Wow. Thanks to everyone for the TJ’s suggestions.. more stuff to check out on the next grocery run! 🙂
January isn’t over yet, but I’ve bought all the groceries I’ll buy for this month – not to mention that next weekend will be February, so I don’t expect to buy any more food until Saturday or Sunday.
With a revised food budget of $220 ($110 each for Dining Out & Groceries), I spent $218.55 ($124.17 groceries, 94.38 dining out)… barely squeaking by. I’ve increased my budget $20… my original budget of $200 felt a little tight for me.
I’m curious – so I’m posing a question to all the 20-something female bloggers (my demographic!) out there: what’s your overall food budget (groceries + dining out)? It’d be helpful if you can also list your area of residence to provide context – food would be much more expensive in NYC than in the Mid-West.
Update: I’m still on the Clothing Hiatus… even though I saw some really cute things on sale at J. Crew. One month (almost) done… 5 more to go.
$260 – $160 groceries, $100 dining out. I rarely spent $160, but it gives me room in case I actually go under on dining out, and in case I need to replace expensive items any particular month (like spices). I could probably reasonably budget $240 or even less, but I like a lot of wiggle room in this area so that I can try new things. (I’m in LA.)
Not sure just yet, as I just moved…. But in the midwest i easily spent about 100 on groceries, and eating out fluctuated wildly, depending on the month.
I average $50-60 on groceries and $50 for eating out. I only need to buy vegetables, bread, fruit and other misc foods for groceries. I have plenty of dry beans and grains (barley and brown rice are plentiful in my cupboard). And I live in the wonderful but expensive foggy city of San Francisco.
Up in the wilds of Canada, I spend about $200-300/month on groceries, and probably less than $100/month on eating out. (I recently graduated and started a job, so I’ve started eating more expensive foods like meat!)
I’m a married 20-something, and my husband and I spend $30-35 per week. Some months have four weeks; others have five. We don’t go out to eat every month, but when we do, we try to keep it under $30.
We live in Pittsburgh, Pa., where the cost of living is low.
In January, I (and sometimes fiancee) spent 400 eating out, including bar tabs, and 50 on groceries.
I also spent 150 taking friends to dinner who couldn’t afford it and 100 on food for a BBQ.
If those were NYC and not Texas bar tabs, it would be more like 550 eating out.
My food budget is $400/month, I live in NYC. that’s broken out into $120 in groceries and $280 in dining out. I usually buy my lunch so that’s about $6/day, but on weekends I’m with my BF and he pays for food about 80% of the time…so it’d probably be a little bit more if I was single.
DH and I budget $150 for groceries and $150 for eating out. He has an awesome consultancy job that provides daily food allowance each day he’s traveling for work (usually 4-5 days/week). Sometimes, he even takes me out for dinner. We live in Kansas City.
For the two of us, it averages around $450-500 a month for groceries and eating out. We’re in a city in the Midwest, so cheaper but not cheap. We eat mostly vegetarian at home, sometimes pesco-veg (I never learned how to cook meat, and he doesn’t like to make it for just him) so we can splurge on some really nice cheeses and fruits and things because veggie ingredients tend do be so much cheaper. That also doesn’t include liquor or beer for at-home drinking or beer-making supplies. Those can fluctuate a lot depending on how much we’re home, how many people we have over to hang out at our place, and all that stuff.
I have a lot of lunches comped, though, for client and work events, so if I had to pay for those meals we would spend somewhat more.
$200 for groceries and dining out. I’m feeling a little crunched, but I think I need to make better choices at the grocery store.
I live in the midwest in a bigger city….
Wow, I am impressed with your budgeting. I LOVE cooking, and spend about $100/week on groceries. But then we also go out to dinner maybe once a week for around $40-50. I live in the Washington DC area. After looking at your budget, I’m thinking I need to revise mine.
I live in a relatively large city outside of Chicago with my bf and we spend roughly 160.00 a month on groceries and 50.00 on eating out. BF is a cook at a local restaurant so he mainly just eats lunch [sandwiches] on our grocery bill. I rarely buy any pre-made meals, mixes, or sauces and bake my own bread [a hobby of mine]. Note, I also purchase almost exclusively organic foods with this budget.
I’d also like to add a tip I’ve noticed shopping for higher-priced items like spices; buy them from your local health food store ‘loose’ These spices are the same quality and require less extra packaging. I recently bought organic cumin from my health food store for 1.26 when a smaller amount of non-organic at the grocery store was 4.69.
I budget $180/month for groceries and $170/month for dining out. $40/month of the dining out budget is earmarked for days I just can’t get it together to bring my lunch to work (I work in Midtown Manhattan, so there’s pretty much no way, other than street food, to eat a solid meal for less than $10). My grocery budget is pretty comfortable (sometimes I’ve got extra money), but in my efforts to eat in more often, I’ve found it helpful to have enough to buy the occasional pomegranate or pound of fresh shrimp–so that I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself too much. There are also certain setup costs to switching to cooking in from eating out–you’ll need to lay in a store of staples, herbs, and spices–so be sure to budget for that at the outset.
And as I mentioned, I’m in NYC.
Oh, and that includes alcohol–drinks with friends and wine & beer for the house.
I live right outside Los Angeles and even go to school in Los Angeles. Considering that I waitress and get free meals on the shifts I work, I have a budget of 100 for groceries and 60 for going out. Now, four meals a week are provided at work and they are hefty-sized meals. I usually have enough for leftovers the next day.
I live in Dallas and I spend an average of $120 a month on groceries and $350 a month on dining out/takeout (I just checked Mint.com and verified this fact).
My “entertainment” which includes bar tabs runs $30-$50, so that’s $500 total for eating and drinking each month–which I know is excessive. Honestly too much of that is spent on alcohol, too. About $50 of the grocery portion is spent on wine and easily a third of the dining out goes to drink orders.
If I have a rough month financially or if I decide to lose weight and cut some alcohol (which I really intend to do…as soon as the Mardi Gras parties are over this weekend) then I can easily shave $150 off this.
I budget $200/mo for groceries, but usually come slightly under. I budget $50/mo for eating out, and hover right around that average.
I could make the grocery expenditures less if I couponed and such, but I just don’t have the patience. I’ve found that shopping sales and stocking up works well enough for me.
Dining out budget is hard to estimate because it’s so variable, but I budget about $120-150 per month for groceries.
So far on groceries, I spent ~150. On dining out, I spent ~200, but it’s restaurant week (Baltimore) and I have gone out twice this week and spent 50 bucks a pop. Normally I would probably spend about 100/month on dining/going out. I’ve been saving and buying groceries instead of eating/going out so far this year.
Cute outfits make for a cheaper bar tab (ha ha).
I do $20-30 a week for groceries. In DC, this is pretty bare-bones (all generic grocery products, farmer’s market produce, and assiduously shopping the sales). So it’s $100-120 a month, pretty reliably.
Eating out: I budget $50 for some combination of nice ($20) meals, moderate ($10), and incidentals (bagel if I forgot my lunch, a piece of fruit, etc. here and there). The last two months it’s been about $100, though.
Booze is about $100/month, between bar tabs and wine/beer for around the house. This needs to come down!
I budget about $200 for groceries and $50 for dinner/drinks out each month. My fiancee pays for most of our dinners out, as he makes more money that me and I am concentrating on saving for our wedding. If I paid for all my meals out, it would probably be an additional $75 for eating out.
Wow, I feel like a wild spendthrift reading everyone’s dining out budgets.
Groceries average $130/month, and may go as high as $170 if I am entertaining or as low as $100 if I am out of town for some time.
Dining out varies wildly. I try to stay under $100, but noticed considerable uptick in this category when I had a boyfriend. Some months were over $300. He doesn’t keep food in the house, so if I stayed over I’d have to go out for breakfast and/or lunch. I tried keeping some groceries at his place, but then he’d let everything go bad, so I had to buy in tiny quantities. Also, it’s really hard to manage this category when you’ve got birthdays to celebrate and you aren’t choosing the restaurant.
Drinks are another story…that category went way down when I had a boyfriend! I wasn’t going out as often, so I saved $, albeit at a social cost.
How does everyone keep dining out & drinks under control, especially those with <$100/mo in the budget?? How do you avoid having a second drink because you feel weird buying just 1?
[…] January 29, 2008 by wellheeled I spoke too soon… […]
Margo–I keep my drinks tab low by not going out very much (once every two months?). I’m just growing too old for the lifestyle of going out all the time–29 will do that to ya. Lately, I’ve just been buying a cheap bottle of wine, a snack, and going over to a friend’s house for entertainment.
Whoa! I don’t know how you guys can eat for so cheap.
I am in the midwest and my husband and I spend $550/month on groceries and household (target) stuff. we are vegetarians and fairly frugal too but… Our most expensive items are 5# coffee every month $35; Giant container of olive oil $30/month; organic produce ~$25/week… um not sure where the rest of our money is really going. I think the organic co-op we shop at tends to be a bit more pricey.
We spend about $100-$200/month going out.
$300 groceries, $300 eating out for a couple of DINKS in Boston. Eating out is now way more expensive than Southern Cali. Less ethnic restauarants.
Last month though we spent $91 groceries and $67 eating out. Yeah the cash thing didn’t work, I just tried not to buy food or eat out. Um, no.
My husband and I have about $900 per month budgeted for groceries and dining out. It might sound ridiculous, but consider this:
– He does the shopping and isn’t willing to economize and look for sales. He also goes to Whole Foods, because it’s close. I accept this, because he’s an amazing cook and I benefit from a home-cooked meal every night.
– I’m an attorney and work fairly long hours (he’s an MBA student), so we’re willing to pay for convenience.
– We order in about 2 nights a week (about $40-45 each time, with generous tip) and have a “nice” dinner out (bottle of wine, appetizers, entrees and maybe dessert for $150 or so) about twice a month.
These expenses add up quickly, but we’re still maxing out my 401(k), paying $1300 per month in student loans, tithing 10% of post-tax income, and saving extra each month. So food slows our savings, but it doesn’t do too much harm.
I spend $25 a week at Whole Foods. That doesn’t include the occasional (maybe 4 times a year) splurge on a random item like pie or uber expensive cheese. I also spend about $20 a week on lunch at work. Dinner out is budgeted to $75 (that includes delivery), but I am usually closer to $50. So that comes to… $230-255 a month. And I live in downtown DC.
For myself and my husband we have $150 for groceries and $100 for dining out as well as another $140 for lunch money this is all per month. I take my lunch to work, but my husband “has to” eat out. We live in Northern California.
P.s. I just came across your blog and it seems very interesting. I will stop by again soon. Feel free to stop by mine as well.
My husband and I live in Washington state. He is military and so we are paid roughly $230 per month for groceries. I sometimes go over this as WA has a very high cost of living and we only eat organic. I try to buy in bulk as much as possible which saves me a lot. I think it changes a lot from summer to winter too, as we can shop at farmers markets and meat tends to be cheaper.
If we do go out to eat, we make it count and spend about $150, but neither of us drink much and we don’t go out to bars.
I know there are a lot of services that deliver veges and fruits to your door at a reasonable price as well. I am training to become a chef and cook from home about 95% of the time. I also am really picky about good quality ingredients which could also account for any overages.
I’m a vegetarian so I imagine I save money on what would be meat costs. I spend about $50/week at the grocery store, between my bf and myself.
Over the past few weeks, I have been really interested in budgeting and carefully watching where my money was going to. And what did I discover, that a huge chunk of my money went to food, mainly eating out. It isn’t that my bf and I eat out very often because I tend to cook mostly every night, it is that when we do tend to meet friends for dinner of the weekends, we tend to overspend. One night with friends can blow our entire weeks grocery budget. And like most other people on this site, it is because of alcohol. We are trying to the month of March off better and limit our spending to about $75 a week/$300 a month on food. This means, that if we spend all of our money at the store, no going out. It is a sacrifice, but hopefully one that will pay off in the long run.
I live in central Virginia.
In January, I spent $309 on food, according to my budgeting software. However, I’d say at least $50 was spent out at restaurants while traveling for work and I got reimbursed for it. Some of it was buying in bulk…but that’s a LOT of money for one person who lives in an area with a reasonable cost of living!
I live in NorCal (Oakland/East Bay) and I spend about $120 on groceries, and probably around $100-150 on eating out.
I live in Portland, OR
I’m pushing the 400.00 range with 50% of that restaurants & a shocking 70.00 bucks a month at work (hospital) for awful food. And maybe 20-30 bucks for the Mocha habit.
This month I kicked the Mocha habit (making my own great coffee); started buying healthy pre-made lunches to take to work (it’s cheaper than what I was doing); and when eating out I either have a limit of 2 drinks or desert – but not both!
I’m aiming to be consistent at 300 or less a month for all food & imbibing.
My husband and I spend between $350-$400 a month on groceries. We live in Chicago. This will have to be reigned in a bit though, since he’s not working right now! It sucks that we have to pay more for food because we choose to eat healthy vegetables, chicken, and fish and not garbage that comes in a box. It’s so much cheaper to eat crap.
For my husband, myself and our 2 boys we spend about $600 per month on groceries and about $150 total going out to eat. We live WAY up in northern california (not the bay area.) I cook from scratch for most meals (buy most of our meat and chicken in bulk at Costco then split it into meal packages for my freezer) and do not used boxed or packaged foods as a general rule. I buy organic whenever I possibly can and always buy organic milk for my boys to drink, and they drink 2-3 gallons per week. It adds up fast!
With 5 boys my hubby and I we spend $120.00 a week. In the winter making crockpot meals drops this total to 75.00 a week. Amanzing huh? Well I love to cook and we eat something different every night and then have a leftover night at the end of the week, don’t eat out a lot just once in a while.
My hubby & I spend about $170-200 every two weeks on groceries now. We took the challenge in March to not spend anything unnecessary – including no Easter cards for each other – mainly because our eating out had gotten out of control. We were spending about $400 a month eating out and less than half of that on groceries, which was crazy since we only live about 20 minutes from work – no excuses about being wiped out from the commute! We did pretty well; only ate out and paid twice in the month (we had cash from very part-time freelance work I do, so it didn’t really “count” since it wasn’t coming from either paycheck). Considering we went out an average of six times a week in the previous five months, we were pretty proud. We’ve also now gotten in the habit of not eating out so much – after just that one month – and this month hasn’t been hard at all to eat at home and take lunch to work. We both find we don’t even really crave the food itself, just the convenience of letting someone else do the cooking. It’s making a huge difference in the amount we’re able to save toward a house. We live just outside of DC, in Manassas VA.
I am a single mom, I feed myself and four kids. We spend about $400 a month on food. We do not spend any money eating out. It is just too costly. If my kids want fast food they pay for it themselves out of allowance or money earned from work. We have milk with breakfast, and lunch. We eat lots of fruit & veggies. We do eat meat, but in small portions. We buy 2 junk food items each week, that is all. We also eat lots of yogurt and cheese. We eat salad 1-2 times a day. I try to cook alot from scratch as well.
We make pizzas at home and the kids love it. We also make our own snacks, like sweet potato chips which we bake. The kids like to try new things in the kitchen.
Hmm, my b/f and I definitely need to cut back on our eating out. Last month, we spent about $525 on groceries/eating out. Granted, there was one sushi dinner in there for $60 and we don’t eat sushi as often as we used to, but there are a couple of other moderately expensive meals that we could have done without. I also tend to buy my breakfast and lunch at work and spend approx. $40-45 a week; I would consider bringing my meals to work, but given that I take public transportation and my commute is an hour and a half long (and involves a train, the subway, and walking), I worry that the food will spoil, especially on hot days. But I certainly could make the effort to learn how to cook more easier meals at home on the days when I’m not really tired by the time I get home (again, long commute). Oh, and we live in a suburb just south of Boston, and I totally agree with one of the earlier posters that Boston is expensive! It’s definitely on par with what I used to pay for meals in Los Angeles and San Diego when I lived in those areas.
my husband and I spend about $400 food and household per month and $100 dinner out (cheap places)
I am over budget….we live in CT
In Nigeria, 40 to 50 cents a day for a family of 5 and grateful for it.
I’m not an activist, just wanted to put things in perspective.
If you can, put the pop tarts back on the shelve and help a starving family. Here or abroad, we are all people.
Just make sure the money doesn’t go to corrupt governments, war lords.
never done this!!! i decided to go through our checking account to actually see how much we spend on food. my husband uses cash a lot, so it’s very possible it could be much more:
groceries/month – $150
eating out/month – $275
we live in north san diego county and shop at trader joes and local farmer’s markets. eating out we try to keep the bill at $20 by splitting and ordering water, but i think the coffee is our biggest weakness… that alone i think is $50/month.
I have a family of 3 and we try to spend about $300 a month. We rarely eat out and cooking at home is healthier and insurance for our budget. Taking meals to work leads to fewer urges to buy on the spot. We’d like to go lower but we buy a lot of organic.
Jerry
http://www.leads4insurance.com
I live in Ontario and spend about $40/week for food as I let myself splurge. I very rarely eat out and visit family every other week where they feed me. The very few times I go out (maybe twice a month) my boyfriend usually pays… I thought I splurged a lot on cheese and meat but apparently not.
I think I manage this by:
Buying whatever’s cheap at the farmer’s market
Bulk-buying all my meat at Costco
Eating in almost every meal
Planning meals out a week in advance
I think I’d spend less if there was a place to heat up lunches on campus/work but I’m restricted to cold foods.
Oh… and that doesn’t include drinks.
My parents brew their own wine and beer which is fabulous 🙂
I spend about $11 a day between groceries and dining out. It breaks down to about $200 for groceries and $130 eating out. I also travel a lot though, so hence the reason for a high eating out budget…
I only eat cheese so Its kind of expensive. I pay about 800 a month on cheese. I pay about 200 dollars on other foods like asparagus.
I usually spent about $400-$500/month on food.
I’m the type of person who walks through the grocery store and randomly grabs anything that looks tasty.
But lately, I’m a bit low on money….so I’m trying to budget myself to 240 dollars a month. I’m trying to survive with 8 dollars per day of food. It’s hard when I’m use to going out everyday and eating 15 dollars per meal.
It’s going to be hard. I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve been looking around ads and promotions. I don’t think I can come up with a $8 dollar budget plan.
I usually spend about $225-$300 a week eating out and about $100-150 on groceries a month. I am a single divorced Male 33 in L.A. I know, I eat out waaay too much! I randomly found this website when looking for Food Budget Guidelines. Thanks Y’all! 🙂
I am a single guy living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Wow, so I just totaled my ‘eating out’ tab from Dec 14 to Jan 14. One month of eating out (not including groceries) came to $368.06. It’s actually a little higher for items that have not cleared yet and for times I may have paid with cash.
I know this is a bad (and expensive) habit and really crushing my budget, but I enjoy the social aspect of getting out etc….
Well it must stop. I am going to try a budget of $200 per month total for eating. It can work in any combination of groceries or eating out but must stop at $200.
Wish me luck!
I live in Rhode Island and belong to a community supported farm program where I pay one up front price for veggies during the growing season, so that takes care of most of the produce. I don’t have a budget per say, but I do keep track of how much I spend each month on groceries for the year. This grocery budget reflects two adults who generally eat in/take lunches to work regularly, this also reflects any alcohol that was purchased using our joint account.
In 2007 our monthly average for groceries was $255
In 2008 our monthly average for groceries was $394
That’s a 53% increase! I try to buy mostly organic unless the price is prohibitive. I try to buy all produce either local or organic.
I don’t keep track of how much I spend when we go out, I think I would get depressed. We were cutting back a LOT going out in 2008 (almost never by ourselves, only with a group), which may partially reflect the increase in grocery budget…
From Ontario, 1-person household – I aim to not spend more than $50/week on food, and no more than $15/week on household stuff. I always spend the $50 on food, but rarely max out the $15 for household items.
This is out of my total cash flow of $100/week – what doesn’t get spent on food and household items pays for gas (no more than $20/week).
Evidently, I don’t eat out.
Whatever is left goes into ‘cash surplus’, which adds up over the weeks to buy things I need every few months or so (like new running shoes).
I eat a very healthy home-cooked diet on $50/week, and even discovered after a few weeks that I could afford more cheese (the good kind!), by cutting down the large amounts of well-priced meats that I am able to buy at my local Superstore to every two weeks, instead of buying it weekly.
I live in NYC with my boyfriend, and try to set my limit for groceries at $50/week (so $200 a month) and for dining out, I don’t really have a budget…oops. Our biggest accomplishment has been to eliminate ordering take out or going out to eat Monday-Thursday. That usually really kills us since we always end up at brunch on the weekends and out with friends for dinner. I would estimate I eat out once or twice a week, and always try to keep those below $30 each time, so my eating out budget is $240 a month (but for my frugal January and on, I’m keeping it to $100)
My husband and i live in philadelphia, and together we spend about 400 dollars per month on groceries. We spend about 15 dollars eating out per month.
How do you guys manage to spend so little on groceries? we clip coupons, pretty much only buy things when they are on sale, shop at mulitple stores (including save-a-lot) and we don’t eat meat (but veggie meat can add up)?
I’m looking for some more money saving tips!
[…] will be iffy if I go on a vacation AND if I lose my job. Maybe I will try extra hard to cut back on eating out costs to […]
I don’t know what you people are talking about i rarely can spend less than about $400 per month at the grocery store and then buy miscellaneous stuff at the corner grocery when i need it. which is about $50 a week…. this does include paper goods. I also spend about $50 a week or more depending on how busy our week is on take out. We are three people and live in nyc.
oh and i forgot to mention why i spend so much…. the cost of meat is so high…..i must buy 1-2 pkgs of meat per dinner….. plus i always have cereals and frozen waffles and frozen pizza and other quick meals in my house…. i try to only buy whats on sale….this month i spent $150 at the grocery and am praying it will last me a few weeks…as i am on a tight budget. but many nights i simply have no time to cook….and i’m exhausted sometimes we will order takeout like four times a week. i rarely can order less than $30 dollars but sometimes we have leftovers for lunch the next day
let’s see…here’s a sample day from when i had a job:
8 AM
2 milano cookies or a bowl of cereal $3/12 servings= $0.25
almond milk $2/4 serving =$0.50
12 PM
moe’s kids meal $5.00
water bottle $0.25 (i buy them bulk)
pack of gum $0.70
4 PM
leave work, eat something in office kitchen like bday cake $0.00
6 PM
microwave leftover half of kids meal $0.00
water bottle $0.25
9 PM
meet friend to study/have coffee $2.66
daily total =$9.61
so with this budget i end up spending around $200 a month. but if i get invited to 1 or 2 dinners i can easily add $40. it is hard to have a social life with a budget, especially if one’s friends are much wealthier. i have pretty much become a loner since i become unemployed; it can be kind of depressing sometimes but the good thing is my brother usually shares his takeout food with me.
This is the best post I’ve ever seen. Really, I love it!
I live in Chicago.
I spend about $100 a month on groceries. Either two $50 deliveries from Peapod or one $50 delivery from peapod and a few trips to Walgreens and CVS when I run out of eggs, bread, milk, etc. (I don’t have a car and the nearest grocery store is 5 blocks away. Perfect in the summer, brutal in Chicago winters.)
Dining out depends on the month, but I typically take my lunch to work every day to save money (and time) and we pre-game or find drink specials and generous gentlemen 🙂 at bars/clubs. I’d say dining out is $50 a month in the winter, maybe $100-200 in the summer. We cherish our 6-8 weeks of summer every year, so I have to splurge a bit. LOL!
I’m literally breathless with these replies. $200 on groceries and eating out A MONTH??? Whoa. Yeah right! That’s one week for my husband and me! We usually pay around $100 a week in groceries, which includes meat and alcohol. In the last month (according to my bank reporting feature), we spend $540 on groceries and $340 on restaurants, for a sum total of *$870 a month*. Do I get to divide that in half because there are two of us? That would be *$435 each* -which still pales – blanches even! – in comparison with other estimates of your food bills. Wow.
The funny thing is that our food bills have plummeted since I have started cooking real food, and we’re not eating out every night like we were before, and I’ve started planning my menus on Google Docs so I just buy what’s on the list.
I’m a bit amazed. I really thought we were pretty frugal. We both drive 15-year old cars, we both put 15% of our pre-tax income into retirement, we live off of one paycheck (almost completely), we have no debt except mortgage and student loans, and we save into our savings account. But obviously we have a TON we can do with the food budget. I just now have to stare bewilderedly at my accounts and figure out how the heck to do what all of you are doing… if you do it, it must be possible. Wow, thanks, that is such a blessing to hear from all of you.
I live in D.C. (well, in Arlington VA).
In Ohio I would say monthly grocery budget is about $200, dining out is about the same.