How much do you spend on groceries a month?

[Anonymous]

i shop at harris teeter b/c it's convenient to where we live, and i like it. a family of 3 (2 adults; 1 toddler), we spend about $110/week, including beer. once a month, we spend $250 at costco (diapers, wipes, wine, meat).

we used to shop at shoppers food warehouse. hands down, that's the cheapest store in the area. and good enough quality products. it just got to be too much of a time-chewer for us.

if you shop at whole foods/paycheck, don't complain about food bills. everyone knows that place is outrageous. not to start a whole organics debate, but it's a big waste of money. the "organic" fertilizer (pyrethrins) are way nastier than the chemical ones. it's the dirty little secret in organics!

[Anonymous]

I really try to stack coupons- so I will look at whats on sale and then use my coupons to buy those things. It is amazing how cheap you can get things when you do that.

We spend about $120 a week for 3 kids and 2 adults. Shopping only at Giant.

[Anonymous]

I have a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 toddlers) and we spend about $250/month at Costco and then another $125/week on regular groceries. I shop at Wegmans and Trader Joe's and we usually only eat out once a week. My husband takes his lunch to work and we eat almost all meals at home during the week. Our budget is between $750 - $1,000 for food depending on how many times we have people over.

[Anonymous]

$500/month. Same size family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
if you shop at whole foods/paycheck, don't complain about food bills. everyone knows that place is outrageous

True. I am one of the 250/wk people (family of 4) and buy a significant amount at Whole Foods. They are SO pricey. I am starting to do more at Safeway, but no one compares to WFs meats (imo). Their beef is superb, chicken, turkey and fish are very good. The organic beef at Costco is gross and our SF no longer sells any. However, we need to start getting used to it because I can't keep spending so much on food. I actually am thinking of looking into what a poster mentioned regarding 1/4 or 1/2 cow...

[Anonymous]

Wagshal's on Mass Avenue has excellent meat. Not sure about the prices, but I think they are slightly less than WF.

[Anonymous]

I am a WF shopper bc I live in city and its walkable. Once in a blue moon, I go with my mom to Costco and buy their organic ground beef. We think it's great. We spend about $250/wk for a family of 4 (us, a toddler and a baby). We eat out about 3x a week and we buy lunch everyday. It's definitely too much!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone shop at Shoppers Food Warehouse?

I do. I find the prices to be slightly lower than Giant and the cashier lines are faster than my local Safeway. They also always double coupons below $1 and occasionally do triple coupon sales.

For family of 3 and a dog, I spend anywhere from 60-110 on weekly groceries, with a monthly Costco trip that's usually about $100-200. When we eat more vegetarian/veg-heavy meals the bill goes down.

[Anonymous]

We probably spend about $800 for a family of 3 (DH, me, and 1 year old daughter). This does not include cleaning supplies, toiletries, or paper goods. We shop primarily at Whole Foods and I tend to buy mostly organic though and I don't do much comparison shopping.

[Anonymous]

Well when I walk into the store for a quick mission to stock us up for a few days, I usually spend $100 just for that. I still seriously don't see how someone can feed a family of 4 on $100-$125 per week. I want to audit your spending. Sorry to be cranky, but I still don't believe it. I am one of the $200-250 per week, plus I go to Target once a month and spend probably $150 or so there on household goods. We don't eat really fancy either. We do carryout maybe once a week, but all the other meals are at home. My children are at home all day too and don't go to daycare. My dh is at home - laid off. Maybe that's the difference.

[Anonymous]

I am one of the $125 spenders above- I do one ground turkey meal, one chicken meal and one pasta meal a week. One night we order pizza and the other 3 are leftovers/ free for all.

I buy everything else on sale with coupons. You have to be a little creative- for example, if we wanted oatmeal and its not on sale and I don't have a coupon, we don't get oatmeal that week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wagshal's on Mass Avenue has excellent meat. Not sure about the prices, but I think they are slightly less than WF.

I love Wagshals for a special occasion. I, however, find it hard to believe they have lower prices than any store except perhaps Balduccis.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone do a CSA (community supported agriculture)? Can you recommend a good one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am one of the $125 spenders above- I do one ground turkey meal, one chicken meal and one pasta meal a week. One night we order pizza and the other 3 are leftovers/ free for all.

How are you getting three nights of leftovers out of that? And what do you mean by free for all?

I'm a NP, and I'm also surprised by the $125/week shoppers. We're more like $250. Once a week takeout, but all other dinners at home, and lunches for three of us at home.

Typical dinners for us:
Turkey burgers (from ground turkey, onion, etc) on whole grain buns, baby greens salad with tomato and cucumber, microwave steamer bag of broccoli
Wild caught salmon (bought on sale and frozen if we buy a lot), quinoa, sweet potato (not organic in the past, but we are swicthing that now)

We have two adults and two little ones (2 and 4).

[Anonymous]

I would be interested for people to put their weekly grocery budget PLUS their weekly eating out budget--including lunches and dinners out for any member of the family.

I have a friend who is appalled at how high our grocery bill is, but she eats dinner out 2-3 nights a week and lunch 1-2.

We eat almost every meal at home or brown bag..so with 2 adults and 1 toddler, that's 42 adult meals and 21 toddler meals per week (let's guess that she eats half of what we do--so count it as 10.5 adult meals).

If I spend $200/week, that's about $3.75 per meal...you can't eat a healthy meal out of the house for that much.