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Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers
Grocery Bills and Kids
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Anonymous
| OK, silly question but for four people, two adults and two small children under three, we are now spending about $200-250 a week in groceries. We don't eat a lot or super expensive food. We do spend a lot on formula, wipes, diapers and baby food. Pre baby #2, we were spending around $100-150. My 3 year old eats more different types of food but not that much. Inflation is in there somewhere. Are others spending this much or are we crazy? Longing for single days when I never spent more than $50 at the grocery store. |
Anonymous
| That seems a little high to me, but with formula and diapers in there, that might be about right. We also have two kids under 3 and I cannot wait until my infant son turns one, so we can switch him to milk! I was just talking to my husband about this last night and for us, there seem to be a lot of random trips to the grocery store - $50 here $50 there, it just adds up. I used to scour the sales circulars when they came out and use coupons religiously. I think I might have to try to go back to that, but some things, like formula and diapers, are just here to stay for now! |
Meconbear
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| Some groceries have gone up in price as well. We buy organic milk and it was over $6/gallon the other day. |
Anonymous
| I think it depends where you shop, too. We used to shop at Harris Teeter every week, but I noticed our grocery bills had really gone up. I recently started shopping at Giant again, and I think the prices are really a lot lower on a lot of things. For example, we buy the Morningstar Farms Soy Chicken Nuggets, and at Harris Teeter they are $4.19, but at Giant they are $3.69. Not a huge difference, but when you buy them as much as we do since my son loves them, it does add up. I just feel like Giant has better sales on the things I buy. As for milk, Trader Joes has the best price on milk that I have seen - both organic and non-organic. |
Anonymous
| When you add in formula, diapers and wipes, I don't think that's a lot. We're a smaller family (with only one toddler) and I'm a frugal shopper (coupons and the whole nine yards) and we spend about $150 a week (we don't buy formula, diapers or wipes). |
Anonymous
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Sounds about right to me, especially factoring in diapers and formula. I get sticker shock and am suprised each and every time I hit the check out.
I LOVE LOVE to cook and feel like I'm in the kitchen 24x7 so I definitly end up purchasing a lot of fresh produce and specialty items. Ironically, I think if we ate more processed foods, frozen veggies, and junk our bills would be much lower. For instance, a typical food day for my tot is a fresh smoothie in the morning, plus 2 scrambled eggs 1/2 of an avocado for snack, sliced apple dipped in almond butter and a big bowl of plain yogurt w/granola for lunch, then the other half of avocado for afternoon snack, and then for dinner hopefully what we're eating or else some emergency spaghetti with meat sauce and slices of fresh orange. Then for hubby and I we normally just have some fresh fruit in the morning w/ Cherrios, I eat leftovers for lunch (or pull out some leftover dinner that I froze months ago) and then I normally go all out for dinner. Really when you are doing all that cooking at home, it is amazing to realize how much you can go through in a week. I could really cut back and make more boring dinners, but I will not comprimise when it comes to the kids. |
Anonymous
| For two people I spend about a hundred a week - not sure why it is that high. With a child I spend more on better quality food, but I am not sure if it makes that much of a difference... Do my shopping at trader joes and costcos |
Anonymous
| That sounds right to me. For 3, I spend ~$150 a week at Trader Joes, plus I go to other stores for diapers/wipes, wine/beer, some organic meat or veggies, and miscellaneous things. |
Anonymous
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2 adults, 1 todller = $150, maybe another $50-75 a week. Plus takeout dinner usually twice. Another $50 for wine.
And the $150 covers maybe 2-3 dinners. I cringe when I see our organic milk at $7.19 a gallon. Everything adds up so quickly! We should be better about eating frozen leftovers too. |
Anonymous
| 2 adults, 1 3 year-old, 1 11 month-old: we spend $150-$200/week at Giant or Safeway. This is on top of trips to Costco every 3 months or so to stock up on formula and wipes and bulk items like toilet paper and paper towels. I order diapers online. We also go to TJs about once a month for fun things and then there's wine and beer on top of everything else. So, no, you are not crazy, or if you are, there's others out there who are crazy too! I should add that our fridge always looks empty! |
Anonymous
| That sounds right to me too. My fam of 5 is really feeling the effects of higher food prices. I cook a lot- very little carry out, and make lunches every day for three kids. So it adds up. I try to shop judiciously - mostly Trader Joe's and Safeway, although I just dropped $200 at whole foods. I try my best to plan menus for the week, etc, but it really has gotten expensive. I too buy organic when I can, but I stay away from the fun gourmet items. It's depressing. |
Anonymous
| I spend about $150 a week for a family of five, and I don't make that much. I'm going to check out the Latin and Asian markets and see if they're any cheaper. |
Anonymous
| It's a good week if my family of 4 is under $200 and we don't buy forumla anymore. We also rarely eat out. I think that matters also. Are you buying 7 dinners worth of food? Lot's of families plan on takeout 1-2 nights/week so they may spend less on groceries. |
Anonymous
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Groceries have actually gone up...compared to my single days too OP.
Milk is over $3 a gallon (as much as gasoline) and many other dairy, cheese, icecream, etc. (beef) products too. I saw a report that you can personally thank the all the greenies out there - pushing for corn-based energy, but in turns makes feeding the cows more expensive which gets passed on to the consumer. To help ends meet with our little family, I definitely comparison shop and look through the sales ads of Giant, Safeway, and Wegmans. I combine that with my coupons. I only buy the must-haves (lunch meat, dinner things, cereal, etc.) and limit "extras" like junk food. I end up shopping at three different stores some weekends, but if they are not out of my way and I'm driving by them anyways doing errands than I'll pop in. For me, that is worth the savings. Not the perfect solution, but it works |
Anonymous
No, you can thank an industrialized food system and factory farming for feeding these animals a diet of grain that is not a natural part of their diet. Cattle are graizers and should be eating a diet of grass. In order to feed the masses while keeping profits up for the likes ot Tyson and Swift & Co, enter in CAFO's (Confined Amimal Feeding Operations). Only recently this lovely industry of eColi, filth, and disease brought us our latest recall of beef that had contaminated a large portion of the school lunch program. |