Poll to follow. Please consider your overall budget; if you need to explicate further (like “this includes eating lunch in a restaurant every day”) have at it.
For purposes of this poll, “share food resources” can mean that staples are purchased from a shared budget but other foods are bought individually, that a food budget is contributed to by all roommates, or some other situation in which there is food that you have access to in the household that you didn’t pay the full cost of.
Erm, so if I spend over 150 USD a month I can’t vote? :dubious:
With or without beer(shared resource)?
You left out a lot of people cutting it off where you did.
<I’m an idiot>
I don’t really have a “budget,” and when I go to the grocery store I spend money on stuff besides food for me, such as dog food and cleaning products, so it’s hard to gauge. I buy what I need and often what I want; to be honest, unless a food item is ridiculously expensive, I don’t care what it costs, and I do try to take advantage of sales and BOGOs, but I don’t “budget” for food. I voted $150 or less and I don’t share resources, but more often than not I think it’s a little more–maybe $170 a month?
I budget $250/month for all my food and my ‘pocket money’. That pays for everything I eat plus if I buy anything else, (books, parking, going out, tickets, etc.) I voted $150 and don’t share resources.
When I was single, I was paying probably between $200 and $250 per month, without sharing anything with roommates. That usually broke down as $100/month in groceries and $100-$150/month to buy lunches at work, occasional take-out, and I’d splurge on a few six-packs of nicer beer.
If I needed to, I could skip eating out most of the time, cook cheaper food, and bring my overall budget down to $150.
Yeah I think mine is about $300/month, and I don’t share with roommates, but that includes paper goods, OTC medicines, batteries, cleaning supplies, soaps, etc. And I am known to stock up on most of that stuff, as well as buy it at the more expensive grocery store.
Then, I’m not sure how much I eat out. I eat out when it suits the situation.
I kinda have no idea, but I’d bet it’s over $150/mo. Like kapri, there is no budget.
I spend about $65 a month for food, but I have to really conserve. I could get it down a bit more if I’d cut out coffee. The fake sugar and coffee add on another $10 or so
I spend about $250 a month not counting bar tabs. I don’t share food a home but that does count bbqs and parties where I may pay for others and they may pay for me.
I’m guessing about $200/month, including a lot of takeout. I don’t really know. It’s my only major expense besides rent and so I’m not too hung up on how much I spend. I find eating a real chore if I don’t like what’s on the plate, so I buy what I want and worry about scrimping elsewhere in the budget.
I’d guess 200 something. I’m really, really bad at budgeting.
According to the USDA cost of food charts, the cost of food at home for a single person ranges between $185 and $379. (Here’s the chart of how much grain, vegetables, meat, milk, etc. is factored into each plan)
I am married, but we eat different things and keep pretty obsessive records, and for the last fiscal month (we run 15th-15th), I paid $313 for food. I suspect that is within $10 of the real total. I eat a lot–fast metabolism + lots of exercise + pregnant–but I am still befuddled as to how you all keep the number so low. We don’t eat out that much: $55 from eating out, including 3 cups of $2 coffee. And I certainly don’t eat steak every day: lots of cottage cheese and $1.78/lb chicken breast, canned soup (decent canned soup, I will admit), some fresh fruits and veg, bread and yogurt, maybe 3 boxes of tea: we aren’t talking caviar and truffles here.
I went and looked up December/January, and that was $288 total for everything I ate. That may be more typical–I don’t know–but even then it is apparently more than everyone.
No budget. I don’t have a lot of other expenses and I’m not one to buy big ticket items on a whim, so food is actually kind of my ‘luxury’.
If I don’t spend any money on fast food in a month and only plan on two meals a day I can usually make it with around $200. Couldn’t vote in the poll, however.
I spend around $200-250 every month. My boyfriend (who does not live with me - I have my own apartment with no roommate) eats some of that, but I eat most of it. I eat a lot and I mostly eat fresh food and a lot of meat and fish, which isn’t cheap. I don’t eat out.
No budget, but I figure around $300. Living in San Francisco and being a foodie is kinda expensive, but balanced out somewhat by cooking a lot.
Actually, I just looked at my credit card, and it looks like around $370 for groceries + restaurants. That includes non-food items at the grocery store, and leaves out cash, which probably more or less cancel out. Plus I cook dinner for friends once every week or two, so those groceries are subsidized.
Okay, this proves a point I wasn’t sure of. I’m moving in with my partner in a few months, who currently lives alone and has a $150 monthly food budget, living in a fairly pricey city. I’ve been suspect of that dollar figure for a while and I think I was right to be. And that figure is including a rather displeasing amount of processed food, too, so now I’m a little worried.
I’m setting my budget higher and planning on doing a lot of home cooking.