I have absolutely no idea. I buy what I need to eat.

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I know I'm promiscuous, but in a classy way

I probably spend close to $300 on restaurants (lunch and dinner) and coffee.

clm

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

$300 seems low. I would love to only spend that much. I almost never eat out (take my lunch to work everyday and have breakfast/dinner at home), but I spend $100+ a week. I buy for my son and myself and I am currently IM training, so I do eat a lot though. I eat a lot of healthier and therefore more expensive foods (ie lots of veggies and fruit, organic whole grains ect), so it is more expensive

I think if you can pull off $300/month and are eating well (ie - more expensive fruits and veggies as opposed to fast food) you're doing really well. Assuming that you pay for 4 days worth of meals every week and your boyfriend pays for the other 3 days, that $300/month means you spend $9.37 a day for each of you. That's not an easy feat! I picked up a tea and cookie from a coffee shop today during a meeting and that alone ran $4.

Don't know for sure (though if my better half were home he could pull up the comprehensive spreadsheet and tell you to the penny) but my guess is we probably spend $150/week on food. That would be all meals except for his lunch while at work. We could likely cut $$$ from there if needed but we like to eat organic foods and choose "locavore" options as much as possible which makes it more expensive. We also have a wine habit. :) So until we need to cut from the food bucket we won't. Food is one of the great joys in life!

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http://smallfoodbiz.com
</blatent self-marketing>

I just looked through reports over the last couple months and it looks like I'm averaging 8-10% of my monthly net income per month.

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce

Family of 4 (preschool age children).

I take out $240 cash every 2 weeks. That doesn't include restaurants but we only go out 1x a week (if that). I think with a lot of pre-planning, watching sales, etc., you can easily do $300 a month. AND if you coupon you can even do better than that. I currently have about 15 boxes of oatmeal (one of my daughters favorite meals) that I got on sale and maybe paid $5.00 for all of them (between a sale & coupons). Also have about 6 'cases' of laundry detergent that I paid maybe $20.00. I find saving $$ on groceries a challenge and love it!

I'm not the type that has dedicated an entire room to bulking up on sales, but there are a few things I will over purchase on just because the sale is SO good (and usually only happens 1x a year). I have a friend that had a total bill at Albertsons for $65.00. After coupons (and her Albertsons card) the cost was $5.00.

FWIW, a great coupon site is: www.hotcouponworld.com (LOTS of printable coupons) & when making purchases online always check www.retailmenot.com first.

:)

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Life is Short...Run Long

The last ime I calculated my food cost were in 2006. Both me and my live in BF were training for IM. I have a no holds barred approach to grocery shopping, I buy what I want and I want organic/fresh, gluten free food. When we tallied up a month's receipts I about choked as we were spending >$900 a month. Bear in mind this included non-grocery items like soap, TP, cleaning supplies, contact solution, razors etc. Still, that's a lot of $. We didn't eat out much at all then. $300/month seems reasonable, especially if you're buying quality food.

An interesting examination of this topic: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/...or-a-family-of-four/

The USDA document they link to: http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/.../CostofFoodFeb08.pdf

If you are a female age 19-50,


Thrifty - 146.40 (male 163.60)
Low-cost - 183.80 (210.30)
Moderate - 223.70 (261.20)
Liberal - 288.70 (318.10)

So $250-300 given some shared expenses with your boyfriend seems a decent range.

My wife and I are at $300 for groceries and $150 for restaurants, which we'll never ever hit (but during the summer there are more than a few bar nights). We also have a $85 entertainment line item which includes having friends over for stuff.

I am pushing $400 a month right now since I am back in full swing with training. That is with no alcohol, no coffee shop, no eating out. It adds up frustratingly fast, just eating well from the grocery store.

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"What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my ass for six hours a day. What are YOU on?" - Lance Armstrong

I think that US$300 is too low. My husband and I spend together around US$1000 a month but we do lead odd lives with me travelling a lot and spending time between London and NYC. And also food is probably one thing that we do not like to save on. We like to eat nice food; not necessarily expensive restaurant food but good quality stuff form supermarkets.

On average? I'd say $500 a month, at least, for groceries. This doesn't count alcohol (which we buy a lot of) or eating out at all (which we do almost never).

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mmm-mmm-Momo Charms
Handmade beverage charms, jewelry, and miscellanea
http://momocharms.wordpress.com

I just set up a budget for $800/month for family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children ages 13 and 9). We spent more than that last year, but I'm going to try to be thriftier this year without having to eat Kraft dinner all the time. That budget includes everything I would buy at a grocery store, but does not include dining out.

It varies for my husband and I. Some weeks we are out of the store with $40, some it's $80, once in a great while it's $100. But the 100 is really only seen when we are having people over, or buying some wine or beer, or some other fancy stuff we usually don't eat.
Eating out is in a totally separate category - we eat out about 1x per week for dinner and 1x per week for lunch on the weekend.

We spend $100 every other week at the regular grocery store. Specialty markets (like whole foods, farmer markets, or fruit/vegetable specialty stores) are about $75 per week. And once a month we go to Costco for about $200. So that's $700/month. What's up with that! We go out maybe once a week and it's usually $60 or so. There are three of us in our family. I eat organic/clean. Husband and kid eat whatever.

That is too low! Just like the calorie calculations... I look back and estimate 2400-2500 calories I eat regularly. When I write down everything it turns out 3200 to 3500. Same with the groceries and food. 300 a month is 75 per week, can be doable but very tight specially if you want to get quality foods.
Look at obesity, lower the income higher the obesity. It is not related with gym membership prices. More like cheap foods vs. quality foods.
Look at your grocery sale flyer... They always make the bad foods cheap, even if you buy same food, you have to check the labels to make sure they have the same nutrition etc.
$75 per week certainly doable, but for training and racing nutrition no way.

These people are crazy with their spending! First of all, fruits and vegetables don't make you go any faster - so stop buying them. They cost way too much. With a little planning, here is how I see a typical day for you:

Breakfast : 2 eggs (~30 cents) and a packet of salt that you can steal from a fast food joint.
Lunch: 2 packs of Ramen Pride noodles (~40 cents)
Dinner: 1 Tostino's Pizza ($1.25)

That's about $2 per day
times 30 = $60.

Now if you are training for an Ironman, you will need a multi vitamin. Those get pricey at about $6 for 300. So if you are training you need to add another 2 cents per day. And if you are like me, you spend about $500 -$800 per month eating out and about $300 just in beer (from the grocery store)!

Wow. I'm really surprised by everyone's answers and by the fact that most people don't hold back or sacrifice at all when buying food. I think $300 is still the most that I can spend on food with the amt of money that I make - provided I still want to drive my car, cut my hair once in a while, and refill my birth control pills. I hear kids are really expensive!

So given that most of you are spending $600+ on food, can I ask how much you spend on other discressionary items (not shelter, utilites, taxes or insurance)? I'm talking movies, entertainment, travel, socializing, clothes, sports, gifts, etc.

I think maybe I'm just talking to a group of people who are waaay beyond my tax bracket. :(

Movies : $0
Entertainment : By this I assume you mean a good bag of weed. I've been paying about $100 for a half oz. of some pretty good stuff, but that can vary. I would think being as close to Mexico as you are, you can get some much better deals.
Travel : $0 - $2000 - depending if I have a race and where it is.
Socializing: $0 - talk is cheap. Plus I don't have many friends.
Clothes: $0 Maybe this is why I don't have many friends
Sports: $100 - $1000 (see travel)
Gifts: $0 - (see socializing)

We spend over $300 a month easily on groceries for two. We buy our eggs and vegetables(when in season) from local organic farmers and split a side of beef for the freezer from a local farmer also. My wife is a gourmet cook and I'm not bad either, so we tend to view restaurant meals as a bit of a waste of money, although we will indulge once in a blue moon. Our home cooking is healthier than most restaurants. I don't drink coffee (prefer green tea) but my wife drinks it regularly. About 50% of our meals are vegetarian.

This just inspired me to go back and do a more thorough examination of my catagories and what everything is labeled as. I discovered I am about 600-700 a month for 2 of us which is higher than my original estimate. We admittedly spend too much on food and that is one of our big adjustments now that I've gotten laid off. Whole Foods trips are on hold for a while. We are also big eaters if pre-prepared food because although we love to cook we hate to do dishes :-) Luckily we don't eat out much, only take-out twice a month or so.

I plan on going through a list of our typical purchases and figuring out what we can do without or cook for ourselves.

A great website for examining your spending habits is www.mint.com. I have all of my accounts in there and they do quick reports on percentage of cash expendatures to your total income. You can drill down into each catagory to see where that money goes. I found out I've spent waaaay to much at REI and Amazon.com over the last 6 months. Third on the list is the comic store where my husband likes to go every payday.

This has been a great exercise in seeing where I can trim the spending.

Thanks for inspiring me!

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce

I don't think anyone mentioned this? Does cost depend at all on where you live? I know some things are the same mostly everywhere but big cities tend to have higher prices for everything...
Anyway, I don't think you're being unrealistic with $300/month if it's only groceries. (Including restaurants and drinks on the other hand, yes.) If you don't buy a lot of pre-prepared foods and shop wisely that seems do-able to me. Maybe just because it's what I do. :-)
I haven't thought about it recently but here is what I think I do in the big city where I live... I probably spend about 25-30/week on fruit/veggies at a local fruit/veggie stand-store, then do a Trader Joes or Whole Foods trip once every couple of weeks, maybe, anywhere from 50-75 dollars. I use whatever is left at yet another supermarket for other things, eggs, milk, chicken etc., as Trader Joes is not that close and I don't want to buy those things at Whole Foods, too expensive. Sometimes I feel like I'm always! grocery shopping but it saves money. It does take a bit of figuring out though.
Eating out is totally separate for me, maybe 2x week, and I buy coffee/snacks out occasionally, maybe few times/week. Only a little alcohol. Take-out maybe once every 2 weeks or so. I do find that the eating out is where stuff really adds up! but sometimes it's hard to avoid. Depends on schedule/etc...

Yeah, I am set up on Mint.com already, and I agree that it's the best tool I've found for tracking everything. Whole Foods is still where i spend/waste the most money... very little on restaurants and entertainment and shopping....

I like the budget tool but am still tweaking a few things in order to track things properly. I found that I needed to put my supplements/vitamins in a separate category in order to track how much I spend a month. I'm both osteopenic and anemic, and taking supplements (no meds) for both. Being able to track that separately is helpful since it's not covered by insurance. Also I'm still contemplating how to divide out 'sports' and 'shopping.' where do running shoes, sports nutrition, misc sports travel, and race entries fall?

Anything I wear goes under Shopping/Clothes and others go under Sports. I'd rather not know how much I spend on running clothes :-) I can usually deduce which is which based on where I bought it from.

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce

family of 4, one boy who hardly eats, one 10-yr-old who eats as much as I do.
about $200 monthly on restaurants including wife's Starbucks habit. We eat out once a week usually, for $30-40.
about $6-800 on groceries which includes non-food - toiletries, dogfood, cleaning products, etc etc.
We tend to buy organic and local which pushes the cost up a bit.

Lunch at Whole Paycheck will kill your budget. Nothing wrong with PBJ sandwich and an apple..