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?
Reading all of these comments has me in SHOCK! I live overseas with my husband & 2 kids (ages 2 & 3), with one on the way. My husband is active duty Air Force, so we shop on base at the commissary. I consider myself a very careful shopper & I use coupons (we can use them until 6 months past the expiration date). We qualify for WIC here, which means I hardly ever have to purchase milk, eggs, juice, peanut butter, bread, cheese, etc., and we get $20/month in produce. We STILL spend between $80-$120/week on groceries/household items (both kids are potty trained, no pets). Reading your blog makes me very anxious to move back stateside where I can shop around & purchase generic items! We were trying to make a budget for when we move back and were expecting to be spending the same as what we are spending now. All of these comments are encouraging to me that we can cut our budget down for food! 🙂
Oh, how I could use all of your help. I am reading these blogs everyday, reading your posts. And I just can’t do it.
We are a family of four. And because I quit my well-paying corporate job and started my own business, we are on a serious budget.
Groceries is the one place I think we could do soooo much better. We spend up to $200/wk…I know!…and we don’t by beef. Our family GIVES us beef whenever we need it.
I’m clipping coupons, trying to use couponmom.com and you all. But I still can’t get it down below $100+/wk.
Can you give me one or two places to start? What am I doing wrong?
Thank you so much.
Robin
Normally, I spend between $125 and $150 for a family of nine, for a week (includes everything).
I really want to get it down. The CVS shopping is helping with toiletries and household items, and even gifts.
The trouble I seem to run into is that on lean weeks, when I have little to nothing to spend, I cook from scratch from the cupboards. Then, because I use up the staples, I have to go do a big stock-up after pay day. I’d love to get better stocked up on dry goods so I don’t have to spend as much in one go.
We’re dealing with food allergies, and I’ve found there is no way to keep our costs under $100/week.
My family of 10 averages about 250 dollars per week. A good number of luxury items are included in that, including many packaged foods/drinks to accomodate dh’s needs for his lunch for work, snacks for the kids, etc. When I invest the necessary time in couponing and shopping sales, I can trim that by 40 to 50 dollars per week. Likewise, I am able to move into a budget buster mode whereby I serve more economical meals like soups, beans, etc. During summer months, a little more may go toward meats and seasonal fruits, but balances out with garden produce. When the garden is going well, I may only spend 100 to 150 per week.
Thanks to your site, which got me started, we are spending close to half of what we were in the spring. Our family of seven (two adults, three teenagers and two young boys) spends about $150 a week. I use coupons, shop at discount stores and CVS/ Rite Aid, etc. Our grocery bill is mostly produce and dairy (also thanks to your words of wisdom regarding keeping meat as a sort of side in meals instead of the main thing). Since produce coupons are something I have yet to find and the local farmer’s market is actually expensive(!!!), I am fairly happy with the progress we are making. According to the other comments we appear to be the norm in how much we are spending, but I am grateful to be able to buy better quality foods now, for less, and the kids have gotten to have fun snacks that I couldn’t afford before this coupon bug hit our home! So, thanks for that!!!
Crystal,
Just wanted to write that it was so refreshing to read that you and your husband are hoping for a larger family. It’s nice to know there are other couples that are more “open to life” :). I just wanted to let you know that I think it’s great that you are open to expanding your family, even though it means spending more money. Children, and family, are priceless :).
Smiles!
Mary
P.S. Can’t offer any advice on the whole budgeting thing right now because we are currently in a budget crisis…. actually we’ve been in one for awhile. Prayers would help LOL!
We are a family of 6- 4 boys ages 10-4 and my husband and I. We spend about $40-50 a week, usually $40. I do sometimes allot money that I spend on things like extra produce to can or freeze for winter, bulk items like 50 lbs of oatmeal or large bags of cocoa, but otherwise we do fairly well sticking to it. I usually post my menus on my blog http:/www.homeschoolblogger.com/martha
I just wanted to say “thank you.” We are a family of three and you’ve motivated me to get our grocery bill down to $50 a week. It worked out great for my first month. I’m also trying to stay home more.
Somehow, with those changes, the Lord stretched out budget so much last month that there wasn’t a dent in our bottom line with 4 new tires and an old medical bill that found it’s way to us that month.
We have 7 people at home: 2 parents, 3 teens, and 2 elementary age and we average $140 a week for food, cleaners, paper products, and pet food. We live in the pacific NW which is about 15% higher in cost. We also have a family member with allergies and we very rarely eat out. A helpful article on feeding larger families is- http://ladyofvirtue.blogspot.com/2008/07/grocery-shopping-in-simplicity-of.html
We spend about $125 a week, and that includes groceries, diapers, household, and eating out. We are only a family of 5 but a good majority of our groceries are organic. Before I switched to organics it was half of that.
Our family of four spends about $150 every two weeks, but that includes formula for the youngest at about $100 a month. I try to offset that by making her baby food from scratch. It’s healthier anyway! It also includes about $30 a month for pet food! I have become a big coupon user and CVSer since the baby was born, and that has really offset the addition of diapers and formula. I am trying to spend more time making “eating out” dishes at home also. I am learning to make Mexican at home as much as possible because that is one of our favorites.
I failed to mention…
We shop once a month as it’s just easier for me since I make out a menu a month at a time. Yes, hubby may stop into the store to pick up fresh fruit or veggies once a week as needed but 90% (guess-timate) of our shopping is done once a month.
We are a family of 9:
Dad
Mom
DD#1 – 20
DS#1 – 9.5
DS#2 – 8
DD#2 – 6 (rather will be in a few days)
DD#3 – 4
DS#3 – 3 (rather will be in a few days)
DS#4 – almost 2
We budget $500 for the month. This includes all food and non-food items. Some months I use it all and others I don’t. Just depends.
That’s rounded out to be about $55 – $56 per person per month for food and non-food items.
Which averages out to $12.44 a week per person! ($56 divided by 4.5 since some months have more weeks than others).
You can see how we do it, what we buy etc. here:
http://laurawilliamsmusings.blogspot.com/2008/08/groceries-500-or-less-for-month-for.html
So many extremely tight budgets! I’m impressed. However, due to both dietary and lifestyle choices, my target number is far more liberal.
Before careful couponing/sales, I would easily spend $150/week on groceries and household items for a family of 3 (including a visibly growing teenage boy). Now, my goal is to stay under $100, and the last two weeks our net cost has averaged $70something.
Oh yes, I forgot to add that our budget is lower when we have our huge garden in but this year due to my husband’s running/training schedule we just could not do it–so we only planted pumpkins!!! 😉
Gardens help tremendously….
I am very impressed with the budgets I see in these comments! Mine is not nearly as impressive. For a family of three (2 adults and one 14 month old) I spend about $100-ish per week. And we don’t buy meat! And I get most of my personal items ‘free’ at CVS! But what it boils down to for us is my husband’s large appetite (he’s a runner, who runs 70ish miles per week….that’s 7000 extra calories to consume!), his preference for lots of fruit–I mean LOTS!, our desire to eat organically and locally, and the sort of ‘political’ decision we have made to avoid some big stores. We also avoid certain ingredients. But I coupon faithfully, spend about $2 per week at CVS on $20-$30 worth of stuff, and our family budget allows for the larger grocery budget. I used to be able to get away with about $70-$80 per week but now I have allowed myself more wiggle room, as we’re in a place financially where that’s okay. It’s hard for me to accept this…but some items just can’t be bought on the cheap very easily, such as the vegan margarine or brown rice syrup or agave nectar….
I have 5 kids, a husband, dog and cat. Last year I was spending $250 a month total, which included groceries, household items and pet food.
As so far this year I’ve been spending around $100 over my budget of $250. It’s not because of ‘rising food cost’ I’ve just been extremely distracted lately, things going on, basement flooding, kids out of school – etc where I haven’t been focusing on coupons as much as I should.
However, even spending $350 a month for a family of 7 is very good and I’m not too disappointed in that. It is very possible to do, and even spend less – just takes some time and dedication.
I have a family of seven (2 in diapers) and I spend $500 a month on food, diapers, and household items. I shop for 2 weeks at a time with one extra run for milk and produce, but am working on a once a month menu plan to avoid the extra shopping trip and gas.
I am constantly amazed by and envious of all of you who manage on such small budgets. I just don’t know how you do it!
Like Jenni, my husband and I have a house full of “grown” children (ages 18, 20, and 23). In addition to the five of us, two of our children have “significant others” that dine with us multiple meals per day. We also have 1 dog and 2 cats. Feeding seven adults and three animals on a budget is hard for me. This year I planted a garden for the first time since my children were small. It has helped, but does not feed us as many meals as it used to. Bread, milk, and eggs are bought in multiples several times a week! I have been CVSing since February of this year and shopping at Walgreen’s and Walmart more often. Aldi is opening in our area in just over a week. I can’t wait to try it out, after hearing about it from all of you for so long! I do use coupons and work hard at finding the best deals. We rarely eat out anymore, because we can’t afford it! The children all work and are physically active, none are over weight, they just consume large quantities of food (and they use lots of shampoo, face cleansers, toothpaste, tampons and toilet paper!!!). I know that when the two oldest and the two signifigant others go back to college this fall the grocery bill will drop quite a bit, but in the meantime, it has been a difficult summer trying to stretch our grocery money and not have hungry kids! I would like to hear more ideas from parents of older children like myself. I constantly look to you all for inspiration and hints on how to make my money go farther! Please keep them coming!
We are a family of 9. 2 adults and 7 children from 14 yo – 7 weeks. The littlest one doesn’t count yet, except for her diapers. My weekly budget is $75.00/wk. It used to be around $750 – $800/mo. That does include all household goods and diapers also.
I do my main grocery shopping once every two weeks. I will stop at the grocery store on my off weeks if there is a big sale that I can stock up on, but I will only use any leftover money from my grocery budget for this. If my money is gone, then I do not go into the store even if it is for a fantastic sale. I have learned that I can always get that great deal next time when there is extra money for it. This alone saves me money in the long run. I do shop at CVS almost weekly though.
I will say that I have my pantry and freezer stocked nicely with food eventhough I pass on some of the deals. In fact, I have been able to bless others by sharing some of what I have.
Some things I have done to cut my budget:
1. Make a menu and stick to it
2. Make my grocery list and stick to it
3. Use only cash to pay for groceries
4. I use coupons now for the things I buy. I don’t use that many food item coupons since we don’t buy it, but I do use coupons for all other household goods. Oh, and I live in the land of no doubles
5. I trade with other people for coupons I do use. It’s easy. I just give them the ones I don’t use and get the ones I need.
6. I buy lots of smaller items rather that buying in bulk like I used to. I will wait till it goes on sale and then use coupons on top of the sale. No more Sam’s Club membership here.
7. I have my own vegetable garden almost year round. We eat lots of veggies that are in season. I also have people that i’ve met that let us pick their fruit trees. We eat fresh as long as we can and then I put some up. Of course I still do buy fresh fruits and veggies with my shopping trips, but this help us save money.
8. I do have laying hens that give us fresh eggs. My family and neighbors pay me a bit to share the eggs and we use that to pay for their feed.
I have learned alot along the way about saving money on groceries. I still continue to learn more all the time though.
Our monthly grocery budget is $200 (or $50 a week) for 2 adults & a baby. However, my definition of “grocery” is quite broad. Actually, instead of calling it grocery budget I should call it our “commissary” budget. Anything I get at the commissary, be it laundry detergent, diapers, cleaning supplies…etc. falls into that $50/week. The only thing that doesn’t fall into that budget is the bi-monthly $40 bag of dog food (for obviously reasons…since that would leave me with $10 that week). But thanks to my coupon-ing, we still manage to buy plenty of meat and fresh veggies.
Our monthly grocery budget is $200 (or $50 a week) for 2 adults & a baby. However, my definition of “grocery” is quite broad. Actually, instead of calling it grocery budget I should call it our “commissary” budget. Anything I get at the commissary, be it laundry detergent, diapers, cleaning supplies…etc. falls into that $50/week. The only thing that doesn’t fall into that budget is the bi-monthly $40 bag of dog food (for obviously reasons…since that would leave me with $10 that week). But thanks to my coupon-ing, we still manage to buy plenty of meat and fresh veggies.
Question – so your $40 per week doesn’t include milk or eggs or sweets? Those are considered splurges?
Just wondering because if that’s true, I won’t feel so guilty about how much I spend.
*******************
Money Saving Mom here: No, the $40 includes everything–including the splurges–we just save money in certain areas (like making stuff from scratch, cutting back on meat, sticking with simple meals, etc.) in order to spend more on things which are important to us (like hormone-free milk, meat, eggs, etc.).
Hope that helps!
We have 8 in our family and the kids are 13 down. Compared to what Crystal is able to do, it sounds like a lot but we spend $800 a month. That includes all paper products, diapers, household chemicals, and everything of that sort. I do buy some “convenience” foods for the kids to take to school but try to buy them on sale with coupons. We don’t get enough fresh fruits and veggies for this amount however. I do alot with bargain shopping and coupons, etc., but driving a suburban around it’s not especially economical to drive the dollar bread store that’s 20 miles round trip even if I buy 10 or more loaves a trip (which with what I already have in my freezer would be all it would hold.)
I’m interested in this thread and would be interested what others are able to do!
I just wrote about this on my blog! How funny. We are only a family of three and we were easily spending 125+/week on groceries. JUST groceries. Until I found wonderful blogs like this that gave me the encouragement to take a step. I’m trying to do it on $60/week (since that is half) and I’ve stocked up well over the past few weeks. I hope to do that successfully and then get down to $40. There are some things we probably won’t “give up” but baby steps. : )
Oh, and I forgot to say that the $42 a month is just food, nothing else. Yes, I do get out my receipt from the grocery store and divide it up. 🙂
Wow, I am super impressed with how little so many of you spend on groceries. I spend $42 a week for just me and my husband. That’s $3.00 a person per day. I thought I was doing good. When I’ve tried to cut the budget I end up feeling deprived and so I am happy with where it is.
We really enjoy food, though, and are food snobs a bit. For example, I almost never use margarine… i love real butter. And we always have not-concentrate orange juice in the fridge. I’ll buy shrimp or fish or steak when it goes on sale.
I do make almost everything from scratch, though. Right now I am eating some home-made chicken n dumpins. Mm-hmm.
We are a family of 10 with children ranging in age from newborn to 18 years old.(six boys who love meat as much as their father) Our food and household costs were about $1200 a month about a year ago. I buy grains, beans, oils and sweeteners in bulk. We raise chickens and often our own eggs. We frequently buy 1/2 sides of beef or pork and often buy large amounts of bulk produce directly from the farm to freeze or can. We bake our own bread, cook from scratch and don’t often buy convenience food or eat out. I was very discouraged with the amount we spent but convinced I could not cut down our grocery budget. Crystal, I am really thankful for your help with our toiletries and household items.(Yeah CVS and Walgreens) It has made such a drastic difference in out budget! We are now down to about $200 a week. By cutting our costs on non-food items to nothing or next to nothing we have cut back by about $400 a month and we get to enjoy many “luxuries” we always did without before.(ie.paper towels) Thank you so much for all you do.
We’re just a family of four, but two of them are teenage boys, so it’s like feeding 8 adults–seriously, my boys eat at least twice as much each as my husband does, and he’s a big eater, too. And it’s not just food–I have to constantly buy them bigger clothes and shoes, since they’re both growing so rapidly. And even though they are two years apart, they are the same size, so no hand-me-downs from older to younger anymore.
If I can keep my budget for food under $120 a week, I’ll be estatic. Toiletries, etc., are obtained for free or nearly free at CVS or Walgreens, and clothes when possible are purchased at the thrift store or the rare yard sale that has clothes to fit young giants.
We are a family of 12 – my Dad & Mom, sister 24, me 22, brother 20, sis 18, sis 16, bro 14, bro 12, bro 10, sis 8, and youngest brother age 5.
In the past two years, our $700 per month grocery budget shot through the roof and was about $1200 two months ago. (Probably when the 3 boys in a row hit those “growing” years!)
Since that time, friends at church have told me about your site, and Mom has allowed me to pursue my new favorite hobby – cutting down our grocery bill. 🙂
We are trying to cut it down to $900 immediantly, but it is my goal to get us back down to $700 per month (including paper towells, tissue paper, other household products, and those little “vices” that we have become accustomed to such as Starbucks coffee beans and T.G. Lee chocolate milk). 😉
We make our own bread and *try* to be healthy, but it doesn’t stop us from eating chips and cookies every once in a while!
We live in FL so we shop at CVS, Publix, Walmart, and Winn-Dixie. Your site is starting to educate us on Walgreens so that will become a regular too. 🙂 Since we live 25 minutes from “town”, it is easy to stick to our goal of once-a-week shopping!
Thank you for ALL of the help you have been to our family (and my Daddy’s budget!) in the past month!
yes, your per person cost goes down quite a bit as there are more people. some household items don’t depend on how many people there are and then you also tend to buy in bigger quantities. It is amazing what you can do. I have folks ask me all the time how I can afford to feed such a big family and I usually tell them i probably spend less than they do for their small family, when we compare #’s mine is usually less.
blessings, Penny Raine
http”//www.pennyraine.com/blog
Although I’m CRAZILY impressed with how many mouths y’all feed for such small budgets, I’m dying to know how y’all are budgeting to put money aside to put all of those kids through COLLEGE!
I would guess that people who are so good about being debt-free or nearly debt-free wouldn’t let their kids start out their lives $25,000 in debt or so, but I don’t know how to do it!
We’re in North Texas, and for a family of 7, (2 adults, kids 11, 10, 9, 6 and 3) we are a new budget of $150 a week. I used to think we spent $400-$600 a month, but that was only on a big shopping trip, I wasn’t adding in all the trips I made in between to pick up “a few things” – which always turned out to be too much. After I kept track I realized we were spending $800-$1000 a month!
So $150 a week is going to be a challenge and adventure for us. I do hope to get that down lower though. We do include toiletries in our grocery budget.
I don’t coupon much, basically only for toiletries b/c we don’t buy boxed, prepared or convenience food. Almost everything we make is made from scratch. We do splurge on hormone-free milk though. My youngest is allergic to all dairy, so we go through a lot of rice milk each month as well – so both our milks are pricey.
We do not buy paper products, except for toilet paper. I have just recently started couponing again for shampoo, dish soap, and laundry detergent. We don’t use cleaners, only vinegar (for cleaning, as a fabric softener, and even in our carpet machine) and I’ve never seen a coupon for vinegar!
If we ate more packaged foods and used chemical cleaners, I know our budget could be lower, but that’s not something I’m willing to do. So I’m happy with lowering it to $150 a week, and am relatively sure w/ a bit more creativity I can get it a bit lower.
We’re on the way … 🙂
I’m currently trying to assess a better budget. For me, it’s just me and my roommate. We split household expenses and in general grocery shop together, dividing the bill in half. On average, our expenses have been roughly $200 – $250 a month – that takes into consideration toiletries, cleaning products, and pet care (food, litter, etc) but as a result of getting more into my “CVS’ing” and other bargain shopping ways, I have been able to chip into that figure quite a bit lately. The one stumbling block being eating out. We both work and have pretty full schedules (I work a full time job, and have a part time home based business) so sometimes we’re just tired and it’s easier to do take out rather than go in the kitchen… that is the part I’m trying to trim.
I’ve recently started an envelope budget and it’s working really well so far, but then, I haven’t tried to cut back any, yet. We are a family of four, two adults and two children, ages 2 and 1, both of which are eating table food. I spend $50wkly on groceries, $20wkly eating out, $15wkly diapers, $20misc. including household items, $5wkly Starbucks 🙂
I have a bit of a different take on grocery budgeting. I don’t have a certain amount to spend. If I do that, I am restricted on stocking up on things when they are on sale. I do track all of our expenses, though. The last few months I have spent about $400/month on groceries (includes all household items) for our family of five. But if for some reason I wasn’t able to shop this month, or didn’t have enough money, I could feed my family comfortably for at least 2 months, and longer than that on staple items (wheat, rice, pasta, beans.) I also have stocked up about a year supply of toiletries by getting things free with rebates. In the winter the amount I spend will drop drastically (not buying large amounts of produce to can and freeze.)
We budget $250 for our family of 5 but I generally spend under $40 a week. The more you do it the better you get. You learn that sales and coupons are seasonal so that you can stockpile etc. I am NOT the best at it but I always save at least 60%
We’re a family of 8 in South Florida. We have 2 teenagers, plus an 8, 7, 4, and 2 yr old (and Another on the way). We just started doing Dave Ramsey’s program and using Money Saving Mom a few months ago so we’re still in the process of learning to save more money. My grocery/household budget is $1200/month but I am trying to get it down to $1000 and then maybe down to $800/mo. I do CVS/Walgreens which saves a lot, but we don’t have grocery stores that do double coupons or anything like Aldi (so jealous of those who have those stores!). We’re on the high side here for food costs. I shop at Publix, BJ’s (like Costco but they accept manufacturer’s coupons), and somtimes Supertarget or Walmart. Our Walmart does not have the greatest deals and I find I can do better at other stores w/sales & coupons. We don’t grow any food and we tend to eat some of the more expensive stuff, rice milk & soy milk, and try to avoid artificial stuff. I also buy a few convenience things like Boca Veggie Burgers (we’re vegetarian) to help on days when I’m too tired or busy to cook. I am trying to cut back everywhere I can and still eat mostly healthy. When our kids were all younger it was easier to stick to a very inexpensive budget, but the boys (especially teenagers!) can EAT, let me tell you- and they’re thin as rails even so. I’ve been making mostly homemade snacks, but we do eat a lot of fresh or frozen fruits and veggies and those are not cheap to buy. I’m working on it though…
I live in Oklahoma. The Homeland stores here do take Internet coupons and they double coupons up to $1, so I shop there to get some great deals on advertised specials. I do most of our shopping at Crest for groceries. Since reading your blog, we have saved a lot of money by shopping at CVS and Walgreens, but I still have a long way to go.
I usually spend about $90 a week on food, toiletries, baby food, etc. for our family of three. I am planning to try substituting beans for the meat in recipes to cut the budget down further.
We are nowhere near a budget, so this is an inspiration. One thing I wanted to mention, though, is it seems like disposable diapers are a huge expense for a lot of families. We use cloth except at night and for traveling. I’ve been able to get good deals on “discount” brands lately, and we don’t use many. Maybe I’m biased, but if I had to trim the budget, things I throw away covered with excrement would be the first thing to go!
Now that I think about it, we don’t use lots of paper towels or napkins, either.
We are a family of seven with kids aged 10-17. Our weekly budget is approximately $100, though I can get it very low if necessary. I am trying to implement cooking beans and rice once a week that lasts for at least two meals, and I know I can do better than I am. That said, we do save a lot, we hardly buy convenience foods, cook from scratch, frugally. I also need to include the $50 a month we spend on an organic veggie garden homeschool program that we participate in, in which I am putting away food for the colder months and we have hardly had to buy any veggies over the summer.
Before I started budgeting and clipping coupons we were spending around $175/ week for our family of four. I set a goal of spending no more than 450, the 1st month, then 400, then $320 which is where we are at. We like to eat lots of fresh produce, organics, etc and I wasn’t willing to drastically change that. But by doind a better job of menu planning around which meats, fruits, veggies, etc. are on sale and building a small stockpile of non-perishables like whole wheat pasta, frozen veggies and a freezer full of meat I have been able to maintain our eating habits. Actually, we eat better because I make different things every week as opposed to getting in the rut of the same stuff.
We’re a family of 3 (4 in Nov) with a food/grocery budget of $120/week (groceries, eating out, husband’s lunches, etc). The goal is to have enough at the end of the week for a meal out (usually Big Breakfast Saturday). I’m trying to spend less at the grocery store and increase the healthiness of what we eat, and was almost consistently at $80/week on groceries, including the $26 we spend every other week for a CSA produce box. But lately, it’s been harder to have money left over at the end of the week.
I finally broke down our receipts and realized that our current budget buster is snacks. My husband travels T-Th every week, and loading him up with “travel food,” while cheaper than eating out, is killing our grocery budget. The new plan is to make enough dinner for substantial leftovers that reheat well in the microwave. This includes: baked potato, stir fry, spaghetti, pulled pork… I’m working on getting a good set of recipes together for this purpose.
Sorry this is so long– I’m really thankful for this site, we used to spend I-don’t-even-want-to-say when we were both working and had no kids. I’ve learned SO much about how to manange our $$ at home from the posts and comments here– THANK YOU!
P.S. Just wanted to add that I love the fact that you look forward to many more blessings from the Lord! We too are hoping for a large family (and we’re well on our way with 3 kids under 4)! 🙂
We budget $200/month for our family of 5 – 2 adults, 2 toddlers, and a soon-to-be toddler (who eats more than the toddlers already!)
We have three children (soon to be four) ages 3, 2,and 1.
Our kids eat a ton. They are as skinny as bean poles, but I basically have to give them a nearly adult size portion at every meal. Even the 1 year old! So the kids being small, has definitley not minimized our food bill all that much. I’m sure it will get worse as they get older (2 are boys).
Our grocery/household items budget is $80/week. And this includes diapers (2 in diapers) wipes, all household cleaners, toiletries, plus dog food, cat food, and cat litter. We also go through 5 gallons of milk a week!
This website has really helped. We use coupons, shop at multiple stores and tailor our weekly menu around the sales that week.
We don’t have a CVS, but we shop at Walgreens, Aldi, Fareway, Sam’s Club, and Super-Walmart for the most part.
We also budget for eating out once a week. We love to eat out and can usually keep it under $10 for everyone.
I’ve noticed with couponing we buy a lot more stuff that I wouldn’t normally have bought before. But it’s cheaper. So a lot of our snack type items aren’t maybe the best, but we still buy a lot of fresh produce plus our garden.
Also, we grind our own wheat and make most of our own bread items.
Wow, you are amazing! I find making from scratch much healthier and usually cheaper. I would love to see some sample week menus from some of you.
Some of you mentioned the cost of meat. Meat and other animal products, especially free-range and organic options, can be very expensive. Many people don’t realize that there are other options when it comes to protein sources. The Meatless Monday Campaign website (www.meatlessmonday.com) has a ton of information on beans, tofu and other cheaper proteins as well as a huge recipe archive. As a mother nutrition and budgeting is important to me. I work for the campaign and found it to be good for my family’s health and budget.
When I lived in Southern California I had a $500 a month budget (roughly $100 a week with room for other misc items) which did NOT include gas ($60+ a week due to the distance required for our son’s school) nor our prescription needs (we are roughly $200 a month for our entire family and that doesn’t include the ones that are not regular monthly ones) nor our medical visits.
While I have been able to stay under the 100 in cash I had every week for groceries (since finding this site and others) it was still a very tight budget with a mortgage and rent in a VERY expensive town! Now that we have moved back to CO and no longer have rent to pay, I have a $700 a month budget and I’m hoping I can fit EVERYTHING under it. Should be interesting…I lost my short lived love affair with CVS so now I get to learn the Walgreen’s Game and maybe Rite aid…but I also get to take advantage of all the Walmart and Target deals that are mostly for the Supers! It’s an adjustment but I am hopeful 🙂
Our cost of living in Alaska is higher than some places, and we just don’t get the same sales. No Aldi types, no drugstore chains. We are a family of 6 so far, and we budget 100 a week, with an organic produce box shipped up from washington every other week, which is 50 dollars a box. The 100 dollars often includes toiletries, but not always. We can only get organics when they are marked down at Fred Meyer these days, usually. It’s not too hard to live on 125 a week, average, and that includes any eating out we may do. We don’t have a separate budget for that. We feed lots of people, not just guests but bringing snacks for church once a month, feeding Habitat for Humanity teams, etc. We eat pretty wholesomely-maybe meat 2x’s a week. Or stretch a chicken. We garden, can our own salmon and freeze it too. We get moose meat from a roadkill list once a year or so. I bake half our bread, buy it when I want to. We try to be wise with our money, but we aren’t stretching every dollar to the fullest, and that’s okay. We’re at a time in our lives when we don’t have to, and we are resting in that, while being careful at the same time. We are blessed to help others how we’ve been helped in the past, and it feels SO GOOD!
For my family of 5, we usually spend $100-$120 per week, which includes diapers for two kids, training pants for the third, and household items.
If I do the math, I have $41.54 a week for groceries, household items, toiletries, etc. That’s $180 a month, times 12 (months), divided by 52 (weeks in a year). This is for 2 adults and a toddler.
It is August, my garden is just coming in, and my pantry is full of things already. I have plenty on hand, and last month, I only spent about $25 a week, so I have some left over.
I am currently saving up extra grocery money in hopes of getting some organic grass fed beef. We have our own poultry (we are a hobby farm) but I’m not ready for raising our own cow!
I have enough toiletries on hand for a year, easy. Most of them were free (or made me money!) from Walgreens. I belong to a co-op, and get some staple items there, plus I do the sales and couponing, a garden and we have a small orchard.
Honestly, if I could plant a dorito tree and a cheeto tree for hubby (wouldn’t it be great if they grew on trees?) our budget would drop a good bit!
We are a family of 8 and budget about $150 a week for all household and groceries. We can usually do it for less than that unless there are some really great stock up sales. 🙂 I should really challenge myself and get it lower. This was a very interesting post! I had the same question!
Our family is 7 people. I spend $150/week and have for several years. We used to have wic, but do not now. This budget included diapers & household items. At one point I had 5 children all 2.5 and under so that was 25 diapers a day!! As they have gotten to be 7,5,5,4,&4 and do not need diapers now, they make up for it by eating more! We like to eat at our house! I found that I was struggling to stay at $150. Now that I discovered moneysavingmom (thanks Allison!), I have been able to feed my family much better and buy some organic foods (my long term goal) for the same $150. I also feel I can give more (like taking meals to friends having babies etc). So my plan would not be to lower the budget, but just to stay within it and be able to get some extras sometimes without having to ask my husband for an increase in this area. After “interviewing” 5 of my friends about their grocery budgets, I have found that $150 for a family of 7 is excellent. Thanks Crystal for all the tips!
We currently spend about $300 a month for a family of 4 (DH, me, a 2 year old who doesn’t really eat but has massive food allergies and a mostly breastfeeding 6 month old). That’s with eating every single meal at home except for maybe 1-3 fast food runs a month (that come out of that budget.) I cook from scratch mostly and we don’t buy processed stuff (except for DH’s ice cream). We don’t eat any dairy or eggs or seafood except for DH. We do well but honestly with the price of fruits and veggies we’d do better in the ‘fresh’ department if we were able to up our budget a bit more. 🙂
However, I don’t coupon a lot right now. Once we get past teething stage here and I’m getting sleep again, I’ll pick it back up again. Right now I’m content to just shop sales, loss leaders and Sam’s Club.
I usually keep food and household around $100 a week but sometimes it creeps up toawrds $125(the kids are milk lovers). That is a budget for 2 adults, 3 kids(11, 9 and 19 months..in diapers) 2 large dogs, 3 cats and 1 lonely hermit crab. I buy more expensive whole milk because of the baby(over $4 a gallon here) and this is a houseful of carnivores. This month, our expenses might be a little higher due to I was sick all of July and didn’t keep up with the diaper stockpile, plus school starts the 25th.
I’m quite pleased I have reduced our bill, I used to spend $500 a month or more just on groceries. No one has really complained of deprivation of their favorite foods, etc. I don’t think it’s a matter of doing without, just smarter shopping.
I have a family of 7. I have just recently started using coupons and “sale shopping” before that we were spending over 300 every 2 weeks for food.
Now (thanks to this site) I am spending about 100.00 every 2 weeks. For 7 of us! I get really good sales down here and stock up.
I splurged this week at sams and bought bulk hamburger meat (80 lbs) for just over a dollar a pound. Great price! every where else it is 1.50-3.00 a pound depending on what % you get. That coupled with the deal I got…I wont have to buy groceries for the next month. so 2 months of groceries cost me less than 300.00!!!! WOOO HOOOO
Wow, I am impressed by some of your budgets. We are a family of five (me, hubby, three kids – ages 10, 6, and 2). Before we were spending 650.00 a month on groceries and household items. I have been inspired by this website and now I have been doing $100 a week for everything. I want to get it lower. We don’t have a lot of great stores here. I wish we had a Publix. One big thing is I have stopped shopping at Super Walmart and done alot of my shopping at Kroger. I always thought Walmart was cheaper, but if I shop the sales and use coupons Kroger is much better. I hate going to Walmart anyway. Thanks for all the great ideas.
We are a family of 6 – my husband and myself, along with three sons (9, 7, and 5) and a daughter who is almost 2. Before we started couponing, we had a budget of $125 per week, but always found ourselves going over budget. We were typically spending about $600 per month in groceries. Now that we are actively using coupons and catching the sales at Kroger, Meijer, Walgreens, and CVS, we have cut our grocery bills to $90 a week, or $360 a month. My husband is thrilled that the bill has been cut almost in half, and we hope to trim it back a bit more. Each month we try to cut $10 off our bill per week. We plan to keep doing this as long as it is feasible.
We are a family of 4, one of them is still on formula. We do recieve WIC and our bi-weekly budget is $90-$110. I went on Saturday and spent $110 and plan on making it last 16-17 days.
I watched Kids by the Dozen on TLC and there was a family of 13 and they spent $150 a week on groceries, toiletries, diapers, etc.
Oops… I meant to add that we are a family of six.
We stay between $100 – $125 a week, and usually dip around $60 for one week a month. On that, I stockpile tons and give some away. About twice a year, we split half a cow with my brother and pay about $280, or about $2 a pound for all sorts of great cuts of steaks and ribs, soup bones, roasts and ground beef.
For our family of 6, my goal is $500 a month (includes everything) with no eating out. This is doable for us, but takes time to plan meals and look for deals and plan with my coupons. I am simply amazed at you who do this for much less! Between homeschooling, cooking and cleaning and caring for my husband, I have just the right amount of time for meal planning. If I took anymore time to save more, I feel my life would be out of balance. I am content with this amount for our family, I think every mother (or whoever shops) has their own system, some more efficient than others. As with all other aspects of life, their is a balancing act to this!
We are a family of 6, kids ranging in ages from 5 to 10. We spend on average $100 per week plus about $100 at Costco, so about $500 per month. That includes all toiletries, cleaning supplies, animal food and the like but does not include prescriptions or eating out (about $100 a month on eating out, though we are trying to drop that). We’ll also do a huge Costco run (around $400) when we get our yearly bonus, tax time and if its a month when we have 3 paychecks instead of 2. So that comes out to about 4 times a year.
We live in Western Wa, King Co., so its an expensive location, next to San Fran, NY and LA in costs. We have no Aldi’s at all, no breadstores, no dollar stores, no Walgreens, no Walmart. You have to drive and hour plus to hit any of those, so that doesn’t help!
I’ve just recently gotten our weekly $100 down that low from $150 by driving 10 minutes to another store that is cheaper. The 10 minute drive seems to be working out. I’m also trying to experiment to see if I can go 2 weeks with that $100 spent, and then just spend $50 locally for produce and the like in the second week, therefore only having to drive to the cheaper store 2x a month and saving another $100 per month. So far its working, though I don’t think it would if we didn’t get to go to Costco for our huge runs and our monthly $100.
I forgot to mention a few things:
1. I don’t always (rarely) spend the full $100 at the farm. But it ranges between $30-100 depending on how much meat we need to get. I try to stick to Hamburger and whole chickens most of the time to keep the costs down.
2. We get our fresh produce from an area CSA which is paid for in advance before the season starts. The costs of that averaged out to about $20/week. I have been pretty good about not purchasing additional produce unless it is necessary.
3. The lase 3 weeks or so I have not spent my entire food budget, but I have been pretty busy and my family has complained that there is not enough food in the house. 🙂
My husband and I spend $50/wk on food and household items. We do buy convenience items as we both work full time. When the time comes for me to stay home, we plan to lower it to $35-40/wk. We are praying about starting this now to be ready for that time.
I used to have 4 Adults, 3 Teenagers, and 2 Toddlers, 1 dog and 1 cat in my home while buying farm fresh and organic foods only. I was spending around $300/wk…Yikes! Now, I have 3 adults, 3 teenagers, 2 dogs and 2 cats. Just as we went through the transition of people living in the house I started paring back on my food budget. One area I will not compromise is that I get my meats and dairy from a farm. I have a budget for that of no more than $100/wk. Then I give myself $100/wk to spend at the grocery stores and CVS. I know these numbers are still very high to some, but we have to start somewhere and I am trying to maintain the local and organic thing. I tried having a binder that had 6 wks of menus and grocery lists for each week, but although it was a great time saver, that endeed up being more expensive in the long run. Now I am stocking up on sales when I see them and using CVS for personal care items for the ones in the house that will not use the natural products. That frees up some money for me to purchase the natural products I like to use.
You ladies are all amazing, I now know that my goal of 60-80 a week for a family of 6 is reasonable and attainable. I just started budgeting, making a menu, and couponing. And right now I am spending 140, but I am also building my stockpile right now. My goal for September is 100 and each month I want to try to get it down further.
Your budget per week will depend on a variety of things. #1 =Local stores. We have no Publix, ect in our town and Walmart & CVS are about it. #2 is your children’s ages and appetites, #3 are your standards. My husband has high standards, esp. for meat as he is a certified chef. He likes to cook with lots of ingredients. #4=Planning.
Before getting into couponing and CVSing my groceries were costing me very near $800 per month. I am feeding two adults and 7 children with hearty appetites. I am now down to below $400 per month in a good month and below $500 in a bad month. I am pleased with my savings but would like to save more. However, I am quite aware of the fact that it is much harder to find great deals in my area of the country. Costs are high for many things other than food esp. utilities. So, to the people who are trying to live on Crystal’s budget, take a look at your area and your kids ages, it does make a big difference.
Does anyone purchase their groceries once a month? I have just recently began being conscious of how much we spend each week, especially running out to pick up a “few things”. I thought I was doing good at $80 per week (Wal-Mart)for a family of 4 until I started keeping up with every penny I spend through the week. This month, I made a menu and went for the entire month. Of course except for perishables and CVSing. I hope it is going to work better. I spent $233.80,which includes CVS for this week. Anyway, Has anyone had sucess once-a-month shopping?
I budget about $100 a week ($400/month) for groceries for my family of 11 (2 adults and 9 kids ranging in age from 3 months to 15 years). This includes diapers for 2 kids, toiletries… pretty much anything you would purchase from a grocery store. I plan my weekly menu based on what I can get on sale at the store and I never feel like I am having to scrimp too much. We have a good amount of food storage that we use to supplement our meals and replenish that supply when things are on sale.
Our budget is 75/wk for a family of 4 (baby almost 1 yr old! and 100lb dog) That includes forumla and diapers and good quality dog food. We are hopinh we will be done with formula soon and can cut back even more. I’d love to get to 50.00.
Crystal: Do you think it is possible to be super frugal even in an outageously expensive place- like CA- with no IPs and no doubling?
Right now we are at $100 per week for a family of 4. This includes non food items such as tp, shampoo, etc. We live in the land of no CVS – and only have one Walgreens, so they are often out of the “deals and steals” that so many mention…too many people reading the deals, and competing for the 4 bottles of shampoo that the store keeps in stock, so I have given up on that too. We are also big “meat” eaters, and since that is the one thing my husband truly enjoys, I tend to spend more on that than anything else. I do watch for sales, and usually have overage on my other items that helps pay for the meat (at least a little). I am looking into buying 1/2 a beef to help out. Just trying to compare prices to make sure I can’t ge tit cheaper in the grocery store.
Family of 5 in the southeast. 2 adults, 3 kids aged 2-7, one dog. I could just ditto what Kristin said above, actually!
$77 is automatically deposited into a special “grocery” account with its own debit card every Wednesday. That includes all groceries and household (like cvs/meds/toiletries).
It’s working, and I feel we’ve found a balance between healthful, enjoyable, and frugal, but I admit I’m finding it difficult and time consuming. If I get lazy I could easily slip into spending 160 a week like I used to. Well, maybe not that much – I’ve learned too much – but it does take constant work to maintain that budget. I feel like I went through an initial phase of buying stuff we didn’t need just because I was dazzled by the sale/coupon savings, too, but that is correcting itself.
It happened slowly. I went from 160 to 130 to 110 to 90 and then to 77. Over the course of maybe 9 months or so. I think that’s my limit for now. But the baby steps were necessary. Also having a weekly budget rather than a monthly one helped. And for me, having the debit card with only the amount in my budget on it also helped. And it all started at this site. Thanks!
I have a family of two & my budget is $100 per week. I just started couponing & am hoping to reduce it to $80. I started w/ toiletries because that seems to be the easiest area to cut back. I want to stock pile free & really cheap toiletries so I won’t have to spend so much (or anything) at BJs anymore. Grocery spending will be harder to reduce since my husband insists on meat-centric meals & we both prefer organic everything.
When I lived in Southern California I had a $500 a month budget (roughly $100 a week with room for other misc items) which did NOT include gas ($60+ a week due to the distance required for our son’s school) nor our prescription needs (we are roughly $200 a month for our entire family and that doesn’t include the ones that are not regular monthly ones) nor our medical visits.
While I have been able to stay under the 100 in cash I had every week for groceries (since finding this site and others) it was still a very tight budget with a mortgage and rent in a VERY expensive town! Now that we have moved back to CO and no longer have rent to pay, I have a $700 a month budget and I’m hoping I can fit EVERYTHING under it. Should be interesting…I lost my short lived love affair with CVS so now I get to learn the Walgreen’s Game and maybe Rite aid…but I also get to take advantage of all the Walmart and Target deals that are mostly for the Supers! It’s an adjustment but I am hopeful 🙂
What a “family” spends will depend upon the size, ages, location and needs of each family’s children. We are a family of 11 people with 8 in their teen or adult years and 3 children under 10.
We do our best to eat healthy, fresh and home made. I do not buy anything with high fructose corn syrup in it and avoid personal body products with chemical and questionable ingredients such as parabens and sulfates (eliminating many coupon opportunities).
Up until 4 years ago, our food budget was very low. I was able to shop the different sales and different stores and our children were not eating quite so much then.
I bought in bulk and it lasted for a long time. I also bought the cheapest body products not understanding the cancer-causing ingredients they contained.
When the 2 older boys hit their growing years and started doing lots of physical labor, our food bill shot through the roof overnight. In addition to that, we moved to a rural area where there is no shopping competition and prices are what prices are.
We do not buy processed foods. We do not buy pre-prepared foods as a norm – only as a special needed basis. We do buy fresh fruits and vegies. We do buy whole grains in bulk. We make our own bread unless time just does not allow. We make whole grain pancakes, waffles, oatmeal or egg sandwiches for breakfast.
We have our own milk goats and free-ranging chickens. We are growing our own beef, but that food project is still all money outgo and no product, at this point. Lord willing, we will have a fall garden this year to provide us with some produce. God has provided some fruit trees for planting but they do not produce fruit at this time.
In a week’s time, we can easily go through $20 of apples, $10 of potatoes, $10 of salad greens, $10 of bananas, $10 of pb&j, $10 of cheeses, $5-10 whole grain noodles, $5 of toilet paper, $10 of butter (mostly for baking), $15 of frozen fruit (for smoothies and goat milk ice cream), $8 carrots, $5 in onions, $8 in tomatoes, $10 in natural sweeteners for baking and home made goat milk ice cream (honey, organic sugar or agave nectar) and these are just some of the basic staples.
In a month’s time we will use up to 100 pounds of wheat which is currently around $60 in our area, 10 pounds of rice, 5-10 pounds of beans and 20 pounds of oats.
We are looking forward to the day when our freezer is stocked with our own home grown meat. But until then we purchase meat in family packs and only on sale. When I buy a reduced family pack of meat I buy two of them per meal. I used to split them up into several different meals. Not any more!
When we cook a large turkey it makes 1 meal with enough left over for a few sandwiches or a casserole. We then cook the carcass and make soup or chicken and dumplings. I used to freeze ziplocs of frozen turkey and get 20 easy meals out of 1 turkey. Now we get maybe 5 meals from 1 turkey only because we cook the carcass too.
Remember, I’m feeding approximately the equivalent of 10 adults many of whom do a lot of physical labor.
Due to our travel distance to shopping, I am not able to take advantage of most coupons and sales. However, I do take advantage of what sales are running when I am there.
I don’t have the opportunity while in town to go from store to store. There’s just not enough time in a day in town. So, I learn where the best everyday prices are on items that we use and do my best to purchase items at the store that sells that item for less. And when I find a good sale, I buy it all or as much as I can at the time.
Two weeks ago I bought 10 boxes of raisin bran for $1 each off the clearance rack. I usually do not buy cereal. This would last most families a very long time. Even with rationing, we now have 1/2 box left and it’s been 2 weeks. But it was a nice out-of-the-norm treat and helped on some very early and busy mornings.
We food shop at Costco, HEB and Sun Harvest. The only other option here is Super WalMart and their produce is vastly inferior so I generally do not shop there.
There are a couple of Super Targets and one Whole Foods here but they are not conveniently located and their prices just are much higher. I have used coupons to get good deals at Super Target, but I seem to spend more time & money on printing the coupons and then not getting into town in the time frame to use them than I save when I do use them. It seems to be a drain on my time and resources to spend time on them.
I also shop online when I can, in order to save the time and gas of driving to town. I buy supplements and organic shampoos through VitaCost.com and we use coconut oil for a healthy moisturizer and hair conditioner. Their shipping if $4.99 regardless of how much you purchase. Much cheaper than gas!
We make our own laundry detergent and save about $10 per large bottle. This is a tremendous savings as we do LOTS of laundry. We use vinegar as a softener and hang out to dry as much as possible, depending upon weather and line space.
Even with as much as we do to save costs and not buy frivolous things, our household budget is still anywhere between $1000 to $1300. Some months I shop more and some months I shop less, depending upon our income, sales and our pantry stock.
This averages to about $100 per person per month or about $3 per day per person. This does not include the cost of raising our own milk, eggs and meat. And these figures are going up daily as we speak with the cost of food, animal feed and gas rising.
I cannot believe that we spend that much as I used to spend so very little. But the little people God gave us became big people. Big hard working people eat lots more! Our food costs are like a mortgage, which seems so incredible to me.
Even with how much we do spend, I know if we shopped as the average family today shops, we could easily be spending double what we spend now.
Even with the rising cost of food for our family, God still provides. Even without a weekly income from a stable job, God is still providing for us.
Don’t let our figures scare you into thinking that if you have a large family you won’t be able to provide. We are living examples of how GOD provides for His children.
In Him,
Laralee
aka The Tent Family
http://PlymouthRockRanch.com
Recording the Faithfulness and Provision of God for Future Generations
until i found this site (thanks crystal!) i was spending between 70-100 a week for a family of 5, we have three hungry boys 7,5,3. I have only set out to lower this budget in the last two weeks. last week i spent 55 for the whole week including toiletries but we do have a little meat stock piled. when i meat runs out i will go to the local butcher and stock up again. my dh will not even entertian the idea of meatless meals. i do buy it at albertsons when they have great sales i am hoping to stay around 60 a week once i get good at couponing.
Am I the only one who feels ashamed that a family of 6 or 8 can eat off my budget for a family of 2?
We’ve budgeted $50/week for groceries and household items. We do count our pet supplies as part of the grocery budget. Some weeks we only spend $20 but other weeks (when Meijer blesses us with Meijer brand week or good 10/$10 deals) we spend our full $50.
Another justification of the budget is that we’ve never done this before. I really enjoy coupon clipping and bargain hunting so grocery shopping is my favorite time of the week. Because we’re new at this, it is taking some time to learn better how to match coupons and plan a weekly menu.
What we spend on other parts of our budget is completely out of my control so I love knowing that I can be as aggressive or passive with the groceries as I want.
I wanted to add, we don’t have CVS or publix available. Only Safeway, Smiths, Wal-Mart, Walgreens and Target. While I haven’t been able to score a lot of stuff for FREE, your site has been helpful in finding things for cheap. We have a cupboard full of toiletries I paid pennies (or less) for and a cupboard of cereal I got for $1.10/box. While not free, those savings DO add up!
Thank you!!
We average $75/week for two adults, a toddler and 2 cats. My daughter is still breastfeeding. This also includes cleaning supplies, non prescription medicines and vitamins (prenatal for me, multi for him), cat supplies, paper products, diapers, and health/beauty. My husband drinks a lot of milk and eats a lot of yogurt and cheese and a meal is not a meal without meat, in his opinion. I do use a lot of ground turkey, and my dad is a deer hunter and gives us venison regularly. I like fresh fruit and veggies (though will get frozen if that is most economical). I’ve built a stockpile over the past 2 months, and started the drugstore game about 2 months ago as well, so even though before I spent little on toiletries, now it’s down to basically $0!
Family of 4 here. DH and I and 5 YO DS and 2 YO DD.
I budget about $100/week but that includes guinea pig stuff (about $35/mo) and DD’s special gluten free foods.
We are a family of nine with the two oldest being teens. Before finding Biblical Womanhood and now, Money Saving Mom, we were spending close to $1,000 per month. But in the last year, we have gradually reduced our spending to less than $500 a month for all of our foods and household needs, including diapers for two! Typically we spend about $450- $475 a month. My goal is to get down to below $400, if possible. Thank you, Crystal for allowing God to work through you. Our family has truly been blessed by this great ministry you have.
I just started the coupon game, so I’m working my budget down slowly. It’s amazing to me how much I didn’t pay attention to the price of the items I bought… I just bought them because we “needed” them! Now, my goal is to not buy anything that isn’t on sale and have a coupon for. What a drastic change!! My husband is quite pleased with my new perspective on spending and stretching his hard-earned dollar. Our weekly budget at this time for groceries, toiletries, and household items is $80/wk for our family of 5. Sometimes it creeps to $100/wk, but it’s still better than the $150-$200/wk I used to spend!
There are 7 in our family, and I generally spend about $400/month on groceries and household items (we don’t really budget for eating out, since we only do that about once every 3 months). I really wish I spent less, and think I could if we were in different circumstances. I am 30 min from all the stores, and so shop every other week, which means I can’t always hit the good sales on the off-weeks. And we are in a 1200sf home with no pantry and few cabinets, so I cannot stock up much from Sams or good sales, etc. But, I have gotten better than before after using some of your tips here! Thanks for all the good advice!
With our family of 9 I try to stick to $400. There are some months I can do it for $300 and some months when I end up spending more because the deals just aren’t there.
My budget is about $55 a week and includes household items like toilet paper, laundry detergent and toiletries. I don’t usually buy the household items each month, so sometimes I’ll be slightly over, and then the next month below a little bit. It all averages out, so that’s where I keep it for the time being.
I think it is important to factor in eating out also. If I’m remembering correctly, your family likes to eat out regularly. This is going to lower your weekly grocery bill. If a family eats at home every day and spends $60 on groceries, they are more or less spending the same as a family that eats out once a week and spends $50 a week when you factor in not buying groceries for one entire meal and probably being able to eat at least some restaurant leftovers for another meal.
I have used your grocery budget as a basis for my own. We purchase a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, which can be quite expensive, but our grocery bill is usually $60-80 a week for a family of seven. I don’t include household items in this, but that is usually about $10-15. Personally I think this is great for a family of seven living in our area.
This is a very timely topic for me. I just did several posts on my blog about this. Basically I was budgeting $70 for a family of 6 plus 1 breastfeeding baby. My budget covered food, toiletries, paper products, cleaning products, and children’s supplies. The majority of the budget goes to food since we use cloth as much as we can. I have also been able to save a lot by using gift cards and coupons at CVS and Rite Aid.
But, when I ran my actual numbers, I found that instead of spending $280 monthly, we averaged $521. I set a new, more realistic goal of $90 weekly with $20 of that set aside for BJ’s and a local baking supply store. Typically we get our whole bean coffee, romano cheese, yeast, and a few other items at BJ’s monthly. We’re taking a break on two unnecessary trips – Panera Bread and Trader Joe’s, though I’d rather treat the kids to yogurt from Trader Joe’s than stuff from McDonald’s.
We also garden and grown fruit. As I work on refining my shopping skills with the new budget, I’ll be making sure we use our homegrown stuff first before buying other stuff.
I’m giving myself four months to try the new budget. When I was running my grocery numbers, I found that my time spent couponing which isn’t much has been very profitable. I’m going to work on that aspect a little bit more.
We are a family of 4, plus 2 large dogs, and our current budget is $60/wk. That does include dog food, paper goods, cleaning and toiletries.
In the past we spent (gasp) $120-$150/wk on all that.
I shoot for around $55 each week on groceries and household items. I’m working to slowly decrease it. I started at $65, got comfortable there, went down to $60, etc. I want to continue to lower it as much as I can, while making sure we have plenty of fresh produce and healthy food. I am about 11 weeks pregnant with our first child, so now is not the time to scrimp on healthiness! I would eventually like to get it to $50, and maybe even less.
We are trying a new budget system ourselves right now. Our children are grown, so it is just my husband and myself now. However we have four (yes 4) cats and their food and litter have to be taken from our budget as well. We are trying $200.00 a month. We live in a very expensive area of the country, at least I think it sounds more expensive than some areas.
I hope everyone has success in their journey to live on a budget and be good stewards.
Carla
Our grocery budget is normally $70-$100 per week, depending on sales and what we actually need. This includes extras like toiletries, laundry items, and paper goods, not just food. Weeks when we don’t need all the “extras”, I can usually get about 2 weeks worth of main dish meals (breakfasts, lunches, and dinner) and one week’s worth of weekly items (milk, bread, eggs, produce) for $100 buy shopping at Aldi and using coupons for sale and BOGO items at Publix and Kroger. I am fine with this budget, since we can get quality food and have a variety of items at Aldi at a low cost. We usually are able to get chicken, several kinds of fish, shrimp, ground turkey, etc.
We like food, and trying different things. I don’t want to sacrifice having delicious meals just because I can get beans and rice cheaper. I have found that by shopping at Aldi and using my coupons wisely, especially in conjunction with BOGOs, I don’t have to sacrifice the quality of the food I buy but am still able to stay within a very economical budget.
We have three in our family. I am 5’10” and active, and my husband is 6′ and a gym rat. We have very hearty appetites. lol We are also carnivores. My son is almost 12, and is a bottomless pit. He is already 5’6″ and 126 pounds. His projected height is 6’4″. So my goal is to stay at the same budget during these growth spurt years. I am hoping that is possible. lol
I probably spend 40-50% of my budget on meat, and that is fine with me. I buy packaged frozen items like chicken, tilapia, salmon, shrimp, and ground turkey (lots of ground turkey) at Aldi unless they are on sale cheaper somewhere else. I use the ground turkey ($0.79 for a 1 lb. roll) in everything from chili and tacos to stir-fry and meat sauce for pasta. I always look for marked down beef that I can freeze. We love beef, but only eat it once a week at most. Every once a while we splurge and get steaks for the grill. We also eat a lot of imitation crab meat in stuff like seafood marinara and quiche.
At $100 per week, 21 meals per week (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) per person, it breaks down to $1.58 per person per day (that’s $0.52 per meal). My son will start eating at school when that starts back, but my husband usually comes home to eat at lunch, and I almost always take either leftovers or something else from home for lunch.
So, I guess my point is that you can still serve awesome meals and stay within a tight budget.
Our grocery budget is $75/pay check, which is every two weeks. We usually stick to budget. If I have a little left over from other catergories and I see something on sale and worth it I get it but for the most part we stick to the budget. We only have two children at the moment though. So like you it may go up as our family goes up.
Thanks to your help, Crystal, I have been able to bring our weekly grocery bill down from $100/week to $50-$60. This is for a family of seven including three adults, two teenage boys and two growing girls.
I am not the mother. I am the third adult who has been unofficially “adopted” into the family for the last ten years. I work from home helping with the home business, cooking, cleaning, shopping and home schooling. The father of the family recently quit his regularly paying job to work on the home business full time.
Thank you for teaching me about CVS, Aldi, and couponing so that I can be a blessing to the family who has been such a blessing to me.
We are a family of 9 (children ages 15 son -6mos). In a typical month we shop on the 1st and 15th of the month. On the 1st we do regulare shopping and Sams. I will spend $200-250 regular shopping and about $250-300 at Sams. On the 15th I spend around $200-$250. This does include some stocking up, toiletries, paper goods (no diapers), and any cooking gadgets/utensils from Sams. I have found they have great storage containers, cutting boards, and utensils that are affordable and hold up well with a large family. So I am gradually redoing my kitchen. I could probably do better on my budget, but we love veggies and fruit and eat of lot of it. We don’t have a garden this year because we are moving. Next year I plan on a big garden and that will cut costs on the budget.
We are a family of 7, with 5 children ages 11 and under. My grocery and household budget is $75 a week. I do struggle with this some weeks – my husband is a meat-lover and is um, to put it nicely, ‘not interested’ in any vegetarian meals. To make it slightly more difficult, he does like meat to be a main item in our meals (not just in casseroles, etc. like Crystal suggests). Additionally, we live in a rural area, have only have 1 chain grocery store and a Super-Walmart about 20 miles away, and none that double coupons (I was spoiled in the previous place we lived), so it’s a constant challenge to stretch our money. Overall, my goal is $300 per month, but honestly I’d say we spend closer to $350 a lot of months.
We have two adults and three children (ages 12,9,7) in our family. When the kids were younger, it seemed easier to work with about $100 a week. A few years ago, my husband and I tried to switch to a slightly healthier low-carb diet (and include mostly whole grains as fiber). That raised our costs. I cook almost every night, and we are spending about $120-150 a week. Currently, I have noticed the price of groceries rising. I try to buy a lot of produce and meat at a small Sun Harvest store that is close, and most of the rest I buy at the local HEB. We don’t normally buy a lot of junk food, but I feel that we are spending more than I would prefer on food.
Our grocery budget is $25.00 per week, and we have two adults, a 4 year old, a two year old, and a 5 month old. This only includes groceries, and not household, but with shopping at CVS and stockpiling when things go on sale the only other things that I have to buy weekly are diapers.
I’m always amazed how you can survive on such little. What’s the secret? I think we eat too many snacks – maybe that’s what is killing my grocery budget.
What I’d love to see is if you could list your grocery receipt items and what your menu is. Thanks! Great post!
We are a family of 4. 2 Adults, 1 teenager, and one hungry growing boy on his way to being a teenager.
I try to keep our food budget under $50 a week. When I am able I try to shop every 2 weeks for around $80-$100.
Of course this number really isn’t set in stone. So sometimes I do go a little over. But I am trying to be a lot more disciplined regarding my budget.
So, a family of 4 – $50 a week.
Kristie
I am shopping for a family of 6 and I never spend over $100. Most weeks I spend between $50 and $75. My grocery budget is $100 but I usually have money left over to do something else with (like yard sales or thrift stores).
We are a family of seven and I have been trying to narrow our weekly budget down to $80. I’m not there yet. About five months ago, I was spending around $200 – $220 a week on groceries. Last week, I spent just $127.
I’m not sure if I’ll make it to $80 or not. I buy six gallons of milk a week – which is around $20 – $25 dollars, depending on the price that week.
I grew up in a family of 9 in Oregon, and our monthly Costco bill was $900 month. That was not including the occasional walks to the grocery store around the corner for a little extra milk and bread. We would sometimes fill our huge extra freezer by buying 1/2 of someone’s cow or pig they butchered, and that was helpful! But with all of that, I don’t remember eating all that extravagant! I recall a lot of oatmeal & PB & J….
Now I live in California and I have a family of 4 all my own. Things are a lot more expensive down here, and though I do clip some coupons, I can’t get past keeping the budget at $100 a week! That includes diapers, TP, shampoo, etc. Maybe part of the problem is that I don’t see a lot of the coupons that are mentioned on the site??? And I only have time for 4 stores- farmer’s market & grocery store one week, Costco & Walmart the next. Any tips??
I have a family of 8, and we spend around 150.00 a week. This includes everything household and groceries. My children are small the oldest is 8 and the youngest is 6 months. But also I have two in diapers right now. I can see that I will have the expand my budget again in a few years to feed my boys, some days they eat more then me, but getting a lot of free snack food, does help keeping the budget down. I have only been coupon shopping for a few months now so I don’t have a huge stockpile yet, but I am working on it. I sometime use my stockpile of thigs for people at my church. The free toothpaste, soap, shampoo, and things like that. We deal with a lot of homeless people, and offer them free shower and meal on Sunday.
We have a family of 6 and I am trying to spend only $140 a week, but I usually go over budget. My goal right now is to stick to the $140 and then start to bring that down. One of the issues we have is that 3 of the kids are teenagers. You wouldn’t believe how much they eat! A few weeks ago I kept track of how many gallons of milk we go through in a week. Believe it or not we drank 10 1/2 gallons of milk! That’s over $30 just for milk. We also go through lots and lots of water and lemonade too! I must have very thirsty kids.
Another issue for me is that we don’t have any major chain grocery stores (we do have Walmart but I haven’t had a lot of luck there), we have a few smaller local stores and they don’t have a lot of loss-leaders. I have been CVSing and that has helped a lot. (with 3 teens, we go through a lot of soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and deoderant! I just love it when I can get it for free!)
Anyway, bottom line is that right now I’m aiming to keep my grocery and household budget at $140, and eventually I’d like to bring that down closer to $100.
Our weekly grocery budget is $100 for 6 people (3 adults, 3 children – 5yo, 3yo and 1yo) and 2 cats. That includes food, cleaning products, baby items and pet items. A few months back we increased the budget from $75 a week to help boost the stockpile as well as add more fresh fruits and veggies in our diet. To help stay within budget, I coupon (we have doubles & triples here), shop sales, stockpile, menu plan, eat 2-3 meatless meals a week and cook from scratch.
In the short term, I would like to work our budget to include trips to Whole Foods for some staples and fruits/veggies. In the long term, we may look at ordering organic fruits and veggies from a CSA.
Hello! We are feeding a family of 6. 5 adults one 2 year old. We usually spend $80 to $50 a week. Most times $80. I do include house hold items in with that. I think we could do much better. So at $80 thats .63 a meal per person. Sounds low but we still can’t afford it.
Whoops…just realized I made a miscalculation. We actually spend about $29-$35 per week. (Still trying hard to lower it.) Which in the end, for the two of us, works out to be about $2.30 per person per day. Sorry about the mistake!
We are a family of eight, kids all under ten years old including one infant and one toddler, and we spend anywhere between $160 and $200 each week (that includes household items like diapers, paper towels, etc.). Occasionally that will also include material from the “craft” department that gets used for clothing instead.
In all I shop at four stores: a big box superstore, a discount bread store, a fairly well-known grocery store that has great sales on produce, and a health food store for bulk items like seeds for sprouting and items for my two older children who have special needs.
Our goal as a family lately has been to have every meal at home or from home. This means making sure my husband likes the foods I make so he won’t be tempted to eat out, making sure food is on time (i.e. it’s ready when he comes home) and adding in sweets, which is something we had been phasing out to improve our health.
After we get to the point where we rarely if ever eat out, I’m going to try lowering the weekly cost to a steady $160 each week.
One thing to keep in mind is that I have two children in the autism spectrum, and that means a greater amount gets spent on fixing things, cleaning things, as well as some food items that others might consider a luxury but that we consider a necessity because of our childrens’ reactions. For example, we cannot have any sugar in the house because our oldest has a tendency to have anxiety attacks and the other kids become much too hyper. We’ve found honey is the best substitute, but obviously honey is much more expensive than sugar. So, in order to keep to our budget, sweets are kept to a minimum.
Anyway, that’s my and my family.
We are a family of 7 (8 in 20 weeks). We live in Oklahoma. None of the stores around take internet printed coupons.
I budget $600 a month. That includes our household items and birthday presents that are not for our children (like cousins). Most of the time I can stay even lower than that by shopping at Aldi and Crest(a local discount grocery store). I try to avoid Wal-Mart as much as possible.
I do use CVS alot. This really helps with toothpast, shampoo, etc. I would love to lower it even more, but without the help of printed coupons I don’t know how to get it any lower.
I take the paper and use those coupons though. And I do shop the ads to see if there is anything worth driving to.
I am anxious to hear what other people say.
We only have a family of four… me, husband, teen son and my mother-in-law.
Before my MIL moved in with us, I could usually get by on a budget of $40/week. And I didn’t use coupons at the time.
But when she got here… all of a sudden we were spending $100-$150/week!!! I couldn’t handle it… didn’t understand what was going on! Then I figured a couple of thing out…
1) she wanted meat at EVERY dinner!
2) she was buying VERY pricey/brand name items that I would NEVER buy.
3)Her breakfast and lunches were about $3 each… daily!
I finally had to put a stop to this. I took control. I started couponing… and planning meals… I told her that we would NOT be buying the “convenience” items (unless marked down, coupons, sales or I said so! lol)
I have gotten the weekly budget down to about $50-$75/week… and will continue to lower the budget. You have been a HUGE inspiration and help to me and I greatly appreciate everything you do! And to all the other readers and bloggers…. thank you for all of your ideas on deal making also!
my husband & i got married in March & so we haven’t had too too much time to figure out exactly how much our grocery budget should be. however we spend $28-$30 per week on groceries, but we are trying VERY hard to even lessen that since there is just two of us now. i guess when you do the math for $28, that does work out to exactly $2 per person. so maybe we are doing better than we think! =)
Hi, Crystal!
We are a family of eight (Dad, Mom, DD – 17, DS – 13, DS – 9, DS – 7, DS – 4, DS – 2) As you can see we have a lot of boys. What I can say about them is that they can really eat! Currently, our food and sundries budget is around $80 week, but we are not buying beef at the grocery store. We purchased half of a cow in the spring, so that has helped us lower it tremendously. I would estimate that we were spending $125 a week before we purchased the beef.
Our savings strategies are, as follows:
– Using coupons and sales (I get info from here, The Grocery Game, and Hot Coupon World)
– Buying in bulk at Aldi’s or Sam’s
– Eating fresh vegetables from our garden
– Raising chickens for eggs
Hope this helps! Tami in NC
We are a family of 6 – all of which are “regular food” eaters. (My 18mo. old just weened. 🙁 ) Before couponing I thought I was doing pretty good with a food/ toiletry budget of $125/wk. We have cut that down to $60/wk. B/c of Publix, I’ve spent less than $30/wk on everything for the past month and a half or so, but I’m leaving it at $60 as we will be moving soon to a town with no Publix or any other great “coupon” stores. $60/ wk will be quite the challenge there as we will also have 1 extra adult added to the household numbers. – Might have to raise it to $70-$75 for the 7 of us as there will be a lot more entertaining as well. We’ll see.
I feed 2 adults full time and 5 kids ages 8 to 5 half the time on 600 dollars per month. We eat very very well and occasionally we eat out. Treats and snacks are pretty basic (apple, banana, string cheese, granola bar). We do eat breakfast cereal if I can get it for less than 1.00 per box, and I do pack lunches for everyone. We don’t eat beef or pork more than 2x per week usually (unless there’s been a spectacular sale). I do buy hormone free milk and organics when I can afford it. Coffee is Starbucks brewed at home.
It is very doable but it does take some practice; I will be working to get my bill down by a couple hundred dollars a month.
For our family of four my husband budgets $75.00 a week, but since I have found this website I have only been spending anywhere between $60. to $65..:) And this includes household items. This week because of Meijers good sale I spent only $100.00 for two weeks:).