakfast for me at my favorite fast food location and DW's lunches (she's still w*rking). These make up less than 1/2 of the $ total, however. I expect that the amount will remain unchanged when she retires, but we will shift to eating dinner out a couple of more times per month and ditch most of the lunches and breakfasts.

We keep vacation dining as a separate category. But cooking in an AirBnB we count as groceries.

[Just_Steve]

$400 a month for 3 eating at home, dining out is about $300 a month.

[ExFlyBoy5]

Just DW and I (this also includes alcohol and Costco):

2018: $520/mo $6240/yr
2017: $619/mo $7438/yr
2016: $475/mo $5709/yr

Not sure why 2017 was so much more than the other two years, though.

We also have spend quite a bit going out to eat. This year, we are averaging $489 a month.

[brett]

No idea whatsoever.

We only track total monthly spend. Even if we did have it down to the dime it would no impact how or where we shopped, or what food we bought.