How much do you spend on Groceries?

[big-papa]

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]

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.

 

[Bamaman]

My wife and I are raising our 7 year old granddaughter. Our daughter has also recently been staying around here about half the time.

The daughter eats 24/7. But she never eats a meal, other than pizza. She will clean us out every 3 days of chips, sandwich makings and junk food. We sometimes have difficulties finding food to eat that's not frozen.

We're spending at least $800 per month on groceries. I told my wife to let the cupboard empty, and I'll go to the grocery daily--to save money.

 

[dtbach]

No idea.
We don't don't track our spending.

+1 Probably varies wildly depending on if I see halibut vs chicken, or prime rib vs tilapia. Short life so tend to eat well. One of my best friends says "you can't go broke eating well". I like that philosophy.

 

[brokrken]

Family of 3, we budget $550 per month on groceries and it averages about that. When you add in the going out to dinner it gets considerably more. Restaurants in the city aren't cheap. If the 3 of us even go to the cheap neighborhood Mexican joint with tip it'll be over $70.

 

[W2R]

I am a single person living alone, and I do not try to economize on food, at all.

Frank and I eat lunch together at a restaurant every day. I pay for mine, which this year has usually just been either soup or else a side salad, with water to drink. These lunch decisions are based on weight loss reasons and also to avoid diet soda or regular soda, neither of which are healthy for me IMO. He pays for his which usually costs nearly twice what mine costs and somehow he still stays thin. We each pay our own tax and tip.

I order most of my groceries online and what I pay includes delivery to my door. I do this for convenience, but find that for me this is cheaper than going to any of our local supermarkets (maybe because it eliminates the "impulse items"?)

So far this year, my monthly averages are:

$190/month on groceries
$229/month on eating out
$0/month on alcoholic beverages, either at restaurants or at home (I don't drink them)

($419/month total.) This is for a single person living alone.

 

[brokrken]

$229/month on eating out

You must not drink.

 

[W2R]

You must not drink.

Right!!! Thanks, I'll edit my post to say that.

 

[gamboolman]

We are budgeting $2K per month for eating out and groceries in retardment next year for Ms. gamboolgal and I.

But we have been overseas for near to 16 year and only home to Texas for 2 month per year...so we are hoping we have a good bit of "fat" in our budget...

A "nice" dinner out in Lagos, Nigeria for 2 X expats can easy be $300 USA

We know and acknowledge that we are hopefully ultra-conservative for this component of our retirement budget.

Truth be known, we both enjoy cooking at home when we go home to Texas and we can grill or cook up some good beef vs Bush meat in Africa....also known as Mystery Meat.....

We can tell you all about food poisoning......just on the way home from the facility yesterday in the Convoy we saw a motorcycle with about a dozen large, very large Barucuda on the back of a motor cycle, no ice and covered in flies.....and seeing the goats chopped up in the roadside markets...each day....

Talk about cast iron stomachs....

 

[Retch The Grate]

Hmm, from what I estimate it costs my wife and I ~$400 a week for food and beverages. Her glasses of wine tend to add 50% to the already not cheap cost of dinner out. We're foodies and tend to do dinner out 3-4 times a week in addition to buying food to cook. I like steak and my wife likes wine (fortunately generally less than $10 a bottle at home, but out that is more like $10-14 a glass), so it all adds up.

I'm using $300 a week as my target for food for retirement so that I know I can keep going out to dinner with her as frequently and have plenty to cover fancy restaurant outings on a regular basis. Dinner out is usually $55-75 for the two of us, can be twice that if we go somewhere nice, and 4x if we go somewhere really nice. Even lunch in the bay area tends to hit $55+: two entrees ($25-40), two glasses of wine ($15-28) and a soda ($3) + tax (9%) and tip (20%).

She's been in europe for a month and I've spent ~$100 total on food while she's away. Obviously I'm a cheap date by myself.

 

[JustCurious]

I average $230 per month for two people. I also spend quite a bit eating out, an average of $650 per month for 3 people.

 

[Dtail]

I average $230 per month for two people. I also spend quite a bit eating out, an average of $650 per month for 3 people.

So one person never eats at home?