OT-grocery budget?

[Brandi]

I just wanted to see how much we spend at the market a month. To be honest I have no idea what a good budget for something like that is. And there is only two of us.
I don't buy junk food, so I pay a little higher price for snacks that aren't made with a bunch of junk. And we eat out maybe 3 times a month sometimes more but not a whole lot,like one day a week. I love to cook and go by my gut and what it wants so I run to the market every few days. So far it looks like we spend around $500.00 a month.
Is that a lot? Anyone do food budgets? Now I know i could stretch this budget but I don't like to buy junk. NO doritto's or soda. No ground beef or white bread. I buy sprouted bread, organic corn chips,homememade salsa,lot's of trader Joe's snacks. We drink sparkling water and good local coffee. Meat we eat is fish, pork, chicken sometimes steak. I make a lot of soups.
Just wondering. It is an odd ? I know.

[SouthernBelle]

500 for how many?


See the IRS and USDOJ national standards here:

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=104627,00.html

[7rider]

Brandi indicated that it was for 2 people.
Based on that website, Brandi, you're about "normal."

edit: but that table makes a lie of the statement that "two can live as cheaply as one."!

[Brandi]

True I know we could eat cheaper. But I love to cook. so that doesn't help much.
I am glad we are normal I was a little concerned. $500.00 seems like a lot. But it would probably be more if we ate out more. I know some people who eat out way to much. For us we eat out if I am totally burnt on cooking. The we get local thai or mexican. That is maybe a $23.00 meal for both. Or if we go out with friends to celebrate something or just to hang out.
I also shop our farmers market. I can easily spend $20.00 a week on stuff there! I hate super market veggies. I am spoiled!

[smilingcat]

and my mother used to complain about how she hated taking my father grocery shopping.

"I could buy a whole weeks worth of grocery for $25.00" Sure dad. That was the 50s when sirloin steak cost 35cents a pound.... And houses cost $18,000. The again, your doctor's pay was how much? $1000/mo if that?

I'm gettin grouchy like my dad. OMG cup of yogurt used to cost about 40cents now its HOW MUCH?? Never mind I'll make my own. OMG gallon of milk is HOW MUCH??

We haven't bought beef for many years so I have no idea how much steak costs. We buy NZ leg of lamb, lamb chops... free range organic chicken... farmers market and trader Joe's. Monthly grocery for the two of us is around $600. It's my partners fault. She likes junk food and pre-made stuff.

smilingcat

[kat_h]

I don't really keep track of what I spend but I went back and checked my credit card statements and in January spent about $200 feeding the two of us. I know that sounds really low but my husband buys his breakfast and lunch at work and we eat out a couple of times a week. We also have a freezer so I stock up when food that freezes well goes on sale. I also tend to only buy things that are on sale. There's a discount produce store near my house that sells food that is close to going off. As long as I eat it withing two or three days it's fine and it costs about a third of what normal grocery stores do. There's also a bakery near me that sells day-old bread for $0.79.

We used to live in England and didn't have a car there so I had to plan my groceries around what I could fit in my backpack without being too top heavy to bike home. That was fun.

[Crankin]

I spend more than you, Brandi, for 2 people also. I like to cook and I don't buy junk food either. No soda, chips, etc. I go to farm markets in the summer for fruits and veggies and the local gourmet market sometimes during the rest of the year (less than I used to, since I live further away now). I don't really track what i spend, but it's probably about $600.00 a month. And, we go out, too, maybe 1-2 times a week. I look at it as being better than spending the money on cigarettes and other unhealthy stuff. Food is probably the next important thing in our lives besides cycling!
I seem to have spent about the same when both my kids were living at home. I think I buy more gourmet and organic things now.

[Pax]

We tend to spend around $400 a month for two. We eat primarily plant based so the food costs a bit more...if we would stop eating out so much I think our grocery bill would be much higher.

[SouthernBelle]

Brandi indicated that it was for 2 people.


Duh!

[Zen]

It costs a lot more to eat healthy food than junk food.
I don't eat out and rarely buy meat but I enjoy a good piece of salmon now and then. Apples are sometimes $2/lb but they're a staple item as is organic milk.
Non-organic would be a lot cheaper but i'm not having it.

I spend about $150-200/month.

[maillotpois]

I occasionally run a Quicken category search on the home computer as to what we spend for groceries. I think it's going to be a lot because we spend a lot on wine. :rolleyes:

[Brandi]

and my mother used to complain about how she hated taking my father grocery shopping.

"I could buy a whole weeks worth of grocery for $25.00" Sure dad. That was the 50s when sirloin steak cost 35cents a pound.... And houses cost $18,000. The again, your doctor's pay was how much? $1000/mo if that?

I'm gettin grouchy like my dad. OMG cup of yogurt used to cost about 40cents now its HOW MUCH?? Never mind I'll make my own. OMG gallon of milk is HOW MUCH??

We haven't bought beef for many years so I have no idea how much steak costs. We buy NZ leg of lamb, lamb chops... free range organic chicken... farmers market and trader Joe's. Monthly grocery for the two of us is around $600. It's my partners fault. She likes junk food and pre-made stuff.

smilingcat
I am afraid I am not a big lamb liker. It is a bit strong for me.
It's funny you and my dh sound a bit alike. He is always saying things like "How much are tennis shoes?, I remeber back when you could buy a pair of vans for like $15.00, now they are how much?" And they aren't custom made anymore either.
What kind of junk food does your partner eat. See I thought the junkier food was less expensive. You know cause it seems like all that stuff is on sale all the time. It seems to cost more for organic. Like organic milk which I buy. But I only go through a half gallon a week so I guess it even's out.
Do you two eat out a lot?
Do you have a good lamb recipe? maybe that is my problem, my dad used to cook lamb and the only way I could eat it was with mint jelly. It was so gamey!

[Brandi]

So I wonder? Should we include eating out and things like wine and beer on top of our market bill?
My dh is really into belguim beer's right now. It's like having a drug addiction! These beers cost from $5.00 to 12.00 a bottle! They are big bottles and the alcohol content is like 9% to 10% so you don't drink as much. But wow pricey! And he complains about the price of shoes!
He mountain bikes, and I swear he is fixing something on that bike once a week! It has been rebuilt I swear two times in the past 5 years he has had that bike.

[maillotpois]

I will sometimes categorize wine separately in Quicken when we do a large purchase of just wine at a wine distributor or something, but ordinarily I'd count wine and beer as "groceries".

So Brandi your numbers may be going up! :D

[7rider]

We just blew $300 at Sam's Club this weekend on "the basics"....won't go back for another 6 months, if all goes according to plan. But that ... and those periodic trips to the wine and beer store ... certainly blow any consistent spending plan out of the water. The rest of it is maybe $400 or so a month. DH eats lunch out each day. We eat a lot of pasta. I buy what's on sale if I can help it. Our rabbits get 2 salads a day - they're our biggest consumers of fresh perishable stuff - organic spring mix mostly, the spoiled brats! Our weekly splurge may be $18-20 on pizza or Chinese food. Delivery, of course! :cool: Once a month to a "real" restaurant, which may set us back $60.

[Brandi]

I will sometimes categorize wine separately in Quicken when we do a large purchase of just wine at a wine distributor or something, but ordinarily I'd count wine and beer as "groceries".

So Brandi your numbers may be going up! :D
Yes.:o a bit.

[Brandi]

We just blew $300 at Sam's Club this weekend on "the basics"....won't go back for another 6 months, if all goes according to plan. But that ... and those periodic trips to the wine and beer store ... certainly blow any consistent spending plan out of the water. The rest of it is maybe $400 or so a month. DH eats lunch out each day. We eat a lot of pasta. I buy what's on sale if I can help it. Rabbits get 2 salads a day - their our biggest consumers of fresh perishable stuff - organic spring mix mostly, the spoiled brats! Our weekly splurge may be $18-20 on pizza or Chinese food. Delivery, of course! :cool: Once a month to a "real" restaurant, which may set us back $60.
You sound a bit like us. Take out maybe once a week. Our cats get better food then us sometimes!
We had to go to a birthday this past week to a resturant we would never go to. It was a MEAT type place. Dead stuffed animals all over the place! hated that but kept my mouth shut. We spent a little over $50.00. We had the pork chops. But we really want to go out for sushi on Valentines' day so we went with the cheaper meals on the menu. Nothing good was under $20.00. I whispered to my dh to try and eat cheap so we could spend more on sushi! We haven't really been out much since the new year. MAybe 3 times.

[singletrackmind]

On a serious budget right now so 400 for the three of us plus two teens a third of the time.
Summer and those teens half the time gets spendy, but the garden helps a lot.

[sundial]

We spend about $75 every 1 1/2 weeks, so that is about $300 or so a month--give or take. That is based on 2 people. That does not include eating out which is maybe one day a week.

[Tuckervill]

We eat out way too much. I have $140 a week set aside for groceries and eating out, for three people, which pretty much comes to $600 a month. We blow that regularly when we're too busy to cook.

When my older kids were still here, we spent less on eating out and more on groceries, and we cooked more, for about the same money. While our budget hasn't grown any, with fewer mouths to feed, I don't clip coupons anymore and I don't try new things. I pretty much buy what I want, name brands, and I hardly ever look at prices. I figure I've done my due diligence when I had a houseful of kids, and since it's not my favorite thing to do, someone else in the house can worry about it, if that's what they want to do. I just don't care anymore. I save money in other ways, though, like using a credit card that gets me airline tickets and paying it off every month. I also try to drive as little as possible, especially since I got the Element which gets half the mileage as my Beetle did (still put 42,000 miles on it in the first year of owning it, though!)

Of course, if we were in a financial crunch, we'd be eating beans and hamburger again in a heartbeat.

Karen

[Dianyla]

OMG, I don't even want to think about how much we spend on food every month. Most grocery food is a combination of Trader Joe's, farmer's market in summer, the local food co-op, and Whole Paycheck. That part's bad enough. Add in the eating out, and that probably doubles our food budget right there. We both easily spend 80 hours a week at work or school, so we end up eating out like 4-5 times a week. But, because we're picky about food quality, when we do eat out it's rarely fast food (Chipotle is the minimum standard, I'll put it that way). It would be much cheaper if we cooked at home more, but it is really hard to find the time.

I'd hazard a guess that we're easily over $400 per person per month, excluding the sushi budget. :eek:

I dunno. I'm generally of the mind that spending money on good quality food is always worth it. But, it's easy to have that attitude now because I have a relatively nice amount of disposable income every month. If I get accepted to med school in a few years, I'll have to be on a serious food budget for the next decade. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it! :rolleyes:

[surgtech1956]

For two of us, we spend about $300 a month - the only meat we buy is maybe lunch meat about twice a month. We cut down eating out from once a week to once or twice a month. I don't even want to figure our cat and dog food bill. :eek:

[Crankin]

I didn't include the wine or beer in my estimate. We usually go a couple of times a year and buy a lot.
We got out a lot, too.

[short cut sally]

I tried to come up with an exact but can only esimate how much it might cost for buying groceries for 2 in our household. I average 75-100.00 each week..I don't buy prepared items-frozen dinners. I do a lot of baking for home and for work..I attempt to cook big meals for supper. The only time we eat out is if we go away for the day to the mall or get parts for his business, lately that seems like a weekly event but usually it might be once a month. I am sure I could cut back if need be though. I do tend to overspend at times at the stores. We buy no pops, i might buy junk food for dh such as chips or ice cream if he deserves it;)

[Brandi]

This is all very interesting. Hmmmmm? nice to know I am normal.

[shootingstar]

For 2 cycling adults: just around $280.00CAN per month.

Plus eating out for dinner once a wk. about $30.00 for 2. We tend to choose cheap places and snacks throughout the week --add another $25.00CAN.

For home, we don't buy junk food. We do shop in Chinatown several times per month, where you can get ordinary plus Asian ingredients for competitive prices. We don't shop at Costco's even though there is one right beside Chinatown..not cost-effective for us to make annual membership worthwhile nor has the range of stuff we want. We do focus heavily on fresh veggies and fruits instead of canned substitutes...neither of us are keen on canned veggies/fruits.

Budget even includes a box of phyllo dough...it's only under $3.00CAN to make several large strudels --savoury or sweet. Budget does include occasional whole fresh salmon, which I cut up and freeze... a nice meal of mussels, even a cup of smoked salmon. We only eat certain meats, 1-2 times per week.

Both of us were raised by immigrant mothers in poor families while growing up and so we each witnessed how to stretch food...German style and Chinese style.

For inexplicable reasons, right now he's really into pumping out gourmet dishes that he creates out of his own imagination...an elegant, healthy dish doesn't require a ton of money.

Plus 2 bottles of wine every 4 months..no more than $40.00CAN or less.

[KnottedYet]

For SKnot and I, about $60 a week. So about $240/month for the two of us.

We don't eat out much at all, maybe once every 2 or 3 months. I buy huge amounts of fruit and veges at Costco, which really saves us a bundle. (and keeps SKnot eating good stuff, cuz it's always around)

Costco is mighty nice when there's a teenager to feed!

[kelownagirl]

I think we probably spend $400-500 a month for the 3 of us. (2 adults 1 10 yo boy). Not including beer or wine. We go out for dinner about 3 times a month.

[rocknrollgirl]

We spend about 500-600 a month for the two of us, not including the wine budget. We do not go out to dinner. That includes the regular shop at the grocery store, and Trader Joe's.

I will admit, this is the one part of the budget that I do not skimp on. Because we do not go out to eat and we like to cook, I do not look at prices when I shop.

[Brandi]

You know I didn't think this post would go this far. I am glad everyone is putting their two cents in.
It's funny to look at what the average family should be spending according to the govermant. If I spent $30.00 amonth on personal care i would look much better then I do. I understand the personel is a broad range of stuff. I will count it for getting my hair done every 3 months then. Oh I have spare change from that then cool!