How much to feed a family???

[cheapdoggy]

My wife and I are trying to create a budget and I need an Idea as to how much a family of 5 needs in groceries. 2 adults, 1 teen, 1 elementary and 1 preschooler. I could just take it off my quicken but I know there is a lot of waste in that

[LuxLiving]

For the moment I'd treat the elementary and preschooler as one person and consider myself feeding four adults which is what I actually do at my house and we are doing it VERY TIGHTLY I might add at 150 a month. I am a very frugal from scratch mostly cook and do pantry cooking - shop the scratch and dents, bargain bins, clearance sales and loss leaders - but as a general rule don't do coupons. Your area of the country may be a high COLA (cost of living area). I do most all of my regular grocery shopping at Save-A-Lot and Aldi's. I did this budget even when three of us were home all day when I was homeschooling the last two kids - Hubster still brown bags it. CashHappySon pays for his own brown bag stuff now and FrugalSon usually eats one free meal a day at work.

$150 is for in home food only. We currently don't do eat aways unless it is for a family event and carefully budgeted and saved for - or one of us takes it out of our allowance money.

I spend anwhere from 20-30 a month for papergoods, laundry and cleaning supplies at a dollar type store.

Lots of folks can do four adults on 50.00 a week IF they do some of things I mentioned above. If you're talking lots of mixes and convenience foods then better make it 75.00 to 100 per person a month. Of note is that I'm currently a SAHM (stay at home Mom) and thus have time for this type of shopping and cooking.)

see hillbillyhousewife.com for sample menus. Also check this site's grocery & recipe forums.

[Staceyy]

The USDA ( US Dept of Agriculture) has a pdf file that states how much the average family spends on food per month according to the number of people and ages in the family. It shows how much the thrifty family spends, the low cost, moderate and liberal. I don't have the exact link, but maybe someone else can provide it, or you could go to "Google" and type in "USDA food budget" or similar search.

[living_in_oz]

I have 5 in my family also. DH, myself, 15 year old son(BIG kid and BIG eater...plays lots of sports), 13 year old daughter, and 8 year daughter(also very athletic and plays sports). I budget $100 a week for groceries. This budget feeds us every meal, except my son usually eats the school lunch 5x a week. DH eats lunch at home everyday, and myself and 2 daughters brown bag. We eat very few meals away from home.
I use VERY few boxed or convience foods. Mainly because we don't like the stuff and it's not healthy. Probably 25% of our weekly budget goes towards fresh fruits and frozen veggies, whole grains, and lean meats. Basic good food. I don't buy "healthfoods" like tofu, organics, only natural sweeteners etc. I just buy healthy "regular" foods.
In a pinch, I can get my weekly food budget down to between $50 and $75, but the quality of the food goes down too. We end up eating more "rice and pasta" dishes that have been completely stripped of their nutrional value. However, I don't think it's terribble to eat those foods! I'm just thankful that I've worked out a budget that includes better quality and healthy foods for my family
Oh yeah! We usually DO eat meat every night for supper. A family could eat quite a bit cheaper if they chose to eat more vegetarian meals. My meat and potato guys would have a fit if I didn't serve meet everynight though!

[PrincessPerky]

We have 5, three small/young but big eaters (my one year old ate 3 nuggets, 1/4 cup of green beans and tablespoon of mac for lunch..we can't live on much less food)

We spend about 500 a month...more than we need, but about what we can afford. That includes LOTS of baking for others, nearly every sunday, at least once a month for company and once a month for taking out, and prolly twice for sending in to work.

We all eat from home every meal every day, and we ALL eat a LOT.

[rduell]

There are 5 of us (2 adults and 3 teenagers) and I also budget $100 a week.

[getforfree]

We have 3 adults,(Dh, me, and MIL), and 2 kids, almost4, and almost 2 y.o.

I budget $250/month including toiletries, paper goods, and diapers for the youngest.

My weekly spending ranges anywhere between $20 and $70. It depends what's on sale.

The store brand diapers that I buy usually go on sale every 6 weeks or so, so when they are on sale, I stock up and spend around $50. If the store runs out, I get a rain check, it has $1 off on it.

Meat, if on good sale, I might buy a lot too, depends how much space I have in my freezer. I still have cooked canned turkey that I canned myself when the turkeys were cheap before thanksgiving. That time I also had a few coupons for a free soda when you buy turkey.

We almost never eat out. If we do, it comes out of food budget. We take our lunches to work, and if we go out for long time, we take snacks with us, to avoid buying food outside.

We don't buy baked goods, I bake a lot myself. We even make our own frenchfries from regular potatoes. We eat lots of soup, the cheapest and healthiest food imo. We eat meat every day, but mostly chicken, because it's the cheapest kind of meat. I make my own pizza.

We splurge on some of the foods, like shrimps, deli, salami for pizza, buy whole milk instead 2%, fruits that are more than 99c/lb, nuts.

We buy milk, 100% juice, yogurt, nuts--- mostly for kids.

[cheapdoggy]

We're spending probably $800 a month and that inludes paper goods, snacks etc....I think we could do better. We really don't buy beef or pork..... lots of chicken, vegetables

[LuxLiving]

Take it down 50 to 100 a month at a time and see when you get to your 'we can't go any further level' then take it down a notch or two more and you'll likely find you can do loads better.

Wow 800.00??? I could make two more house payments a month and then some! I would think you could live quite nicely on 400.00 a month and still not feel too deprived. More reasonable might be $300-350 but it truly does depend on the part of the country you live in!

[threebeansalad]

The USDA ( US Dept of Agriculture) has a pdf file that states how much the average family spends on food per month according to the number of people and ages in the family.

This is incorrect. The USDA Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) is not how much families spend on average, rather, it is the cost of a market basket of foods (calculated from the CPI-Consumer Price Index) that can be used to cook healthy, thrifty meals designed by USDA nutritionists. The meal plan requires cooking from scratch and a moderate amount of cooking knowledge and equipment (ie roasting pans, etc.). The average family spends far more than the TFP. As an aside, the TFP is part of what goes into determining a household's food stamp allotment.

If you can meet the costs on TFP, I think you're doing quite well (note: the TFP assumes you don't have a stocked pantry.) When you first see the TFP you might say . "Heck, no problem!" But then if you start figuring that you needed to buy every single ingredient, you'll see it's much harder to stay on budget-- another reason why establishing a well-stocked pantry is so important for limiting food costs.

[boefixepa]

For 2 adults this is what I do monthly.

$100 for groceries
$50 for paper products/toiletries/soaps
$50 for food storage or bulk items
$50 for eating out

This works for the most part. I generally don't spend all of the bulk $$ or the paper $$monthly but let them build and then buy alot at once.

[frugalmomof1]

I budgeted $60/week for groceries (including paper goods, cleaning supplies and toiletries) this year for 2 adults and a 1 year old.
I have a pretty well stocked pantry, and cook most meals from scratch.
The snacks DH has to have is what is going to make it tough.

[PRICEPLUS]

I think LuxLiving has the right idea. Take it down a little at a time by eliminating some items. Buy some generics. Stock up during sales. Clip coupons and check out the boards here for info on how to cut the bills using coupons. Try to elminate 50 at first and then another 50. You'd be surprised how much you can bring it down if you conciously make the effort!

[getforfree]

Here is the table of food plans:
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publication...fFoodSep06.pdf

It says $452 for a family of 4 monthly. That's how much people who get foodstemps are getting, and we have to cut all the way, cause we can't afford to spend that much. We spend 2x less than that on family of 5.

[LuxLiving]

I remember a few years back standing in line behind a lady whose cart was loaded to the gills and overflowing w/steaks and many convenience foods as she whipped out the old foodstamps and my son asking me how come that lady has so much food, Mom? I remember being first mortified at the greed she had and then angered beyond belief that my spouse works so hard for his money and to pay our taxes and to have able bodied folks just living off the fat and me w/my meager basket of beans and rice and trying to figure out how to pay for it. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

I do not mind helping people at all - have started more than one food pantry at churches and want kids to have plenty to eat, but this was utterly ridiculous.

And btw, where's my Dad's 1000.00 debit card???? He's in an ice storm that has shut his and the outlying towns completely down - I don't see him up on the roof waiting for somebody to come save him nor do I see them toting trailers into town for them to live in nor do I see any buses coming to pack them out of the devastation. Not that he would take any of those things, but geewhilikers batman!!

Somehow folks we are sadly off kilter here in this fine nation of ours.

[threebeansalad]

It says $452 for a family of 4 monthly. That's how much people who get food stamps are getting, and we have to cut all the way, cause we can't afford to spend that much. We spend 2x less than that on family of 5.

I've spent time working in Food Assistance, so I have some expertise in this area. That is NOT what a family fo four on Food Stamps is getting. Food Stamp allotment are based off the TFP, but each household's benefit is determined by a formula that takes into account not only the TFP, but also assets, income, and geographic region. The average Food Stamp household gets ~$200 / month. If I sound defensive of the program that's because I am. Is the program without flaws- of course not. Another little known fact: Most food stamp recipients are children. For more FSP FAQs, see: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/faqs.htm

[Thrif-t]

I have a family of 5, dh, dd11, dd8 & ds6, I strive to spend between $300 and 350/mo, sometimes I do sometimes I go over it depends a lot on the sales and what all I'm stocking up on at a sale price...those months when I'm stocking up on a meat on sale tend to be a higher month for groceries. I'm really going to try to track this better this year, since it's january its my resolution I'm curious to know what I on average spend a month and a year.

[MonkeyMama]

WE are about 500/month for groceries, paper goods, toiletries, all our soap, etc.

I have been trying and trying to cut it down to no avail it seems. But overall I Am happy with it. We eat in 99% of the time.

family of 4 - kids are small but they eat like horses - LOL - growing toddler/preschoolers. I can't even think about the teen boy years - hopefully we will have more money then - hehe.

We have started stocking up on whatever we see on sale, more coupon clipping, & trying to cook more with what is on-hand. Our bill has not dropped much but we are eating out a lot less so it probably reflects in that we are eating overall for less.

We actually eat really well - if you check the recipe section on my blog you see what we eat in general. we made a concerted effort the last couple of years to cut out the junk. Dh buys chips and salsa endlessly on sale and I get chocolate stuff once in a blue moon, but I think the key to keeping a budget down is no junk. Lots of fresh fruit instead. We actually eat a lot of meat, but we can usually find it pretty cheap on sale.

Oh yeah with the little ones about 1/4 of our budget is milk and cheese. So I know that is going down with time as the baby weans off so much milk. I think $450 is realistic for our budget in the long-haul - $400 for the food portion. I was tracking by category for a while and I noticed we weren't spending much on meat but man the milk was HUGE - LOL. We do actually spend a lot on crackers too. The processed stuff will stick it to you, even if it is not "junky."

[starving_student]

Originally Posted by LuxLiving

For the moment I'd treat the elementary and preschooler as one person and consider myself feeding four adults which is what I actually do at my house and we are doing it VERY TIGHTLY I might add at 150 a month. I am a very frugal from scratch mostly cook and do pantry cooking - shop the scratch and dents, bargain bins, clearance sales and loss leaders - but as a general rule don't do coupons. shopping and cooking.)
.

Why don't you use coupons?

My reasons:
-Can't find them (where the hell do they hide)
-Too much time to browse the Sunday newspaper (takes in average 1h30-2h00)
-Very few are for non-processed, organic, bulk food or produce
-Trouble keeping track of them (what do I have when are the expiration date)
-Don't have them on hand when needed

[mrdwpman]

i found great information on food cost on usda site. I am renting to a collage student and had no idea he would want a food plan. I said what is the right amount? his father said $50. a month. Not knowing better i said ok. but the chart says a monthly low cost plan for 19 to50 years old is $222 per month. how do i let him know it was to low? How much will he eat at the house? i have a family of 4 here in northridge ca. I can feed good at about $400 a month. Food only!!!!! all toletires and other houshold stuff at 99 cent sotre. He will get his own bath stuff. So i guess it would be $100 per month min for him right? since we get a better deal only buying in bulk and buying for five.