Grocery shopping

[Stella]

I usually spend between $200 - $300/month. That covers 1.75 mouths. The one is me, of course. The .75 is SO because although we don't live together, he eats all my food anyway. I'll have to actually go through my expenses last month and see what I REALLY spent compared to what I budget. I'll update.

(PS - My monthly shopping consists regularly of the following: chicken, beef, and shrimp, lots of cheese, red, yellow, orange,and green peppers, coke, water, pasta, baby spinach, bread, deli meats, and frozen dinners to take to work for lunches. I try to eat out as little as possible. I don't eat many sweets nor do I snack on chips, pretzels, etc... so that saves some $.)

[Vanquisher]

I just posted how I do it in the other thread. Things like dipaers, chicken, laundry detergent, etc. are bought in bulk. I make my bulk shopping trip about once every month to month and a half, and this costs me $100. It cuts down my weekly grocery bill.

Annie, BJ's by Target near Wolf Road is a good place to get diapers, formula (if you need it), chicken and other meats, and cleaning products. I think they have better stuff than the Sam's Club. Also, that new Super Walmart is cheaper than Price Chopper or Hannaford.

I know everyone has this thing against Walmart, but guess what? It's cheaper!

[Vanquisher]

You are welcome. I almost forgot that they (BJ's) have a liquor store in their entrance where you can get big bottles of cheap alcohol (vodka, rum, kahlua, amaretto, etc.) and wine. Priceless!

we had BJ's in Ohio, and I miss it. I've resorted to Costco here.

I'm not much of a budgeter , which is pretty clear. I usually spend about $175 / week for 4 mouths, and we usually eat out 1 x a week. I'd gotten better about eating lunches at home, but now w/this pregnancy / no lunchmeat thing, I'm thrown into a tizzy.

[DCJenn]

The nice part about moving back to TX is that the cost of living is so much lower than DC. Our grocery bill is about 85 bucks a week and that's usually fruits and veggies, at least one box of cereal, some sort of protein- beef, chicken, fish, etc.

I buy diapers and that kind of stuff at the PX or commissary. I try to buy staples there as well. As I posted somewhere else, our local grocery store is horrible. Their fruits and veggies rot in a day so I usually go to the chi-chi Central Market for perishables. Yes it's expensive but only when you don't factor in waste. I hate tossing stuff because it rotted in a day.

My big splurges are wine/beer and cheese. I try to buy at least 6 bottles of wine at a time to get the discount offered by the stores. We eat out once a week and I usually bring my lunch to work.

Nikolai is provided breakfast, lunch and two snacks at his daycare so that has reduced the amount of milk I was buying.

Jenn

[DrWahoo]

We spend about $100 on grocies a week, but that doesn't include stuff like diapers, toilet paper.

[planet]

We have a budget of around 100/week for everything. We buy very few packaged/processed items, and those are only TJ's deals. But really there are only 2.5 mouths to feed. The boys eat at home, dh makes use of his hospital meal tickets and I eat leftovers. I have also made the mistake of letting dh go grocery shopping. We have a gift membership to costco unactivated in the file cabinet, but the closest costco is an hour away. We do not have money for extras.

I go to TJs for milk, eggs, juice, dried mango and irish oats for oatmeal and to a larger grocery chain for produce. My moms group will pass along info on good grocery deals. The biggest money saver is definitely having dh eat at the hospital on his meal tickets. We also go fruit picking. The cost is about the same for the fruit, but the family time and activity makes it much more special.

[rainbabies]

i try to buy as many generic things as possible. there are certain items i wont budge on tho...because the stuff ends up being crap so we dont use it, we use more of it, or i end up tossing it. i was always a huggies snob, but now im using white cloud. we use generic wipes from target or wal-mart. we now use the Pets-Mart store brand pet food for the dogs, instead of IAMS. i buy bulk butter and cheese from Sams club. i just split it up and freeze it. i buy wal-mart brand milk, and frozen veggies. i buy bigger cuts of meat. we will have a roast one night, the next night we will have it for leftovers and the next i will either make a stir fry with it, or shread it and simmer with BBQ sauce. so while spending $7 on a cut of pork or a pot roast...it feed us for two-three days. i buy a box of bisquick and make a large amount of pancakes and freeze them. we dont have alot of junk, but what we do have is generic....we buy the big bags of generic cereal. i get eggs for (18 pack) for $.99. one thing everyone here loves is chicken and biskets. buy a spit breast and boil pick off the chicken, add some flour or corn starch to thicken, dump in some peas.....roll out some bisquick biscits, bake and serve. yummy, quick, and cheap.

oh, and like heidi, for those lazy nights i go to little cezars and get the $5 pizza. that feeds the kids for two days.

things i dont mind spending money on are carrots, apples, grapes and cucumbers. my kids LOVE to just snack on that stuff.

[KCwife]

I don't really have a food budget. I should.

I buy generic on lots of stuff. Such as butter. I only buy organic milk, and soy milk. We eat very little meat. We buy lots of veggies and fruits (again I "try" to go organic. I have to have goat cheese, and some pinot grigo. Lots of yogurt.

I miss Costco, and don't do big runs because I hate grocery shopping. I usually go every other day.

[Vishenka69]

I do grocery shopping about every two-three weeks or so with an occassional stop at the local veggie stand. The big grocery bill is usually around $150, the local place is $10-20. I don't make lunch too often, so that's another $30-40. Plus we go out about once a week. So without going out we spend about $100 weekly and with going out $200-$300. Luckily the cat doesn't eat that much and isn't very picky.

[ellie]

we had BJ's in Ohio, and I miss it. I've resorted to Costco here.

I'm the complete opposite. I miss the Costco we used to have, and there's only a BJ's here. On the plus side, I end up spending a lot less at BJ's.

I'm really bad about the grocery budget and meal planning. Sometimes I end up going to the grocery store 3-4 times a week. After reading Heidi's post about meal planning in the other thread, though, I may have to give it another try.

But it's definitely the diapers and formula that are the biggest $$$ now.

Does anyone use coupons? Do they really make a difference in the end? I've tried clipping coupons before, but I always forget to use them before they expire, and it seems like so much more trouble than it's worth.

[Stella]

Okay... time to come clean. I figured it out and it turns out that in August, I spent $344 on groceries and $250 eating out (lunches at work, Starbucks, etc). Seems like a lot to spend over a quarter of my take home pay on food... Looks like I'll be making a budget for September.

I'm going to start going to Costco (just a pain b/c SO is a member, not me, so we have to go together) for water, coke, peppers!, and Quaker oatmeal.

Like KCwife, I need goat cheese or brie and nuts. I make a lot of my salads with those. And wine, I always need wine. I get mine at World Market.

With generic foods, I cannot budge on: Breakstone's Sour Cream, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, or my very special (and expensive) Edmond Fallot mustard from Paris...

I budget 400 euro a month for 2 ppl (almost $550), one of whom is a vegetarian. That includes all cleaning and paper products but not cat food. But I live in one of the most expensive EU cities... we are on par with NYC. If I lived in the US, I would spend so much less. Believe it or not, I go visit my parents every 6 months and I peruse the supermarket fliers just to see what the prices are like. It's SO much cheaper in the US.

The trick is not buying pre-fab stuff. Do everything from scratch. It's a lot more work but it tastes a lot better and is a lot cheaper. Buy veggies on sale. If you eat "in season" veggies you will save a significant amount. Like, do not buy fresh spinach in December or pumpkin in the spring.

I eat meat about once a week. Since DH is vegetarian, we have to eat lots of beans, tofu and other disgusting high protein foods. I buy lots of organic stuff (all dairy and some veggies). We also eat out about once a week.

Pasta dishes are really cheap. As is chicken.

[alison]

We don't have kids, we eat out at least 2x/week, and... were recently carded. As in, when we were in line at Costco, the cashier announced something VERY loudly and unintelligibly. A lady from "upstairs" rushed over to us, swiped our card in some sort of handheld machine and said "YOU SPENT JUST OVER $2800 HERE IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS."
And that's just Costco. I also regularly go to Trader Joes to pick up snacks. And to the neighborhood grocery store to actually be able to make a meal...
We definitely spend over $500/month on groceries, and over $400 on meals out.

In other words, we suck.