Monthly Food Budget
I am trying to get a handle on our monthly food/eating out expenses. I have set a budget of $600 for groceries (including paper products and cleaning supplies) and eating out. I tentatively planned on $400 for groceries ($100 a week) and $200 for eating out ($50 a week). Since I set this "pretend" budget last October, we have stuck to it exactly ZERO times!! The closest we have gotten is around $800 and I would say the majority of the months are in the $800 range (b/w $800-$900)
So I am curious if you have a food/eating out budget, what is it and do you find it hard to stick to? I try to shop sales and use coupons (stock up on meat when it is on sale, etc), but I do have a few items I buy organic (milk, yogurt, apples and pears). I know we can probably cut back on eating out, but most weeks, we eat out dinner once and lunch once, which of course, puts us over $50.
I am wondering if $600 a month for all of the above is just not realistic for a family of four (without drastically cutting back) and maybe $800 a month is more practical?
Any insight/advice/tips you could offer is greatly appreciated!
Re: Monthly Food Budget
Wowsers! I'm interested to hear what others have to say. I know we are on the cheaper end of the spectrum but for some reason those numbers shock me
We buy the same things organic as you do except I don't eat pears. For meat we stick mainly to chicken and ground turkey with the occasional pork tenderloin or pot roast. Those I usually get on sale.
That said L is just starting table food so I'm interested to see how much our food costs increase.
We spend about $500/month on groceries, household (paper/cleaning), personal care (shaving, bath stuff), pet (cat/dog food, litter) eating out, and diapers.
I am really careful about our grocery budget. We stock up during sales, and I work really hard to use what's in our pantry. Usually 1 week/month I only buy fresh milk & fruit, and I'm always surprised what I can make from my stock.
I shop at Aldi about once a month to stock up on my basics like baking products, spices and canned goods. Their prices often beat grocery store coupon deals. If we run out of something, like diapers, I will check Southern Savers and try to shop where the price is best that week. If its not on sale, I will almost always buy generic.
We don't get many snack foods, or soda or juice. I buy a big bag of popcorn kernels and we snack on that. We make sweet tea or drink water. I do buy goldfish, fruit snacks, crackers etc for Caleb to snack on.
A lot of our meals include cheaper staples like rice, beans, pasta, ground turkey, potatoes etc. We don't buy any beef, I find it too pricey and we don't really care for it. I get chicken on sale and will splurge on pork chops sometimes. We buy lots of fresh fruit for Caleb, and otherwise mostly frozen veggies. I will buy fresh peppers, onions, carrots - but for the most part I use fresh veggies for 1 meal and waste the rest, so its not sensible for our budget.
We rarely eat at a sit down restaurant, and try to limit the lunches we eat out. We often eat off the $ menu if we do fast food, and also use coupons on that. Sometimes we eat at Cici's with a coupon, plus Caleb is free!
I think any budget is possible if you really work at it. Try cutting out the "extras" in your budget and see how the little changes help. Also, you could take out $400 cash/month and spend it on groceries until its gone.
Yeah, I guess they would be shocking ;-) I don't know if two kids make that much of a difference, but my one year old eats like a five year old, so we are in trouble when he is a teenager ;-)
I only buy chicken and ground turkey too, not beef or pork.
Thanks!
I think it's possible. We spend about $120/week on groceries, toiletries, cleaning products, etc (pretty much everything you can get at Walmart). It used to be less, but we've noticed a drastic increase in prices lately even though we're buying the same things. I don't coupon, and don't shop sales anywhere (other than meat), we just buy everything at Walmart. For meat, we usually hit up the meat market for whatever they have on sale, buy in bulk and freeze.
And I would say that we probably spend about $50/week eating out, although I don't add it up every week. But when we eat out, we eat cheap. All 3 of us can eat Mexican for less than $20. Or we'll get a $10 pizza. Breakfast at Bojangles for $10, you get the picture.
We're not really on a set budget for food, but I'm sure if we were a little bit more careful, we could easily do $600/month. Especially if you took toiletries, cleaning supplies, and other non-food items out of the equation.
Thanks for the tips! I do think the eating out is what is getting us. I looked at our budget for September and we have spent $200 on eating out and $265 for groceries. Not bad for either, but I know we will probably eat out this weekend. Our problem is we go to sit down restaurants, usually order at least one beer each and never ever get out for under $50 (even at a Mexican restaurant, our bill with tip is around $35).
I like the cash idea for groceries, sounds like we need to do it for eating out ;-)
Thanks!
Just to make sure I wasn't crazy, I went to my online banking just now and pulled all of our eating related transactions from last month.
$821 but that included a week long vacation to the OBX so I know we are probably closer to $400ish/ month most months.
That said I bet your area is more expensive and I think Mikey is right we have noticed that some of the same stuff is definitely more expensive now.
DH's OJ used to be $3.00 no matter where we bought it but I've seen it as high as $3.48 lately.
I do cash so I stay on budget. For our family of four soon to be five (a grandparent lives with us) does $400 in grocery (including paper products and cleaning supplies) and $100 in out to eat. It is hard but doable!!!
I use coupons and a lot of planning!!!
TTC since Jan '10 and five heavenly children
May 13th= 1st Beta 325 (16DPO) & May 16th= 2nd Beta 1045
Going out to eat is a budget killer. We don't do it often at all because of where we live in relation to food i.e. BFE so 95% of our meals are at home. I eat leftovers for lunch most days.
YES!! I have noticed an increase too!! I buy ground turkey from Lowes every week and it was $2.99 (the 93%) kind, then it went up to $3.29, then $3.79 and now it just jumped to over $4!! Ashley's yogurt has gone up too and I noticed eggs just jumped up to almost $2 a dozen recently too.
We do include cleaning supplies and paper products in our grocery "budget" but not toiletries. I think it is doable too, if we cut back on where/how often we eat out.
Thanks Mikey!
Yes and especially in this area! We have so many good restaurants and even going out for lunch is pricey (to eat at a local restaurant). And you are right, I think this area is a little higher than other areas, probably because of all those rich retirees ;-)
Wow! $100 for eating out, that is impressive! $400 for groceries is great, that is my goal for my family of 4. I think you are right, planning is key, thanks!
Is there an Aldi in your area? Frozen ground turkey (85%) is less than $2 per pound.
No, we don't even have a Target here :-( I do almost all my shopping at Lowes Foods and do buy some things at Harris Teeter (depending on the sales/coupons) and Walmart. I always buy the 93% which is a little higher, but I will look at the 85% kind, I cannot justify paying over $4 now, I just looked at my receipt and it is $4.29.
I loathe Lowes. We do all of our shopping at HT and WM. Lowes is more expensive than HT IMO.
At WM it is less than $4/lb.
You know, a friend of mine told me that too. I love Lowes because it is two minutes from my house and I love their Full Circle (organic brands). They just opened a brand new HT yesterday near us, so I may need to start shopping there more, especially since they sent me several $10 off coupons. Although Lowes just did the same thing, they must have been preparing for their new competition ;-)
That does seem a bit high to me, but I understand how it can get away from you if you're not super diligent about it.
I prefer HT to Lowes. I try to shop the sales at HT & get whatever else I need at Walmart if I'm going to be near there. I do shop a lot at HT b/c it's only 2 minutes from my house, but with their sales & coupons I can generally do pretty well.
Food prices have gone up significantly recently! I went to buy a 2lb block of mozz cheese at WM yesterday. Typically it's right under $7 and it was almost $10 yesterday!
So I'm not really adding a lot here, just wanted to give my $0.02
To make you feel better, our family of 4 spends $160-$180/week on groceries. We don't buy boxed meals (other than organic mac & cheese for the girls lunch) and buy a lot of fresh produce and organic or all natural food so it adds up. We also don't eat red meat -- pretty much just ground turkey, chicken, pork and fish. That doesn't include the $100/every two weeks I spend on paper products.
But we also eat dinner at home 7 days week and only eat lunch out maybe once a week if that.
I'm no help because I stink at this too. Just wanted to commiserate. I'm right there with you. We hardly ever make it in at under $600+ for groceries alone. But we do red meat, so that may be hurting us. Plus there is no Walmart nearby. I usually do farmers market (once/week) + Costco (every other week for meat) and then a stop by Food Lion here or there for extra milk & bread & cereal.
Also, we don't eat boxed meals at all either. I do meal plan though so maybe that helps?
We also plan meals ahead of time and buy only what we need.
One more thing and then I'm going away
When I meal plan I plan around what is already on sale. If it isn't on sale then we aren't eating it that week.
For example, the local HT has pork tenderloins on sale this week. Sweet! That is totally on our menu now for this week and next week plus it makes good leftovers.
Ok, so you probably already do this but yea I'm avoiding the work on my desk
I also wanted to reiterate using a meat market if you can. We have a great one right by our house that has high quality meats (even organic) and are always running a sale on something. Especially if you have a big freezer and can buy in bulk. For instance, we'll go buy 10 lb of pork when it's on sale (he'll cut it for us for free) and freeze it. It's SO much cheaper that way, even cheaper than finding it in grocery stores on sale. Plus it's higher quality and local meat, so win-win really.
The only meat we don't buy there is ground beef, which we don't eat much of. For some reason that's the only thing that he doesn't have for less than the g-store and since we're usually cooking it in something (ie, spaghetti) you can't tell the difference.
So it might be worth looking into, I always assumed it would be more expensive to buy our meat there, but it has really saved us money. Plus we're getting better quality and supporting a local business and local farms.
WOW! What in the world could you be buying to spend that much on paper stuff every 2 weeks?!?!
Ha! I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this was crazy as well. Please do tell because $200/month in paper products seems high.
Should have clarified that included other household items (detergent, shampoo, etc.) and just the random stuff I have to pickup for around the house. I don't itemize my expenses weekly to give you a specific number for just paper products.
Racey only buys paper products made with gold thread:)
Ahhh that makes sense! I was WTH are they doing at their house...eating TP and paper towels for snack? Got it! Thanks for the laugh
Makes so much more sense now
ECUPirate I had to laugh at that cuz i caught an episode on TLC of the my strange addictions and the one lady eats toliet paper.
Since DD was born, we've really cut down on our eating out. We used to eat out at least 1X a week. So DH & I were not good examples of saving $$.
However, in terms of groceries, we generally spend around $350 - $400/month. We have a chest freezer and get our meat at BJs wholesale. DH loves his red meat, and we can get beef tenderloin around $5/lbs when it's on sale. We re-package it with our food saver into single-sized portions. We save lot of $$ going this route. We also stock up on paper products at BJs when we have coupons for them. Generally, we just buy our fruits, veggies, and dairy products at Lowes every week.