How Much Money Do You Spend Grocery Shopping???

Hi
I just want to point out, it's not necessarily what you are doing wrong, your kids are growing and therefore will eventually want and need more food... so you can well imagine what used to be one piece of something might now turn into two and so on...

I don't have a specific number to give to you but will say to save, I do buy things that are IN season... those are always cheapest .. Additionally, IF you buy bigger cuts of something (that is IF you eat meat) that is usually cheaper .. e.g. cut up a chicken yourself as oppose to buying it that way..
Also, I will make my own pasta sauce and then freeze it.. using it for things like Lasagne, Pasta and whatever else I can think of.. often, people will buy jarred sauce and that doesn't go far and it costs more..

Also, I don't buy things like soda and processed juice << those I believe are junk and although seem cheap (esp soda) they add up.... oh and NO sports/power drinks.. I know many people drink tons of beverages with ALL their meals. we do not.. only water..

Lastly, I don't buy junk food.. no chips or other prepacked stuff. << those are what really get expensive.. and IF we do eat cereal, it's Cheerios NOT a sugary cereal, again those costs way more and usually don't come in a big box.. which leads me to , you can buy some things in bulk and that will be less expensive..

best of luck :)

2 moms found this helpful

I'm at the grocery almost daily for fresh fruits and veggies. Each of those trips are $25-$50.

I go to my local butcher about once every 8 weeks and buy top quality meats as in prime steaks, good pork and his home made Italian sausages. I spend about $200 when I shop with him. The steaks I purchase from him are the same quality as you pay $50 for at a 5 star restaurant. Each steak runs $10-$17 depending on the cut but it is very much worth it.

I go to Costco about once every 3 months and spend about $500 stocking up on our favorites. I like to purchase the salmon, chicken breasts, lamb frozen veggies, butter, cheese, TP/paper towels/napkins, clorox, etc from Costco.

I make a homemade marinarra sauce and keep some in the fridge. We eat a lot of pasta and salads, steaks about once a week and chicken.

We are a family of 3.

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I spend about $250-$300 a WEEK these days and I do not know what is going on. We eat pretty heathly I would say, so there is a little more expense there to do so. We do have to send a lunch every day with the kids to school & hubby & I take lunch to work daily. I find I am not throwing out unused food like I use to, BUT I wish I wasn't spending so much!! We usually only dine out on Saturday's as a family and I tend to get the kids fast food one night a week (when I just need a little break).

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We spend about $200+ a week. I know thats a lot but there are six of us and we eat all natural unprocessed some organic. I think it is rediculouse that its so expensive to eat healthy!

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We spend about $100/week for our family of four including meats. I am able to do this because I am a coupon NUT! Last trip I saved just under $40 on my bill using coupons. I have a stockpile of coupons!
Also, the other thing I found that saves us money is planning meals ahead. Im a compulsive shopper (i admit it!), so if I go in more than once a week, I will pick up other things here and there and before you know it, the carriage is full and I am wondering how the heck I spent X amount when I only came in for milk...
SO, plan ahead, look for sales, and look for coupons to match with those sales!!

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We spend about $300 every 2 weeks, including diapers, toiletries, etc for our family of 5.

I keep a list going until we go shopping, then we (try really hard to) stick to the list! We usually get 2 gallons of milk, 2 large bricks of cheese (and on and on) so we don't have to go to the stores every 3 days. We do make a run for fresh fruits and veggies as we need them though. And if something we use often goes on sale, we stock up. For example, the bread we normally buy went on sale for $1 per loaf so we bought 6 and chucked them in the freezer.

We don't get many coupons in my area, but I scour the weekly grocery flyers for the best prices on what we need. Sometimes that means shopping at 3 different stores, but it's usually worth it.

Oh, and we tried the whole 'plan a weeks worth of dinners and shop accordingly' thing and it actually ended up costing us MORE money because we were buying multiple specific items. When we buy the stuff we run out of, our bill is a little less. Our dinner options may not be *super* diverse, but we don't mind so much.

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For a family of 5 (soon to be 6), our budget calls for $400 per month whether it's a 4 or 5 week month! I'm also able to spend $100 on toiletries, doctor co-pays, and the very occasional treat through the drive-thru for a $1 burger for the kids! I'm in charge of keeping track.

I shop the circulars and clip coupons (which a friend and I trade), and my new favorite store is Aldi (owned by Trader Joe's).

Best of luck!

1 mom found this helpful

I grocery shop twice a month and we are also a family of 4. We don't eat out so every meal is at home. Before going to the grocery store I plan out my meals ahead of time, but when I have the extra money I stock up on meat when I find a good deal. Including meals and all the household items like toilet paper and laundry detergent and toothpaste and all that good stuff, we spend about $250 to $300 each trip. I am now clipping coupons to see what affect it has on my grocery bill. If you have guests over, I can usually make meatloaf, mashed potatoes and a veggie. The extra meat comes in handy. I try and cook homemade if I can, but sometimes it is easy to throw in a already made lasagna for dinner and I make garlic bread. Anyhow, I hope this helps you.

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About $100 every week when we don't entertain or need large ticket items (dog food, our bulk TP and laundry detergent).
I do use coupons.com (or coupon diva) and I load coupons onto my store card so I don't have to print, remember to take .
Recently I did take the "walmart" challenge (we typically go to kroger) and I spent about $20 less on the necessities and I think I will start looking at their fliers a little more often to see what they have on sale, etc. With the exception of their whole bean coffee offerings and last minute needs, Wally World was a great cost saver!

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We spend $130 every week for our family of 5 (three adults and two boys under 6)- we have a strict budget and have learned to work within it. We choose things that are on sale to make our dollars go father and don't buy based on impulse- we create menus according to sales. Also, we go shopping 4-5 times per week, we only buy what we need for the day's dinner or the pantry. Doing this we are able to buy more fresh, wholesome foods without worrying that it'll go bad. And you can use what ever ingredients you have left over from tonites dinner prep (like veggies or grains) and plan for the next nite to utillize your food and budget more effiently. It's kinda fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants cook and food planning, but it works well for us.

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We get a 10% employee discount from Wal-Mart and sometimes use coupons. Big shopping trips cost around $170 and only happen maybe once a month. We're a family of 3 with 3 pets and frequent quests. Each of us a strong appetite and a sweet tooth.

Larger packages of food last longer than the smaller ones, so we always get a lot of food at once to last for weeks.

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Well it is hard to say if you could get more bang for your buck since you don't say how much you spend. You could be doing better than the rest of us as is. We spend around $150.00 every week. This includes groceries, toiletries, personal hygiene products, all baby products, home maintenance and the stuff needed for 2 cats, a dog and a bunch of fish (it also may or may not include clothing and gifts depending where I am shopping). We are a family of 4. I don't use coupons (I have decided I am going to try...I got a Sunday paper this week and there was one coupon I would use so that was a huge waste; I will try again next week but I have a feeling I won't have much luck). I do try to plan my meals in advance and sometimes try to use what the local grocery store has on sale. We are a one income family. My husband comes home for lunch so I end up preparing at least 2 meals a day 7 days a week. It would be nice to be able to save some money but I am not willing to use inferior ingredients or prepare something my family will not eat just because it was on sale one week and I don't really have a lot of room to store bulk purchases (I do purchase paper products in bulk) plus I like to buy earth friendly if at all possible and that is usually more expensive. Overall we are happy with the budget of $150 per week and think it is pretty good when we consider all that it covers. Good luck. I hope you get some good tips so I can possibly implement them as well.

1 mom found this helpful

We spend about $200 every 7-10 days... and that's a family of 4 1/2 (me, fiance, 7 and 5 year olds, and a baby)... I use coupons like a crazy lady. I never buy things that aren't on my list (even if it's on sale, it's probably still a splurge)... I try to get big ticket items (like bags of frozen chicken) when they're on sale for buy one get one free (hello! that's $13 in my pocket!!)... I try to plan out our dinners in advance, write down what I need for those recipes (and I usually won't buy the perishables until the day of or the day before I make something)... it helps keep me on track, and I don't throw out/waste any food. My fiance and I don't eat leftovers, but the kids do!! I also freeze what I can if I make a lot of something (like soups, stews, chili, meatloaf, etc) so it doesn't go bad before we eat it, and it's also nice being able to pull something home made out of the freezer!! Good luck, I hope some of this helped :)

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Usually about $200 every 2 weeks or so. I don't cook very much, though, so we eat a lot of non-meals (I'm perfectly happy to have cereal for dinner, hubby loves Beefaroni). I do cook sometimes, so it's about a split between those two.

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**It's hard to say if you are outside the average! How much do you spend on the big shopping trip? How much more do you spend on the other little trips?

I have budgeted $150/week for grocery/household items, we are a family of four. I am not really a coupon shopper. Sometimes its a little less, sometimes a little more. This includes preplanning for meals anticipating that we may eat out 1x/week.
In our area, without driving an hour to a bigger city, the only option is walmart super center. Not ridiculously priced, and I can get household and grocery stuff at the same time. I just wish I had better access to whole foods and more organic choices!

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I spend for about $120 the first or major week when all is low or out and then after that $85 every other week on every day stuff we use and need to replenish.

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For a fam of 5 - I am about$100 to $150 a week. Thats not including diapers, formula, or a Sam's run.

We use coupons too.

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We have 5 in our house- 3 kids,2 adults. I spend about 200.00 every two weeks and on the in between weeks I will spend another 50.00 on staple items and drinks. (My kids drink soooo much!!) You dont say what you spend or where you shop but changing stores helped me save money. I try not to shop at Wal Mart- I know it is much cheaper there but you wont pick up all that "extra" stuff if you shop elsewhere. So, now I shop at HEB and some items cost a little more but I still spend less because I really think about what Im purchasing and I only buy the things we need- not all that extra "junk". And I use coupons

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I spend roughly $300-400 a month for a family of 5 (& we have a dog and cat) for just food. We do ALOT of shopping at Sam's Club to get good deals and I would definately recommend a chest type freezer for extra storage. We keep one in the basement and without that I don't know how we would get through! I also shop about once a week but every other week is the bigger week with the opposite being just the staples along with fresh fruits and veggies.

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We have 4 in our household, sometimes 5. I spend about $150 every week. Which includes toilet paper, napkins, dog food, cat food for 3, diapers/wipes, etc. That said my hubby, son and I all take lunches daily too so we don't spend the extra on that and we rarely eat out b/c of where we live. What I have found that helps me is to make a menu for the week for dinners, then I buy my groceries according to our menu. It helpe me to not buy the things we don't need.

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It is hard for me to answer that question because for us it changes month to month. In the summer we subscribe to a CSA (where a farmer brings us a share of what he's raised) for our produce. It is $17/week. We also buy our lamb "off the hoof" and bought 2 last year, which was (I think) about $250. Weekly, we probably spend about $60 or so, unless we have company. I subscribe to the Grocery Game (www.thegrocerygame.com) where they tell you what coupons are available for food on special at your supermaket each week. So I try to stock up when things are on really good special-- last night I saved $60 on a $125 grocery bill with coupons and store specials. Would have saved more, but I bought some convenience food for lunches at work and there weren't any coupon for them. Moneysavingmom.com has weekly deals at all the drugstores too-- I haven't paid for contact solution or toothpaste in years. In fact, I donate probably 50 tubes of toothpaste to local shelters each year because I get so much free. We have a big freezer in the baseement and shop at Costco for TP, paper towels, etc. but I also try to use cloth as much as possible. My son wears disposable diapers to daycare, but cloth at home. We try to eat as much organic/ locally sourced as possible and I'm picky about what chemicals I will use to clean the house/our bodies, so there are times I'm not willing to buy the cheapest thing. However, contact solution is contact solution, right? So why pay for it?

All this depends, of course, on having the time to "work" for these deals. You pay either way-- time, or money, right? :-)