I know everyone's situation is different and grocery prices can vary drastically from place to place, but I am going to ask anyway.

We are a family of 5 and we spend $200 a month on groceries. This is just food, I spend an additional $70 a month on diapers, cat food and litter, health and beauty, etc. I have one double coupon store, but there prices are VERY high, so I really have to watch what I buy there. The store only doubles to .50. I have a mom and pop store with good meat loss leaders and a midwest store with good loss leaderes. I try to balance my double coupons and loss leaders with Aldi's and Save-a-lot. I tend to over buy, so my freezer and pantry are pretty full. I am going to try to live off my stockpile a bit and see if I can lower my grocery bill some.

So fess up, how much do you spend a month?

Country Mom...
I'm a mother of 5 children, 1 dog and 2 out of the 5 kids are in diapers. So we spend approx. $100-$150 every 2 weeks $200-$300 a month. Not to mention dog food, thats about $30 a month and diapers thats around $40 per week, $120 a month. So all total my grocery bill is about $450 monthly. To cut these costs, I always check our local paper for sales (here's an example of last weeks sale:)

Ok, first all these items were buy 1 get 1 free.

2 @ $3.69 Minute Maid Juice, 2 coupons for $.30 off doubled to $.60 off each, paid $3.09 for both.
3 @ $2.99 6-pk coke, 1 coupon B2G1F, paid $2.99 for 3 6-pks.
2 @ $2.29 Birds Eye frozen vegs, 2 coupons for $.55/1 doubles to $1 off each paid $.29 for both.
2 @ $2.89 Motts apple sauce, 2 coupons $.55/1 doubles to $1 off each, paid $.89 for both
2 @ $5.09 Purex liquid, 2 coupons $.35/1 doubles to $.70 off each, paid $3.69 for both
2 @ $2.09 Goldfish crackers, 2 coupons $.55/1 doubles to $1 off each,paid $.09 for both
-----------------
Total was $41.07
after grocery card and coupons total was $11.04

That's over 50% off my total bill!

I buy my diapers at wal-mart where a super mega pkg is $16.49 along with $2/1 coupons. So like $15 a pkg. Same with wipes. I haven't bought a single can of formula since my baby was born almost 9 months ago! Love those free formula coupons!

Hope I haven't gone overboard and answered the question as it was asked. I tend to forget once I start babbling. :)
Angela

well, this isn't just groceries....this covers diapers, rabbit food, gas for the car, general spending money....we spend $400 to $500 a month on all of this

If you are spending that much, you're doing better than I am! I didn't think about gas costs, which here its only $0.97.9 a gallon. And spending money...what's that?? LOL. Only way we can cut our costs is, hubby takes bus to work, no gas being used. Use coupons when grocery shopping, pet food...Wal-mart seems to be the cheapest for us, but PetSmart takes coupons too. And we are really careful on spending money, don't buy it if we don't need it. Well hope this helps.
Angela

We spend from $100-$150 a month, average, for groceries and paper products, and cleaning products, soaps, laundry supplies, etc. I do NOT include pet food/supplies/etc in our total as it would throw it WAY off--we have one dog--well, two now since another turned up here last week; a goat, poultry, and a whole pile of cats. I won't even admit to how many cats I feed (though only one is in the house).

Omigoodness Pat! How do you do that? I would love to hear some of your secrets!

For us....golly..I'm not really sure these days. I *used* to feel I kept it done to under $200.00 per month. But, that was before I started a diet...and a time when dh came home to eat lunch (which was always something in the crockpot for him).

My diet is really making me cringe right now...especially since fruits are out of season right now. I just picked up 3 cantelope for 2 bucks each (eek!). Since it's so difficult for me to diet in the first place..I'm trying to allow myself food items I enjoy. I've been tellilng myself to remember all the money I'll save on my health bills later LOL!. And we live so far out from any shopping (45 mins) its difficult to run in for all the weekly specials (and they're usually out by the time I make it anyway (wah!)

All considered..it's probably at its highest right now. Maybe 300.00 for 2 people? Oh..and I know what you mean about the cats. I took one in..and notice I'm starting to baby her with canned food instead of dry. Welp..she *is* my baby these days! And the way she cuddles up to me really tugs at my heartstrings (for some reason...she likes to rest her head on my shoulder)! LOL!

Ok, let me see.....there are 4 of us, 2 very hungry teens, LOL!
and dh and I......dh and I are trying to watch the salt intake and
the fat/chol./stuff.....it does get so $$$!!!! :(

I would have to say over the last 6 months.....anywhere from
$300-$500 a month......this includes EVERYTHING. Paper, pet,
junk, you name it......

I would love to spend $150 a month....but don't see it for a while.
It is so much more $$$ when you have to buy the fresh fruits and veggies....least it is here! I never knew it cost so much to eat more of the 'healthy' stuff!!! :eek:

there is only dh and i and we spend around 200. a month. that does include paper and we also have 3 cats, 1 bird and a turtle. this coming up year i am gonna start using more coupons and we are gonna start only buying loss leaders. we are also gonna start stocking our pantry so that we only have to go shopping once a month!! :D

I was doing great with my coupons, loss leaders, and those leftovers mom sends home on Sunday nights--approx $160. per month for the two of us and part time step son, this includes all the paper, cleaning and health products. We do either eat or order out about every 10 days. Before we moved I stopped buying completely and depleted my pantry to 3-4 storage boxes of food and 2 boxes of cleaning supplies-I figured it would be easier to move and it helped with costs-I was only buying about $10 in fresh fruits and veggies each week for over a month. OK great I'm paying for it now with much less time to coupon and comparison shop and not having the storage that I had, I had to go blindly into a store last week, no coupons no nothing, and for a few days worth of stuff I paid $50!! I have got to buckle down and get it together again, I nearly had an attack when I saw my bill, how do people do that?

Right now we are spending $350 a month. 4 adults, 2 kids, 1 baby and 4 cats. It can be less but with Christmas coming Im always in hurry it seems. After Christmas I will have more time to clip coupons and shop longer. :reindeer:
~Michele~

We usually spend about $280 and that includes food, cleaning stuff, diapers and animal food. :tweety: ~ :kitty:

There are 4 of us ... Hubby, me and two boys. We also have a cat and 2 birds.

I am a newbie here, but an old hand at being a cheapskate! There are four of us--two boys with appetites like linebackers!--, DH and myself, as well as a cat and a dog. I spend about 250.00-300.00 per month for everything. I will mention that I do NOT buy the cheapest pet food out there, but buy a brand that is recommended by a friend who is a vet. It is not expensive and NO, it's not Science Diet! A forty pound bag of dog food is about 16.00 and a twenty pound bag of cat food is about 11.00. I shop at Winco for 90% of my groceries and WalMart for most of the HABA stuff. No diapers, thank heavens! My boys are eight and nine and eat tons!

I always buy the marked down meats at Winco and have come home with some steals lately. When I was there alst tiem, I got four pound of bologna for $1.00! I am not a bologna fan, but my kids love it.

I budget $400/month for groceries, hba, cleaning, and paper products. My *goal* is to come closer to $300/month
This is for dh, myself, dd#1 who is 14, ds who is 9 and dd#2 who is 5. We have no pets.

We spend $200.00 a month on cat food, cat litter and dog food. We have 4 dogs, 10 cats and we feed 12 stray cats daily. Our groceries average about $200.00 to $250.00 a month. Its only 2 of us but my hubby takes a packed lunch from home every day and I feed a grandchild breakfast every weekday before school. We also drink a lot of drinks. However I do try to shop the sales and plan my menus around them so I guess with all the animals we feed we are not doing to bad.

Hi! Sorry not to answer sooner. Someone asked how we keep our grocery bill so low. 100-150 a month for the three of us (including health/beauty, paper, etc)

First, let me mention something that will SHOCK you. We do not even use coupons very often!!!! I do not have a newspaper subscription and to just buy the Sunday paper would be $1.50 a week. If a coupon comes my way for something that we use anyway, or something that would be basically free or pennies, I'll use it. Otherwise, I hold onto the ones that I come across that don't expire EVER or for a very long time....The only store here that doubles coupons is Krogers--and they are the most expensive grocery in town. They only double the low value coupons also, under I think 39 cents or some such. Generally, the equivalent store brand is still cheaper at another store. I also don't garden...just a little herb garden, and usually a pot of lettuce and a couple tomato plants.

Here's some things I do...

1. As a general rule, we do not buy convenience foods. As with every rule there ARE exceptions. I do buy 4/1.00 generic boxes of macoroni and cheese--dh makes them (I hate them). I do buy Ramen noodles. I try to get them on sale 10/1.00 but will pay full price if necessary (and have found the least expensive place for those is our Walmart supercenter. So, I pick them up when there). A few times a year I'll buy him one of those cherry chip cake mixes (otherwise I bake from scratch) or a can of pie filling (for a certain recipe I make). As far as I can think of right now, that's all we buy from the convenience foods.

2. We buy generics. We are DEFINITELY not brand loyal. We will eat whatever brand or generic is the lowest price for that item. We DO have a couple of exceptions...there is one store brand of the velveeta style cheese we find HORRID....we only buy that product once or twice a year anyway so we do buy the other (slightly higher) store brand. The only other products I can think of that we insist on a certain brand is LaChoy Soy Sauce and well, I insist on a certain brand of fem. hyg. products....others cause allergic reactions but we won't go there, lol....

3. We build our diet around "basic" foods. This includes things like....

things like potaotes, onions, and bananas pretty much year round. (depending on the price of bananas that is). Plus, whatever produce is on sale or in season. Also, whatever produce I can get "free"--grow, take someone's surplus that they would throw out, forage for (ethically with landowners permission), etc

For us, canned veggies are generally cheaper than raw. We do NOT buy the ones that are costly either way. That means that though I love asparagus it is a rare treat here. A couple times a year maybe. Ideally I would plant some....

Probalby one of the biggest factors--meat is eaten as an INGREDIENT of other dishes, not as a main dish. This means soup and casseroles are big things here. Roasts, etc are not. In fact, it is a rare day that we eat a "meat" meal here. We have soup generally at least twice a week and casseroles at least a couple times a week.

Another key....I don't tolerate "picky" eaters. It is simply not allowed here. Everyone has a limited number of dislikes. I don't cater to more than a couple per person and everyone is expected to eat whatever is served (keep in mind, the couple of most hated foods of each person are not served to the family as a general rule, they are saved for other meals when that person is not there or has another choice). If the food is not eaten (because the person decides they don't want to, dont' like it) then they would get served it the next meal. It doesn't get tested very often!

I prefer to bake my own breads, and prefer to do so from home ground grain. I'm not always able to do this. When I can't, we get the cheapest store bread though I don't care much for it (except for toast). All desserts are homebaked. Many times I will open a can of fruit for dessert instead. We need that nutrition anyway!

I don't buy many juices....they are guzzled down at a rate faster than the body can use here. We don't buy sodas, etc. Beverages are water, milk, and as a treat juice or koolaid. Hot chocolate is a regular--we make it ourself, not mixes. Coffee for dh daily, and a couple times a week for me. Tea from my herbs or loose bulk purchased mint.

We take the attitude that whatever food we are able to get, is food granted us by God. We dont' waste it. We don't complain about it. We are grateful that we have food--when many in the world do not.

We eat yummy meals! All home cooking (meals out are a VERY rare thing here....and usually only if treated by visiting relatives!)
If you have any more questions on this, feel free to holler!

This month I got back into the swing of the way I usually shop. We have spent $240 for the month and I dont need to shop again. We are alot like Patricia except I wont re-serve something for the next meal they dont like. I dont cater to them though. If they dont like it I keep it in mind. It's usually my son who has a texture thing about food. If I know he hates stuffing, I wont force him to eat it. But I will make plain white rice for him to eat. Every few months I make him re-try things he swears he hates. 90% of the time he will re-taste something months later and like it. We have had great success with this method. And find if we dont force them they are more receptive to trying new things or retrying things they didnt like. Now....if they just prefer not to eat something that they generally will eat, thats a different story. They dont have to eat it. But they wont get dessert or any treats for the rest of the evening. If they tell me their hungry I point to their half eaten plate. Its usually eaten. But if they dont then Dh will use what they dont eat for his lunch anyways. So its never wasted.
We are getting ready to garden so Im expecting my bill to drop a lil' lower. We dont use coupons very often cause no one here doubles them. We make alot of things from scratch. We feed 2 adults, 10 yo DS, 3 yo DD and 6m. old DD. Plus 4 cats now, 2 family memeber aleast 4 nights a week (men who cant cook lol). And I babysit a 4 yo during the week & I feed her as well. We do get WIC for DD for her formula (special formula for her that costs $20 a can). So that helps.
~Michele~

Hooray--someone else who doesn't tolerate picky eaters! My boys eat almost anything. People are amazed when they see them fighting over sauerkraut or raw broccoli!

A couple more tips on what we do that helps keep grocery costs down....

1. We buy "extras" (non nutritional treat type foods) only on rare occasions. This includes soda pop, koolaid, chips, store bought crackers, store bought cookies or desserts of any kind. To be totally truthful, I probably couldn't even tell you most of the foods in this category...we simply never buy them and I'm probably not even aware of half of what exists out there because of that. Soda pop I buy only for taking on a picnic, at peoples birthday, and to mix with some nasty medicine my son has to take (about 2 ounces of pop at a time). He used to have to take it DAILY and it was absolutely INTOLERABLE without the soda, lol. Chips are the same...we buy them only for picnics, or maybe for a birthday treat. Every two or three months I'll "treat" and buy the little thirty cent bag at the checkout lane. Koolaid is a rare treat. I actually have about a million packets of green koolaid here. Even though I have it, and got it literally almost free (about 2 cents a package) it is rarely used. Why? Sugar is pricey and unhealthy.It's empty calories and not good for our body or teeth. So, it's saved for an occasional (maybe once a week or every other week) treat in hot weather. Crackers we buy only on occasion--and only generic. Saltine generics are an exception. We do buy those fairly often to go with soup. I try to buy them on sale when they are two boxes for a buck. That's a pretty good deal for them. Would not be worth making them at home when I can purchase them for that price.

2. Desserts are always home baked treats. When choosing the recipe to try, carefully consider the cost. Cheesecake is ALWAYS going to cost more than say, a chocolate, white, or yellow cake. In my opinion, cheesecake is a "pricey" dessert...so again, it's an "unusual" treat around here...two or three times a year is a lot. Generally, we get our cheesecake "fix" when a family member takes us out to eat at an all you can eat buffet (the ones we go to have cheesecake on the buffet as dessert) or when someone brings them to church for the potluck, or we go out to some other event. Cakes are fairly inexpensive to make at home so long as you avoid recipes that call for the more costly ingredients. Any dessert that calls for nuts is obviously going to cost more unless you have a very cheap (better yet free) source of nuts. One thing that is important to helping your grocery budget---try to make your desserts have some kind of good nutritional value. Fruit in a dessert--say cobblers, pies, tarts, etc help accomplish this well. You then receive food value (vitamins, etc) from the fruit. Peanut butter, oatmeal, raisins, wheat germ, etc added to cookies do this as well. You get better value for your grocery dollar this way.

3. Another REALLY important key to saving on your groceries...
Even with getting convenience items on sale, and with coupons, I can usually make some kind of meal for less. It may not be the SAME thing (a copycat type of thing). It may be a completely different meal. A key towards saving is that you may eat different foods lots of the time saving those more expensive (cheesey, more expensive veggies, etc) for special meals, maybe once or twice a week at most (here less than that). Lots can be done with the less expensive stuff.

4. Learning to make main dishes without recipes really helps too....learn the "basics" preferably from an old-timey type cook....factor in a few things learned about health over recent years, learn to make your own adjustments to recipes and you'll save tons....

I spend around 75-150 a month for a family of 4. I have 1 in diapers.:toothy: :curtain: :hearts:

We spend on average $500 a month, which includes 2 adults, 3 kids (14, 12 and 10), 2 dogs and 2 cats. That includes all the non-food items as well (pet food, school supplies, beauty items,ect.) , plus any extra trips to the store for milk, or eggs, we run out of those a lot. I would love to see our bill go down, I just started sneaking powdered milk into our skim milk and so far no one seems to have noticed. The lowest place grocery wise around here is Super Walmart. I don't like shopping there, but they are the lowest prices around. The reason I don't like shopping there is my daughters' friends' father is the manager there, so she says things to me like " keep shopping there so my mom can buy a new car" I guess that irks me a bit. They eat out at least five nights a week and spend money like there is no tomorrow, so she makes comments to my daughter like "why don't you eat out more." Even if we had the money, in the long run I like eating at home, eating out is for special occasions, or if we are on vacation. Anyway, I got off track!

Laurie:mouse:

I only shop once a month because I have to go 30+ miles to the store. I don't buy bread or milk. I make all our bread and only get 1/2 & 1/2 cream for coffee. If I need milk I use powdered. I would say on meat and a few frozen veggies about $200

Wow, you guys really know how to shop. I am impressed. We spend for a family of 4 about $400/month, which includes food, paper products, shampoo, etc. I definitely have room for improvement. We do make most things from scratch, we bake our own bread, bake our sweet treats, etc.

I am looking forward to reading more in this forum.

yolo

For our family of four and a dog and guinea pig, we spend an average of 250.00 a month. That does not include paper or personal care products.

I have lowered my grocery bill considerably since becoming a SAHM and devouting more time to ads and coupons, rebates.

I am not one to skimp on meals with my family either. I use fresh and frozen produce and make my own bread now. My dh likes a nice cut of meat, so I try to make it to SAMS early for the reduced meat. I got nice sirloin steaks last week for 1.79 lb. I also got a beautiful porkloin for 1.59 lb.

We are not big dessert eaters so that saves some. I do like to make bar cookies or a nice fruit pie on occasion.

It is just Dh and I (we are in our early 20's). We try to average $150 a month. Last month we made a big aldis trip and so spent $170 for the month, but a lot of the food we bought should last for 3 or 4 months. So far for february we have spent less than $30 on food. Out average is probably lower than $150, but we also have a huge pantry.

We are spending around 120-180 a month for:
Diapers, formula, baby food, cokes, toiletries, and groceries, cat food, litter..paper products

We spend anywhere between 10-80 a month on take out foods.

This is for the two of us and our one baby.

This a great thread! Bumping up for the newbies, and also so I can reread it myself!