Average monthly grocery bill? (Page 2)

Fiance' and I are at about $600/month.  And we eat out usually 1 to 2 times a week.  We are training for IMLP and eat like crazy.  We go through about 2 lbs of lunch meat a week for sandwiches and eggs and egg substitute like crazy.  However, we use coupons when we can and try and be frugal.

I look at it as an added expense of triathlon training.

Between Safeway, Trader Joe's, and Costco, I spend roughly $400-$450/month for my husband and I. Target is about another $150/month (mostly grocery stuff like cereal and other pantry staples, and toiletries). I have a detailed budget, so this is no guess. We spend another ~$250/month on eating out.

Some tips:

Shop around. I have certain things I only buy at TJ's, or Costco, or Safeway, or Target. You save much more than the gas $$ you waste driving around. I don't make all these trips once a week.  

Trader Joe's: stick to TJ's brand staples. I can't do a lot of generic things (usually that's a huge grocery saving tip, but I just can't eat soggy cereal or bread), but TJ's generic is real quality - no preservatives, no fillers. Some of my fave's are whole wheat pasta, parmesan cheese, cereal, whole wheat pitas, frozen fish, frozen mandarin orange chicken (meal), frozen brown rice, whole wheat cous-cous, and frozen fruits and veggies. Stay away from: most premade stuff, dairy, and fresh produce. These are cheaper at the grocery store.

Safeway/regular ol' grocery store: stick to the outside aisles. This is partly for health (that's where all the good for you stuff is), and partly to save $$. The middle of the store is filled with premade, prechopped, prepackaed, preseasoned money wasters. I only venture to the middle for cereal.

We have a hard time keeping fruits and veggies since we don't eat them as much as we should and there's only two of us. Frozen is great for this. It's quick and easy, lasts forever, and it's just as nutritious as fresh.

Meal planning and coupon cutting are also supposed to be great, but I haven't gotten there yet.  

Yeah, we're around $100-$150 per week, I am training for HIM and marathon and he is training for IMWI and seems to need 3K+ calories per day.  We pack lunches and do a lot of fruit, dairy, veggies, meat, and he is a 'bread snob' so it's always around $3-4 per loaf. 

I found lately that making things from home is saving us a bit of money (homemade granola/energy bars, salads, plain yogurt w/added fruit and granola instead of buying individual packs, roasting turkey @ $3.50 a pound instead of buying the processed lunchmeats for $6).  It also helps cut down on all the waste from buying individually prepackaged items.

On the other hand, we also still drink good beer, which kills the above savings.  Life is too short to drink cheap beer...

Oh and one more thing: know what good prices are for things you buy often, and wait for those prices. This is the most annoying thing about shopping with my husband - he doesn't know my little "limits" and just grabs what he wants w/o looking at the price tag. I stock up when it's at the "right" price and don't buy it when it's not.

Examples: fruit or tomatoes ($1.00/lb), yogurt (50c ea), beef/pork ($2.99/lb), fish ($3.99/lb), cereal ($2.50/box), butter ($3.50/box), ice cream ($4/tub).   

I have to agree with the only other Canadian that I noticed in this thread.  Some of you are spending in a month what my wife and I spend in a week.  We easily spend $150 a week at the grocery store.  Sure some of that is for toothpaste, paper towels, toiletpaper, cleaning suppliers etc.  but not much of it.  We eat a lot of pasta, turkey, chicken, pork, buy very little beef.  Fresh fruit and veggies are a weekly thing too.

I'm really going to have to start looking at our spending again.  Think of the toys I could buy if I saved $200+ per month on groceries!

Sounds to me like Canadians eat too damn much.

Don't shop when hungry...

and don't take little kids because they want everything that has pictures of Shrek or Spiderman.

Actually, I know we spend wayyyyyy too much. We like soda and I love my fancy coffees. Husband is drinking lots of yogurt and Slimfast these days too..

$225 average for "the pantry" shopping trip each month (once a month).  Includes: Soups, meat to freeze, pastas/sauces, cereals, canned chix/tuna, rice, and household cleaning products/paper goods.

$40 weekly average for fresh items (dairy, produce, a six pack for him, a bottle of wine for me).  Produce regularly includes some (but not all) organic items. 

We hardly ever eat out; we cut this out about 2 years ago and have saved OODles.  We both make and bring our lunch daily, only eating out with coworkers if there is a birthday or something special.

Monthly total: $400 for two adults.  Maybe another $75 if we eat out twice.

Supplements, bars, etc. (just me), add maybe another $40/month.

I grew up in a household where one parent loved to cook gourmet food, and the other is a wine importer, so I ate and cooked VERY well growing up.  Once on my own, I realized I could afford to make (maybe) one special dish a week, and not go crazy on entertaining.  (Potluck!).  Cutting back on alcohol, eating out, and gourmet cheeses, suddenly I found hundreds more in my account at the end of each month. 

I'm with Angela - three boys (9,7,5) - and my wife says she can't keep up...

I give her $220/week for groceries and she probably spends another $20-30/week on little food store stops...

And she says she needs more!

I don't get it - I tell her to give me a chance and I could probably buy twice as much food for the same amount of money - generic brands, sales, two-for-one, double coupons, etc.

Unbelievable!

There was a feature article in the New York Times a few weeks ago about a city official (mayor?) in Seattle (or was it Portland?) that lived on $3/day, to show that you can (though not easily) live within the food stamps budget for that area.  I remember looking at his grocery list - lots of canned goods, beans, pantry stuff, and some milk.  Boring, but sort of inspiring to me that you could save that much money.

We have 2 adults, 2 teenage boys, a 10 yo daughter and a 8 yo son.  Average monthly spending on food is about $1250.00. 

The teenage boys are a bottomless pit into which food flows continuously!!!