December 15, 2006, Newsletter Issue #172: Average Grocery Budget

Tip of the Week

A question was recently asked:
"What is the average monthly expense for groceries to feed 2 adults, one child and 2 large dogs?"

Here´s my reply:

The answer to your question can be quite complicated as there are a number of different variables involved:
*The type of diet you consume (i.e.do you eat a lot of meat or do you prefer a mostly non-meat diet?)
*Do you use coupons?
*Do you do rebates?
*The age of your child (i.e. is your child an infant on formula or is your child a teenager?)
*The diets of your large breed dogs (do you feed store bought food, table scraps, or high-end food like Bil-Jac or Eukunuba?)

I can give you the web address to a National Statistics chart listed on The Dollar Stretcher´s Website. For a family of 3 the National Average is $101 per week ($435/mo, $5,228 yr) I haven´t found any stats on budgets of families with dogs included. http://www.stretcher.com/stories/990705a.cfm

Now MiserlyMom believes that on a frugal budget you should allow for $10 per person per week. If you are new to frugality try for $15 per person per week. And it could go higher based upon types of products you buy. Here´s the link for that information: http://www.stretcher.com/stories/00/000612b.cfm

Personally my family has 4 members (2 adults and 2 children age 2 and younger). Including groceries, Similac formula expendatures and brand name diapers, we spend approximately $208 every 3 weeks. That´s after coupons but before any mail-in rebates that may be available. We eat steak, shrimp, a lot of chicken, lots of fruits and veggies. We use Pampers and Huggies diapers (at the rate of 1 pack of each per week) and also 2 cans of Similac with Iron Powder per week. We really don´t lack for anything on our budget. I could probably save some more by buying less expensive cuts of meat, but that´s an indulgence I can live with. As far as the dogs go, I have no idea what they consume. I had 2 small dogs (Lhasa Apsos) that ate approximately $30 worth of BilJac dog food per month. Big dogs would be much more. I would compare prices on the internet, use online coupons, utilize any of your local store´s price match policies, etc. to get the best deal on that.

I hope this helps you a little. Good luck on your grocery budget.

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