How Much Do You Spend On Groceries?

[Teacher Terry]

My good friend said she is surprised how little we spend on groceries per month for 2 people. We shop at Winco and spend between 300-400/month. This includes all paper products, cleaning supplies and wine. We buy our dog food somewhere else. We eat meat every day and have frequent company. So I thought this is the perfect place to ask my frugal friends.

[iris lilies]

Sad to say, I have no idea. Which probably means we are spending crap tons at the grocery store.

I know that I no longer rein myself in terribly much, just sometimes.

[happystuff]

I try to do the lower end of between $50-$75/week for three people - four when we get "raided" by college child. LOL. If there are some stock up sales, I will spend more, but that usually means less spent in coming weeks. After the holidays, I'm hoping to get it back to the low end.

[SteveinMN]

SEE Finance says we spend about $600 a month for the two of us. That includes paper products, food we serve at parties, and items we bring to potlucks (about 3-4 of them a month). It does not include most cleaning supplies or liquor. Eating out averages another $100 a month.

[Teacher Terry]

Wow Happy you are definitely frugal with food. That’s a lot of potlucks Steve. One thing that helped us is we do a big shop monthly and then buy milk, fruit, etc as needed so not a lot of temptation by being in the grocery store much.

[rosarugosa]

We probably spend $500 - $550, but this includes cat food, treats, & litter; wine, paper goods, cleaning products and some health & beauty items like eye drops, cold meds, etc. Market Basket has decent prices on most things, so we buy a lot of miscellaneous things there when we can.

[NewGig]

$700/year for organic veggies, $200/month for incidentals: cat food, soap, etc. About $600 a year more for organic meat. The veggies are from a CSA with a Pick Your Own option and I make up partial casseroles, etc. in the summer we eat in the winter, like now. I have one more container of chicken thighs (3) currently thawing in the fridge for tomorrow. Tonight's dinner, the remains of the soup we had for lunch (chickpea/squash stew) and cheese sandwiches. I'll buy about 10 lbs of chicken in the next week or two, at about $2.50/lb, it will last us 2 months. If I go to the "local" greenmarket it costs $9/lb, so I try to avoid that! We try to eat 2 meat meals a week: a double veg meal 2 days, eggs 1 day, sandwich 1 day, and whatever is leftover 1 day.

[catherine]

I budget $500 for "basic" food, and $100 for "splurge" food, which would be something like picking up a pre-made sandwich at the convenience store.Since we've moved to Vermont, our "basic" food has exceeded $500 a month--in order to get really good food deals we have to drive off the island and when I'm busy my meal planning gets shot to hell and I wind up in the local "supermarket" which is reasonable, but not as cheap as bigger supermarkets/Costco. But OTOH, we rarely spend our "splurge food" allotment, so I guess I would say $600 for two of us (and more if we go off the rails) which we could definitely shrink with better planning.

[Rosemary]

We spend about $60/week/ less than $280/month for groceries for 3 (1 a teenager). We eat nearly every meal at home or homemade all month. Like happystuff, I stock up when sales are good, and some weeks I can get by with just $15 worth of fresh produce. We eat mostly vegetarian meals but I do cook meat for DH's lunches.

[Yppej]

Lately it has been creeping up as high as $100 a week but this has included non-food items sold at my supermarket like gift cards for Christmas presents and postage stamps. It also includes stocking up on sale items.