What do you spend on food for a week?

[Jessika]

We are a family of 7 and I spend 300-350 a month on groceries....and about 100 a month on other things (toilet paper, shampoo, girlie things, school supplies, etc).

It is a lil tight...but some months it is even less.

so about 85 a week ....for a family of 7...we are not doing so bad...lol

 

[Backyard Buddies]

I can't provide an actual number for what we spend each week since I shop more than one store. I visit our local grocery store each week and spend $40 - $60 for our family of four. Once every 6 - 8 weeks, I shop at Trader Joe's (about $60- $80) and Henry's, where I buy a lot of bulk items and fresh fruits and veggies ($30). Every two months, I made a trip to Costco for paper goods, fish, bulk items, and such ($100 - $200).

What I do:
This takes some time to get up to speed, but use the weekly flyer to familiarize yourself with the sales patterns (or use the grocery game). Buy the fresh foods you need each week, focusing on that which is in season. Everything else, buy only when it's on sale. I may buy quite a bit of meat one week, then not purchase any for a month. Like Ninja, using coupons and buying several personal items for little or no cost is another example of this. It's not unusual for us to have 20 boxes of cereal in the pantry because I have used sales and coupons to get them for little money. I will not pay more than $3 for a (large sized) box of cereal and prefer to get it for closer to a buck or two. We eat cereal for breakfast 6 days a week, plus the occasional evening snack.

I have numerous low cost recipes that I use each week, rotating them so that the family doesn't get bored with them. One of them in a split pea and lentil soup that has no meat, no fat, and lots of veggies. It costs less than $3 for a HUGE pot of soup. I cook few days a week and reinvent things into additional meals during the week. Typically, Sunday is leftover night where the fridge gets cleaned out of all of the bits and pieces. I just heat everything up and plant the trays in the middle of the table and let everyone pick and choose what they want to eat from it. My fridge gets cleaned out and nothing gets wasted.

Just last week, we ate steak all week.

I chronicled it on the "Hey Grandpa" thread. We had grilled steaks on Monday, beef stew on Tuesday, grilled steak salad on Thursday, and the leftover beef stew on Sunday. That $11 tray of steaks ended up making 18 servings for a total meat cost of 61 cents a serving!!

 

[turnerstar31]

It varies for me sometimes i spend about a 100 a week for two of us for everything but than there are other times that I spend about 100 for every other week. The animals is about 70 dollars for two weeks but that includes 4 pigs a bunch of chickens the dogs 3 rabbits and 8 calves. All and all I do not think that is to bad but if i really needed to i could get it down a lot more since I really have most of what I need at home already like the meat and veggies.

 

[QuailHollow]

.

 

[Sugar Sand Farm]

I usually spend between 100-200 a week for three adults This also includes cat food and litter. and paper goods. I usually make the rounds I shop Save-alot for my meat (locally grown) I shop Winn Dixcie when thye have 2-1 sales and by one get one free. The rest is Walmart. We live in a small town so shopping this way is possible as you could walk to the three stores just as fast as drivinglol. I have just taught my daughter how to bulk shop for meats and things as she has gone from a family of 3 to 2 adults and 5 kids. She also got a freezer to help with the bulk buying. I don't worry so much about our food budget But the animal feed is killing me.

 

[QuailHollow]

.

 

[LittleChickenRacingTeam]

Around $400-$500 a week for the 2 of us.

But we tend to eat out at least twice for dinners. So that can add up.

 

[toletiquesbysam]

I plan 10-12 meals at a time, and make my grocery list for each meal that I'll be having. Then I go to the store and purchase only what is on my list. (without DH because he doesn't understand sticking to the list!)
I keep each meal between $5-$10 if possible to feed our family of 5. We purchase a 1/2cow and pig each year so meat is not included in our price but with a vegetarian DD we make quite a few meals without meat to begin with! Here's the upcoming few weeks...

Pork Roast (have the meat/potatoes need carrots $2)
Chicken Noodle soup (make my own noodles have chicken $0)
Homemade pizza ($10 for 2 large pizza's)
BBQ Pork sandwiches (bbq sauce/buns $4)
Fettucini alfredo (cream cheese/fettucini $4)
Cheeseburgers & Blackbean burgers (buns $2)
Baked ziti (ziti/spaghetti sauce jar $4)
Potato soup (have everything $0)
Patty Melts (swiss cheese, rye bread $4)
Hamburger Macaroni Casserole (mac/velvetta $6)

Soo with my cereal, milk,bread-lunch meats, soups for DH for lunches and list above I will be about $70 for 2weeks. If I get a really tough week money wise, we have homemade pancakes, hamburger helper, homemade mac n cheese, chipped beef & homemade biscuits, spaghetti, grilled cheese & tomato soup. Things like that, cheap but still yummy!! I cook all the meals at home, once in a while we'll get a take n bake pizza but otherwise all meals are made by me! ps-I don't use coupons, I know how much things are that I regularly buy and if they go on sale I stock up but most of the coupons are for brand names and I shop mostly store brand.

 

[The Chicken Lady]

I don't think we're too thrifty with the grocery budget. DH is a picky eater, and until he thinks store-brand foods are equal in taste to national brands, our budget (for two) will probably be about $80-$100 per week (including household supplies).

I go grocery shopping every two weeks, and usually spend between $150-$200. I always return pop cans and bottles (in Michigan, we get a 10-cent refund for every carbonated beverage or alcohol bottle we return; we pay a deposit when we buy pop) and sometimes use coupons.

I could be thriftier, but haven't really made that a priority yet.

I used to shop at Aldi. I think they have really tasty food, but a lot of it is high in fat.

 

[BettyR]

Quote:
Thanks Laura...

That is my goal as well...I started out making bread with white flour and when I got the hang of that I graduated to whole grains. I then bought a mill and started ordering wheat in bulk. Baking with home milled wheat has a bit of a learning curve to it but I've gotten the hang of it now. I have really enjoyed the whole process though...it was as much fun testing and learning as it was eating the bread...and it adds a lot of fiber to your diet. I now make all of the bread we eat using home ground organic wheat.

I've now moved on to the garden experiment faze. I planted a fall garden using hay bail gardening...I wanted to see how well it worked before I planed my spring garden. We have very poor soil in this area...most of the people in our area are ranchers because about the only thing you can grow here is grass. We have tons of hay fields and I can get hay pretty cheap so I decided to give it a try.

It started out really well then Ike came through and by the time that was over all I had left were a few twigs. But I kept feeding and watering after the storm and the garden has come back in the three weeks after the storm like you would not believe. I'm really sold on this type of gardening. I'll be expanding it in the spring...and of course we have the chickens who are starting to lay now.

I haven't tried making pasta yet...have you experimented with that?