Looking to revisit our grocery spending (read: set a realistic budget).
If you track, feel free to answer the following:
How much money to you spend weekly or monthly on groceries? How many people are in your household? How often to you dine out? Do you pay attention to prices when you shop and make purchasing decisions accordingly, or do you buy what you want and need, regardless of the cost?
TIA!
We spend around $1600/month on groceries and eating out. Some months it is more, some months less depending on how often we eat out. Family of 3 at home now, used to be 5. When it is 5, closer to $1800/month
We don’t keep strict track of our grocery spending. We also don’t buy a ton of prepared food at the grocery, we eat mostly a plant based diet. We do spend A LOT on fresh fruit, my children are still learning that the packages the raspberries and blackberries come in aren’t individual serving sizes.
Our staples include a ton of different dried beans (Rancho Gordo via online ordering). We are batch cooks, we make big pots of soup, lentil stews, red sauce, etc and use those as building blocks for multiple meals.
not to put you on the spot, but if you were to guess…how much of that budget is spent on dining out?
We’ve never tracked this, but I may now, out of pure curiosity. I’ll start in December because eating out over the last week was almost $1,000. 
We do not track our grocery spending (family of two). We probably only eat out 2 times a month at a nice place. We grab quick take out maybe 3 times a month (chinese, pizza, etc.) We try to keep our bills down by shopping the ads and belonging to the grocery store clubs. We are very fortunate to have several different grocery store chains within 15 minutes of our home. When one of our staple items is on sale at one of these stores, we stock up. For example, my husband hates to buy ice cream not on sale (when it is $6 instead of $3 for a container). We also do well buying fresh produce inexpensively from a very good walmart supercenter near us. They will have apples or tomatoes for half the price of other grocery stores.
About $400 - $500 is eating out.
We do Taco Tuesday a couple of Tuesdays a month at our local Mexican restaurant. That costs about about $45 a visit.
Then DH and I go out for date night once or twice a month. Those usually run around $100-125 depending on where we go and what gets ordered. DH usually orders meat and a couple of cocktails when we are out because we so rarely have those things at home.
The rest of the money spent eating out is usually grabbing Panera (or the equivalent) with S24 a couple of times during the month when running errands and meeting up with friends for lunches out, usually Indian food or Japanese.
It adds up quickly, we use cash for eating out so I know how much I’ve spent and have left to spend. I take $500 out a month for eating out expenses - when the money is done, so are we for the month, lol.
90+% of the time we are just a household of 2 now. I don’t keep track of food costs but I can tell you our food/shopping habits.
Eat out maybe once a month and this would be a moderate local place. Keep those bills down by not paying for beverages (water only).
Take home something maybe 2-3x a month. Again, a moderate place. Asian take out, wings, middle eastern food. Or buy a ready made meal item from Costco - usually runs around $20 and lasts 2 of us a couple of meals.
For groceries 80+% of the time I am using Costco, a small local produce/meat market or a farmer’s market - or my garden! Aldi run maybe once every 4-6 weeks. Big box shopping as little as possible, hate the process.
The majority of the time I shop the sales or stock up on the sales. Only if I have a certain craving or am set on a certain dish for a special occasion do I buy the needed items no matter the cost.
I think overall (except when the kids come home and I splurge on lots of snack type items, charcuterie, etc. ) I do a good job of shopping sales, building a menu around sale items, shopping my refrigerator/freezer - that is, being able to keep staples and proteins that allow me to ALWAYS find something I can make right at home!
BUT, we are not too social. We do not go out with friends for meals or have a lot of family in the area.
(now I can’t vouch for all the Speedway and fast food stops my H makes when he is out and about or when I am working! It’s a good thing he is not the shopper in the family!)
We do not set a budget or track, but we don’t eat out much. I do keep an eye on grocery prices, stocking up on sale items that keep, and buying the weekly “loss leaders” for fresh items. We don’t belong to a Costco or Sam’s Club etc, but there is an Aldi near us and that offers similar prices.
We eat out about weekly and the average check is around, oh, $70.
Call it $300 per month
Add another roughly $400 in groceries, and we’re at about $700 per month. That probably is the equivalent of about $1000-$1200 in Boston, San Fran, etc.
2 of us - about $150 a week on fresh vegetables, fruits, chicken, fish. We get whatever we want- no budget. Take out once to twice a week around $30 each time. We find it is healthier and less expensive to cook and eat at home. The takeouts frequently make leftovers in the freezer. And we make our own coffee at home.
When the kids and spouses and grand kids (8 of us) visit the price goes way up on the eating out about twice a week, $150-200 each meal. The groceries are much higher also- about $300+ a week.
Our grocery line item is $650/month, and that’s pretty accurate w/ 2 kids at home. When we had all 3 of them, it was $700-750. We budget $250/month for dining out, but honestly we usually exceed that. We rarely go to sit-down restaurants unless it is someone’s birthday, anniversary, special event, etc., but just stopping a few times a month to grab Chipotle or Salata while running errands adds up quickly at $40+ per stop, even with no drinks.
My husband is still learning that, too. 
So it can take a while. 
Just the two of us now that D23 is off at college, although she does come home on breaks. We are still adjusting to being a household of 2. We are not a go out and eat at a sit down restaurant. Maybe once a month. We get takeout usually twice a week. I have found it to be cheaper with just the two of us.
We do a Walmart pick-up once a week on Saturday mornings. We get items that come in boxes and bags plus cleaning supplies. Then I hit Jewel(Chicagoland store) for produce and meat and sale items. We use the Jewel app and rewards and really focus on items on sale. Sales will dictate what we eat many weeks and influences purchases in general.
It really has turned into a game for me on how big of discount can I get each week. There have been weeks at Jewel where I have gotten just over 50% off regular prices. Of course I know to some extent the regular prices are inflated. The wife and I were just talking that we need to spend $42 more by 11/30 to get our $20 points reward. I will have to make a special trip to the store during this week.
I would say our total cost of food, cleaning supplies and paper products comes to $1000-1300 a month. There is some variance there as D23 has a car and takes some stuff back with her on breaks.
A couple of weeks ago my wife saw on the Jewel app a coupon for 80% all dry cereals. She went at lunch and the coupon worked. She didn’t think it would. She only filled up one cart. She bought like 28 boxes of cereal. We gave the kids some and will end up donating plenty as well. She loves to get a good deal. She was really riding that high for a few days. Later she was kicking herself for not getting more. I told her she should have cleared the aisle.
When there were seven of us (until August of this year) we were at 
$2,600+/month. Believe me, I heard about it regularly from my husband who tracks all our expenses. (My mom lives with us and she buys about $500 in groceries per month of specific things she wants but that we can eat also, so we were “only” paying $2100 per month.)
That included very little eating out. But it did include a couple of special dietary needs, including completely gluten-free for the whole house, and a couple of people who had dairy restrictions of different kinds. It also included an 18-year-old, a 17-year-old, a 14-year-old, and a 10-year-old, all boys.
Now that there are regularly only five of us in the house, and the two that don’t live here anymore (oldest and youngest) were the biggest eaters with the most specific tastes, we’re closer to $1700 a month. (My mom is still buying the same amount, so the reduction has all been in what we buy.)
When I lived in Chicagoland, I was a serious couponer. I could get such great deals at Jewel! Back when I only had two kids, and of course when prices were lower, I was able to manage our entire grocery shopping for less than $200 per month. Those were the days!
Are people including supplies like TP, laundry soap, etc. in their food budget???
I do. Basically, if I buy it at the grocery store, it’s all one line item.
Yes, I’m including everything we buy at Costco, target, and grocery stores. Minus a small percentage for things like clothes that I might pick up at target or Costco.
Ditto here! Those are lumped together as “necessities.” We predominantly shop for that at Costco. 4 trips per month, $250-350 a trip depending on whether we are buying diapers for the grands or extra steaks for one SIL. Add a few items at TJ, a couple of bottles of wine here and there, some yogurt from the expensive grocery store, and we are at $1,200-1,500 or so for all of that per month.
We’re very aware of sale items, keep an eye of which products haven’t come back down in price post-COVID (hint, Pepsi products like Gatorade & instant oatmeal remain at least 25% higher in last 3 years); always grab fresh fish like salmon if it’s under $8/lb and 3-packs of water at $11 or under; won’t pay more than $3/box for cereal; will get out once a week for date night/couple cocktails. We do pay attention to weekday specials at local haunts and will enjoy happy hour snacks/$5 drinks every so often.