Weekly spend at the grocery store - Family of 4? And a vent...

[Anonymous]

prob $250/week family of four. I do A LOT of extreme couponing for shelf-stable items like FiberOne cereal (recently $1.99/box at Walgreens & I had coupons for each box I bought) and organic chips like ChiaPop or LateJuly.

For paper goods & toiletries I usually scan RiteAid, CVS & Walgreens weekly for specials but I also keep on top of Harris Teeter & Wegmans because they double coupons less than $1.00 face value.

I cook from Cooking Light 5-ingredient dinners and those Jessica Seinfeld "slip-in-extra-veggies" cookbooks. I try to prep as much as I can on Sunday nights. I have my grocery lists generated from what I'm going to cook that week. I do have some repeats during the month but I can cook about 15 dinners decently without too much work.

We do like to eat out on the weekends while we're out having family time but I do subscribe to several online coupon providers that reduce our tab. I also use the occasional Friday's, Applebee's, Chili's or UNO's coupon. There are always some in the newspaper inserts and friends always save their inserts for me because I am renowned for my frugality. I also don't have a problem dining out at chain restaurants although I do love Le Diplomate.

[Anonymous]

I noticed that at Giant, things keep going up, up, up. Over the last year, it has gone up at least 25%. We buy the same things every week, more or less. So what used to be $100, is now closer to $150. We spend a lot on groceries in general b/c we eat a lot of fruit and produce.

[Anonymous]

Family of 4, 2 teens: We spend $200 wk at Giant, $100 week at Whole foods (milk, meat dairy) and about $100 weekend eating out. The Starbucks bill is a problem. But there is no way I would let the nanny go to the groc store and buy what the kids asked for. Not a big fan of Costco -- we end up stuffing ourselves to finish the big portions.

[Anonymous]

Family of 4 - a 14yr old girl and 11 yr old boy. Mostly Costco shopping when it comes to groceries. We spend around $500-$600 a month there.

Do "occasional" stops at Giant for bread or fruit but not much money spent there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reviving an old post. I'm looking for ways to keep vegetables and fruit the main part of our diet. Where is a good place to buy fresh vegetables/fruits within a budget?

Farmers market seconds (eg not a top shape/apperance) in bulk during summer.

[Anonymous]

Get budget produce at Aldi, now with many organics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:family of 4 (2 yr old and 4 year old): probably $250-300/week.

+1

[Anonymous]

I'm about to embark on this project. I have no idea what we spend on groceries. How do you get DH to eat leftovers? I don't always have time to doctor it to pretend it's a new item.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm about to embark on this project. I have no idea what we spend on groceries. How do you get DH to eat leftovers? I don't always have time to doctor it to pretend it's a new item.

I call it leftover night, don't shop nor cook on those days. Chop fresh salad and call it and put whatever left in the fridge on the counter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much do you guys spend on fruit? While I have all the frustrations of high grocery prices (we cook at home, pack lunches, no pre-packaged etc), we eat a lot of fresh fruit. Damn those fruit prices. We buy them at costco during this time of the year but still fruit amounts to a third and more of our grocery bills.

I easily spend $50 a week on fruit, so $200 a month just on fruit alone.

Too bad the federal government doesn't subsidize fruit to make them less expensive instead of high fructose corn syrup which makes junk food cheap!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much do you guys spend on fruit? While I have all the frustrations of high grocery prices (we cook at home, pack lunches, no pre-packaged etc), we eat a lot of fresh fruit. Damn those fruit prices. We buy them at costco during this time of the year but still fruit amounts to a third and more of our grocery bills.

I easily spend $50 a week on fruit, so $200 a month just on fruit alone.

Too bad the federal government doesn't subsidize fruit to make them less expensive instead of high fructose corn syrup which makes junk food cheap!

HFCS also makes us FAT!

+1M

[Anonymous]

Family of 4. $150-$200/week, almost exclusively between Costco and Trader Joe's.

[Anonymous]

Trader Joe's has best prices on Fruit and Veggies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I spend about $80 on groceries. I cook a lot, fish or chicken vegatables, fruit and weekly staples. Milk, yogurt, eggs cheese. I do a once a month Costco run for meats (beef, pork chicken) then just separate it for meal planning. I spend about $200 or so depending on what else I purchase.

Do you work? I ask because, I baked and cooked more when I stayed at home. We ate healthier and spent less. But I saw a huge jumps in grocery and restaurant expenses when we both work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm about to embark on this project. I have no idea what we spend on groceries. How do you get DH to eat leftovers? I don't always have time to doctor it to pretend it's a new item.

I don't understand "getting a DH to eat leftovers". Explain the waste when perfectly good food is thrown away because they are being a big baby. I always cook a little extra and DH will work on leftovers for lunch almost daily. We both do shift work (he's a LEO and I'm an RN) and we are both home during the typical lunch hour. He works on leftovers at noon and I'll usually pack some for when I do my lunch break at midnight. It's rare that a Tupperware container has to get emptied because we didn't get to a leftover.