Monthly Grocery Expenditure

[finnski1]

About $521/month for 2 of us in 2023. Haven't tracked 20224 yet. That includes household supplies etc. Basically anything we purchase at grocery stores.

 

[Calico]

Household of 1.

I average $375-$400 per month at the grocery store; this includes all paper goods and cleaning supplies, etc. (It's too much trouble to break them out from the total).

I buy no meat or alcohol, but I don't skimp on fresh fruit and veg. I pick up takeout maybe 6-8 times a year; I haven't eaten out since 2020.

This figure does not include cat food/cat litter/cat treats/cat supplements. I used to buy those at the grocery store, but since 2020 I've purchased them from Chewy/Amazon. All those items have skyrocketed in price since the pandemic, and they warrant their own line item in the budget spreadsheet! I love my 17-year-old fur ball, and spare no expense on her, so I just don't look at the invoices any more.

 

[finnski1]

Household of 1.

I average $375-$400 per month at the grocery store; this includes all paper goods and cleaning supplies, etc. (It's too much trouble to break them out from the total).

I buy no meat or alcohol, but I don't skimp on fresh fruit and veg. I pick up takeout maybe 6-8 times a year; I don't eat out at all.

This figure does not include cat food/cat litter/cat treats/cat supplements. I get those from Chewy/Amazon. All those items have skyrocketed in price since the pandemic, and they warrant their own line item in the budget spreadsheet! I love my 17-year-old fur ball, and spare no expense on her, so I just don't look at the invoices any more.

Ah yes. We spent over $1400 last year at Chewy's for just one dog. Only spent $464 at the Vet in comparison.

 

[dmpi]

For us it's around $600 for two people. That doesn't include eating out which we go out maybe ten times per month.

 

[Calico]

Ah yes. We spent over $1400 last year at Chewy's for just one dog. Only spent $464 at the Vet in comparison.

I feel your pain.

 

[ncbill]

We spent $335 per month for family of 2 in 2023 for all grocery products.

Beer, wine and eating out are not included.

Roughly the same for our family of 2.

Same amount monthly for eating out.

 

[Surewhitey]

Family of 2 and, often, 2 DGK's. Probably $800 groceries and $200 eating out.

 

[ClarkeK]

We spent $335 per month for family of 2 in 2023 for all grocery products.

Beer, wine and eating out are not included.

So after thinking about it, I neglected to add food costs for dining out and while on vacation. We spent $190 a month dining out and $4158 eating while on vacation over 73 nights away.

So grand total is $10,458. More than I realized.

 

[Winemaker]

I have no idea. Spent $700 yesterday at Costco, paid $800(after butchering) for a whole 350# hog 2 weeks ago. We bought half beef last fall I think for $1200. DW says about $1200/ month for local grocers, and we eat out only when traveling and we do a lot of cooking at VRBOs when we do. We garden and go to farmer's markets when we travel as well.

 

[threeonesix]

The following includes food groceries, non-food household supplies and dining out for myself:

Pre-COVID 2006-2020: $368/mo average
Post-COVID 2020-today: $441/mo average

I've not changed my eating habits much since 2006. Prior to that I was a broke college student so ate on the cheap. These days I do more cooking at home as the small town in which I live has very little selection for dining out. Hence, I only dine out when I need to go into the nearby large city for some reason. When I do cook at home, at least half of the time I'm eating sticky rice and some variation of stir fry made with chicken/beef/shrimp/fish with some combination of carrots/peppers/onions/broccoli/zucchini/squash/celery and Bachan's sauce and Sriracha. That sauce is phenomenal, worth every penny! The only snacks I eat anymore are yellow corn chips with homemade guacamole, salsa or both.

Dishwasher ... used to rarely use it prior to COVID. Someone told me to use it and it will save money. Didn't believe them but I started using it once per day when cooking at home. My water bill went down about $20 that first month, so now I am a believer.

Coincidence that someone brought this up. Some friends and I were just talking about stuff like this over the weekend. The wife had changed a roll of toilet paper on Friday. By Saturday afternoon she had to do so again. She asked her husband and sons what the heck are you doing that requires so much TP?! Good laughter ensued, but her sons showed us how they roll the TP onto their hands before using it. One of them did so and handed me the wad. I counted 18 panels of TP. And this was triple-ply! I told them all you need is 4 panels folded into one. They all had a good laugh, but I was serious. That's all I've ever used. And I buy 12 rolls of TP every 3 years. She buys 12 rolls every other week, at nearly $1 per roll. So they're spending nearly SIXTY TIMES the amount of money on TP as do I. Same is true for laundry supplies. I wash clothes once per month, 4 loads. She washes at least 2 loads every single day.

It's shocking to me the amount of money some people waste on such things, unnecessarily. I should point out that these are people who have spent, in the last 10 years, almost $700,000 on a house they would struggle to sell for $350,000 today. But they're happy and don't seem to care.

 

[finnski1]

I feel your pain.

We don't have children so it's probably a huge bargain in the long run. Besides he's awful cute.

 

[Calico]

We don't have children so it's probably a huge bargain in the long run. Besides he's awful cute.

Same story here!

 

[Dtail]

We average 1,400 monthly for 2 people which includes groceries and eating out, but no toiletries bought at the grocery store.
It is a treat expense for us, as neither of us likes to cook for the most part anymore.

 

[CardsFan]

I have no clue what we spend on groceries. I don't track. We don't budget. DW is very frugal, and searches out bargains. But we buy what we need/want when we want/need it.

 

[CarbonaNotGlue]

I’m really surprised by the posts. I’ve tracked this on quicken for years and we spent around $800 per month for 2 adults and 1 dog down here in south Florida, pre COVID. This included all toiletries and household products along with food, but excludes dining out. The past 6 months, we’ve averaged around $1400 for grocery shopping. We’ve been pretty consistent in our purchases throughout and just chalked up the increase to inflation. Our diet is not big on meat, but heavy on produce and seafood.

 

[GenXguy]

I'm a little surprised, but I know people can be pretty spendy when they have the dough to do it. In a more frugal forum I sometimes read, there was someone who reported spending $190/mo for a family of 4! That's about what I spend for just me.

 

[Al18]

Spending about $450 per month on groceries. Does not include take-out or restaurants. That’s a guesstimate - as I have never tracked spending while working and ain’t gonna start now that I’m retired.

 

[N02L84ER]

We spend just under $700/mo for the two of us, eating out and groceries. We eat out a lot.

 

[FiveDriver]

We track Grocery spending closely, since we use the Citi Custom Cash card only for Grocery spending. Over the past 2 years our monthly average has been $430 per month for 2 people. The Citi Custom card gives us 5% Cash-back, which added up to about $260, redeemed in December paying for the Holidays.

The Citi card also provides a nice End-of-Year Summary and we can see where we shop. A lot at Harris-Teeter cause it's close-by. But also Trader Joe's, Lowes Foods and Publix, which each have goods that we favor. DW has been on a Mediterranean Diet Cooking spree (cut way back on Potatoes and Bread -- and we each lost about 20 pounds).

I quit buying Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla ground coffee when it shot up to $15 per bag. I substituted a French Vanilla from Lidl's and saved $40 per month. Take that Mr Dunkin !

 

[Teacher Terry]

I spent 300:/month on groceries for me and I have company at least once a week. I spend 100/month eating out. This includes all my paper and cleaning supplies. This doesn’t include my two 5lb Maltese which both are on expensive diets because of health problems. I run my dishwasher twice a week.

 

[rodi]

Quicken says the last 12 months average to $960/month. Groceries is defined as anything bought at Costco, Vons, Sprouts, or other grocery store. Dining out was higher than I expected at $542/month. This includes when we treat others... DH keeps telling me we shouldn't always pick up the tab, he may be right looking at this.

We had one son home for last summer, so that drove up groceries. The other stops by periodically for weekends, and like any college student, eats a lot of food and takes 'to go' groceries with him. LOL.

Groceries includes cleaning products, paper products, booze, occasional random clothes from costco, dog food, flea treatment, etc... Like I said everything bought at those stores.

 

[aaronc879]

As with most spending I am on the far low end of most people. For a single person I spend around $150-160/mo. I don't eat or drink out at all so that is for everything I consume.

 

[QG67PK00]

Family of 4 adults, I spent on the average $600 per month on groceries, not including non food items. I live in SF Bay Area.
Does not include restaurants and delivered food.

 

[Dtail]

I'm a little surprised, but I know people can be pretty spendy when they have the dough to do it. In a more frugal forum I sometimes read, there was someone who reported spending $190/mo for a family of 4! That's about what I spend for just me.

Hmm, that works out to 50 cents a meal for each of them if they eat 3 meals a day.

 

[DrRoy]

We don't track it closely but I think close to you.