What is your grocery budget?

[essnce629]

What are you counting in your grocery budget? Like cleaning supplies and paper goods too? I don't sort things out at all. I don't have a budget and we probably spend $200-300/ week on groceries + odds and ends of take out (sub between sports practice...). But, the totals probably include some of those household items as well.
eta- true to expectations, our grocery bill shot up significantly when ds1 was about 15 years old and it is still climbing. He hit that hunger phase late thankfully...our food budget used to be a lot smaller.

DS1 is 15 and has also been eating everything in sight for awhile now. He can't have gluten, soy, coconut, or nuts so that definitely makes everything more expensive. My grocery budget (food only) used to be $185 a week, but now we're blowing through that. I pretty much shop exclusively at Trader Joe's, but grab a handful of specialty food items at Target, like Udi's GF muffins for DS1, when I go there twice a month to pick up prescriptions. We're a family of 4 in a HCOL area. I go to Trader Joe's at least twice a week. After a quick check it looks like last week I spent $331 at Trader Joe's, $171 the week before, $142 the week before that, and $234 the week before that. DH goes again on Sunday to buy his food for his work lunches and a few other items that I need immediately. He probably spends $40. Even though he went last night I'll be going again today to buy food for the week. When my mom comes up one weekend a month I buy more snack items for her, because it's like her vacation! My kids eat a big breakfast with eggs every morning, DS1 and DH make their lunch 4 days a week, and I make DS2's lunch 2-3 times a week. We eat fruit at every meal. We usually eat out or get take out once a week, which wouldn't be included in our grocery budget. I'm trying to eat as close to Whole 30 as possible and I buy all organic dairy, eggs, dirty dozen produce, and meat.

Sent from my SM-J700P using Tapatalk

[KrisM]

We are 5 people. I spend about $1000 per month now. We get pizza 2-3 times a month, and between the 3 kids they probably buy lunch 5 times a week, but otherwise we eat at home.

I find in some ways, COA doesn't matter as much with food. Or it's more complicated. Fruit is probably cheaper in southern California in winter than it is in my MCOL of Michigan. And I shop at Meijer unless I want to drive 15-20 miles each way for Aldi or Trader Joes.

[abh5e8]

1200/month for a family of 7 in a LCOL area. I spend about $100 on lunches at work for me and we spend about $200/month eating out as a family. I also buy bee and pork twice a year, at about $2000 for the year. I cook most things from scratch and we don't way out often. Maybe 2-3 times as month. We buy local pastured beef and pork, but we pay about $4/Lb for all the cuts, which I think is pretty reasonable. We eat a ton of fruits and veggies, mostly organic. I go back and forth on ways the cut the budget, but in the end it's easier to just eat out less.

[DualvansMommy]

Family of 4 with several allergies for DS2, I spend per week anywhere from 200 to 325 depending what we already have on stock in pantry and freezer. Toilet paper, paper towels etc is all separate as that's all from Costco every 6-8 weeks. My main grocery store is Wegmans, so easily 600-900 a month. In my town, a mom was actually asking for average in my town and it turns out I was average. That also doesn't include our takeouts we get 1x a week and eating out 1x a week over the weekend too.

[trcy]

Thanks everyone. I am glad to see my annoyance of $100 a week is unrealistic, because I couldn't figure out how to get it down to that. We eat a lot of of grains and beans which I get from the bulk bins and veggies and fruits are based on what is sale. DH stocks up on chicken when it's on sale, but no other meat. Fish is very occasional. Unfortunately, no organics because of price. I mostly shop at Sprouts and Aldi. The flyers come on the same day, so I compare what is on sale. DD mostly buys her lunch at school. DH usually does a salad, fruit and chicken. DS and I eat whatever is in the house. I need to actually figure out how much is going towards groceries and work backwards and see where we can cut back.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Baby Bargains mobile app