And by groceries, I would include household toiletries such as paper towels, toilet tissue, toothpaste, deodorant, etc.
And what would you think that a family of three (Dad, Mom, 5 year old) would spend per month. Not wealthy, but not eating Ramen noodles either. I just would like to get some ideas. Thanks…
Lol… whatever is left over!
OK, well, for just my husband and I, if we were always home, we spend about $250 for the basics. I’m usually skimping and bargain hunting though, to make it go farther. I guess if I wasn’t quite as aware, maybe between $300 and $350. Depends also if we need things like laundry detergent and other household things that can be a little pricey.
I’m not sure what we would spend if we added a five year old to the mix. We’ve been taking note of the price of baby food since we are trying to have a child, but you are way out of that stage. The biggest things I would probably add are more fresh veggies and fruits, and if the child were in school, I’d have to make sure we had transportable things to send. I guess I’d say about $400, based on what I’d have to add to what I’m already buying.
I live some 20 miles from work, and stop at the grocery store on the way home every day. I buy fresh vegetables, meat, cleaning stuff and toiletries. Given whether Mrs. Plant demands expensive stuff or not, $10 to $20.00 a day; I would average $15.00 a day and say $450.00 a month. Jeez, we need to eat more Mac and cheese.
We spend about $100-$120 a week on groceries and sundries (just hubby and me), but that includes pet supplies (right now we have six animals living with us) so probably $20 a week goes to that. A lot of things are more expensive here (in Okinawa) than in the States–for instance, zucchini is $8 a lb, and I saw button mushrooms for $17.20 a lb the other day. Insane. But basically we just do without the completely crazily priced veggies, and stick with the slightly more affordable stuff. We don’t eat out much, maybe spending another $150 a month on going out to eat.
I have no idea what it costs to feed a kid.
About 100 to 200 dollars. But then, it’s just for me. My soster does her own shopping.
We probably spend 800-900 a month (for 4 of us), this is in the DC metro area. I’ll have to check in Quicken to see, now that you’ve piqued my interest. That does include household stuff like paper towels and toothpaste, and also some over-the-counter meds. A “big” grocery run can run pretty close to 200 dollars but that often yields more than a week’s worth of meals - I do a lot of cooking ahead and freezing.
I spend about 500 dollars a month on household items, including food. However, I want to stress that I have expensive tastes in many things and could easily cut that far back if I wanted/needed to.
We spend probably about $600-700 a month on everything. That’s for three adults and three dogs. I have tons of leftovers, which I tend to freeze and give to my son who doesn’t live with us.
Severe budget cuts here at Casa Ujest have implemented $100 every pay period (twice monthly) for groceries for a family of four plus a cat.
We are very fortunate to have one friend whose grandfather is a complusive shopper and buys non-perishables and toiletries on sale and then gives them to people ( our friend). We haven’t had to buy toothpaste in two years, but his reign of terror by buying Honey Nut Cheerios is legend around here that none of us can actually stomach the stuff any more. Mac and cheese and some other pastas are also included in this frenzy. I haven’t had to buy peanut butter or jelly in quite some time either.
My MIL routine sends lunch meat and her own spagetti sauce home with my husband.
You do learn how to buy good stuff on sale ( whole roaster chickens for $2.40. One day as a roast. The next couple of days it’s soup!) and freeze it.
You are my hero. I ask this question because my family of three (2 adults, 1 five-year old) spent $800/mo for the last three months (so it isn’t a one time thing) and I can’t see where the waste is.
When I go to the store, I can spend $100 and have a week and a half of good food. My wife goes to the store, spends $200 and I look in the fridge a day later and everything is gone. I know she bought stuff because I carry it all in, but it doesn’t look like anything in the cupboards.
I tell her that $800 a month is an insane amount for a family of three, and she swears that she can’t get by on a penny less. All of you will be Exhibit A in Marital Argument #54311. I know that I shouldn’t use people on the internet as crutches for my marital discussions. I don’t care. 
Far less than the rest of you combined. I spend maybe $20/week, tops. Sometimes half of that.
If my girlfriend isn’t feeding me, I’m taking her out. I cook for myself maybe 3 nights per week, and I get great mileage out of leftovers.
I spent $194 on groceries in February! One of my hobbies is to spend as little money as I can on food. It’s admittedly a strange hobby. I can`t really share it with people because it makes them uncomfortable. I have to say, “no, no, I’m not poor. It’s a hobby. My goal is to spend $100 a month”.
I did spend $90 on alcohol but it was the 27th and I was having company for the weekend so I’m not counting it in my total.
Just two of us. I do most of the shopping, but off her lists much of the time. For little perishables and restockings I’m at the grocery about twice a week on average and the tab is in the 30-50 range for that.
Maybe twice a month it’s big spending time and that runs 75-200, depending on the reloading of non-foods. I’m comfortable with an average of $100.
The average tally would appear to be in the 400-600 range, but I can tell you that’s too high. I’m guessing it’s more like 300-400.
There have been months when it was less, but not many when it was more, so for purposes of this thread put us down for 350. A little over $10 a day feels about right.
(Glad you didn’t ask about Food, though, since a good chunk comes from fast food joints and order-in.) 
We go to the store once a week, and probably spend $80 to $120 each time, but we don’t actually eat everything. Some is replenishment, some is shampoo, cosmetics, paper and cleaning products (I HATE that!). I can’t really estimate what we consume in a week. I would guess that food consumption itself would be around $20 or so per person, per week.
We spend a ton - I’m a frugal shopper, but my husband isn’t, and without the need to be frugal, it goes out the window anyway.
But you might be interested in this blog:
http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/2009/02/1-chicken-17-healthy-meals-26-bucks-no.html
One thing I’ve noticed about kids (mine are nine and ten) is that snacking can get really expensive. I buy $3 in bananas and they are gone a day later. I buy the BIG $11 thing of goldfish crackers - gone in a week (on top of the bananas, apples, dried mango). Juice boxes get sucked down.
So now my kids can still snack, but I almost never have junk snacks in the house. Juice only gets purchased in juice boxes when we are going to have a party. Soda and cookies are hidden. Any single serving packets are for lunch only. My nine year old daughter likes to bake, so I keep cheap brownie mix in the house for her, or cheap cookie mix or cheap cake mix.
Watch how many neighbor kids you feed, when the next door neighbor used to hang at my house she would eat (she seldom got snacks at home). If necessary, schedule snack times and don’t allow anything other than water between snack times.
Organics (we eat probably 50% organic) get expensive. I can/freeze farmers market produce in the summer - pickled beets, frozen green beans, homemade strawberry jam.
There was an article in the paper yesterday about 2 people developing menus to get by on $30/month in groceries. Now, this was just food and for 1 person. Still, additional people lead to economies of scale, so in these people’s world, you could do $100/ month for the 3 of you.
The 2 of us probably spend about $350-400/month at the grocery store. We don’t have reason to skimp, though. I admit to skimping some just out of the challenge of it, but there are a few expensive items where we just don’t skimp, either because of dietary restrictions (I need to avoid a lot of additives, which sometimes turns out cheaper and sometimes more expensive) or things my husband just prefers.
One change to make is not getting your cleaning supplies and nonfood items at the grocery. There are better deals to be had at discount stores for those.
Also, if you are not eating out at all, maybe you’re not in that bad of shape. The budget to manage is grocery + restaurant combined.
When you go to the store, do you just buy food, but she is more aware of the other things needed around the house and picks those up, too? Or do you just buy for the week, but she goes ahead and purchases multiples of what’s on sale for the future? Just mentioning this before she potentially throws it at you.
We spend about $125 a week on two adults, two dogs and a cat. We are both mostly health nuts so it gets really expensive to buy meat (which is always chicken/extra lean beef/turkey) and fresh fruit and veggies.
I think it’s wonderful. I used to do it out of necessity and would still do it if I wasn’t hampered by family (“Wah, I don’t want the generic brand!”) It’s fun, challenging, and practical. What’s not to like?
Our family of five plus two cats racks up about six hundred a month at the grocery store. (We buy the dog’s food elsewhere). Admittedly, the teenage boy eats most meals away from home.
For 2 of us, we probably spend $300 - 400 a month, but I don’t track it that closely. It would be a pain to track because we tend to buy stuff in a few different places - big staple shopping at Costco, filling-in of produce and specialty items at a couple of smaller local supermarkets and various ethnic and specialty markets. This covers all groceries, plus the occasional bit of cleaning supplies, OTC drugs, or whatever else we might buy at Costco.
I practically never buy food with chemical additives or prepared foods, and we do mostly cook from scratch and bring our lunches to work. But I also like to bake or cook something nice now and again to take to potlucks at a friend’s house, and that does include a bottle of wine now and again. I could probably get the bill down a bit, but we don’t really need to, and we both like good food too much to scrimp on it. 
I spent $454 last month, but it was an artificially low month for us. There are six of us, but we don’t have full custody of any of the kids, and the one we do have the most was off at camp one week last month. I was sick and didn’t eat for about a week too.
So a normal month for the six of us is probably more like $600. It can spike if we go to Costco, but that stuff usually lasts and lowers the next month’s costs.