Now I’m on a budget. Potatoes. So cheap. Eggs. Vegetables from Giant (I think their produce is fresh and good at ours). Lots of soups from the vegetables. Meat and dairy from WF but small potions.

Food from the farmers market is more of a budget breaker than WF. How did I spend $40 on a few veggies?

We used to spend about $1200/mon on food. But that included eating out, take out, WF, and the other household things at grocery like cleaning products. We eat organic and don’t do Costco.

family of 4 here. Cringing that we spend 1000/mo on groceries a month easily. Plus probably another 600 on takeout. It's Amazon fresh that makes it too easy for me to just put stuff in a cart. I need to start doing cash at the grocery store with a list and a meal plan!

I don’t think that is all that much.

I easily spend $400-500 per week on groceries for our family of 5.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1000/month is $250/week. That's not much at WF when you buy meat at $5 or more per lb. That box of organic spaghetti may be $2 at Aldi, but it $4 or more at WF. Regular ground beef (85/20) is $6.99/lb where I am. That's not lean nor is it organic, pasture raised cows. Call it at least $8/lb at WF. Get steak or fish, and ding ding ding. Add in wine or beer. Keep going. I can see $1000/month for DINKS at WF easily.

and a jar of marina at WF - $6-8.

It takes twenty minutes to make your own tomato sauce, it’s way cheaper, and it tastes better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What on earth are you buying? We shop at WF (supplemented by Costco for things that aren't available at WF) and spend $500/mo but are a family of 4.

Now tell us how often you eat out/takeaway. Because I fail to believe you're feeding four people three Whole Foods meals a day that each cost less than $2.

I made spaghetti once and made the mistake of buying everything at WF. That one meal cost $86.

Because you bought a $70 bottle of wine.

Spaghetti is nothing but pasta, tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, a few dried herbs and salt and pepper.

Anonymous wrote:$1000/month is $250/week. That's not much at WF when you buy meat at $5 or more per lb. That box of organic spaghetti may be $2 at Aldi, but it $4 or more at WF. Regular ground beef (85/20) is $6.99/lb where I am. That's not lean nor is it organic, pasture raised cows. Call it at least $8/lb at WF. Get steak or fish, and ding ding ding. Add in wine or beer. Keep going. I can see $1000/month for DINKS at WF easily.

and a jar of marina at WF - $6-8.

$1000/month is $250/week. That's not much at WF when you buy meat at $5 or more per lb. That box of organic spaghetti may be $2 at Aldi, but it $4 or more at WF. Regular ground beef (85/20) is $6.99/lb where I am. That's not lean nor is it organic, pasture raised cows. Call it at least $8/lb at WF. Get steak or fish, and ding ding ding. Add in wine or beer. Keep going. I can see $1000/month for DINKS at WF easily.

Anonymous wrote:What on earth are you buying? We shop at WF (supplemented by Costco for things that aren't available at WF) and spend $500/mo but are a family of 4.

Yeah I don't believe you. There is no way you are feeding a family of 4 for less than $16 a day at whole foods unless you are eating rice and beans and drinking water. The simplest dinner you could imagine, spaghetti with meat sauce is:

1 lb of ground beef: $6.99
1 box pasta: $1.99
1 jar marinara sauce: $1.99

This is $11 before tax and you have nothing to drink except water and no vegetables or anything else. Ok now you have $5 for lunch and breakfast for 4 people.

My kids eat probably $200 a month in fruit alone. Can you eat for $500 a month for a family of 4, probably and I'm sure someone will come on here with a menu plan that does it, but if you do this you are seriously depriving yourself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We shop between Whole Foods, Harris Teeter and Trader Joe's for a family of five and probably spend $2000 per month. Dont't forget that grocery includes paper towels, detergent, cleaning supplies, etc.

I don't think 1k sounds like a lot

+1

$250 per week doesn’t seem outrageous depending on what you are buying

Anonymous wrote:We shop between Whole Foods, Harris Teeter and Trader Joe's for a family of five and probably spend $2000 per month. Dont't forget that grocery includes paper towels, detergent, cleaning supplies, etc.

I don't think 1k sounds like a lot

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What on earth are you buying? We shop at WF (supplemented by Costco for things that aren't available at WF) and spend $500/mo but are a family of 4.

Now tell us how often you eat out/takeaway. Because I fail to believe you're feeding four people three Whole Foods meals a day that each cost less than $2.

I made spaghetti once and made the mistake of buying everything at WF. That one meal cost $86.

How?

I know. I could easily make spaghetti from WF for 4 for under $5 and have leftovers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What on earth are you buying? We shop at WF (supplemented by Costco for things that aren't available at WF) and spend $500/mo but are a family of 4.

Now tell us how often you eat out/takeaway. Because I fail to believe you're feeding four people three Whole Foods meals a day that each cost less than $2.

I made spaghetti once and made the mistake of buying everything at WF. That one meal cost $86.

How?

Anonymous wrote:We shop between Whole Foods, Harris Teeter and Trader Joe's for a family of five and probably spend $2000 per month. Dont't forget that grocery includes paper towels, detergent, cleaning supplies, etc.

I don't think 1k sounds like a lot

We're DINKs who easily spend $1k/month on groceries. It doesn't sound like a lot to me either. If I did want to cut down I'd do things like, not buy the $$$ eggs produced by pasture raised chickens (it's still cruel but not like battery farming), get the regular cheese instead of the one from pasture raised cows (same reasoning), eat more rice and beans (I eat a lot of them already but more, I guess), etc. I can see where we COULD cut out quite a bit of $ if we put our minds to it.

Certainly we have plenty of waste. Stuff getting old and moldy at the back of the fridge. We're working on that.