Grocery Budget - what's reasonable for 2 parents and infant? (credit, buy, house)
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But why are you even buying groceries? You can still buy "healthy" foods that are as good as home cooked, it won't be as cheap though.
But no matter how I cut it, if you just ate out everyday for a $5/lunch and $15/dinner then bought breakfast cereal, you could still come out at about $2k/month for 2 adults+kid....
4-person family, two boys - 17 year old and 11 year old. Both kids are swimmers, so eat a LOT, especially my 17 year old.
We buy meats at Costco - mostly organic chicken and beef, regular pork. Occasional wild caught salmon. We buy rice/pasta there as well - organic pasta, organic or regular rice.
Mostly organic fruits, veggies, breakfast cereals and dairy from a regular grocery store.
We spend $1000 on groceries a month, and I think it is high, but it's hard to cut back without switching to lower quality food. (I don't want to debate this here, but unless one of us loses the job and we need to go into a very frugal mode for a while, we will stick with organic meats and dairy and probably veggies, because I can see, taste and feel the difference).
We rarely eat out, maybe 1-2 a month during the school year, we do order a take out an additional 2-3 a month. These will be an additional $200-250 a month.
If you have a baby, a big chunk of that grocery bill is disposable diapers. You are sure that is just groceries and not the whole household budget?
If it is just groceries, you are paying a lot for groceries unless you must eat only the healthiest of organic products and all the fashionable items.
My family eats extremely well and I couldn't tell you how much I spend every month. That's because I buy in bulk and use what I buy stretched out over a long period of time. I don't bother to figure out what the 25 pound sack of rice is costing me by the month, or what I pay per month for the 80 pounds of beef shoulder that lasts for months.
I know I average somewhere between $100 and $80 a week for fresh vegetables, salad, and fruit, if that helps.
I'm going to have to dig in on this a little more. It does include some of the baby supplies (diapers, wipes) but it's definitely not the entire budget - I left out anything purchased at drug stores, home/garden stores, and Costco. I hadn't run this analysis since before we bought our house - at that point the biggest budget item was restaurants. Now it seems food+restaurant costs are consistently running more than the mortgage.
Hopefully you don't find what a neighbor did!
His wife was putting groceries on a CC and drawing cash with every transaction. She then gambled it all away.
Thousands down the drain, and he thought she was just spending too much at the grocery store.
I'm going to have to dig in on this a little more. It does include some of the baby supplies (diapers, wipes) but it's definitely not the entire budget - I left out anything purchased at drug stores, home/garden stores, and Costco. I hadn't run this analysis since before we bought our house - at that point the biggest budget item was restaurants. Now it seems food+restaurant costs are consistently running more than the mortgage.
If she's purchasing stuff at drug stores, Costco etc in addition to $500/week in groceries something seems off.
I've been reviewing our finances to see where our money is going now that we're a 1 income (stay at home mom) family. I noticed we're spending about $2,000/mo on groceries and another $600/mo eating out 1-2 times/week. Is this in the normal range? My wife does most of the grocery shopping...
two adults, 2 toddlers here....
$600/month for us. I like myself a good steak and burgers as well, so not being too cheap. That's for food only. Not counting things like diapers and household supplies.
Somebody is hitting the cash back button at the grocery store. NO WAY to possibly consume that much in food without exclusively eating specialty meats. We spend ~250 a month, but mostly eat chicken and veggies.
No, it's actually alarming that so much of our monthly budget is getting consumed this way. There are other things the money could go to but think what's going on here is food is one of the 'little luxuries' that's being held on to now that the restaurant budget has been cut. The transition down to 1 income hasn't been smooth at all and some of these habits from being 2 income are persistent. It wouldn't have been an issue a few years ago when we were both working but now it seems like a bit too much.
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