In an effort to make personal finance public, we’ve shared everything we’ve earned, spent, and paid in debt for nearly two years. Along with that comes some criticism, some questions, and (thankfully) lots of encouragement.
One of the most frequent questions I get is about our grocery budget. We have a $300 grocery budget each month for our family of five (there are six of us but only five of us eat solids). Sometimes we go slightly over, but the average is just under $300 (2014 average was $266, 2015 average thus far is $289).
Readers ask me how we keep our budget so low, especially in one of the most expensive states. They wonder what we buy and what we eat. For months I have been planning to give you a peek inside our grocery shopping, but I kept forgetting to take pictures consistently. Finally I did it in July (for the most part).
First, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at where our grocery budget goes.
Once a Month Shopping
We do the bulk of our grocery shopping once a month. Usually my husband and I go together without the kids when we’re in town for a date night. I know grocery shopping doesn’t even rank on the romance scale, but it works well for us because:
- I don’t have to go by myself with four kids (enough said, right?).
- My husband and I love doing anything together, even grocery shopping.
- We save gas because we’re already in town (which is an hour away).
At other times during the month, I might make a small trip or two (with the kids in tow) to pick up milk and produce and check out the deals at my favorite discount food store.
What we buy might look a little off balance. Keep in mind we stock up when things are on sale, so we don’t have to buy everything every month. We also have a nice garden to eat from, so in the summer we buy less produce.
A typical grocery list looks something like the list below:
|
|
|
Occasionally
These items go on our shopping list only occasionally as needed. Some of them I only buy when there is an awesome deal (cereal, granola bars, ground beef). When I find a great deal, I stock up, otherwise we go without. Surely there are others that could be added to this list, but I won’t bore you with a comprehensive list.
- cereal
- granola bars
- bullion
- spices
- baking powder
- baking soda
- yeast
- cocoa
- ground beef
- chicken
- canned pineapple
- cream cheese
- agave/honey
Food Storage Staples
We have some food storage items in large quantities for our long term storage. We use these each month, but at the rate we use them (with the quantity we have stored) they last for years. For example, the last time we bought oats was about two and a half years ago. We bought a couple of 50 lb bags which we are still using.
- wheat (to grind into whole wheat flour)
- oats
- rice
- powdered milk
- pinto beans
- instant potatoes
Things We Don’t Buy
Canned fruits and veggies— We bottle our own pears, peaches, applesauce, green beans, and more. We also freeze lots of veggies from our garden and buy some frozen veggies.
Tomato sauce, paste, etc— We can all of our own tomatoes, including tomato puree which I use to make homemade tomato sauce.
Jam— I make all of our jam with berries that we pick ourselves. My in-laws have raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries growing in the garden, and we have miles of wild blackberries along the roads and creeks. I store the berries in gallon bags in the freezer until I have about a laundry basket full of them, then I make lots of quarts of jam.
Bread— I usually make all of our own bread. I went without buying any bread for about two years, until I got pregnant with our littlest one. During most of my pregnancy we bought bread to save my sanity and keep everyone fed. Now I’m back to making bread, mostly.
Eggs— My in-laws have about a dozen hens. When they are laying regularly, we don’t need to buy eggs. When the weather gets colder, they don’t lay as often, so we buy eggs. Now, the older hens have been laying for over three years, so they aren’t as consistent as they normally are and the ones that were chicks this spring aren’t laying yet.
Yogurt— We buy a small 6 oz container every now and then to be the start for our homemade yogurt, but other than that, we don’t buy yogurt.
Coffee or Alcohol— We don’t drink coffee and we don’t drink alcohol. Our budget and our bodies thank us.
What We Bought in July
At the beginning of the month, we made a trip to Winco, Sam’s Club, and Grocery Outlet. Here’s what we got:
Winco $118
Now for some explanation! We usually grind our own wheat flour, but I like to have white flour for some things, so I got a 25lb bag. I usually don’t buy cake mixes, but they were on sale so I got five. They are nice to have on hand and we were out. I also bought marshmallows and fudge stripe cookies. We take them camping to make cheater s’mores.
Winco has a bulk foods section I love. Here I have chocolate chips, grated parmesan cheese, chicken bullion, spaghetti, raisins, and sea salt. You can probably tell what everything else is from the photo.
Sam’s Club $41
We grow our own strawberries, but I found some that were a good deal at Sam’s.
Grocery Outlet $80
This one needs some explaining too, as it’s definitely not a normal trip. I found the Nature Valley Trail Mix granola bars (30ct) for $3.99 which is $.13 each, a great price for them! I bought 3 packages at first and tried them to make sure the nuts weren’t rancid (the food at Grocery Outlet is often close to the “best by” date). They were great, so I had my husband stop by and get more on the way home from work.
We don’t usually buy Pop-tarts, but they were super cheap ($.47 per box). I bought one box and we tried them and liked them. I figure they can be a quick treat for the kids every now and then.
I had been seeing a lot of fun recipes on Pinterest with crescent rolls dough, so when I saw some that were ultra cheap so I got them. Just for the record, homemade crescent rolls are way, way better, so I won’t even be tempted when I see another deal on these.
We had a couple of other small trips during the month, but I forgot to take pictures of them. They included some more milk and some cauliflower (that was on sale for $1.50 for a huge head).
There you have it– a peek into a month of groceries for our family with all its randomness. It’s funny how exposed I feel. For someone who shares all of her family’s finances online you’d think I wouldn’t be so self-conscious about people seeing what food I buy. Please don’t judge me too harshly because I bought a case of PBJ Pop-tarts! 🙂 We’ve only eaten one box, I promise.
How About You?
- What does a month of groceries look like for your family?
- Do you shop weekly, monthly, or whenever you’re hungry?
You’ll Also Enjoy:
Okay, please share with us what type of foods you fix? Not judging you at all, but am hoping to find out if there are ways for me to save on food. Our family of 5 spends $1500 a month on all food. I even extreme couponed for a while and still do coupons and Ibotta some. But, we eat pretty healthy and are in a small town where we only have Walmart and one small groc store and a health food store. Not many good sales or triple coupons around here! I have always planned my menu around what meat we will have. WHAT can you eat for dinner without meat in it? _We eat meat 1-3 meals a day and that is the way we’ve done all our lives. Both from farming families who believes meat is way healthier than most people these days believe, BTW. We have our own beef in the freezer much of the year, sometimes our own pig, chicken, deer, and squirrel. We also have halibut and salmon from Alaska in the freezer all the time. Raise a garden and can, make jellies, and we cook everything from scratch. Much of this meat is given to us and what is some we raised or caught still works out cheap per pound. Even with all that which saves us some, we still spend that much per month. We do eat lots of salad, fresh veggies, fruits, cheeses and nuts, all of which cost more, of course, than if we ate lots of canned goods and pastas, etc. We do have company prob 3-4 times a mo sometimes for 2-3 days at a time, so I know that increases our spending a bit. We also eat out some (about 300-500 a month, incl in our $1500 total) I have cut the dining out by half over the last couple yrs by being home more. When we do eat out, we eat a combination of $1 menu quick lunches when on the road to very nice gourmet places for dinner. Something we really enjoy and can afford, but it is the groceries I feel I spend too much on somehow and wish I could save some there. Would love to learn how other folks like yourself do it. The things in your sample list actually appear very similar to mine as I don’t have to buy meat at the store real often.
Enjoyed your article and great tips Kristy. I too, had 4 children, a husband and myself and a dog and cat, to feed. Even in the 70’s and 80’s when I had a weekly budget of $70 to $100 a week to feed 6. Thank goodness I grew up on a farm and knew how to shop for good food. All the basics were covered, I bought some things from a local farmer in the Philadelphia area, like, eggs. butter, Cream and milk and 4/5-gallon glass jugs of spring water a month and a side of beef for the winter months and had the side cut in to steaks, roasts and many lbs. of hamburger. I made bread and rolls and Pizza dough from scratch, I baked pies and cakes/cookies (Tollhouse). We would buy Bacon and Sausage in bulk; portion off all into separate plastic bags and freeze for easy meals. I made large pots of Chili and Ham/navy bean/Potato soups/and their favorite homemade meal Meatballs and Spaghetti/we live in an Italian neighborhood. We would go very early Saturday morning to the Delaware wharf for the first fish catch off the day and I would buy a very large Cod or Scrod fish and they would clean and cut-up into Pieces for cooking…..so good the Scrod tasted like lobster; we dined out only occasionally, but we did go on a long vacation every summer for two weeks and to the Jersey shore many times. On the way back from the beach, South Jersey has a lot of Truck-farms and sell all kinds of veggies and fruit on the side of the road like Jersey Tomatoes/ears of sweet corn/potatoes and melons…. we were spoiled. But you have to work hard, cook a lot and number 1, you have to meal plan and keep was to a minimum. I admire you, it’s a full-time job but worth it,,, just the two of us now, but I still meal plan and cook at age 82. IU love it…Bon Appetit’ Christie
Thank you so much for being brave enough to share. We make a LOT of homemade items, and as a mom of 4 (about to be 5), it’s good to know that it can be done. I was wondering which months you don’t buy anything for the month? I would be very interested in doing this. I guess you wouldn’t even look at the sales because that’s what gets me in trouble. Thanks again.
Hi Rachel! We usually choose one month per year to have a no-spend month. Here’s the archive of “no-spend” month posts. I make a rule for myself that I have to stick to my normal $300 grocery budget the month before and after a no-spend month. During the no-spend month I spend $0 on groceries. You can make your own rules though, and set an amount for milk or produce, if you want.
Please share your recipes and pictures with us. Im trying to prepare freezer meals to bake or to toss into the crock pot. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Does the $300 include non food items like tp, laundry soap, toothpaste, etc? Or do you have a separate budget for that? I am trying a budget for the first time and it seems overwhelming. For instance, do you always take the $300 in cash out for the month or do you use a debit card and just keep track that way? Or maybe I am just complicating this?
A lot of people combine toiletries in with their grocery budget since they get them at the same stores. I have decided to keep our household items in a different category though, just to keep us more accountable. I budget $40 per month for household items like what you mentioned. Each month when I share what we earned, spent, and paid in debt, I explain a little about what we spent that money on.
Some people use cash and it works really well. We use a credit or debt card and keep track of what we spend using YNAB. You can read about how we budget here and here.
Nice job! You have a great combination of homegrown and canned food along with what you buy. My budget is also $300 a month, which is for myself and two teens. I’m curious, how old are your kids, if you don’t mind me asking? My budget has had to increase as they’ve gotten older. Darn kids keep expecting me to feed them!
Our kids are 7, 6, 3.5, and 4 months. I can only image what it will be like when they’re teens. They already eat so much!!
My family loves meat so when I buy it I portion it out per meal, then freeze. For instance one pack of ground beef will make 4 hamburgers for my family of 4 then I will freeze whatever I have left in a small chunk for another meal such as spaghetti. You don’t need alot of meat to make a meal feel like it has meat in it when paired with vegetables and other items. I make homemade tomato, spaghetti, and BBQ sauces from fresh tomatoes. Even when I make buy chicken breast I slice them in half, freeze half for another meal, and stretch it out farther. I watch the sales and use coupons for certain items too. I only spend around $40 to $50 a week for groceries but I also have lots of veggies in the freezer. I never throw away too much either. I have bags of end pieces of bread in the freezer to put in other things such as meatloaf. Also, it good to get familiar with when your butcher marks meat down. For example, mine marks nice cuts of meat down first thing in the morning on Mondays and Tuesdays mostly so I get there right after he marks it down. Lots of time I get the higher quality organics cheaper this way.
We stretch our meat like that too! That’s great that you know exactly when the meat is marked down!
Thank you so much for this post. We have about the same food budget, though we recently raised it to $380, to account for the fact that our 4th child is now eating solids, and her 3 hungry brothers literally eat more than I do in a day. And, we pay sales tax on food here in KS – almost 9%! Strangely enough, I think we will probably come in at less than that now that we’ve raised it, but I’m hoping I can save the extra to fund a bigger stockpile, deep freezer, etc.
You are amazing with how much you can. I garden, but I still make a lot of mistakes and we don’t get enough tomatoes to have fresh ones plus ones to can at this point. But we did plant 4 fruit trees this past year and are hopeful that in a few years we can offset some produce costs.
We still make lots of mistakes too. In fact, our tomatoes are looking pretty pathetic this year. We planted half of what we had last year because so much went to waste, but they have blossom end rot, so they aren’t much good. Hopefully we’ll be fine on what we canned last year and we’ll have a better crop next year.
That’s exciting that you’ll have fruit on your trees in a few years! And that’s crazy that food is taxed!
I usually shop every week. I used to do every other week, but then we got an Aldi about 5 minutes from my house. So, I do a trip to Aldi for produce every week now. I try to leave both my kiddo and husband at home, both of them tend to put items we don’t need in the cart.
Ooo I would love to have an Aldi close (or just an Aldi). That’s one of the big things I miss about the Midwest. No Aldis in Cali. 🙁
We budget $1500/month for groceries (we never eat out) and sometimes we even go over! We shop and menu plan weekly because 99% of what we are buying is organic fresh fruit/produce. We are dairy free and gluten free (allergies/celiac disease) we only eat meat 1-2 times per week, and when we do we get it at the farmer’s market from a local grass-fed meat farmer. We keep chickens so we have eggs and I grow a large garden (tomatoes, zucchini, peppers) and we have a few producing fruit trees (orange/apple/pear/lemon/lime, etc) but STILL our food spending is so, so high! Honestly, I think the reason it is so high is that we LOVE FOOD. Cooking is a passion for both my husband and I and making gourmet dinners is our main source of entertainment. Course shopping at Whole Paycheck doesn’t help, does it. Then again, we focus on organic. Food is like a 2nd religion for us. 🙂
Grocery shopping with special food needs can definitely add up. That’s great that you get eggs and some produce at home and that you’ve got fruit trees too! And it sounds like you’re enjoying not only good-for-you food, but delicious food!
Hi Stephine! Thanks for this new post- I just wanted to ask real quick- I know as a mother of 4 it’s probably been a while since you’ve shopped for just yourself or yourself and your husband, but I was wondering if you had any tips for singles or married couples (I normally shop for just myself but on occasion for myself and my fiance wen he’s home)?
Thanks!!
Ashley, you read my mind!! I actually have a draft going of a post on that topic, so it’s coming up soon. I know it can be harder to cook from scratch when you’re just cooking for one or two, but kudos to you for doing it anyway! I think the key is avoiding waste, using leftovers creatively, and planning ahead. I’ll give more specific examples and ideas in the post. Stay tuned! 🙂
I grew up cooking for 9-12 people a meal so when I moved out on my own I was used to making huge meals. I’d cook a few meals on Sunday and then portion them out into servings for the week. I’d freeze most of them and put what I’d be eating the next day or two in the fridge pulling food out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge. It made it super easy for me to take something with me to work or campus to eat. It’s been a decade but when it was just the oldest & I by making a few meals then eating them through out the week we were only spending $125 to $150 a month on groceries including the foods that I bought for him to take in his school lunches.
That’s the best advice I’ve found so far (I’m desperately trying to pay off my student loans before they become due, when my fiance and I get married I’d really like to not have any debt), but I’m the worst about eating leftovers. I work two jobs and am still enrolled full time as a student, so I’m rarely home. Which means my grocery budget isn’t too big, but my eating out is incredibly high. Not only is it expensive, it’s bad for me. I’m getting better about cooking more, I just have a hard time keeping it interesting enough for me to bother eating it.
If you need more variety what about doing 4-5 meals on a Sunday every other week and then freezing it so you can grab and go! You can do salads a head of time as long as you don’t put the dressing in it. If you want to have it all in one container ready to go mason jars with dressing on the bottom, then hard veggies like carrots or peppers, then lettuce. Then shake it up when you’re ready to eat to distribute the dressing.
I NEVER would have thought about putting salad in a mason jar and layering it like that but that’s fantastic!! I’m thinking about making some basics (baked chicken, rice, noodles, veggies) then I can mix and match with different sauces (ie, noodles w/ Alfredo sauce and some chicken; veggies, soy sauce, and rice). A different meal that mostly just needs to be reheated and mixed whenever I need. I’m really excited to try all this, thanks so much!!
Our family of 5, which includes a 6’1″ & 175 lbs boy who will be 15 at the end of the month, currently spends around $600-800 on groceries and another $100-200 on eating out. We do one trip a month to Sam’s Club to buy a few things in bulk there. Mostly dairy products and we’ll let the kids each pick a treat out. Then a couple times a week I’ll walk over to the grocery store 1.5 blocks away to pick up fresh produce, eggs and milk. When wheat pasta was on sale for 49 cents a lb for the brand that I’m okay with my family eating I stocked up on a year’s worth. I buy my specialty flours online as needed which is usually every 2 months. We used to spend about half of what we do now on food. I could probably do better but I’m not to worried about it since our food spending is only 13.5% of my husband’s take home pay.
We have meat in our meals usually once a week but four of us don’t like to eat meat and two of those won’t eat it at all unless it’s in the nugget form. The one who does eat meat (teenage boy) I’ll make extra so he can grab it through out the week as desired. I also keep a few packages of beef jerky and tuna on hand for when people want it.
I hope you don’t mind my asking but do you mostly eat organic/ or “better for you” foods?
Ashley we organic produce unless it’s on the clean 15, all fresh meats are organic as well. I haven’t found organic tuna or organic beef jerky locally. The dairy products we buy are rBST free but not organic. I’ve only seen ultra pasteurized organic animal dairy products here so we pass on that. We live 2 hours away from a city. We’re looking for places to move where we’ll have better food options and hoping to move next summer. We don’t eat white flour or white sugar on a regular basis, we’ll eat it if we’re dining out or if we’re visiting family/friends and they serve it to us.
A decade ago when I was a single Mom in graduate school working two jobs I made a hierarchy for our food needs. I buy local organic, local, organic and if we have no other options conventional. When we buy local organic we don’t require that the farmer or rancher have the certification because I know how expensive that can be. I used to run the business side of a cattle ranch when I was in undergrad. The cost was too much for us to become certified organic so we just followed the principles and welcomed people to come check out our operations.
That’s really incredible that you could balance two jobs, school, motherhood, and keep such a great diet for yourself and your family! I’m working 60-80 hours a week in addition to schooling, I couldn’t imagine adding parenting AND managing a healthy diet. I’m hoping to do a better job of shopping locally and eating things that aren’t awful like I have been. Anyways, thanks for sharing, I appreciate the insights!!
That’s an awesome deal on wheat pasta (or even regular pasta, for that matter). I’m glad you stocked up for the year!
Our kiddos are eating more and more these days. I can’t even imagine what it will be like when they’re teenagers! 🙂
It’s a good thing your student loans will be paid off by then Stephanie! You’ll need that extra money to help pay for all the food your kids will be consuming. 🙂
I thought I was the only one with a kid that size!! My son turned 15 this month, at 6’1″ & 180 lbs that boy can eat!! I can always tell when he is growing again, as he will be looking for food constantly. I always think something is wrong with him when he isn’t hungry, then I realize the growing slowed down for a bit. For those wondering, he isn’t really overweight other than a tiny bit of a belly, just big and stocky.
Thanks for sharing your grocery shopping! I was wondering how you managed to do shopping for so many on a relatively small budget. At our house, we generally stick to shopping every other week because I am in charge of the grocery shopping, and I get paid every other week. Now, it being summer time, we also can a lot of produce for the fall and winter (for ourselves and to give as gifts) so there are some sporadic trips in between the regularly scheduled shopping to pick up a great deal on tomatoes or peaches to make our own items.
Canned produce makes great gifts. I love sharing homemade jam!
Your blog is always a point of hope to me. It seems a lot to ask, as above, a busy mother of four what your menus are like, but I am so interested. Also, you clearly don’t eat much meat. Was it hard for your husband to embrace this eating style? Ideas for getting the family on board?
My husband likes meat, but he LOVES salad. I could just make a giant salad with lots of yummy mix-ins for dinner every night and he’d be thrilled (the kids– not so much). We used to eat meat a little more often before moving to California, but I just can’t stomach the prices here.
We have some meat in the freezer, including some grass-fed ground beef from a friend who was moving (which we’re eating sparingly so it will last). We also buy several turkeys at Thanksgiving time and cook them throughout the year then use the meat in all the recipes we would use chicken.
I’ll try hard to take pictures this month so I can do a post about what our menu looks like. It will be easier now that we’re back on a normal school schedule!
No judging here! I’d just be interested in what meals you make out of those ingredients (+ your garden produce)?
Thanks for not judging! 🙂 I’ll work on taking pictures and putting something together about meals.
I’m always interested by what other people buy! I’m curious about the bananas. It seems like they would go bad much faster than even a family of 5.5 could eat them, in those quantities. Do you turn them into loads of banana bread, or do you have some other trick?
Our family also eats a TON of bananas. One trick I learned was to separate them. It’s weird, but I swear a bundle will last at least a week longer if you tear them apart from each other.
Great tip! We eat lots of bananas too!
Places like Sams club cost money for a membership.
It’s actually not that many bananas for us. That is about 40 bananas divided by 5 people is only 8 days of bananas, if they even last that long! Bananas are something we would pick up in a mid-month trip too.
I have four children ranging in ages from 2-10 and they eat quite a bit. My husband is a very active/atheletic person who also consumes a lot of food. I spend about $900 a month on groceries which is a lot. I clip coupons, try to cook very healthy foods and we do not eat in restaurants but I can not keep up with how much my family eats. I cook breakfast, lunch, dinner and two small snacks in between. Now that summer is here, it’s even more difficult. I called my sister the other day and told her I’m terrible at shopping for groceries because I buy what seems like a lot but always run to the bare end before I can go shopping again. I shop big twice a month, according to my pay period. My sister told me I cook too healthy to eat cheap. I think that there should be some thing I can do to cook healthy and still have a budget but meet my families. needs. I do not have a Sams card because when I did, there was nothing “cheap” about buying the foods and there’s no Cosco here. We have HEB and Wal Mart. HEB is amazing because they have “Meal Deals” where if you buy one item like frozen hamburger patties, you get 5 items free, that kind of thing. I go through the store and buy the meal deals I know I can benefit from. Just like you, I’m curious about what other families do as well. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m working on my next shopping list for Wednesday.