What is your weekly food budget?

It has become so hard to stick to my weekly food budget. Just yesterday I went to our local Save-A-Lot where I always shop. We usually get the small frozen pizzas for 99 cents, but yesterday they were $1.19! I get my milk at CVS across the street for $2.79, but now it is $2.99. Fruits and vegetables are high. Meat, forget it. I can still get one brand of hot dogs for 73 cents which is six meals. I go to the chekcout line with a tiny stack of groceries to last the whole week, and the next person will have theirs full to the brim. My little one is always amazed to see that much in one person's cart. We have never been able to do that. I was always trying to spend around $10. Now, I am spending $18. We started walking and riding bikes more to spend less on gas. I now hang my clothes out to dry to cut back on electricity. I go around shutting lights off in the daytime, but to no avail. The little light elf comes back and turns them on. I used to leave my computer on when I wasn't using it, but I don't anymore. I turned the thermostat up on the air conditioner so it won't come on as much. I think next year I will grow our own vegetables. I will look for more ways to cut back.

I really don't have a food budget that I stick too. I usually don't shop for a week at a time as we don't always have the money each week. There are items that I buy weekly (milk,sugar,etc) but as far as figuring it per person weekly I can't do that. I do know that food is increasing and that it seems as there is no relief in site. I am going to start using Angel Food Ministries. They offer groceries each month for $30 per month and I think that I could feed us for about 2 weeks off of that.

I agree with you, Theresa. It seems like each time I go to the grocery store, prices have gone up - AGAIN! I look at the sale papers and stock up when prices are low. I did notice a bit of relief this morning, although it may be temporary. There are several gas stations in our area that have gone from just over $4/gallon down to $3.81/gallon. I wish I could stock up on that - lol! Some things I find helpful in cutting my food budget are: 1. Make foods from scratch as often as possible. Yes, it's convenient to "break and bake" cookies (as my niece calls it) but there's a big cost for the convenience. 2. Use powdered milk as much as possible. If your family can't stand to drink powdered milk, just using it in recipes will save some money. 3. Buy in bulk, then freeze or pack in airtight containers what you don't use. I hope these couple of ideas help. Good luck with your endeavor!

I don't like to shop for a week at a time anymore. I'm the only one in the household and if I get that much groceries, it usually goes to waste. After a few days, I may no longer be interested in eating it. I try to shop for no more than 2 days at a time. I'm more likely to use the food when I shop that way. I work at a retail store where there is a grocery so that makes it convenient to shop for groceries the way I do.

We have a small food budget which we do not like to go over,we shop carefully,we buy the offers and the bargains,and I will go to the store daily to buy the reduced goods.The reduced goods are there most days and represent good value if you are going to use them on the same day.To spend a lot on food is a waste,a good menu from a small purse makes sense to me,

hey we have 7 people in our house out weekly food shopping comes to about in pounds 90.00

I live alone and my food purchases vary quite a bit because I stock up when things are on sale. I'm estimating the average is about $15 to $20 a week. I've been budgeting $150 a month, though, to stock up on summer vegetables for the winter. Later on, I'll only shop once or twice a month and only for fresh food and dairy.

We budget $240 a month for our family of 4. My Hubby and I and a 6 year old and a 3 year old. I spend that as I feel I need to and try to do sales as much as possible. Once in a while if we get extra money, like a tax refund, we go over that. Otherwise I try to stay under that and the extra money goes into an account to spend on case lot sales. It is getting harder and harder to get by on that. Im not quite ready to up the budget but we are not stock piling like we used to so there will come a time when we need to re evaluate.