How much do you spend on grocerie?
By CatEyes
@CatEyes (2448)
United States
January 29, 2007 12:36pm CST
I have a ongoing debate with my inlaws about how much should be spent on groceries. Now mind you they do not follow their own advice and are richer than sin, so I will always diregard what they have to say. That said...
They and my husband says I should only spend about 20 dollars a week for our family of three and who has a cat and 2 birds. Well...hmmm Let me see if I can crap the food out for them then... I used to spend about 50-150 each week depending what we needed IE big items like cat food, cat litter, cleaning supplies etc. They say it is too much. I say it is not. I know some who always spend 150-250 when shopping and they are being conservitive. My brother has 3 kids all in school and his wife, they spend about that much, and when you look in their fridge or pantry there is not much in there and defin. not much at the end of the month.
Now I can not go to the store.
How much do you spend?
16 people like this
67 responses
@poppoppop111 (5731)
• Canada
3 Feb 07
For me and my daughter we spend about $60-70 canadian a week on groceries. But hopefully that will go down a little soon, i just found a grocery store that is a little cheaper. we alays go to the most expensive grocery store in town just because i love their prepared food section but we find a cheaper store witht he same stuff so next week we are going there instead.
1 person likes this
@UmmBinyamin (419)
• United States
2 Feb 07
if u have a family of 6 like i do i have 3 brothers and im the only girl and my parents so we prolly do like 300 a month i would say
1 person likes this
@torysmonkey (25)
• United States
30 Jan 07
Spend the 20.00 a week and feed your husband top ramen and when he gets tired of it then lyao and do your grocery shopping your way. There is no way you could servive on that and be eating anything good at all. Not to mention you have a cat and bird if thats included then your family will have to eat like the bird. Good luck
1 person likes this
@butterflygirl (498)
•
31 Jan 07
There are only two of us to feed each month, just me and my partner, and we spend between a £100 and £150 each month. We eat a lot of vegetables with our meals which are relatively cheap, and also cook a lot of meals from scratch (we make vegetable chilli from dried beans and make our own pasta sauces etc) which helps to keep our food costs relatively low. We try not to overspend on food, but we never go without anything that we need just for the sake of saving money. Thankfully were just both quite aware of how quickly all those little extras, which some consider to be essentials such as biscuits and crisps, can cost.
@wrdsofwisdm (1069)
• United States
30 Jan 07
Are they nuts? Twenty a week doesn't even cover essentials. We get the Sunday paper and look for the sales. Then we hit the stores. I have 2 cats and a dog so I go to the pet store out of my two favorites that has the best deal. It's cheaper to buy the bigger bags of food and the better brands of cat litter because they last longer. I also go through all the coupons in the Sunday paper and use the ones that are .50 and up. If you stock up on regular items when they're on sale, you can brag to them that you saved big money. :)
@14missy (3183)
• Australia
30 Jan 07
I have three children and a husband and we spend at least $100 to $150 a week on groceries. Then there are extra bread and milk etc that we buy during the week. That is not a large amount to spend either. So I think you are doing well feeding your family with what you do.
@mkirby624 (1598)
• United States
30 Jan 07
My husband and I budget $100/month for groceries...but it's just us. I work and usually eat there (I teach, so I just eat at the cafeteria), and my husband just eats quick meals for lunch...he works nights so I eat quick meals at night.
1 person likes this
@ladymoonstone143 (1507)
• United States
29 Jan 07
20 dollars on groceries for a family of three plus pets? Tell your inlaws or your husband to do the groceries for you. Our family is three too..me, my husband and a toddler plus a dog ( we buy his food monthly)...but our groceries is between 80-120 dollars a week. We need to get gallons of drinking water, milk, meat, rice, vegetable, salad, diapers, etc. 20 dollars doesn't come a long way unless of course, you are planning to eat eggs and bread the whole week, then it will be ok.
We are the one cooking at home so we know what we need to get groceries rather that what other people are telling us because they don't cook and live with us.
1 person likes this
@allshookup (598)
• United States
30 Jan 07
I spend 40-60 a week for my fiancee and i, who pretty much scrape at anything edible.
1 person likes this
@joey_matthews (8354)
•
30 Jan 07
I actually not sure about the exact price. my wife + my parents do the shopping, while i take care of business but i'm guessing it's in the price range of £120 (each week)
(i'm not ashamed when i say i'm 19 and i still live with parents) lol.. nowhere else to go :P houses are hard things to buy/rent these days. (can't trust landlords either) :)
@LittleMel (8742)
• Canada
30 Jan 07
yes. 400 - 500/ month. cleaning solutions, laundry stuffs, pet food, grocery etc
@Justareceptionist (870)
• United States
30 Jan 07
It's just me and my fiancee and we usually spend on average 100-150 bucks every two weeks.
1 person likes this
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
29 Jan 07
$20 per week on food for a family. OMG! Where the heck could you even do that? For our family of 3 I allot $300 for food (we usually spend less than this) and spend about $50 on cat, bird and fish food and treats every month. My Mom use to spend about $160 every week to feed a family of four and she thinks I don't spend enough on food, even though we always have a surplus of food in the house. I don't know how anyone could survive on $20 a week. I don't know if I could feed myself on that.
1 person likes this
@Lydia1901 (16351)
• United States
15 Feb 07
We spend around $150-$190 depending on what we're getting that month. We try to do grocery shopping at least once a month.
@texasclassygal (5305)
• United States
15 Feb 07
Good grief, do they want you to starve? We have 3 of us in the house normally with every other week of my step daughters staying with us and I cook dinner every night our average WEEKLY grocery trip (dependent upon cleaning supplies) is $120-$150 (with usually about $8 of coupons). That is just the necessities to live on a daily basis. Unsure what your in-laws are thinking but perhaps they should go to the grocery store more often.
@randomosity_prevails (1112)
•
30 Jan 07
I don't know anything about buying groceries for a family, but I spend about £10-15 for myself. That's quite cheap for the UK as well, I'm a student, so have to stick to a budget. My family (4 people) would probably spend about £70 a week on groceries. I'm not sure of the conversion of £ to $, but I'd say that $100 a week for a family of three, with pets, is about right.
• Canada
30 Jan 07
Oh my! $20/week??? Well, my boyfriend and I were just having this conversation the other day. I feel we spend too much on groceries, but I'm not sure what we're doing wrong. We're a family of 6, but the kids are not old. I don't know what I'm going to do when they're teenagers. Heck, one of them is still an infant. In the last month, we've spent about $800 on groceries and formula. We spend roughly $350-$400 every 2 weeks on food. And that's not counting the once a week or so that we eat out.
I know that I spend a little too much, but $20/week...they can't be serious.
@Ravenladyj (22902)
• United States
30 Jan 07
when my family and I were still living in Canada we were spending around $250 a week on food PLUS take out once a week since moving here to the U.S though we've cut out the take out and its amazing how much we were actually spending on the stuff! Plus nickle and diming things too like if I forget to have sour cream on the list I'll call my husband at work and have him pick it up on his way home but then ended up calling him and adding another 4 or 5 things to that list...Now I make sure I dont shop hungry and I do my best to stick to the list as well as use coupons and work the coupons around the weekly sales etc...it helps...
