Grocery Bill

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to assess whether my monthly bill is outrageous or not and my google searches are relatively useless because I want a city comparison.

We're a family of three with a one year old and three pets. I spend between $700 and $800/month on groceries, including diapers and what not for my child. Is this outrageous? Reasonable but could be better?

Any perspective would be greatly appreciated. I try to buy most of my goods at Trader Joes and Target but I love me some Harris Teeter.

[Anonymous]

I'd say your bill's high but I'll bet you guys eat well! We're a family of 3 (5 year old), with a small dog. We probably spend about $600 tops/month, with shopping at Harris Teeter, Costco, Safeway, Target, and some Trader Joe's (for wine, and all their fun snacks!). We increasingly have taken a harder look at prices. If we can, we buy milk at Safeway (Organic) -- it's always a good deal cheaper than Harris Teeter

[Anonymous]

For a family of five plus one large dog, I spend $115 per week. Don't know exactly what that comes out to be monthly. That does not count diapers, toilet paper, paper towels and cleaning products. I don't think I go over about $60 per month for these things, but I haven't calculated it for awhile. This being said, after reading lots of posts on this, you are doing well compared to others. I just happen to be almost neurotic about keeping my spending down.

[Anonymous]

I guess the good part is it does include cleaning supplies and diapers and wipes and all that.
The bad part is we're vegetarians.

Daggumit. I think I'm going to have to do some analysis of ye olde grocery bill.

[Anonymous]

We spend about 900-1000/mo. I cook just about everything fresh and from scratch and both DH & I bring our lunches at least 4 days a week, sometimes 5. I use often different and expensive ingredients such as Chantrelle mushrooms, Osso Buco, Chorizo, and truffel oil. The items change, but these kind of items add up real fast. I also cook with fresh herbs and all fresh veggies.

We have a 3yr old and I also feed him well/whole foods, so he's expensive as too. I do all of this shopping at Wegmans which is actually one of the least expensive grocery stores in the DC metro area.

[Anonymous]

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/9863.page#54002

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/42501.page#286710

[Anonymous]

I always like to respond to make people feel better even though we had these threads recently. I spend about $250 per week at the grocery store and then sometimes go to Target and spend $200 a month too, and on top of that, I order from diapers.com about every 3 weeks and spend $100. So anyway, I seriously would like to audit people that say they spend $100 per week for several adults and a couple of pets. Are you including your costco missions in there too? I mean, I walk into the store for a small mission, and I come out spending $100 easy. Btw, we have 2 adults, a one year old, three year old and a cat who does eat well on 2 cans of fancy feast per day. Maybe I should cut down on cat food.

[Anonymous]

I tried hard to keep spending to $400 per month -- one adult, a toddler and a small child, plus three pets -- but it was impossible. I'm being very, very careful and am spending $600 per month. (That includes non-grocery items like diapers, toilet paper and shampoo.)

[Anonymous]

PP, I'm a two adult one toddler family with baby on the way. I easily spend $250 a week on food. I spend at least $100 at Whole Foods, $60 at Trader Joes, then another $80 - $100 at Safeway. This does not include diapers.com or Target.

I buy fruits, veggies, milk, eggs, coffee, Happy Bellies Puffs and meats at Whole Foods.

Frozen stuff, bread, snacks, frozen rice at Trader Joes.

Cleaning supplies, cereal, cheese, deli stuff, broth, etc (regular grocery staples) at Safeway.

Of course my pantry can't fit anymore food and if I making a recipe that calls for something I do not have I run out and get it.

And we get dogfood at Costco. Maybe spend $200 there every 6 or 8 weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to assess whether my monthly bill is outrageous or not and my google searches are relatively useless because I want a city comparison.

We're a family of three with a one year old and three pets. I spend between $700 and $800/month on groceries, including diapers and what not for my child. Is this outrageous? Reasonable but could be better?

Any perspective would be greatly appreciated. I try to buy most of my goods at Trader Joes and Target but I love me some Harris Teeter.

Not outrageous, but it depends on what you are spending elsewhere on food -- do you eat lunches and dinners out?

If you are spending money ONLY on food and eat ALL your meals at home for just 2 adults and a 1 year old, I'd say you should be able to get by on about $450 (cooking everything from scratch) to $600 (more convenience foods, finer quality meats, organic). I KNOW that people can do it for less, of course.

If you are adding diapers, formula, and pet food of course that $$ will go up.

[Anonymous]

We are a family of three (2 adults and 15 month old). For the month of February, we spent just over $900 and that included groceries and beer/wine, paper towels, laundry detergent, toilet paper, diapers and other baby stuff. We shop at WF, TJs, and Target (for the diapers, wipes, etc). We bring our lunches to work and don't usually eat out. Unfortunately, we were out of town almost a week in February so we'll have to see what this month brings.

One thing I just started that seems to be helping is on Saturday morning I look and see what we need to use in our fridge and cabinets. I then make a list of meals for the week incorporating those things. Then make a grocery list based on those meals and I don't buy things not on the list (DH and I do allow for snack exceptions to this rule). So far, this has kept me from buying extra things that I normally would buy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So anyway, I seriously would like to audit people that say they spend $100 per week for several adults and a couple of pets.

We spend no more that $100 a week on groceries, and that's for two adults and a toddlers. I am choosy about organics, and mostly stick to the "dirty dozen" and whatever my son eats. (For him, organic milk, cheese, yogurt, etc.) I always look at the weekly sales at giant/safeway and plan meals around that. I stock up when meat is on sale and freeze for later. We eat at least on vegetarian meals a week. We live in DC, so no costco runs. We cloth diapers ous son, so I think we've saved about $800 this past year from not buying disposibles (after taking into account our initial investment of cloth dipes.) I am just now trying to make my own cleaning products, which is a lot safer and cheaper. We never eat out and always bring lunch to work. We are a one income family, so we've gotten creative with our financial situation but it has worked!

[Anonymous]

We are a family of four, and spend about $350 per week, including diapers, cleaning supplies etc. I am sure it can be lower, b/c I only shop at places that deliver (e.g., Peapod, diapers.com). I have not been to a grocery store in years, and haven't seen the inside of Target, Whole Foods, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, etc. I wish they delivered, but they don't, and I just don't have time to go shop for bargains...

[Anonymous]

Before baby, for 2 adults we spent anywhere between $100-150 a month, not really keeping track of what we were buying, and that included using coupons and all toiletries/cleaning supplies/ booze (we usually only shop at Harris Teeter). Since we had baby, and now that she is on formula, our bill has skyrocketed to around $200-250 a week, for 2 adults and a 1 year old. I recently started really focusing on what we were spending, and have been able to get that down to around $150 a week but to me that is still high. That amount does include diapers/wipes/formula/ toiletries/ cleaning supplies. etc. I don't make a separate run to Target or belong to costco. When I add up the price of diapers/ formula/ baby food/ wipes it sometimes came to half of my entire bills. YIKES!!!

Here is what I have been able to do: I use coupons like mad, I shop at Harris Teeter which doubles coupons and once every 2 months does triple coupons (I heard that they will be doing that next weekend). If there is a nonperishable that is on sale and I have multiple coupons, I will stockpile (for example, Kelloggs nutrigrain cereal bars, usually $3.50 per box, were on sale for $2.50, had 0.75off coupon, doubled made it $1.00 a box, tripled makes if $0.25 a box, I will buy as many as I can in that case). If a meat that we like is on sale, I'll buy in bulk and freeze. If diapers are on sale, and really on sale (like at least $3 off and I have maybe another $2 off coupon) I basically go bananas. I am NOT one of those women who goes to 10 stores and ends up with $1000 worth of groceries for $10, nor am I very good a meal planning. It's hard to do, but I really try my best to watch for sales.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of four, and spend about $350 per week, including diapers, cleaning supplies etc. I am sure it can be lower, b/c I only shop at places that deliver (e.g., Peapod, diapers.com). I have not been to a grocery store in years, and haven't seen the inside of Target, Whole Foods, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, etc. I wish they delivered, but they don't, and I just don't have time to go shop for bargains...

I think Harris Teeter delivers. If not they do have curb side pick up.