How much do you spend on food?

[Marianne]

We average around $225-250 a month at the grocery store for two of us. We eat out maybe twice a year and have a family dinner here about once a month. But I just spent almost $100 for vitamins and coconut oil, and another $30 for vanilla beans.

Animal chow is pricey, even homemade stuff, as I have three with special needs. I'm hitting at least $50 a month for 2 dogs, 5 indoor cats, 3 barn cats, 4 kittens that are eating solid food now, 2 hens and 8 teenage chicks. And I just ordered a bunch of flea/tick stuff, $125 there. Agh. Chicks can't free range yet as I don't think they're big enough to ward off one of the barn cats.

Gardening used to cost about $10 to put in, but this year I bought non-gmo seed, so spent about $20. I try to grow enough tomatoes, potatoes, onions, beets, beans, garlic, etc to last us until the next harvest - with the tomatoes being the most important. From those, I make ketchup, bbq sauce, stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, salsa, chili sauce, you name it. The garden is definitely the biggest money saver. This year I may have to buy lids, but that's a minor expense considering how much chow I end up with.

 

[abifae]

Sheesh. Mine is just me!! I feel like I'm wasting money LOL.

My roommate spends about half as much and lives on frozen pizzas.

 

[chickensducks&agoose]

We make around $36,000 when we're doing well, which is about $3000 a month. About $800 goes to food for the 5 of us, the 2 geese, 9 ducks, and 14 chickens, 1 dog and one cat, so about 26%. Our growing season is wicked short, so we have to buy most of our veggies at the store. We've saved a bit I think, by raising chickens last year for meat, we still have one or two left in the freezer.

 

[savingdogs]

Sheesh. Mine is just me!! I feel like I'm wasting money LOL.

My roommate spends about half as much and lives on frozen pizzas.

One person eating healthy can be expensive.

 

[Wifezilla]

Roy lives on garbage and usually feels like garbage. He is also making his brain cootie issue worse with his crappy diet.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/224447.php

 

[JRmom]

Just food, for my husband and I, I would guesstimate our average is around $50/week. Now, if I add in my garden expenses averaged over 12 months, that's probably another $5 or so per week. We very seldom eat out, maybe $100 year at most.

 

[Sunny]

We spend about $300 and there is 4 of us. We cant afford to spend any more. After rent and bills, its all we have left..

And that money dont go very far. You cant even buy hamburger here for under $2.70 a pound. Any other form of beef is more than $3.50 per pound. The cheapest chicken is 1.09 a pound. It is very hard to eat healthy with barely any money.

 

[mandieg4]

For 6 people, I spend around $400 a month on groceries, try to keep in under $100 a month eating out, and probably average around $150 a month on farm related stuff. Unfortunately our income is about to be drastically cut so our percentage will probably double. I'm going over and over our budget finding ways to cut costs everywhere but food. I simply cannot cut my food budget down any further (except the eating out part, but sometimes I need that for my sanity ).

 

[abifae]

True enough sd. I would rather spend more and be well than eat junk and have all those health issues.

 

[me&thegals]

I'd say we average around $50/week for a family of 4. In the summer, about May-Nov, it may be only $15/week. But, we occasionally have a huge output of $100 for meat processing (making venison into sausage, ring bologna) or fruit (peaches and pears), so that may not be a totally accurate average. We can actually go weeks with no $ spent at all, but DH works at a dairy farm mornings and gets free milk, and we have our own eggs and a lot of our own meat, grow a pile of our own veggies and fruit...

Before we had as much on our own, we easily spent $100/week, and that's when the kids were little. Cutting out processed foods (rarely buy cereal or crackers) and junk (no more soda, occasional chips) has helped a lot.

We can sometimes go up to a month without eating out, but I'd say our average restaurant money per month is $25-50. If traveling a lot, then more like $100.

I haven't factored in chicken feed costs, as our egg sales far and above cover that. Nor the food for the meat birds for same reason. I also don't count the garden costs, as we operate a CSA that far more than covers those costs.

It's a frugal life, but a hard-working one

I also forget the trips to Sam's club for nuts, oils, chocolate and cheese--which can easily top $200!