Reasonable Grocery Budget?

**dansamy** · 06-03-2010, 11:17 AM

What is a reasonable budget for 2 adults, 2 boys (11 and 8.5) and 1 girl (9)? I'm not including pets because I only buy one brand of dog food and I only feed the guinea pig fresh veggies/fruits and hay. With/without HBA/toiletries is fine.

We currently eat out a lot and it eats up all our "extra" income. I need to tame the grocery monster!

**Liane** · 06-03-2010, 11:40 AM

I grew up with a family of six of us all together. Your family size is about that, the boys probably eat a little more to get you close to six-lol. If I had to guesstimate, spending up to $100.00 a week on food alone could be a good goal. Now this is a guess on my part. Sometimes if you have food allergies or organic preferences that could go up a lot. There are supermarkets in every state that have sales and some double coupons. Make a list of your favorite take-out meals and buy what you need to make them at home. Then you won't be reaching for the take-out menus. There are so many options. Try a couple stores and see what suits you. Good luck.

**frugal is fun** · 06-03-2010, 11:55 AM

I was also going to say that $100 a week is a very good goal.

The Frugal Girl www.thefrugalgril.com has 3 kids, a bit younger than yours and her goal is $100 a week. It would be a good reference for you to check out her blog as she posts pictures of what she buys and she shares her menu for the week.

**Paws** · 06-03-2010, 11:58 AM

Yikes...grocery budget...an area that I MUST work on...I was shooting for a budget of no more than $75 for my family,(2 adults and 1 preteen), with 3 very large dogs.
A few weeks, I was actually able to stick to that and a small bit under, but for most weeks, I way over...yep, really need to work on this.

**dansamy** · 06-03-2010, 12:01 PM

Oh and the nearest Aldi's is 200+ miles away. So they're out. Think Super Walmart, Winn-Dixie, Publix and Sav-A-Lot.

**akolb** · 06-03-2010, 12:10 PM

don't forget about a local farmers market/produce stand!
it's not worth saving a few bucks if your family ends up eating processed junk instead of highly nutritious whole foods.

It might seem more expensive to buy organic/real foods but an apple and natural peanutbutter fills you up for much longer than say a packaged peanutbutter crackers and apple juice.

What you spend up front you will save in health costs later.

**Liane** · 06-03-2010, 12:21 PM

Love Super Walmart and have shopped at Publix when I went to Florida last year. Walmarts even carry organic food at a reasonable price.

**ms.mel.who** · 06-03-2010, 02:07 PM

I have a 6, 9 and 12 year old and strive to spend 125 or under. This is pretty doable. I also buy TP, detergent, dog food in this budget. I just started using emealz, and while the budget is about the same we are eating some yummy new stuff.

**MomToTwoBoys** · 06-03-2010, 09:56 PM

We have me, DH and our two sons. I spend about $250 every two weeks. I also live in Canada, which has a higher price for almost everything you can get in the US.

In that $250, I purchase things to eat at home for lunch. Even if it's a $4 pizza, it's better than spending $7 or more at the take-out place. I can also choose to eat half of that pizza today and half of it tomorrow. We have pretty good meals (a meat, side and veggie with something extra) but I imagine that we could do better.

I choose not to because we always end up ravenous and starving about half of an hour after dinner. We also just shifted off of a gluten-free diet so the price adjustment is taking us a bit. I just wish we could spend way less and get more, but alas, we don't live in Couponville like it is in the US.

**Dancing Lotus** · 06-03-2010, 10:22 PM

I don't think anyone can answer this for you. How much you spend depends on where you live and your familys eating habits. What one person can do may not even be possible for you. I have a family of 4 and we spent 100 a week but it caught up to me. I paid a heavy price for all that cheap food. Now that I eat for health I spend about 150.00 a week.

**mamamia** · 06-04-2010, 01:43 AM

Well, the 1st thing I would do is set up a plant to build a stockpile. You mention going out to eat alot. Why not take the money you would have used to go out, and use it for that purpose? You probably don't have to COMPLETELY give up going out, but even if you took $40 a week for stocking sale items and loss leaders, you would have yourself a great built up pantry in about 6-8 weeks. And THEN it's at that point you can easily get by on about $70 a week, because when you reach a certain point, you're only shopping to replace what's getting low.

Now I'm not sure what you mean by eating out "alot", but with the 5 of you, I'm sure it's gotta cost you about $40 for just one night out, no?

But anyway, I feed 6 (4 teens), and I now spend about $60 a week. But that's only possible because of my stockpile routine. We have no coupon doublers here, but if you do, you can do even better! It's truly the best way to "tame that grocery monster".

So take a look at the Challenge threads here on FV, especially the Grocery Challenge, and the Coupon Challenge. If you'd like a list of links for looking up deals in your area, and printing coupons, please PM me. I'll be happy to send you the ones I get great deals from.

HTHs!

Theresa

**Lora88** · 06-04-2010, 07:09 AM

We are three adults dh ds 21 and me 2 dogs one huge one tiny I never get way under 150.00 a week butt that includes dog food and hba which is minimal as son buys his own toliettries This also includes laundry cleaning supplies I do hit different stores for sales which may not be possible if you work and dont have time We rarely eat out dh and ds take lunch to work almost every day I am finding food to be going up and its getting harder to keep at this number

**Lady_V** · 06-04-2010, 08:01 AM

I agree that there is no black and white when it comes to grocery costs. Different areas have different prices.

The thing that helped me was stop looking at groceries as a weekly expense. I put my monthly money aside and buy my meats on sale, in bulk (I cut and bag it myself once I get home).

Doing it that way, I was able to get almost 2 months worth of beef and pork for around $40 (I posted about it on here with totals and how much I got out of it). Instead of individual pork chops and roasts, I bought a pork loin and made my own. Same with the ground beef.

The meat department usually has long pork loins out, but sometimes you have to ask. I know I have my 10 lb 'ground meat log' made to order for me.

The store I shop at doesn't double or accept printed coupons. There really isn't much that I buy that would have a coupon because we're not afraid of generic/store brand.

Almost everything that can be bought in a box can be made at home, the ingredients may cost a bit more upfront, but you can make much more for less.

For example, a box of Hamburger Helper is $2, the store brands are usually $1... but with this recipe, it would be MUCH less, and you would have the ingredients available for other recipes.