Grocery Shopping

[RIP - VTEnviro]

So I was having a conversation with a coworker earlier, complaining about how much groceries cost each week. When I mentioned what we spent, she looked at me like I had two heads. We spend $160-170 per week in one trip to the supermarket, and that feeds 2 adults breakfast, lunch and dinner for a full week. I guess it seems like a lot of you go out to eat all the time, or pick stuff up every night after work. But it breaks down to less than $25/day for 2 people, which isn't bad, and I can't think of any other ways I could be cutting down on stuff, the fridge is empty by week's end.

So I am curious to see what others are spending. Obviously some people live in more or less expensive areas, but I'm just looking to get an idea.

 

[Supe]

We (read: Supe) spend about $350/mo for two adults and one child. I don't really eat breakfast or lunch at home, and the more we try to cook meals or eat healthy, the more those costs climb.

 

[snickerd3]

depends on the week and what the pantry looks like. If we need canned goods and/or basic supplies like paper towels, soap, etc... it is usually around $100/wk, othertimes it is less than $50 (usually just perishable food like meat fruits and veggies)

 

[Master slacker]

We typically spend less than $400 per month (typically $70 to $100 per week) for groceries. This includes EVERYTHING from the store, not just food. This feeds the wifey-wife and myself. Mini-MS depends on the w-w for nutrition... so I guess that bill is for two adults and one baby.

 

[roadwreck]

We probably spend $80 a week on groceries. That's 2 adults; breakfast, lunch & dinner for the week.

 

[Road Guy]

too damn much, 2 adults, 3 kids,, i cant seem to get out of publix with less than $100 each time we go (couple times a week cause we plan poorly)

 

[goodal]

no less than $150 a week for 2 adults and 3 kids. we dont eat out much and get quite a bit from our garden. oh and also have a quarter of a cow in the freezer.

 

[Chucktown PE]

We have a family of four. Mini-Chucktown and Little Miss Chucktown together eat about 1 adult serving.

I track our expenses obsessively with Quicken. For everything we buy at the grocery store, which includes diapers for Little Miss Chucktown, laundry detergent, dish washing detergent, etc. we spend about $750 per month. Mrs. Chucktown has gotten in to super couponing and that has trimmed our number by at least $250 a month. Towards the end of 2009 we were spending $1000 a month.

Mrs. Chucktown now plans all of our meals in advance for the week and we eat most everything fresh. No processed foods except for she'll occasionally make the kids Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

 

[roadwreck]

I think my wife and I may be a bit (very) OCD when it comes to grocery shopping. Each week I will go through the grocery store circular and make a list of what is on sale at two different local supermarkets. I give the list to my wife and she uses it to put together a menu for the week and a grocery list for each store. Then I get one list and go to one store and she takes the other list and goes to the other store. People look at us like we are crazy when we tell them what we do. But it doesn't take a whole lot of time, we keep costs down and since we have everything planned out we only go to the store once a week.

If I go into a grocery store without a list I could easily walk out having spent $100, instead of the $35-$40 I typically spend with a list.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

The Stop and Shop by us is probably not the cheapest place around, but it's right down the street. But we tried a Shaw's 15 minutes away and spent more on groceries, and wasted more time and gas, so we hit the S&S.

We make a list of all the food we need based on picking recipes out of cookbooks for the week, and non-food (garbage bags, laundry soap, etc.) items that we need based on what we are out of. So there's nothing extraneous on it. If there's anything left at the end of the week, we try to give it to the dogs rather than toss it.

Most of the stuff we get is fresh produce, meat, and dairy. We get very few processed items. So the fresh stuff is more expensive and drives up the cost. I also wonder if we pay more in New England for certain fruits and veggies than you folks in warmer climates do. I don't think we get lots of local stuff and it costs money to ship it.

 

[snickerd3]

I'd love to have a menu plan for the week, but a. 2 of the 3 stores in town don't have ads and b. mr snick doesn't like that idea. I've tried. So we just have lots of choice on hand and decide each night.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

We have it pretty well planned out...

Saturday night we had cornbread crusted chicken with roasted red bell pepper sauce

Sunday we had planked salmon with blackberry glaze on the grill.

and last night we had an Indian style chicken and tomato dish, a mushroom and zucchini dish on the side, and homemade naan. I'd marry my wife for the naan alone.

Saturday and Monday made leftovers for another night, and we have one other thing (I forget) on the menu for Wed and Fri.

Take the guess work out of things, and you know you won't be missing any ingredient halfway through cooking it.

 

[Chucktown PE]

I also forgot to mention that I have quite a bid of seafood that I freeze as well. We have about 40 pounds of shrimp frozen which will last us most of the year eating 1 lb a week. I need to get a chest freezer to hold all of my catch.

 

[mizzoueng]

Wifey is a couponing queen, so we plan our meals out the best we can weekly and she hits up the store the week before. We can typically get by with breakfast, lunch, and dinner for Wifey, me, and mini-mizzou for under $25/week.

Wifey rolls deals and coupons, one of the stores here has a $10 off $50 total on Thursdays and another store will match that to stay competitive. She can typically save 50-75%. She also has a blog teaching how to do this, if anyone wants to know PM me.

 

[Shanks]

We're just two and we regularly eat breakfast and lunch. I work close to home and wifey is about to finish school so for now we try to eat home. Our dinners could be light sometime, well that happens if our evening snack is heavy. I eat out once a week with my colleagues (to celebrate Fridays) and over the weekend we usually go out once...

I am a budget control freak so I track every damn spending on Mint...we've monthly budget of $200 for grocery (only foods), $100 for eating out and $50 for other household stuffs (tissues, cleaning items etc.). The $200 budget for food sometimes go up by $50 something but everything else stays around or under the budget. We have a membership of Sams, so we do bulk shopping in there and we limit the trips to superstores only twice a month. For sure I might have to make one or two trips to local farm store just for milk/breads/eggs but I've experienced it personally that less trips to superstores keeps a rein on the budget.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

I also forgot to mention that I have quite a bid of seafood that I freeze as well. We have about 40 pounds of shrimp frozen which will last us most of the year eating 1 lb a week. I need to get a chest freezer to hold all of my catch.

That's awesome. I love shrimp, but not the price. They do have lobster for $5.99/lb here though this week.

 

[Supe]

I haven't seen a lobster tank since I left Texas

 

[Chucktown PE]

I also forgot to mention that I have quite a bid of seafood that I freeze as well. We have about 40 pounds of shrimp frozen which will last us most of the year eating 1 lb a week. I need to get a chest freezer to hold all of my catch.

That's awesome. I love shrimp, but not the price. They do have lobster for $5.99/lb here though this week.

Little bro and I caught 120 lbs of shrimp over two nights back in October. After we headed them that ended up being about 80 lbs. I think we gave away about 20 lbs from that weekend so we each ended up with about 30lbs to keep. I made about 5 more trips and ended up freezing another 20 lbs or so. Mrs. Chucktown is bummed because we only have about 15 lbs left to last us until September when shrimping season opens back up.

But the trout bite is heating up so hopefully we'll be eating trout for a few weekends.

 

[Dexman PE]

I budget about $100/wk for food. Most of it is spent at the grocery store, but I typically go to the sandwich shop in the building for lunch (~$30/wk). Sometimes we spend a little more, sometimes a little less.

 

[MechGuy]

Family of 5 here, and we usually spend anywhere from $150-200/week for everything at the grocery store (including diapers and formula). It seems really high to me, but I can't seem to get my wife to do the menu planning or coupon thing. I think we could trim it down a bit with a little work, but its been hard trying to get the planning down.