When it comes to budgeting, a question I am asked regularly is how much to budget for food and groceries. There is no single answer to this question, as it depends on a range of factors. Ever had a stressful week at work and spent the entire time eating your feelings? Been away for the holidays and blown your food budget? Yep, it happens to the best of us. But the occasional blow out may be manageable if you have a handle on your food budget most of the time.
To help you to work out what you should be spending on food, I have set out below some things to consider in setting your food budget. You can also see how much the average person spends on food, and ways you can cut your spending on food and groceries.
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What is the average amount that people spend on food?
To work out how your food budget stacks up, the first thing to look at it is how much people in the US spend on food on average.
According to the USDA, in 2019, Americans spent an average of 9.5 percent of their disposable personal incomes on food. This was made up of food at home (4.9 percent) and food away from home (4.6 percent).
The above figures are an average. If you have a low income, you will probably spend a higher percentage of your income on food. In 2018, households in the lowest 20% by income spent an average of $4,109 a year on food, representing 35.1 percent of income, while households in the highest 20% by income spent an average of $13,348 a year on food, representing 8.2 percent of income.
How much are you spending on food now?
If you already have a budget set up, then you should have a good idea of what you are spending on food and groceries. If you have not set up a budget before, now is a great time to start – head over to my article on how to make a budget here to learn how to complete your budget, and to download my free budget spreadsheet. Or you can sign up below and download the budget spreadsheet template straight away.
To work out how much you are spending on food, you need to look at your recent spending history. If you use online banking, log in to any accounts and credit cards, and write down all of your recent grocery spend. Otherwise get out your paperwork and go through your bank statements and receipts. You can do this just for the last week if you want, but to get an accurate picture of what you spend on food, it would be better to do it for at least a month and ideally 3 months.
When you are writing down how much you have spent on food, write it on a weekly basis and separate it into grocery shopping, take-out, and eating in a cafe or restaurant. If you have done this for the last 3 month period, you will have a really good idea of what your usual spend is, even if there are one or two weeks where you ate out a lot more.
How much should you be spending a week on food?
How much you should spend on food depends on how many people there are in your family, your lifestyle, and any specific dietary requirements that you or your family members have. If you have to be gluten-free or dairy-free you’re likely to find that you spend more than if you have a standard diet.
What should one adult, two adults, or a family budget for food?
A good rule of thumb for what you should spend on food each week is below:
One adult: $40- $80 per week, or $175 – $360 per month
Couple (two adults): $85 – $180 per week, or $370 – $780 per month
Family of four: $140 – $300 per week, or $600 – $1300 per month
The ranges are quite large because your food spending should be linked to your income. If you are a low earner you will need to be more frugal with your food budget, and spend less per week on food. If you are a high earner you can afford to eat out more often and spend more on groceries every month.
What else can impact your food budget?
There may also be other lifestyle factors that influence your grocery budget, and which you need to take into account. For example, currently, I am working full-time and running an online business. This means that I don’t have much time to cook, and I am willing to admit this. There have been times I have bought food from the week intending to cook healthy meals, and then have ended up ordering take-out because I’m too busy or tired to cook. This is a huge waste of food and money!
As I know now that I will be busy and not always have the time for cooking, we currently order food every week from Lite n Easy so that we have already prepared healthy meals. This is more expensive than if I were to buy the groceries and make the meals by myself. But it saves an awful lot of time that I would otherwise have to spend cooking. We also actually spend less overall on food because we’re not falling back on take-out when we are too tired to cook, which happened more often than it should have done before we started with Lite n Easy.
Other lifestyle factors that can influence how much you spend on food are where you live. High cost of living areas tend to have more expensive stores than low cost of living areas, so you will probably end up spending more on food.
Also if you are going on vacation, you can expect to eat out more and your food spend for the week will rise. There is nothing wrong with having a splurge when you are vacationing, just make sure you have set aside money for it before you go away so you are not putting yourself in debt or worrying about money when you return.
Tips to stick to your food budget
Sticking to your food budget is all about planning.
If you are going to be successful then you will need to plan your meals before you go to the store. How you plan also depends on whether you live alone, are a couple with no kids, or have a family. Additionally, if you have no cooking skills your planning may be a little different from someone who is an expert in the kitchen.
Meal planning is absolutely key to keeping within a grocery budget. And you need to start by deciding on your budget. Once you know how much to have to spend, create the meal plan and check that the ingredients are going to fit within your allocated food budget. Once you have your ingredients list from your meal plan, then go shopping, and only buy what is on your list.
If you go to the store with a list but don’t know what meals you’re going to cook with it you either won’t have the right food or you will waste food with leftovers. Creating a five or seven day meal plan every week allows you to properly budget your food but also gives you some flexibility. Make sure that you have your family buying for a food plan because there’s nothing more frustrating than having a fridge full of food and your family refusing to eat it.
Meal planning doesn’t mean that everything you have to be super healthy. As part of your meal plan try to include one or two favorite dinners that are more like junk food. For example you could include make at home pizzas or a burger and fries night.
Tracking your spending against your food budget
To make sure you stick to your budget, you need to be tracking what you are spending. You could do this over a month, or a week, depending on how tight your budget is. The point of tracking is so you can adjust to make sure you hit your budget.
For example, if you plan to spend $300 a week on food, that’s around $1300 per month. If you have eaten out a lot in the first half of the month, you may find you have already spent $900 in that first half of the month, which leaves you $400 for the second half of the month. Now you will need to adjust your eating habits in the second half of the month by eating more at home to avoid going over your food budget.
It may be hard to get the balance right in the first month or two. However, once you get used to tracking how much you are spending on food, you will find it easier to stick to your weekly or monthly food budget.
How to reduce how much you are spending on groceries
Eat out less, eat at home more
Here are some actionable tips for reducing your budget on grocery spending. The first step is to eat at home and not out at restaurants. The cost of eating at restaurants is much more expensive than eating at home.
Save money by eating less meat
Another way to save money on your grocery budget is to eat less meat. Vegetables are cheaper than meat and some would argue are also more healthy. Even if you don’t want to go entirely meat free, you can use less meat and bulk of the meal with extra rice or vegetables.
Shop at cheaper stores
You can also save money by shopping at less expensive stores. It is cheaper to do your grocery shopping at Aldi and Costco then some of the more expensive supermarkets. It may also be cheaper to shop online because you can shop around for the best deals all from the comfort of your couch.
Use coupons where you can
You can use coupons to reduce the cost of your grocery spending. Make sure that you’re only using coupons for items you were already going to buy otherwise you’ll find you’re spending more than you need on groceries. Also, make sure that you don’t spend hours every week cutting out coupons that time could be better spent elsewhere.
Eat before you shop
A really easy way to reduce your grocery spend is to go shopping after you’ve had a meal. If you’re not hungry when you’re walking around the supermarket you’re less likely to pick up snack items and treats.
If you fall off the wagon, get back on!
The main thing to remember as you start to budget and track your food spending is that from time to time you may get it wrong. If that happens, don’t give up. Have an honest look at why you went wrong, and plan how you will manage that next week or next month.
How much are you spending on food each week? And what tips do you have to stick to your budget? Make sure to leave a comment below to help others on their budgeting journey.
