Bob

2 adults, 4yr and a baby...our budget, without household stuff is $65 a week, just about doable, with a monthly shop at BJ's for chicken and flour.

Have to split the shop up, mostly in Wegman's, but all the fresh veg is at a farmers market and fruit at a orchard.

Prices vary so much though....our local place, yoghurt is 55c a tub, milk is $2.20 but next door to where the missus works, same grocery store, next town over, it's 40c yoghurt and $1.90 a gallon of milk.

The corn is about $5 for a half dozen.

When visiting the folks up in Maine, the corn was $2 for a bakers dozen, the milk was $4.40....but then again able to get cod for $4 a pound almost, but it's close to $15 a pound down my way.

We hardly ever eat out, always cook from scratch and don't buy junk food, except the odd bag of cheese puffs for the kids when out and about.

ChocolateBabz

I think we would be around that range as well (2 adults, 1 teen), but I sometimes have to nip out for a few extra bits and pieces during the week. I try not to because if I go out for a pint of milk I seem to come home with an extra $30 of shopping

The occasional trip to The British Isles Store results in $80 of crisps and chocolate so I try to only go once every few months

scrubbedexpat097

$80? Sounds a bit of a low estimate to me..

ChocolateBabz

That's just a normal trip, let's not go into Christmas when I will 'have' to buy christmas crackers, mincemeat pies, selections boxes, big boxes of roses and celebrations....

WEBlue

But remember the $50 is P(er)P(erson) per week. It's actually $100 for the both of us per week. So not so amazing. In fact about the same per person as your own weekly food bill.

I know what you mean about teenagers; the amount of food some of the active ones can put away is just astonishing! Now that my kids are in their 20's I'm sometimes shocked at how little they eat compared to 10 years ago.... I'll make a big pot of veggie soup & end up having to freeze half of it because they no longer eat three helpings at each sitting.

WEBlue

No kidding? This is food shopping for all three meals, 7 days a week? That's great!

We don't eat out or order take-out at all (when it's just us). So that $100 usually pays for everything consumed by the two of us weekly except occasional cleaning supplies & the husband's pints with mates.

Where is it that you shop for that amount per week?

Ash UK/US

Check out Aldi, coupons, coupons coupons! Consider Costco or Sams club (yes you have to pay membership but what I save on petrol alone pays for the membership). Buy your fruit and veg when it is season it is usually less than 50 % off compared to other times of the year. Buy in bulk when you see a good sale I once found Gain detergent on clearance then with coupons it made it a fantastic deal, I bought a 2 year supply lol.

WEBlue

Wow, this is impressive! Household stuff means paper & cleaning products? So this is just food, & each of your family members can eat for around $16-17 pp pw? I would love to be cutting our food costs down closer to that level. Sounds like you've got the shopping down to an art.

Yeah, we're the same in our normal everyday life. I cook just about everything from scratch. I'm starting to make some of my my own bread too, & I want to get a breadmaker & do all of this. (I don't eat much bread but the husband is addicted to decent bread--he hates most supermarket bread here.) We never ate many prepared foods in the UK either, & in this country we have even less interest.

I pack us up lunches for work, & I try to do the same for travelling, if it's just the two of us. But the unexpected costs of visitors and visiting can knock the budget to hell some months, as when everyone wants to go out to eat spontaneously out of the blue. Especially evening meals! Lunches aren't so bad, but an evening meal out--even at one of the cheaper places in NYC, for instance--can cost a fortune!

WEBlue

Yep, I do all this. Now that we've been in the same house for 9 months, I've figured out all the stores & coupons & deals. Aldi I love, though it's a bit of a drive.

The buyer's clubs (Costco/Sam's) I'm still considering. For just the two of us most of the time, I'm not sure it makes sense. But the jury's still out, & I may change my mind & try out a membership. I have family members who have urged me to join, but I need to crunch the numbers some more.

Bob

Aye, just food stuffs. Bog roll, we get a large pack from Wegmans for $12 and it lasts us a couple of months, a single roll of kitchen paper lasts us a month, a $50 box of nappies from BJ's, with coupons we can get from $20-40 and lasts 6 weeks, a $20 box of wipes lasts 2-3 months.

Laundry/dish detergent, large tub each lasts a good couple of months or more.

The budget gets blown out the water when the missus comes and does the grocery shop by $20-40 as she gets extra stuff for whatever things on the fly that she fancies but I stick to the grocery list of stuff that we need that week or to re-stock the pantry, usually when I see something on sale.

Bob

BJ's is another good one. Some times they'll do a friends and family special, like a few months back, BJ's were giving a free months membership to try them out, but if you went with someone who is a member you got 2 months free and if you got a years membership before the trial expired you ended up with another couple of months off.

Also, some companies have a program where you get discounts for membership. The missus, her company have just stopped doing it which was annoying but when they did, it was 15 months membership and $20 off the regular annual fee.

BJ's also allow regular coupons and coupon stacking, so between that on nappies and the saving on petrol, it works out well for us. Also get a discount on your car/house insurance through them and also some good hotel discounts and car rental rates, so if you travel a bit it's a nice bonus. Sam's club is the same and I'm sure Costco is, but that's the only one we've not checked out, can't be bothered the 40 min drive when BJ's is two mins up the road.

Funny really, we used to have to drive 45 mins just to do the weekly grocery shop where we used to live in Maine

N1cky

My food prices are all over the place, but I don't pay much attention to it.

One tip though. We did Weight Watchers a couple of years ago, which involved me sitting down once a week and figuring out what we were going to eat all week. I only bought the things on my list, and made sure that we used every bit of what was bought. My grocery bill came way down, maybe by as much as half, as I didn't randomly pick up things that we didn't need.

Bink

This is true. Also, never shop when you're hungry!! It leads to you buying a whole load of extra stuff as you're tummy takes precedence over common sense! (At least in my case).

Bluegrass Lass

We probably spend anywhere from $100 to $150 a week for two people. That's inclusive of paper products, cleaning products and toiletry items. We do a lot of shopping at Whole Foods. For only the 2 of us, in a smallish apartment, it doesn't make sense for us to get a membership at one of the bulk-buy warehouse stores. I'd use coupons, but I don't get coupons for the non-processed food we get...at least not that I've seen. Perhaps if we stuck to a specific list of meals, and made a list, we could cut it down to the less. It's definitely on my radar of costs to reduce.

Anian

Females tend to use a lot more of the non-food stuff than males,so you'd have to proportion the amounts accordingly, but $50 pp pw is doable. My family of four spend that at the normal grocery store, plus another $200-300 every couple of months at Costco for the bulk stuff. If you buy alcohol then you'd spend a lot more. Plus the economies of scale help, since making a meal for four is more efficient than for two.