What is your monthly grocery store bill? Generally

[Anonymous]

Anyone want to post their shopping lists?

[Anonymous]

"Anonymous wrote:
Plz can some of you with families of 4 list what you eat each week? I don't feel like we shop extravagantly but it is likely $1K at giant and Safeway and not even organic.

What are we doing Wrong? It cannot be 35 cent coupons.


How old are your kids?"

5 and 9.
Help please? Clearly we must be doing it wrong since I cannot fathom how folks have $500 per month grocery budgets. I just have zero clue how we would get anywhere close to that.

[Anonymous]

Family of 4, 2 adults, 2 kids age 9 and 7 who are crazy skinny but heavy eater types (it's incredible), so I have to keep a lot of healthy food in the house because they eat large quantities. They also pack their lunches for school, so I make up to 21 meals a week. Sometime we eat out a weekend lunch at a family but that's to a fast casual place (burger joint of pho).

On an average month we spend between $600-800 on groceries, but this is way down from the $1000+ we were spending a year ago. I started shopping at Aldi when one opened in our neighborhood and it significantly cut our bill. I shop weekly at Aldi and supplement every other week with an additional WF run (it's my favorite). Aldi doesn't stock everything I need, so to fill in the gaps I go to my local WF. Also the quality of the chicken, meat and fish at Aldi IMO is subpar, and I buy that stuff at WF. If it isn't good quality, I don't want to eat or serve it. I have found Giant and HF quality to be pretty poor for the produce, thinks are grainy or go rotten very, very quickly. Aldi produce is better, almost as good as WF, for fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, canned goods, dry goods, etc. I used to spend $1200 or more a month just at WF, so this is a BIG improvement for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Anonymous wrote:
Plz can some of you with families of 4 list what you eat each week? I don't feel like we shop extravagantly but it is likely $1K at giant and Safeway and not even organic.

What are we doing Wrong? It cannot be 35 cent coupons.


How old are your kids?"

5 and 9.
Help please? Clearly we must be doing it wrong since I cannot fathom how folks have $500 per month grocery budgets. I just have zero clue how we would get anywhere close to that.

My kids are 5 and 8, but girls and don't eat much. We do not buy organic but do eat mostly fresh/whole foods (as opposed to pre packaged stuff.) Its hard for me to say what our total "food" bill is per month because I usually do a weekly grocery run and also a bi weekly costco run. So I'd say I average $100/week at the grocery store and $200/month at costco, so $600ish. Maybe we eat out more than you do? I'd say in a week we get sushi one night ($20 total, its half price night) and pizza or five guys/chickfila one night, which is probably $25. DH and I each probably eat lunch out 2x a week and pack the other days, so $40 total ($10 pp per day.)

So lets see $600+$200 in takeout+$75 date night dinner+160/month in lunches = $1035. So if you are not eating out at all or buying any lunches then $1000 sounds ok to me. I do not clip coupons but I do stock up on freezer items that are on sale. I do not usually try "new" items - just get our tried and true stuff and we throw very little food away, because I meal plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have y'all ever heard of coupons?

The Safeway app has discounts that in some cases are not advertised.

Have you ever heard of the value of time? Rather than scour apps and print ads for coupons on mostly brand name products that aren't on my list, I'd rather plan out meals, shop at Aldi/Costco.

I sure have, it is called planning. The app/website in Safeway's case takes less than 5 minutes to see what is on sale for that current week.

Coupons, ten minutes tops, the Sunday Wash Post doesn't add that many.

I guess you don't like to save money on shampoo, soap, ice cream, and other things that are not on your meal preparation list either?

All of that stuff is cheaper as Brand X at Aldi/Costco!

Yup. And coupons are for processed foods. No thanks, don't eat that crap. My food is cooked from fresh ingredients. We MIGHT consume 2 boxes of ice cream a year.maybe.

You never buy flour, graham crackers, chocolate chips, sour cream, spices, vegetable oil, yeast, cream cheese, raisins, egg noodles, tea bags, tapioca....? Must be quite a little operation you're running in your kitchen. Or the most boring diet ever.

Flour: Yes, but the kind of flour I buy is either the same price across the board (King Arthur) or specialty flours like spelt, almond, einkorn etc. I'm not buying 5 pound bags of Walmart brand flour with zero nutritional value, sorry.

Graham Crackers: The store bought kind are basically cookies. We make them homemade. Taste better and healthier.

Chocolate Chips: Yes, Lily's or specialty brands that are low sugar. Again, not something you would typically find in the aisles of your average grocery store.

Sour cream, cream cheese, all dairy and eggs are delivered weekly from a local farm.

Raisins, egg noodles, no and no. Tapioca? WTF? How random. And no.

I bake bread every week, thus I buy my yeast in bulk. I seriously cannot think of a single food that is worth the effort of combing through dirty coupon pages every week with the hopes of saving .35 cents off of that item. If buying a lot of canned and processed junk works for you and your family, then fine, but don't assume we're all eating and cooking that way.

To the original question, we spend about $200-$300 per week on food, family of four, depending on how often we decide to eat out and if our oldest is home from college.

I was listing common baking/cooking ingredients that most people don't make themselves (e.g. Tapioca is a thickener for pies and gravies) even if they "cook from scratch," and there are coupons for all of these things in the Sunday paper. I buy King Arthur flour with a coupon when it's on sale and get it super cheap, which is great since I keep all purpose, bread, and cake flour on hand. That kind of thing helps with the grocery bill and it takes 1 minute to flip through the flier in the paper, but I guess that's....what did PP say?... too *dirty* for some people.

As always, I just love it on DCUM when rich women come on and flaunt their wealth. So classy.

I am always left confused, when rich, snobby posters like the one above above harp about "cooking from scratch". Do they grow their own rice, quinoa, chia seeds, pasta, wheat?? Do they milk their cows and have an unlimited supply of free range eggs in their yard? Have they every grown and tendered a vegetable/fruit garden? Just a bunch of phonies throwing out fancy terms. I am Indian FWIW, we own "cooking from scratch" but for the life of me I can't figure out this obnoxious attitude, back home even the poor eat simple, cooked from scratch meals because they don't have the money for processed stuff, it's pretty basic all over the world not something you ever flaunt. Majority people back home and in plenty of other countries eat simple fresh vegetables, lentils, yogurt, home made desserts, the families who are middle class and up of course buy fresh fruits. It's a middle class , normal thing to cook from scratch not something to boast about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Anonymous wrote:
Plz can some of you with families of 4 list what you eat each week? I don't feel like we shop extravagantly but it is likely $1K at giant and Safeway and not even organic.

What are we doing Wrong? It cannot be 35 cent coupons.


How old are your kids?"

5 and 9.
Help please? Clearly we must be doing it wrong since I cannot fathom how folks have $500 per month grocery budgets. I just have zero clue how we would get anywhere close to that. [/quote

Mine are 6 & 9 and I can't get to $500/mo either.
I spend $800/month which I'm good with.
Each week I spend about $200 and it includes:
$40 protein: eggs, deli meat, chicken/meat
$45 produce
$40 staples: pasta, bread, oils, spices, beans, canned tomatoes, tuna etc
$30 school stuff/snacks: cookies, pretzels, hummus, pita etc
$30 dairy: milk, almond milk, cheese, creamer, sour cream
$15 household goods: paper towels, sponges, garbage bags

[Anonymous]

$1500 family of 5. All organic and gluten free

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Anonymous wrote:
Plz can some of you with families of 4 list what you eat each week? I don't feel like we shop extravagantly but it is likely $1K at giant and Safeway and not even organic.

What are we doing Wrong? It cannot be 35 cent coupons.


How old are your kids?"

5 and 9.
Help please? Clearly we must be doing it wrong since I cannot fathom how folks have $500 per month grocery budgets. I just have zero clue how we would get anywhere close to that.

My kids are 5 and 8, but girls and don't eat much. We do not buy organic but do eat mostly fresh/whole foods (as opposed to pre packaged stuff.) Its hard for me to say what our total "food" bill is per month because I usually do a weekly grocery run and also a bi weekly costco run. So I'd say I average $100/week at the grocery store and $200/month at costco, so $600ish. Maybe we eat out more than you do? I'd say in a week we get sushi one night ($20 total, its half price night) and pizza or five guys/chickfila one night, which is probably $25. DH and I each probably eat lunch out 2x a week and pack the other days, so $40 total ($10 pp per day.)

So lets see $600+$200 in takeout+$75 date night dinner+160/month in lunches = $1035. So if you are not eating out at all or buying any lunches then $1000 sounds ok to me. I do not clip coupons but I do stock up on freezer items that are on sale. I do not usually try "new" items - just get our tried and true stuff and we throw very little food away, because I meal plan.

???? do you think girls eat less than boys?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$1500 family of 5. All organic and gluten free

Your whole family has celiac disease? Huge bummer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1500 family of 5. All organic and gluten free

Your whole family has celiac disease? Huge bummer.

It makes sense if one person has celiac disease, then the whole family should eat that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Anonymous wrote:
Plz can some of you with families of 4 list what you eat each week? I don't feel like we shop extravagantly but it is likely $1K at giant and Safeway and not even organic.

What are we doing Wrong? It cannot be 35 cent coupons.


How old are your kids?"

5 and 9.
Help please? Clearly we must be doing it wrong since I cannot fathom how folks have $500 per month grocery budgets. I just have zero clue how we would get anywhere close to that.

My kids are 5 and 8, but girls and don't eat much. We do not buy organic but do eat mostly fresh/whole foods (as opposed to pre packaged stuff.) Its hard for me to say what our total "food" bill is per month because I usually do a weekly grocery run and also a bi weekly costco run. So I'd say I average $100/week at the grocery store and $200/month at costco, so $600ish. Maybe we eat out more than you do? I'd say in a week we get sushi one night ($20 total, its half price night) and pizza or five guys/chickfila one night, which is probably $25. DH and I each probably eat lunch out 2x a week and pack the other days, so $40 total ($10 pp per day.)

So lets see $600+$200 in takeout+$75 date night dinner+160/month in lunches = $1035. So if you are not eating out at all or buying any lunches then $1000 sounds ok to me. I do not clip coupons but I do stock up on freezer items that are on sale. I do not usually try "new" items - just get our tried and true stuff and we throw very little food away, because I meal plan.

???? do you think girls eat less than boys?

I have no idea because I don't have boys. But my girls eat very little and barely move the needle on our food budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$3000 including eating out. Family of four. We don't budget for food.

That is really stupid.

No, but not really. If they can afford it, I thank em for stimulating the local economy. We'd lose a lot of local jobs in the service industry if people stopped eating out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$3000 including eating out. Family of four. We don't budget for food.

That is really stupid.

No, but not really. If they can afford it, I thank em for stimulating the local economy. We'd lose a lot of local jobs in the service industry if people stopped eating out.

This sounds like heaven to me. I hate grocery shopping, cooking, and dishes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$2000 family of 4. Two under 5.

Holy Cow!!!!! My DH would lose his mind if I spent this much!

Then you married a loser.

Or maybe she married someone sane?

Either you're all morbidly obese and eating an insane amount of food or you're eating out for every meal. You also sound unhinged.

[Anonymous]

About $400. Family of 2. I eat lunch out too often, and we have carryout pizza on Friday nights, but otherwise cooking at home. My son takes a lunch to school every day.