If you spend $40 a week on groceries, what do you think a family of 8 should spend on their food bills for the week? -Kate
My
goal price range is $0.25-0.50/person for breakfasts and lunches and
$1.00-$1.50/person for dinners. Basically, I shoot for it to cost
around $2/person per day for food and household items. However, we
don’t actually spend that much since we have two adults and two little
children and only spend approximately $38-40 a week on food and household
items.
As our children grow older and we have more
children, I’m curious to see how much we’ll need to adjust our budget.
Since we have not raised our budget by much in spite of our expanding family, I’m hoping we can continue to keep it low.
I would
like to never go above $75/week–no matter how many children we have (and we’re hoping for at least eight or more!), but I have to test that out with a
brood of children before I can say for sure! One thing I do know is that the longer I bargain shop, the better I become at stretching our dollars.
When
you are first starting out with creating a budget and a menu and
sticking with it, I suggest you begin with something very doable.
If you’ve never had a grocery budget before, just sticking with the
same budget every week is a new challenge. Start somewhere but don’t
make it too hard at first. Keep it simple.
For a family of
eight, maybe you could try to stick with $150/week? That would be about
$21/day or about $2.60/person per day ($0.87/person per meal). Your
eventual goal might be to cull that down to around $100 or less, if
possible, but start out with something manageable. This is supposed to
be a fun process not a stressful process! If $150 sounds way too low,
try starting out with a $200/week budget. As always, starting somewhere is better than not starting at all!
Whatever
you do, choose a budget amount that you think is possible, but might
be a little bit of a challenge. Keep in mind your family’s eating
preferences, where you live and what the prices are in that locale,
what your husband likes to eat (don’t scrimp there!), how often you
have others into your home for meals, and how much time you have
available to spend cooking and planning.
I also think it is good
to not have the budget so low that you can’t splurge on certain things
sometimes. We splurge every week on organic hormone-free milk and eggs
from a local dairy. We also often use our overage from CVS to splurge
on "fun things" like dark chocolate and ice cream. Always remember that
the purpose of saving money is not to deprive yourself, but to make the
most of what you have!
Once you feel comfortable with your
current grocery budget and feel like you could do better, try shaving
off a little more and a little more until you get your budget down to
where you’d like for it to be. Remember, if at any time in the process
you stop looking at it as a fun challenge and start seeing it as a
stressful frustration, back off a bit and allow yourself a little more
wiggle room.
As you gradually improve at your bargain-hunting
skills, are able to stock up on good deals, and start planning your
menu more based upon what is on sale at the store and what you already
have on hand, you’ll find it becoming easier and easier to lower your
weekly budget.
What is your weekly budget and how many does that regularly
feed? Do you include your household items in that budget? Are you
satisfied with your budget or do you think you could improve it?