How much will you spend on food every month?!?!

[Felsen]

My wife and I have worked up a budget for ourselves.  It is for 2 adults, a 2-year old, and a 1-month old.  We budgeted about $450 for groceries, and $80 for eating out.  The groceries amount includes other little things like toiletries, cleaning supplies, and similar items you just pick up at the grocery store when you're getting groceries.  We are meeting that budget without much scrimping.

When I was a single college student 7 years ago, I probably lived off of $150 per month for groceries.  If you use a lot of pasta and rice in your diet, you can keep your prices pretty low.  Eating puts a serious dent in your food budget.

If you eat out at McDonald's on the Meal Deals 3 times a day, you spend about $450 a month (3 meals * $5 * 30 days).  If you spend more than that on groceries, you'd better be feeding more people than just yourself.

[tacojohn]

I would say between $300 and $600.  You might be able to do the $200 a month thing above, but I would like to see exactly what was being bought.  I tend to shop at the higher-end grocery store and tend to buy higher-end stuff (like ground sirloin for burgers instead of ground round, etc.), and tend to eat out a lot so mine is probably near the high end of that estimate.

The eating out/carry out vs. cooking thing was explained to me this way: if you decide to cook a lot, you can either spend a lot less money and eat at basically the same quality of carry-out food, or spend about the same money and eat gourmet.  Obviously you can do something in between.

As far as the $40/week debate, that takes an extraordinary amount of discipline to do it week in, week out.  You cannot eat out at all.  You have to get a lot of stuff on sale.  You have to cook everything from scratch.  You'll have to buy in bulk, or family-size sometimes and ensure that you'll use it.  Typhoon, you may be used to working all day and coming home and cooking since it sounds like you're married.  But for a lot of people fresh out of college, it gets hard.  When finals rolled around, the most cooking I did was boiling water and making pasta, along with heating up some sauce.  I ate out and ate carry-out a lot.

[likewise]

For one person, I'd say $40 a week on groceries is reasonable; this doesn't include eating out.  Expect a much larger grocery bill when you first start setting up your kitchen - things like oil, aluminum foil, and other kitchen items add up.  There are cost efficiencies with more people sharing the same grocery shopping, so that might bring down your individual costs.

that is rediculous.  no way a normal person can average <$200/month over the course of a year.
< $6/day everyday for a year?

I disagree.  In most areas of the country, you could feed a family of four on not much more than $200 a month.  In fact, I shopped for a group home with 13 residents on a budget of ca. $600/month and provided well-balanced meals for all each day! 

Budgeting requires that you 1) buy in bulk where possible, 2) clip coupons , 3) seek out sales items, 4) buy generic, and 5) be careful when purchasing prepackaged foods and meats.

[tacojohn]

Feed a family of four for $40/week
The only problem is you couldn't make me eat any of the dinners.

[dun]

Feed a family of four for $40/week
The only problem is you couldn't make me eat any of the dinners.

Judging by the url, I'm not going to bother getting sick looking at that link.

[Laurenrae52]

It all depends on where you live and where you're shopping.  I live in NYC and we shop at Whole Foods -- this gets expensive.  We have been recently doing Trader Joe's trips every two weeks for about $150.  So - we're looking at about $350 on groceries a month -- but we don't eat in every meal, every day.  I'd say on top of that we spend about $200 a month on going out to eat.  I think the best way to save money reasonably is to eat breakfast at home, brew your own coffee, pack a sandwich, and save your money for getting takeout for dinner when you're tired.  I'm also one of those people that loves to stop and grab froyo or coffee when I'm on campus - even if I pack my lunch.

[johnproctor98]

that is rediculous.  no way a normal person can average <$200/month over the course of a year.

I don't consider myself a 'normal' eater and I would venture that I spend far less than 200 a month over the course of a year. I weight 205 pounds, and I eat absolutely all the time because I run 30-50 miles a week, in addition to weight lifting and playing basketball. I don't think that I've ever spent more than 200 dollars in a single month on food, even counting eating out occasionally and going out drinking. 200 a month is a lot.

[johnproctor98]

Hey, I hit the major food groups. Healthy? That's what the running is for.

And fair enough, I don't live in NY, where I'm sure food costs more.

But eating trendy? What does that even mean?

[phooey]

But eating trendy? What does that even mean?

Japanese finger foods. 
I can't wait till it comes full circle and socialites are eating possum puffs at art openings.

[laurrk]

A good, well-balanced diet can be expensive. Fruits and veggies and lean meat aren't cheap. If you're going to eat tons of rice and pasta you can save a lot. I am not carb-phobic, but I can't imagine eating pasta and rice all the time. Plus sometimes you're just too tired to cook and it's so much easier to stick a frozen meal in the microwave. Personally I hate to cook, so I tend to eat Subway and Quiznos a lot for dinner. Convenience will cost you.