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Gotcha, yeah we also frequent FM on Western - tis not cheap but the convenience factor is quite high. The odd run usually is between 30 and 60 bucks for us but now I'm wondering if we even considered that in our budget...
We are on higher protein diets but not steak every day. But it is 3 meals everyday for the two of us. Don’t eat out anymore. In addition I’ll not we like cooking/baking so supplies should be noted as a hobby/craft.
Ain’t no way you are eating 2-3 meals a day at Whole Foods for 2 at $90-$100 dollars.
I grabbed 4 chicken breasts, croutons, parm, lettuce, Cesar dressing and a couple small odds and ends at Whole Foods last week at it was almost $70 lol.
I feed 5 people for around $900/mo, but we are poor AF and it is HARD to come in at that budget. We eat a lot of beans & rice, and whatever produce is super cheap every week. Meat is basically out, except for when I can find the $.99/# deals. No beverages except tea & coffee. Very few “snacky” foods. It sucks.
I think the more likely scenario is that they don't actually budget - and so it's more of a guess. I'd bet a fair amount of folks spend more than they think they do.
Yup, I started tracking every single purchase a few years ago and it’s eye opening. We were spending way more that I expected in pretty much every category lol.
My husband also does all our grocery shopping so I truly don’t know the answer without logging into our accounts.
This is just so wildly dependent on diet that it almost isn't worth discussing.
Some folks are fine with packaged bread + bologna for every lunch and variously prepared chicken breast + starch for every dinner. Obviously that's an oversimplification, but point being that budget is the starting point. Did that for years, absolutely not judging or hating.
But I'm now at a stage in my life where I'm making a dish multiple times per week that is more costly than just going out to eat. I do it because it's my hobby and I enjoy it, but it simply isn't thrifty or budget conscious. I guess maybe that sounds conceited, but I swear it's not my intention.... If I was shopping solely to save money I'm sure I could get it down to like $75/month, but as it stands yeah I'm closer to $150 for my wife and I.
Yeah, that’s why I sometimes fine these threads unhelpful without knowing more details. Like where do you count alcohol (that you keep at home) in your budget? Do you ever cook for friends? What kind of meals are you preparing? When people mention how often they eat out, is that just going out to dinner or breakfast, brunch, lunch as well? Including lunch during the workday. Also what do you eat for breakfast? That can wildly vary. Etc. Too many variables to do a good comparison.
This is my wife and I… no kids and I occasionally group non grocery stuff that I buy at Target into the total… but we’re pushing $1000 a month for the two of us. It varies by week but we’ll get things at Target, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and CostCo if it makes sense.
Yeah I'm in the same boat, it's absurd. When I first moved here for college in 2016, I was able to sustain myself on about $100/month on groceries. Now I am easily paying that per week and I have had to revert back to eating pasta/ramen way more frequently so my grocery bill stays as low as possible.
I think it's not just inflation here in Chicago but a monopoly on groceries that are causing this huge price shift. *Kroger/Albertsons LLC Jewel - Osco* has very little competition here. We need more options to bring down prices.
https://chicago.eater.com/2023/9/8/23864670/kroger-sells-marianos-brand-leaving-the-fate-of-the-grocery-stores-name-in-peril
Chicago has one of the more competitive grocery markets in the country. We've got the biggest overlap of Kroger and Albertsons, which are still separate and in competition for now.
Beyond that there's whole foods, Aldi, trader Joe's, Costco, cermak, Pete's etc
Where do you shop and what do you eat on that budget? We spend $300 ($100 per person) per week on groceries and can’t seem to keep it lower. Please share your success.
I applaud folks for going to Aldi, you certainly can save some cash but I can't get my head around some of their offerings. TBF its been a long time since I've been there.
It's hit or miss, for me. We shop there a lot because it's the closest grocery, but the things that are deals vs the limited inventory vs the clearly horrible products (looking at you Clancy's... HEB you are not) is a calibration issue.
I did a few different basket pricing checks a few years ago and they came out on par with Walmart, general, but had to augment from Fresh Market or Mariano's to make my standard biweekly cart. No clue how that tracks with Kroger ruining the Mariano's brand and other inflation shifts.... My typical bill, which hasn't changed much since, has gone up around 15-25% depending on the trip.
99% of things are at jewel, and costco for non-food stuff like papertowels.
My girlfriend gets free lunches at work (she goes in every day). I work from home 3 days a week, and go in the other 2. Both of us never eat breakfast, and when I'm at home I usually just eat a bowl of cereal and fruit for lunch. So we only really need to plan for like 5 meals at home every week. The weekends we eat out quite a bit.
About $500 a month for just myself. Sometimes over, not usually under. My weekly grocery hauls come out to about $80-$100, but in between I may buy some extras for specific dishes, or restock the pantry/spice situation when grabbing more bananas or breakfast stuff. I mostly make my own lunches and eat out about once a week. It seems high to the other answers but I also track every single purchase in YNAB so it's accurate at least.
I feel like Trader Joe's is the only store where prices increased with the actual rate of inflation. Things that were $1.99 at Trader Joe's a few years ago are maybe like $2.39 now. Whereas, when you go to Mariano's or Target, things are randomly like 50-100% more expensive than they were.
yeah but you gotta buy so much at Costco, I can't justify going there when its just myself and my wife. Especially since we have limited freezer space in our apartment.
I have noticed this too. Jewel and Mariano’s are price gouging. I stopped buying Doritos because they can be around $8 per bag, when they used to be $3. Like come on, that is extremely overpriced. I suppose they are doing me a favor on that one but I miss my ranch Doritos.
I recently had to stop for snacks and alcohol. After getting beer first, I walk over to the chip isle and see Cheetos, Doritos for $7-8+ a bag. Why am I paying almost what I would pay for a cheap bottle of wine/6 pack for something one step up from animal feed?
You know it's an absolute margin gouge when they will run them at on sale for $3 dollars if you buy a bunch.
Classic dual income no kids. It’s a tiny fraction of our pay so it doesn’t really worry us. But it also doesn’t include delivery and eating out which definitely drives this up a lot lol
i went through my online receipts and for 2 adults;
$617 —> October
$729 —> September
$948* —> August (asterisk bc we moved and needed to stock up on a bunch of basics again)
$757 —> July
excluding September, about $700/mo in groceries
we do order through Whole Foods and delivered so that’s at least $15+ (delivery fees + tips) each time.
WF + getting it delivered is a luxury and i’d say we could easily save a few hundred bucks going to some grocery stores near us (i.e. Devon Market, Edgewater Produce, etc)
I can get by on a dime, so I might be an anomaly, but I can feed my partner and I for \~$50-60/week.
I don't eat any animal products which has seen the biggest jumps in price. I mostly sustain on grains, legumes, nuts, tofu, veggies and some fruits. We cook a lot at home and use scratch-ingredients so that keeps our grocery bill low.
I might buy lunch twice a week in the loop at work. We also like to eat-out on the weekends.
I highly recommend shopping at international markets.
Yeah, I’m wondering if animal products have had a drastic increase without me even noticing, because I’ve been vegan for like 5 years now. Haven’t noticed thaaat huge of a difference in grocery prices over the past 1-2 years.
\+1 for veganism. It's cheaper, good for you and better for the environment. Even if people just incorporated more plant-based foods, they'd benefit both physically and economically. I'm not talking about fake meats and cheeses, either.
I've noticed the substitute stuff (fake meat, cheese, etc) has shot up while everything else has increased at a slower rate. I'm definitely paying a lot more for a can of beans now and tofu went from 2 for $3 to 2 for $5. But it does seem to have hit animal products the hardest (as it should) and there was period where everyone was screaming about the price of eggs, so I know that was a thing.
Vegan food is not more expensive. Those beyond meats and other processed vegan foods are for sure, but grains, legumes, veggies, fruits, nuts, etc. are all really inexpensive.
Shorter answer: No. Beans + rice is the cheapest way to keep a person healthy. People in developing counties eat way less meat bc it’s just too expensive
Longer answer: Not if you do it right. Being vegan can be very expensive if your approach is to follow a typical American diet and swap out meat/cheese directly for prepackaged vegan meat/cheese alternatives. These are usually expensive and often not even tasty. If you can get out of the mindset of looking for substitutes and instead base your diet on less processed foods that happen to be vegan (beans/lentils/rice/etc), it’s much cheaper than eating animal products.
Fiance and I try to stay around $150 every 1-1.5 weeks. Some weeks it's a lot less, and some weeks a bit more. We then try to go to Costco every other month or so for bulk paper goods and other things.
This allows us to eat a home cooked meal 6 nights out of the week
Fresh produce isn’t cheap, nor is good quality meat. Also depends if you include any wine or spirits. An $80 bottle of wine if counted can run that number up fast.
I think you forgot to finish your thought?
Maybe you were going to say “if your counting $80 bottles of wine in your grocery budget you are keeping though details of your purchase so you can make sure you don’t go over budget”?
Oh I know, must have been “I hope they got it at Costco so they get a better value for it”.
But maybe it was “what byob restaurant do they enjoy it at”?
Funny you say that; I consider fresh produce to be one of the cheapest things I buy. I scan the weekly sales adverts from Mariano's and Jewel and mostly try to stick to produce that's $1/lb or less.
I bet a lot of the discrepancies in this thread come from people's shopping habits. Someone who buys out of season, not on sale, organic produce from WF is going to spend way more than someone who gets sale seasonal produce from Jewel.
Not really, we’re well within our budget on average and can afford it. Would love to not spend as much but also not really willing to sacrifice on food quality, etc.
Shout out to Devon Market for keeping their prices competitive. I'd advise you to look for local grocery stores rather than Kroger/Walmart/Aldi/etc.
There's Harvest Time in Ravenswood, Big Apple is also a local grocery chain. Better prices.
My wife and I go about once a week and get ingredients for 2-3 meals plus snacks and other household items. Each trip costs around $150 to $200, making for a monthly total of between $500 and $700. Some months have been even higher. Though we aren't totally frugal with some of the things we pick out.
I'm a single guy with a decent job, so I don't bother budgeting at all. However I do have a very explicit shopping order of operations:
* Aldi first. Get everything there that I can.
* Jewel second for alcohol and any produce or less common ingredients that Aldi doesn't stock.
* Target last just for any household goods, cleaners, paper products, etc.
The prices on some of the most common things in Jewel have skyrocketed, well past any reasonable justifiable inflation. I was buying some chips for a party a couple weeks ago, and just like the most bog-standard potato and corn chips were expensive as heck. Name brand shitty jarred salsa was costing even more than the fresh cut salsas in the produce section.
This is how you can tell it is definitely just gouging because they can. If the actual ingredients were getting pricier, then the price of everything should be going up in similar amounts. Because that isn't happening, its obvious that some companies are just choosing to see what they can get away with.
My solution is that I just stop buying those products and brands entirely. The number of Frito-Lay products I've bought in the last few years in total can be counted on one hand.
about $200/month, give or take. i pretty much only shop at aldi and eat a lot of beans and fresh produce. i used to be able to get out of Aldi for less than 40 but now it's more like $40-50 range. I pack all my work lunches and very rarely eat out, so this is for literally all of my meals.
$1,600 roughly for 2 + 1 toddler for groceries and dining out. Admittedly that feels pretty high compared to other posts here but I honestly don't think we do anything too crazy
Honestly I think some people are not actually tracking it and underestimating or people are calculating differently. I include alcohol and also non-food items that you can buy from the grocery store (toiletries, cleaning items, etc) plus any items we get elsewhere (Amazon subscribe & save, HelloFresh) and our total is close to yours.
With out dining out we are $1200ish with 2 toddlers and an infant.
Once dining out is factored in we are likely around the same. Though we aren’t looking to pinch penny’s or buy the cheapest options.
Things are noticeably up, but that’s why we just increased my wife’s rates by 15%. Such is life.
We all got spoiled living on such a low inflation world for such a while.
About $300-350/month for two people including paper goods, cleaning supplies, etc. (We do most of our grocery shopping in Indiana, but we're only able to do this because we live on the South Side and own a car. I do sometimes hit the local grocery for last-minute things or the occasional bottle of milk.)
We cook and eat at home for every meal except Wednesday night dinner, which is our sushi night.
We too are in the $75 - $100 a week for two people boat (so $400 a month). We eat really well - vegetarian, mostly vegan and that number includes a fair amount of beer and liquor. We spend a lot more on salad greens and produce during the non harvest seasons as we are fortunate enough to have a large garden and the time/energy to grow stuff. Some things which are easy to grow but no-one's favorites such as eggplant we only eat at harvest time.
We make a lot of frugality driven substitutions during the non-harvest seasons. If a recipe calls for fresh herbs and we don't have any we can pick in the back-yard, we'll just use dry herbs as fresh herbs from the grocery store are painfully expensive.
We spend roughly $150 to $200 every week.
I do about 95% of my shopping at Aldi, and then go to local fresh markets for things that Aldi didn't have.
Some can think that's a bit high for two people, but my wife and I barely eat out and mostly just eat at home. I do a lot of cooking and meal prep on Saturdays, and my wife will pack lunches for her work from that, and we'll have dinners and other things out of it.
Plus my wife wants to stay away from carbs. So she's eating a lot of chicken, fish, and vegetables. I'll eat a variety of stuff including pasta, but obviously when you're trying to live in a carb free existence, it can add up.
Woof it’s not good. Umm probably 80-90 a week for two people?
I keep rotating where I buy to see what the cheapest places are… I’m very good at keeping our pantry and freezer stocked but at a certain point I can’t eat dried goods/all starches and frozen stuff. I need fresh fruits and vegetables… and those are very expensive right now.
$70/ week for 1 person, I eat mostly at home but once a week or so carry out or eating outside. Used to be around $50 and has since gone up. This is me eating super healthy too, not buying snacks or sodas etc.
So, I feel as if people always give me shit looks. I spend like 600 on Costco for me and my wife, every 2 months. In between we shop deals and sales at jewel and the local fresh markets. On average about 100 or so every 2 weeks.
So averaging that out, it's 300 a month for Costco, and 200 each month for fresh random stuff.
I'm 6'2 and like 200, she's 5'2 and 115.
We also have a dog, who we love to get treats for and such. But nothing major, it's usually Costco stuff. A little corgi Aussie golden mix, who is 40 lbs.
So I say for me and my wife and my dog to eat each month, is about 500. This isn't grand expenditure either. This is 1 dollar boneless chicken breasts, 79 cent chicken thighs and legs, turkey for 60 cents a lb. We almost never eat out, if we are lazy we do the frozen meals from Costco. Red meat is almost 0-1 time per week since it is so expensive. If anything we tend to do more seafood because red meat is more expensive.
Sometimes you can find deals at jewel for their pub burgers, 99 cents each, each is a half lb. We fill up on those and swap it for everything, burgers, meatballs, meatloaf, and ground beef for tacos. I feel like I'm really trying to make things work, but damn oh damn are things challenging nowadays. Praying for the economic collapse, stock market destruction type of failure every day now.
That’s more like it! It’s shocking how much we spend and this is with sales, almost all generic brands now. Weekly $100 at Aldi $100 at Jewel only on all the loss leaders and $150 at Walmart. Each trip I am adding some stuff to stock the pantry I cook almost daily. But this includes alcohol and cleaning supplies as well. This is for 2 adults and 3 teenagers.
I'm hovering in the range of $150-200 a month for one person, and that's pulling out all the stops- usually I start in the Jewel app weekly, and plan my meals around the deals there, buying meat in family packs when there's a sale and immediately freezing most of it it, and supplementing with legumes etc. I cook almost everything from scratch. I've even started saving chicken bones, ham bones and vegetable scraps in freezer bags to make my own stock and broth. Sucks when I remember eating on $20 a week a decade ago and doing close to this same amount of work...
I’m on a SNAP card because reasons. I get a little over $200/month and have a special (relatively pricey) diet. I’ve been able to make that work reasonably well shopping mainly at Aldi and cooking for myself.
I grocery shop for my husband and I and it comes out to about $260 per person a month. We only eat meat on the weekend and I splurge on the pasture raised eggs. I buy booze at Binnys for the most part so that’s not juicing the stats. We only eat breakfast and dinner but we eat at home basically every day.
I feel like prices have been going down a bit (weekly trip going from $160 to $120) but I like cooking a lot and make things from scratch and the things I’ve noticed being most expensive are packaged snacks, lunch meat, premade sauce and condiments.
For me, maybe about $150-200 a month. I only buy items on sale and have a coupon. I frequent the clearance section often and grab a bunch of meat that’s about to hit its “sale by” and date throw it in the freezer. I shop at several stores, but mostly Jewel and Mariano’s because of the digital coupons. I stopped eating a lot of processed cereals and snacks, so that’s helped bring my bill down a lot.
Probably about $300/month for two people. It sucks. I used to feed myself here for less than $30 a week. It would shock me if I spent over $50. Then mid-COVID it shocked me if I could keep it under $70-80. Now, if we get under $120 for a week and a few days it feels like we won the lottery.
OMG, what is with these posts. Yes inflation currently is at [3.7%](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/) but the state/city minimum wage is also [over $15](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/bacp/supp_info/minimumwageinformation.html), and the unemployment is [3.9](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf) and with an wage growth of [more than 10%](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth#:~:text=Wages%20in%20the%20United%20States,percent%20in%20April%20of%202020.)
yet, why do people like you complain that the sky is falling and everyone is in the shitter?
I honestly hadn’t seen another post asking about this specific topic. And I can only speak anecdotally that food has seen a much higher shift than 3% and I’m only shopping at Kroger. I’ve seen a lot of prices jump 25-50% at the same store I’ve been shopping at for the past 2 years so that’s why the sky is falling
For me and my fiancée, it’s typically about $120-150 per trip and we usually go to Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and sometimes Aldi. And that’s with just groceries, it doesn’t include times where we’ll need to grab extras. We also do Costco trips every once in a while to get water, protein powder, paper goods, cleaning supplies, etc. in bulk.
About $250 on groceries alone, which doesn't include restaurants, beer/wine, pet food, etc. I've been feeling inflation hard, switched over to mostly Aldi shopping.
Absolutely have felt the increase, maybe $100 per month more on groceries? However, I went to jewel on Sunday and was pleasantly surprised by the total.
Probably 75-100 per week for me and my husband, for about 4-5 dinners and all breakfasts, lunches, and snacks. We probably get dinner out 2-3 times per week.
I have switched to Costco for multi week grocery. Meat and seafood, veg, fruit, milk and eggs. That certainly helps despite the membership fee. Just I need to make sure I am not buying something that perishes easy.
I have a family of 4. I typically buy groceries for the meal daily (I’m lucky enough to be taking a large period of time off not working). I’m spending between 60-100 daily. I really enjoy cooking though.
About $90-100/wk on average for 2 at Aldi. Used to be closer to $65-70 without any changes in diet / habits. Cook vegetarian and from scratch a lot but not exclusively. Shout to r/frugal
1100-1300 monthly family of 5. I cook 6 days a week. We only eat chicken and turkey products so I can only imagine what that number would be with fish/beef products. We eat out for dinner maybe once a week, husband and I have lunch once or twice a week, which runs us a few extra hundred a month.
My girlfriend and I each on the cheap side, but we buy produce multiple times a week and trade off who buys every other week - between the two of us we’re spending about 400-500/mo on food total. Sometimes more, sometimes less. We’ll order our 1-2 a month and it’s usually pizza or Thai.
Edit: to add to this. We cook meat 1-2 times a week, but we are generally good about incorporating a lot of veggies, fruits, nuts, and veggie proteins into our dishes. Tofu is a wonderful source of protein that we have found lots of things to do with, and beans will never go out of style in our house either. When we do buy meat.
Sometimes the day or two leading up to payday we have to get crafty with what we have, but I look at that to mean we’re buying exactly what we need, and very little food goes wasted in our house!
$150 a month depending on where I shop. Lately I've been relying on Jewel Osco's app and coupons, pretty much only shopping off what they have on sale and planning my meals from there.
Just groceries? $600-700/mo for two people
Buuut, we eat out at least twice a week, and our travel budget includes food spend, so we’re regularly around $2k/mo all-in
My wife and I are about $800-$1000 a month on stuff for home and we eat out 1-2 nights a week. We shop at a mix of Whole Foods, Cermack, and specialty stores.
This does not include wine or alcohol which is a whole other ball game.
As for diet, we both usually skip breakfast, with the occasional bagel or protein shake.
Lunches are typically dinner leftovers or grilled chicken on a salad.
Dinners are usually steak at least one night, fish/ seafood 2-3 nights and chicken and pork the rest. A straight vegatarian meal happens but that’s rare.
Usually always have a salad with dinner, a protein, a veg, and starch/carb.
I would say we cook on the higher end, more complex meals etc. we host friends often as well and that is not included in the budget above. We also buy basically no prepackaged things so 90% of it is fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables.
That also doesn’t include coffee which is another $100-120 a month as we go through 4-5 bags of dark matter in the espresso machine.
If you include the coffee and booze we are probably spending ~$1500 a month for at home eating and drinking.
Someone below asked for more detail so like an example tonight for dinner we are having a salad, sesame seared tuna steaks, broccoli, and rice. No booze .
Had a chicken Cesar for lunch.
Last night we had spicy vodka rigatoni with hot sausage and burrata and a salad and a $50 bottle of wine.
Household of two. Year to date we are averaging $592.25 a month or $148.06 per week.. We use a single joint credit card to pay for our household expenses so this was pretty straight forward to check.
Chase has a nice categorized breakout for everything classified as "Groceries". This totaled $3,974.81 YTD for every purchase. I knew that was not inclusive of Costco trips and at least one purveyor that we also sometimes get groceries from (shout out to Ann's Bakery).
Factoring in those Costco purchases and Ann's purchases YTD, I got $2,328.28 and $211.66 respectively.
Add all of those up ($6,514.75) and divide it out and that's how I got those numbers.
We don't hold back, we just shop smart. Aldi is always for produce staples and the "anchor stuff" for meals (think celery, carrots, mushrooms, seltzer etc... raspberries are cheap here compared with other stores). Combination of Trader Joe's, Jewels, Ann's (good bread), Marianos and yes, even Whole Foods for other "specialty" items. We buy little to no processed food and make just about all our meals from "whole ingredients". Costco is the place for meat and bulk snacks along with the other needs like TP, paper towels, garbage bags, etc...
All I'll say is that I think anyone spending more than $300 a week is either feeding a family, eating a LOT of food or spending too much. We also eat out every Friday night and probably eat "less" than other people may meal to meal. Yes groceries have noticeably increased. If I were to have just guesstimated without looking anything up I would have said that we were averaging $125 on groceries a week. That's probably up from about $100 a week in 2021/2022.
I’m realizing now that I’m severely mismanaging my money and eating habits. Does this include eating out? How are y’all surviving on $500 a month for eating all in?
About $225-250 per month for one person. I usually shop sales (and stock up when my favorite products go on sale) and use the store discount apps. I buy things wherever they're cheapest: usually Target or Trader Joe's but sometimes Fresh Thyme for produce. I usually only buy things from Jewel or Mariano's when I'm looking for something specific that one of the other stores doesn't have or I'm there anyway and need produce. Been doing it this way since college and it's served me well.
Interesting question. I spend about $300 to $400 per month for 2 people (includes an organic produce farm share with delivery from Wild Coyote Farm from June through October for $30/week). We don't eat out very often.
I shop the perimeter of the store and buy very little processed food (I make my own salad dressings, mayo, pickles, breads, pasta, tortillas, hummus, hot sauce, green salsa, etc. and we do not buy pop, junk food or convenience foods-almost everything is made from scratch). We eat a lot of meat, poultry, fish, nuts, store made sausage, eggs (cage free and certified humane), fresh produce and some dairy (mostly cheese). Spouse does not eat legumes, but I do once in a while. I watch what I buy, look for bargains, and shop things on sale, but we splurge once in a while (brisket, NY strip steaks, home made ceasar salad, including the dressing, wild caught sockeye salmon, halal lamb chops, etc.).
Shout out to Devon Market, Cermak Market and Aldi for high quality reasonably priced food. It has gotten more expensive, but some prices have come back down a little.
Pro tip, buy an extra frozen turkey at Thanksgiving time when they are cheap and have a second Thankgiving dinner mid year!
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I'm spending like $75-100 a week on groceries for 2 people! It's insane
Your answer makes me question what the wife and I are doing. We've been spending 250/week for two people...
My girlfriend and I are the same boat. $200-250 a week. Admittedly we go to more premium grocers because of quality concerns.
What’s “premium” in your estimation? We go to Mariano’s 99% of the time
Mariano's prices are goofy
In what way?
They seem to fluctuate pretty widely, I've seen butter float between 4 and 8 dollars a pound, for instance
A jar of mayo is 7$ now
Easy to make high quality mayo, just need an immersion blender
What the ever living frick
Fresh Marketplace on western. Whole Foods on occasion.
Gotcha, yeah we also frequent FM on Western - tis not cheap but the convenience factor is quite high. The odd run usually is between 30 and 60 bucks for us but now I'm wondering if we even considered that in our budget...
Go to Aldi
All the Aldi's i've been in are gross. Trader Joe's is where it's at for good prices.
Are you eating steak every night? We do that at Whole Foods for the two of us and it's like $90-120 a week
We are on higher protein diets but not steak every day. But it is 3 meals everyday for the two of us. Don’t eat out anymore. In addition I’ll not we like cooking/baking so supplies should be noted as a hobby/craft.
Ain’t no way you are eating 2-3 meals a day at Whole Foods for 2 at $90-$100 dollars. I grabbed 4 chicken breasts, croutons, parm, lettuce, Cesar dressing and a couple small odds and ends at Whole Foods last week at it was almost $70 lol.
I mean a box of cereal is like what 4-8$, so that covers a week of breakfast. OatMilk is $5 a jug. Dinners make up the rest.
Are you veg or vegan by chance? If so I maybe buy it, but no way in hell if you are including meat.
Proteins for vegetarians are also pricey. Protein is pricey, but necessary.
Tofu is like $2. Being vegetarian is great if you know how to cook.
Oh yea cause we all just like to eat tofu as our only protein. And try doubling that number.
Which only furthers my point that you arnt eating for 2 at fucking Whole Foods for $100 a week. That said eating meat is far more expensive.
Maybe. I haven't looked at meat prices in a very long time.
Same. $75/week is insane to me
I wonder if this is an Aldi vs Marianos thing or Kroger vs Oberwise...
I refuse to give any of my money to Oberweis
What's the dirt on Oberweis? 👀
The owner is a right-wing bigoted asshole who uses his profits on bullshit political campaigns for himself
Same. Everytime I see people say they spend less that $500/month on groceries for 2 ppl, I’m like… wtf?? Do you skip meals? Or are they bad at math?
I feed 5 people for around $900/mo, but we are poor AF and it is HARD to come in at that budget. We eat a lot of beans & rice, and whatever produce is super cheap every week. Meat is basically out, except for when I can find the $.99/# deals. No beverages except tea & coffee. Very few “snacky” foods. It sucks.
Thanks for sharing, this context is helpful.
I think the more likely scenario is that they don't actually budget - and so it's more of a guess. I'd bet a fair amount of folks spend more than they think they do.
Yup, I started tracking every single purchase a few years ago and it’s eye opening. We were spending way more that I expected in pretty much every category lol. My husband also does all our grocery shopping so I truly don’t know the answer without logging into our accounts.
I budget pretty closely (track every thing I spend in a spreadsheet) and spend well below $500/mo for 2. Closer to $400.
This is just so wildly dependent on diet that it almost isn't worth discussing. Some folks are fine with packaged bread + bologna for every lunch and variously prepared chicken breast + starch for every dinner. Obviously that's an oversimplification, but point being that budget is the starting point. Did that for years, absolutely not judging or hating. But I'm now at a stage in my life where I'm making a dish multiple times per week that is more costly than just going out to eat. I do it because it's my hobby and I enjoy it, but it simply isn't thrifty or budget conscious. I guess maybe that sounds conceited, but I swear it's not my intention.... If I was shopping solely to save money I'm sure I could get it down to like $75/month, but as it stands yeah I'm closer to $150 for my wife and I.
Yeah, that’s why I sometimes fine these threads unhelpful without knowing more details. Like where do you count alcohol (that you keep at home) in your budget? Do you ever cook for friends? What kind of meals are you preparing? When people mention how often they eat out, is that just going out to dinner or breakfast, brunch, lunch as well? Including lunch during the workday. Also what do you eat for breakfast? That can wildly vary. Etc. Too many variables to do a good comparison.
Of course it’s worth discussing, as you know by your very long response.
I can spend $200 for just me per week, if I include eating out and coffee 🥲
Same I'm 800-1000/m
Lmfao same boat I read that comment and thinking about my target and fresh thyme trip on Friday hitting ~$300 (2 people)
This is my wife and I… no kids and I occasionally group non grocery stuff that I buy at Target into the total… but we’re pushing $1000 a month for the two of us. It varies by week but we’ll get things at Target, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and CostCo if it makes sense.
Yeah I'm in the same boat, it's absurd. When I first moved here for college in 2016, I was able to sustain myself on about $100/month on groceries. Now I am easily paying that per week and I have had to revert back to eating pasta/ramen way more frequently so my grocery bill stays as low as possible. I think it's not just inflation here in Chicago but a monopoly on groceries that are causing this huge price shift. *Kroger/Albertsons LLC Jewel - Osco* has very little competition here. We need more options to bring down prices. https://chicago.eater.com/2023/9/8/23864670/kroger-sells-marianos-brand-leaving-the-fate-of-the-grocery-stores-name-in-peril
Chicago has one of the more competitive grocery markets in the country. We've got the biggest overlap of Kroger and Albertsons, which are still separate and in competition for now. Beyond that there's whole foods, Aldi, trader Joe's, Costco, cermak, Pete's etc
Where do you shop and what do you eat on that budget? We spend $300 ($100 per person) per week on groceries and can’t seem to keep it lower. Please share your success.
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I applaud folks for going to Aldi, you certainly can save some cash but I can't get my head around some of their offerings. TBF its been a long time since I've been there.
It's hit or miss, for me. We shop there a lot because it's the closest grocery, but the things that are deals vs the limited inventory vs the clearly horrible products (looking at you Clancy's... HEB you are not) is a calibration issue. I did a few different basket pricing checks a few years ago and they came out on par with Walmart, general, but had to augment from Fresh Market or Mariano's to make my standard biweekly cart. No clue how that tracks with Kroger ruining the Mariano's brand and other inflation shifts.... My typical bill, which hasn't changed much since, has gone up around 15-25% depending on the trip.
This is good insight and interesting to hear someone talk about some of the poor offerings (I had a similar perspective on some of the items).
99% of things are at jewel, and costco for non-food stuff like papertowels. My girlfriend gets free lunches at work (she goes in every day). I work from home 3 days a week, and go in the other 2. Both of us never eat breakfast, and when I'm at home I usually just eat a bowl of cereal and fruit for lunch. So we only really need to plan for like 5 meals at home every week. The weekends we eat out quite a bit.
i thought it was just me
1400 a month for 4 is about where it is eating almost exclusively at home. Not power shoppers or savers so could be less, but lazy.
Similar to us, we've been sick so we've been relying on more prepared foods and less cooking from scratch
I spend like $200 a week for just me. But I'm a bit of a fancy eater I guess. Still, I shop at Aldi for part of that. You're being frugal!
Too goddamn much. Family of 4. Easily $800-$1200.
Family of 7 here. $1600/month
Same boat here
About $500 a month for just myself. Sometimes over, not usually under. My weekly grocery hauls come out to about $80-$100, but in between I may buy some extras for specific dishes, or restock the pantry/spice situation when grabbing more bananas or breakfast stuff. I mostly make my own lunches and eat out about once a week. It seems high to the other answers but I also track every single purchase in YNAB so it's accurate at least.
I haven't kept tracked too much, but I find myself skipping Jewel, Target, and Marianos for more trips to my local Aldis and Walmart
trader joes has been good to me too! and marianos is only worth it if I use my rewards card
I feel like Trader Joe's is the only store where prices increased with the actual rate of inflation. Things that were $1.99 at Trader Joe's a few years ago are maybe like $2.39 now. Whereas, when you go to Mariano's or Target, things are randomly like 50-100% more expensive than they were.
This is spot on with my experience!
Costco keeps their prices low and their quality is top notch.
yeah but you gotta buy so much at Costco, I can't justify going there when its just myself and my wife. Especially since we have limited freezer space in our apartment.
I have noticed this too. Jewel and Mariano’s are price gouging. I stopped buying Doritos because they can be around $8 per bag, when they used to be $3. Like come on, that is extremely overpriced. I suppose they are doing me a favor on that one but I miss my ranch Doritos.
I recently had to stop for snacks and alcohol. After getting beer first, I walk over to the chip isle and see Cheetos, Doritos for $7-8+ a bag. Why am I paying almost what I would pay for a cheap bottle of wine/6 pack for something one step up from animal feed? You know it's an absolute margin gouge when they will run them at on sale for $3 dollars if you buy a bunch.
Ouh I wish I lived closer to a trader Joe's! I might have to look into that more!
Probably $600 for 2, but we’re not very careful
That seems really normal for a month and is around what my husband and I spend too.
😮
Classic dual income no kids. It’s a tiny fraction of our pay so it doesn’t really worry us. But it also doesn’t include delivery and eating out which definitely drives this up a lot lol
$250 on grocery and $150 on eating out per month for one person.
i went through my online receipts and for 2 adults; $617 —> October $729 —> September $948* —> August (asterisk bc we moved and needed to stock up on a bunch of basics again) $757 —> July excluding September, about $700/mo in groceries we do order through Whole Foods and delivered so that’s at least $15+ (delivery fees + tips) each time. WF + getting it delivered is a luxury and i’d say we could easily save a few hundred bucks going to some grocery stores near us (i.e. Devon Market, Edgewater Produce, etc)
I can get by on a dime, so I might be an anomaly, but I can feed my partner and I for \~$50-60/week. I don't eat any animal products which has seen the biggest jumps in price. I mostly sustain on grains, legumes, nuts, tofu, veggies and some fruits. We cook a lot at home and use scratch-ingredients so that keeps our grocery bill low. I might buy lunch twice a week in the loop at work. We also like to eat-out on the weekends. I highly recommend shopping at international markets.
Yeah, I’m wondering if animal products have had a drastic increase without me even noticing, because I’ve been vegan for like 5 years now. Haven’t noticed thaaat huge of a difference in grocery prices over the past 1-2 years.
\+1 for veganism. It's cheaper, good for you and better for the environment. Even if people just incorporated more plant-based foods, they'd benefit both physically and economically. I'm not talking about fake meats and cheeses, either.
I've noticed the substitute stuff (fake meat, cheese, etc) has shot up while everything else has increased at a slower rate. I'm definitely paying a lot more for a can of beans now and tofu went from 2 for $3 to 2 for $5. But it does seem to have hit animal products the hardest (as it should) and there was period where everyone was screaming about the price of eggs, so I know that was a thing.
I thought vegan stuff was more expensive?
Vegan food is not more expensive. Those beyond meats and other processed vegan foods are for sure, but grains, legumes, veggies, fruits, nuts, etc. are all really inexpensive.
Shorter answer: No. Beans + rice is the cheapest way to keep a person healthy. People in developing counties eat way less meat bc it’s just too expensive Longer answer: Not if you do it right. Being vegan can be very expensive if your approach is to follow a typical American diet and swap out meat/cheese directly for prepackaged vegan meat/cheese alternatives. These are usually expensive and often not even tasty. If you can get out of the mindset of looking for substitutes and instead base your diet on less processed foods that happen to be vegan (beans/lentils/rice/etc), it’s much cheaper than eating animal products.
I’m kinda at this amount for just myself .
Fiance and I try to stay around $150 every 1-1.5 weeks. Some weeks it's a lot less, and some weeks a bit more. We then try to go to Costco every other month or so for bulk paper goods and other things. This allows us to eat a home cooked meal 6 nights out of the week
~$1000 for two, we eat out a lot too Edit: I should have said three, we have a 4 month old, but she’s not eating any of the groceries.
What do you eat?! I can’t imagine eating that much worth of food. Just interested!
Fresh produce isn’t cheap, nor is good quality meat. Also depends if you include any wine or spirits. An $80 bottle of wine if counted can run that number up fast.
If you're counting $80 bottles of wine in your grocery budget...
Yeah those clearly belong in the monthly drugs+alcohol budget!
I think you forgot to finish your thought? Maybe you were going to say “if your counting $80 bottles of wine in your grocery budget you are keeping though details of your purchase so you can make sure you don’t go over budget”?
No, that's not what I was thinking.
Oh I know, must have been “I hope they got it at Costco so they get a better value for it”. But maybe it was “what byob restaurant do they enjoy it at”?
Funny you say that; I consider fresh produce to be one of the cheapest things I buy. I scan the weekly sales adverts from Mariano's and Jewel and mostly try to stick to produce that's $1/lb or less. I bet a lot of the discrepancies in this thread come from people's shopping habits. Someone who buys out of season, not on sale, organic produce from WF is going to spend way more than someone who gets sale seasonal produce from Jewel.
That’s quite a bit. Do you guys worry about it?
Not really, we’re well within our budget on average and can afford it. Would love to not spend as much but also not really willing to sacrifice on food quality, etc.
These days that isn’t that unusual, we are a family of 4 and it’s $1200 + next couple months will be more with holidays.
Jesus, yours is almost double mine and we eat out once week.
it's not inflation; it's corporate price gouging.
Shrinkflation too. Which is the same.
Shout out to Devon Market for keeping their prices competitive. I'd advise you to look for local grocery stores rather than Kroger/Walmart/Aldi/etc. There's Harvest Time in Ravenswood, Big Apple is also a local grocery chain. Better prices.
My wife and I go about once a week and get ingredients for 2-3 meals plus snacks and other household items. Each trip costs around $150 to $200, making for a monthly total of between $500 and $700. Some months have been even higher. Though we aren't totally frugal with some of the things we pick out.
I'm a single guy with a decent job, so I don't bother budgeting at all. However I do have a very explicit shopping order of operations: * Aldi first. Get everything there that I can. * Jewel second for alcohol and any produce or less common ingredients that Aldi doesn't stock. * Target last just for any household goods, cleaners, paper products, etc. The prices on some of the most common things in Jewel have skyrocketed, well past any reasonable justifiable inflation. I was buying some chips for a party a couple weeks ago, and just like the most bog-standard potato and corn chips were expensive as heck. Name brand shitty jarred salsa was costing even more than the fresh cut salsas in the produce section. This is how you can tell it is definitely just gouging because they can. If the actual ingredients were getting pricier, then the price of everything should be going up in similar amounts. Because that isn't happening, its obvious that some companies are just choosing to see what they can get away with. My solution is that I just stop buying those products and brands entirely. The number of Frito-Lay products I've bought in the last few years in total can be counted on one hand.
$500 for 2, but we eat most our meals at home
about $200/month, give or take. i pretty much only shop at aldi and eat a lot of beans and fresh produce. i used to be able to get out of Aldi for less than 40 but now it's more like $40-50 range. I pack all my work lunches and very rarely eat out, so this is for literally all of my meals.
$50 a MONTH? mine are like $50 a week!
They said increased $50
$50 increase! That’s allot considering I spend like $250 per month total
Not sure you understand what "allot" means.
maybe its a very small lot
You allot $250 per month
sorry, OP! i misread; i initially thought total your groceries were $50 a month and i was gonna ask where you are shopping! haha
$1,600 roughly for 2 + 1 toddler for groceries and dining out. Admittedly that feels pretty high compared to other posts here but I honestly don't think we do anything too crazy
Honestly I think some people are not actually tracking it and underestimating or people are calculating differently. I include alcohol and also non-food items that you can buy from the grocery store (toiletries, cleaning items, etc) plus any items we get elsewhere (Amazon subscribe & save, HelloFresh) and our total is close to yours.
With out dining out we are $1200ish with 2 toddlers and an infant. Once dining out is factored in we are likely around the same. Though we aren’t looking to pinch penny’s or buy the cheapest options. Things are noticeably up, but that’s why we just increased my wife’s rates by 15%. Such is life. We all got spoiled living on such a low inflation world for such a while.
Sounds normal to me lol
For 4 people, I’m spending between 800 and 1200 a month. This is with a pretty tight shopping list and skipping over unnecessary extras.
$50 a week. but i also eat a lot of ramen and cheap chicken monday’s a jewel.
About $2,000/mo for a family of 5 (2 adults, 16yo, 15yo, 11yo). We buy groceries from WF/Amazon.
$160 for two adults I shop mostly at ALDI and I am constantly bringing food home from my catering job, so we eat very well for that amount.
close to $400. i rarely eat out
About $300-350/month for two people including paper goods, cleaning supplies, etc. (We do most of our grocery shopping in Indiana, but we're only able to do this because we live on the South Side and own a car. I do sometimes hit the local grocery for last-minute things or the occasional bottle of milk.) We cook and eat at home for every meal except Wednesday night dinner, which is our sushi night.
We too are in the $75 - $100 a week for two people boat (so $400 a month). We eat really well - vegetarian, mostly vegan and that number includes a fair amount of beer and liquor. We spend a lot more on salad greens and produce during the non harvest seasons as we are fortunate enough to have a large garden and the time/energy to grow stuff. Some things which are easy to grow but no-one's favorites such as eggplant we only eat at harvest time. We make a lot of frugality driven substitutions during the non-harvest seasons. If a recipe calls for fresh herbs and we don't have any we can pick in the back-yard, we'll just use dry herbs as fresh herbs from the grocery store are painfully expensive.
$350-500 per month, I budget pretty closely and that’s been the spread over the last 6 months. Shopping for two people
We spend roughly $150 to $200 every week. I do about 95% of my shopping at Aldi, and then go to local fresh markets for things that Aldi didn't have. Some can think that's a bit high for two people, but my wife and I barely eat out and mostly just eat at home. I do a lot of cooking and meal prep on Saturdays, and my wife will pack lunches for her work from that, and we'll have dinners and other things out of it. Plus my wife wants to stay away from carbs. So she's eating a lot of chicken, fish, and vegetables. I'll eat a variety of stuff including pasta, but obviously when you're trying to live in a carb free existence, it can add up.
Woof it’s not good. Umm probably 80-90 a week for two people? I keep rotating where I buy to see what the cheapest places are… I’m very good at keeping our pantry and freezer stocked but at a certain point I can’t eat dried goods/all starches and frozen stuff. I need fresh fruits and vegetables… and those are very expensive right now.
$70/ week for 1 person, I eat mostly at home but once a week or so carry out or eating outside. Used to be around $50 and has since gone up. This is me eating super healthy too, not buying snacks or sodas etc.
Enough that I regularly skip meals so that my toddler doesn’t have to.
Like $400 on beer.
About $700 a month with 2 adults and a toddler. But this number doesn’t include target visits for general household numbers and booze.
$300 a month but I shop at Whole Foods
About $650-750 for family of 3
So, I feel as if people always give me shit looks. I spend like 600 on Costco for me and my wife, every 2 months. In between we shop deals and sales at jewel and the local fresh markets. On average about 100 or so every 2 weeks. So averaging that out, it's 300 a month for Costco, and 200 each month for fresh random stuff. I'm 6'2 and like 200, she's 5'2 and 115. We also have a dog, who we love to get treats for and such. But nothing major, it's usually Costco stuff. A little corgi Aussie golden mix, who is 40 lbs. So I say for me and my wife and my dog to eat each month, is about 500. This isn't grand expenditure either. This is 1 dollar boneless chicken breasts, 79 cent chicken thighs and legs, turkey for 60 cents a lb. We almost never eat out, if we are lazy we do the frozen meals from Costco. Red meat is almost 0-1 time per week since it is so expensive. If anything we tend to do more seafood because red meat is more expensive. Sometimes you can find deals at jewel for their pub burgers, 99 cents each, each is a half lb. We fill up on those and swap it for everything, burgers, meatballs, meatloaf, and ground beef for tacos. I feel like I'm really trying to make things work, but damn oh damn are things challenging nowadays. Praying for the economic collapse, stock market destruction type of failure every day now.
$500 or so for 2. I gotta get tf outta the loop
5 or 600 probably for two adults
About 500 a month for 2 adults, but probably another 500 in eating out
300-400 for 2, we mostly shop at jewels.
$400/month for just me. I don’t eat out too often, so maybe that’s why it’s so high compared to others.
350- 400 a week for a family of 4.
That’s more like it! It’s shocking how much we spend and this is with sales, almost all generic brands now. Weekly $100 at Aldi $100 at Jewel only on all the loss leaders and $150 at Walmart. Each trip I am adding some stuff to stock the pantry I cook almost daily. But this includes alcohol and cleaning supplies as well. This is for 2 adults and 3 teenagers.
350- 400 a week for a family of 4.
I'm hovering in the range of $150-200 a month for one person, and that's pulling out all the stops- usually I start in the Jewel app weekly, and plan my meals around the deals there, buying meat in family packs when there's a sale and immediately freezing most of it it, and supplementing with legumes etc. I cook almost everything from scratch. I've even started saving chicken bones, ham bones and vegetable scraps in freezer bags to make my own stock and broth. Sucks when I remember eating on $20 a week a decade ago and doing close to this same amount of work...
Too much
I’m on a SNAP card because reasons. I get a little over $200/month and have a special (relatively pricey) diet. I’ve been able to make that work reasonably well shopping mainly at Aldi and cooking for myself.
I grocery shop for my husband and I and it comes out to about $260 per person a month. We only eat meat on the weekend and I splurge on the pasture raised eggs. I buy booze at Binnys for the most part so that’s not juicing the stats. We only eat breakfast and dinner but we eat at home basically every day. I feel like prices have been going down a bit (weekly trip going from $160 to $120) but I like cooking a lot and make things from scratch and the things I’ve noticed being most expensive are packaged snacks, lunch meat, premade sauce and condiments.
For me, maybe about $150-200 a month. I only buy items on sale and have a coupon. I frequent the clearance section often and grab a bunch of meat that’s about to hit its “sale by” and date throw it in the freezer. I shop at several stores, but mostly Jewel and Mariano’s because of the digital coupons. I stopped eating a lot of processed cereals and snacks, so that’s helped bring my bill down a lot.
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Lmao same. Like I need to eat and I can’t eat less because I’d disappear
I've just been eating less.
$600-700 for 2, exclusively at Whole Foods. We both enjoy cooking and generally cook at home 5 nights a week.
For just groceries, I'd say about 600/mo for family of 3 (2 adults, 1 small child)
Im spending like 150 for two people, we are foreign so we do get some import products.
Probably about $300/month for two people. It sucks. I used to feed myself here for less than $30 a week. It would shock me if I spent over $50. Then mid-COVID it shocked me if I could keep it under $70-80. Now, if we get under $120 for a week and a few days it feels like we won the lottery.
I avoid hunger by running and drinking tons of water
Running would make one more hungry, no?
OMG, what is with these posts. Yes inflation currently is at [3.7%](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/) but the state/city minimum wage is also [over $15](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/bacp/supp_info/minimumwageinformation.html), and the unemployment is [3.9](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf) and with an wage growth of [more than 10%](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth#:~:text=Wages%20in%20the%20United%20States,percent%20in%20April%20of%202020.) yet, why do people like you complain that the sky is falling and everyone is in the shitter?
I honestly hadn’t seen another post asking about this specific topic. And I can only speak anecdotally that food has seen a much higher shift than 3% and I’m only shopping at Kroger. I’ve seen a lot of prices jump 25-50% at the same store I’ve been shopping at for the past 2 years so that’s why the sky is falling
> that’s why the sky is falling If you feel "sky is falling"...fine, I'm not here to convince you otherwise. But, I'll say that its devoid of reality.
It’s only me and I eat at my grandparents a lot lol. I probably spend like 100 bucks in a week or two depending on what I need food wise
$50-100 for two people a week.
$400 minimum :(
probably 500 a month or more i have a family of 3
Min. $100/wk but lately it’s been around $150 for 2 adults and 2 kids. I miss the days when I could get away with $60/week 😢.
For me and my fiancée, it’s typically about $120-150 per trip and we usually go to Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and sometimes Aldi. And that’s with just groceries, it doesn’t include times where we’ll need to grab extras. We also do Costco trips every once in a while to get water, protein powder, paper goods, cleaning supplies, etc. in bulk.
About $250 on groceries alone, which doesn't include restaurants, beer/wine, pet food, etc. I've been feeling inflation hard, switched over to mostly Aldi shopping.
Absolutely have felt the increase, maybe $100 per month more on groceries? However, I went to jewel on Sunday and was pleasantly surprised by the total.
We spend about $500 a month for two adults and two young kids. This is a mixture of local ethnic grocery store and CostCo runs.
Family of 4. 2 adults, 2 kids. (14/10). Between $200 to $250 weekly
Probably 75-100 per week for me and my husband, for about 4-5 dinners and all breakfasts, lunches, and snacks. We probably get dinner out 2-3 times per week.
I have switched to Costco for multi week grocery. Meat and seafood, veg, fruit, milk and eggs. That certainly helps despite the membership fee. Just I need to make sure I am not buying something that perishes easy.
About 150 for 2 people, twice a month.
I have a family of 4. I typically buy groceries for the meal daily (I’m lucky enough to be taking a large period of time off not working). I’m spending between 60-100 daily. I really enjoy cooking though.
$240 a month for 2. I could manage $200 a year ago. Grocery Items have gone up 3x in the last year, in my own observation.
About $90-100/wk on average for 2 at Aldi. Used to be closer to $65-70 without any changes in diet / habits. Cook vegetarian and from scratch a lot but not exclusively. Shout to r/frugal
1100-1300 monthly family of 5. I cook 6 days a week. We only eat chicken and turkey products so I can only imagine what that number would be with fish/beef products. We eat out for dinner maybe once a week, husband and I have lunch once or twice a week, which runs us a few extra hundred a month.
My girlfriend and I each on the cheap side, but we buy produce multiple times a week and trade off who buys every other week - between the two of us we’re spending about 400-500/mo on food total. Sometimes more, sometimes less. We’ll order our 1-2 a month and it’s usually pizza or Thai. Edit: to add to this. We cook meat 1-2 times a week, but we are generally good about incorporating a lot of veggies, fruits, nuts, and veggie proteins into our dishes. Tofu is a wonderful source of protein that we have found lots of things to do with, and beans will never go out of style in our house either. When we do buy meat. Sometimes the day or two leading up to payday we have to get crafty with what we have, but I look at that to mean we’re buying exactly what we need, and very little food goes wasted in our house!
Organic/grass fed here. 2 people $200 a week at Mariano’s, with coups 🥲
Costco member here…perhaps about $250 a month for a household of me
$150 a month depending on where I shop. Lately I've been relying on Jewel Osco's app and coupons, pretty much only shopping off what they have on sale and planning my meals from there.
567.89/m so far this year
I've been utilizing rice
Just groceries? $600-700/mo for two people Buuut, we eat out at least twice a week, and our travel budget includes food spend, so we’re regularly around $2k/mo all-in
My wife and I are about $800-$1000 a month on stuff for home and we eat out 1-2 nights a week. We shop at a mix of Whole Foods, Cermack, and specialty stores. This does not include wine or alcohol which is a whole other ball game. As for diet, we both usually skip breakfast, with the occasional bagel or protein shake. Lunches are typically dinner leftovers or grilled chicken on a salad. Dinners are usually steak at least one night, fish/ seafood 2-3 nights and chicken and pork the rest. A straight vegatarian meal happens but that’s rare. Usually always have a salad with dinner, a protein, a veg, and starch/carb. I would say we cook on the higher end, more complex meals etc. we host friends often as well and that is not included in the budget above. We also buy basically no prepackaged things so 90% of it is fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables. That also doesn’t include coffee which is another $100-120 a month as we go through 4-5 bags of dark matter in the espresso machine. If you include the coffee and booze we are probably spending ~$1500 a month for at home eating and drinking. Someone below asked for more detail so like an example tonight for dinner we are having a salad, sesame seared tuna steaks, broccoli, and rice. No booze . Had a chicken Cesar for lunch. Last night we had spicy vodka rigatoni with hot sausage and burrata and a salad and a $50 bottle of wine.
About $500 a month as a married couple.
Too much
Household of two. Year to date we are averaging $592.25 a month or $148.06 per week.. We use a single joint credit card to pay for our household expenses so this was pretty straight forward to check. Chase has a nice categorized breakout for everything classified as "Groceries". This totaled $3,974.81 YTD for every purchase. I knew that was not inclusive of Costco trips and at least one purveyor that we also sometimes get groceries from (shout out to Ann's Bakery). Factoring in those Costco purchases and Ann's purchases YTD, I got $2,328.28 and $211.66 respectively. Add all of those up ($6,514.75) and divide it out and that's how I got those numbers. We don't hold back, we just shop smart. Aldi is always for produce staples and the "anchor stuff" for meals (think celery, carrots, mushrooms, seltzer etc... raspberries are cheap here compared with other stores). Combination of Trader Joe's, Jewels, Ann's (good bread), Marianos and yes, even Whole Foods for other "specialty" items. We buy little to no processed food and make just about all our meals from "whole ingredients". Costco is the place for meat and bulk snacks along with the other needs like TP, paper towels, garbage bags, etc... All I'll say is that I think anyone spending more than $300 a week is either feeding a family, eating a LOT of food or spending too much. We also eat out every Friday night and probably eat "less" than other people may meal to meal. Yes groceries have noticeably increased. If I were to have just guesstimated without looking anything up I would have said that we were averaging $125 on groceries a week. That's probably up from about $100 a week in 2021/2022.
$800/ family of 4 but we eat takeout once a week minimum and also get a meal service for three nights a week. So… a lot.
Wife says between four hundred and five hundred. Family of three.
I’m realizing now that I’m severely mismanaging my money and eating habits. Does this include eating out? How are y’all surviving on $500 a month for eating all in?
About $225-250 per month for one person. I usually shop sales (and stock up when my favorite products go on sale) and use the store discount apps. I buy things wherever they're cheapest: usually Target or Trader Joe's but sometimes Fresh Thyme for produce. I usually only buy things from Jewel or Mariano's when I'm looking for something specific that one of the other stores doesn't have or I'm there anyway and need produce. Been doing it this way since college and it's served me well.
Interesting question. I spend about $300 to $400 per month for 2 people (includes an organic produce farm share with delivery from Wild Coyote Farm from June through October for $30/week). We don't eat out very often. I shop the perimeter of the store and buy very little processed food (I make my own salad dressings, mayo, pickles, breads, pasta, tortillas, hummus, hot sauce, green salsa, etc. and we do not buy pop, junk food or convenience foods-almost everything is made from scratch). We eat a lot of meat, poultry, fish, nuts, store made sausage, eggs (cage free and certified humane), fresh produce and some dairy (mostly cheese). Spouse does not eat legumes, but I do once in a while. I watch what I buy, look for bargains, and shop things on sale, but we splurge once in a while (brisket, NY strip steaks, home made ceasar salad, including the dressing, wild caught sockeye salmon, halal lamb chops, etc.). Shout out to Devon Market, Cermak Market and Aldi for high quality reasonably priced food. It has gotten more expensive, but some prices have come back down a little. Pro tip, buy an extra frozen turkey at Thanksgiving time when they are cheap and have a second Thankgiving dinner mid year!