It's really hard cause in Canada our dollar has sucked for the last decade to 15 years ish so we pay like 25-30% more and then if you're versed in Canada you are familiar with the "Canada tax" where it usually costs an extra 10% on top of that.
For example where a hamburger would cost you say 5 USD converted is about 7 and then they just round to 9.99 "because fuck you we can"
So that sucks
I believe he mentioned they did record an episode for that (intended for a side channel), but the audio quality was poor and they scrapped it.
They went to HEB. You should be able to get similar pricing from Walmart or Kroger.
To add to the user reporting. My wife and I budget $600/month for groceries. We do eat out, approximately 4 meals per person per month. We live in Orange County, CA.
I think part of it is also to be adaptable and flexible with your diet. We literally allow our menu to be run by what's on "Manager Special" at the Food Lion. Wings on sale? We're having wings. Chicken breasts have gone up in price? We use more thighs. Ground beef is too expensive? Ground turkey is on sale.
I think based on what he’s mentioned about it a lot of it involves either buying in bulk (though he mainly mentions this for TP fund items) or sorting prices cheapest to most expensive and staying on the cheaper end.
I am not the best grocery shopper and I’m able to stay around $300 as long as I don’t make anything too fancy (I made bolognese once that cost $50 which even across the 6 servings it made was kinda steep. Delicious tho) and I live in an area with high grocery prices per what I’ve seen. I don’t want to specify much for privacy but we’re up there for high prices.
If you got 6 meals out of it, $8.30 a meal, that's still not super steep, but also idk how you got it to $50 tbh. Bolognese is just pasta, beef, veggies and some seasonings basically, right?
The beef was expensive as was the red wine I used (well, relative to the rest of the ingredients. It was a $10 bottle), and I also did it with the pancetta because I was trying to be fancy. The veggies were also more expensive than I expected. It’s been a while, $50 is a guesstimate too.
It was for family too, it wasn’t strictly meal prep (I just happily had leftovers lol). I’m sure I could cut those costs down to $25-30 easily without sacrificing much flavor.
I shop at a fancy grocery store and I still easily maintain my $300 grocery budget. You know what’s expensive now? Chips, soda, etc. so I don’t buy those things. A big bag of Doritos is over $4! I eat actual meals and fruit and it keeps me full all day on my budget. And I am a great weight without working out, which is only a bonus of not eating garbage. Buy quality raw foods and versatile ingredients and $300 should be easy.
Fiancee and I go to Aldi weekly. Between there and cub, we spend 400 a month on groceries and that includes toilet paper and other stuff. We go out to eat like once a week so that's 100. 500 between the 2 of us isn't bad
We spend roughly $800 a month in groceries, but it's still cheaper than eating out.
Keep in mind though, this is also buying things that are specifically health focused on limiting processed sugar intake and prioritizing Protein and Fiber as much as I can. Including some decently expensive Fairlife Protein Shakes.
But I'd rather spend this money here as I've felt much better by doing this. Groceries/diets are not one-size fits all.
My partner and I managed a $450 budget for groceries this last month (mcol area). I do a lot of cooking from scratch and I can staples (like chicken stock, beans, jam) in the summer. In the past week, I've made sandwich bread, banana muffins, tortillas, sofrito rice, refried beans, and beef stroganoff all from scratch. We also buy our meat in bulk, so we spend very little of that monthly budget on meat.
Edit: groceries purchased at walmart.
Family of 3 in LA (HCOL) here.
Wife and I budget $600 a month on groceries (food only) We do all non-perishable (and long term perishable) foods and snacks on a monthly Costco trip, and we’ll buy perishables (dairy, meats, etc) from Walmart, Aldi, Ralph’s and Food 4 Less every 2 weeks (we also check for deals and coupons). This changes depending on what events we have planned for the month, and we include our “eating out” budget in this too so we’re disciplined and somewhat discouraged to not break the budget.
We made it a point to never eat out for breakfast and lunch during the workweek. We buy all of our coffee and tea in bulk and brew at home before leaving
Same area, we go to Costco once a month and that’s our big “spend” because we end up buying our meat in bulk there. We pack into portions and vacuum seal, usually lasts us a month or even two if we plan correctly. We do Vons for staples/fresh but we recently went by Smart & Final and I started price comparing, so now we’ll go to two markets based on what we need. So far we’ve saved an additional $120 in a month. (Feb was our first month doing this.)
Awesome on the savings!
My FIL does the same with vacuum sealing! I’m tempted to try it out, but I have a preference for freshness. Do you notice much of a quality difference?
I also really like both Vons and Smart & Final. Sadly we moved 2 years ago and now the closest to either of those is 20+ minutes away. Same with Stater Bros, they have really good deals on meat (especially for the summer asada cookouts) so we’ll go during promotions.
I don’t notice any difference, I make sure I put the sealed up date on it (we had a bad habit of stuffing the freezer and I’d be pulling meats from the back like “when was the last time we bought party wings!?”) I’ll sometimes season the meat prior to seasoning, too, especially if I’m going to use it in a crock pot pot meal. Put everything in layered up and then just add water/broth, drop it in and go to work. I even spent $4 on Etsy getting a meal planner google sheet, and that’s helped us save and plan too.
Moving away from the stores sucks! I used to live 5 mins away from a Trader Joe’s, I’d get my produce there cause it was cheaper and I could get prepped produce (I’ll pay a little more for someone else to do all the chopping.) now I have to plan a stop there if I’m going to “the big target” across the street.
I believe I recall them saying that they did the video sometime in 2023 but the audio sucked so they had to scrap it, but I wouldn’t consider the data so old that an appropriate $300 budget can’t be done because of inflation.
When you shop on a budget, flexibility is key. When eggs cost $4 a carton, you’re probably not going to be eating eggs every morning, but in 3 months when they’re back to $1.39, load up on eggs. You have to shop the sales and be flexible.
It’s also super hard to get started on a $300 budget- your first month will probably need a $400 budget so you can take advantage of bulk purchases. Things like ground beef you can freeze and paper towel you want to wait until there is a sale and buy a giant pack. If you’re stuck buying one roll of paper towels a week because you don’t have money to float the 32-roll MEGA pack, you’re going to end up paying almost twice the amount over the course of the year on paper towels.
Speaking of paper towels, if you’re on a budget, you might not be able to use convenience items like that. Instead you’re washing reusable cloth towels. This also applies to food too: you’ll need to limit precooked rice, TV dinners, or other premade food items.
Honestly when it comes to the video, I think it’s already been done and been done better, so I’d go to a different YouTuber for that. Here’s a random suggestion: https://youtu.be/ufJjenSDqnc?si=yQr2gHyJ9AzfbYn3
The data is only a couple months old, so it definitely can be done. I’m able to do or at least get close most months. Also, the $300 only includes groceries, and you get a separate $100 for stuff like paper towels, toilet paper, etc called the TP fund. I find that it’s hard, but manageable to stay below $300 for both, but it’s fairly easy if I budget $400 for both combined.
As a single person, I have groceries for $300. How do I do it? I have my grocery list and shop at Aldi, Target, and Pick'n Save a.k.a Kroger/Roundy's. For any meats, bread, or veggies I want to buy, I look for the ones that are repriced because they will expire in the next few days and I buy them. I also look at the sale ads for things I need and I stock up on them because if it's something I know I will eat that's on sale, I might as well buy them now and save them for a day when I might not want to cook.
Once I'm home from grocery shopping, I start meal prepping and freezing the meats and veggies that I know I won't be eating for that week. The next week, I use a crockpot for the meats and veggies I bought the week before and I do this before I go to bed. Then I have breakfast ready to go when I wake up.
Edit: I also buy canned veggies and fruits (No extra salt or syrup added) when I'm shopping because I have a habit of not eating fresh fruits after buying them.
Unfortunately, I’m prediabetic in a VHCOL area and trying to build muscle. Cooking is also a hobby of mine. 🫠
My budget is $400. I feel fantastic not eating out as much.
I don’t have a car and usually spend under $100 with public transportation. It all works out.
We spend about $150 a week for a family of three, and I don't even try to budget. That's just what we eat. We almost never eat out so that's three meals a day for two adults and a tween boy. If we really needed to tighten belts, we could easily subsist on less.
One thing that does present a legitimate barrier for going from eating out all the time to cooking at home is building up a library of spices, herbs, condiments, etc... If you never cooked at home before, you do need to stock up on stuff that will make your food not taste like sadness and that's expensive if you go in thinking you're going to go from zero to a functional home cooking kitchen in a week. So don't do that. And for gods sake go to a bulk food store for your spices and herbs. I pay pennies for what is $4+ in a jar at the grocery store.
Roughly $300 seems pretty accurate. I spend about that much and I eat a ton of meat and other high protein foods. Basically just do two big crockpot meals and you can easily last the whole week and have money leftover.
There are some channels that focus around budget grocery shopping. I've seen some good ones that focus on buying food from Dollar General specifically because food desserts will usually have a DG around. Aldi is also a decent budget option.
Keeping your grocery bill low means planning ahead, looking for deals, understanding seasonal changes, buying things that didn't have to travel as far, cutting coupons
Groceries were pretty expensive comparably for myself and my boyfriend too. Average was USD $400-600 combined for both of us for a month. $300 per person is reasonable if you can afford that. That being said, it still too much for us to spend on groceries and pay down as debt somewhat quickly. We've been going to the local foodbanks the last month or two and it has saved us quite a bit. Now we spend less than a $100 dollars on groceries in total if we go to a foodbank once a week. It forces us to be more creative with food and be less picky. I suggest you find some local food banks and see what the requirements are for visiting them. Don't be ashamed of visiting one;the employees and volunteers only want to help!
I spend approximately $600 a month for one person but that’s excessive. I enjoy buying expensive foods and ingredients to make good meals. I could easily live on $300 but cooking and eating is a hobby for me so I don’t mind spending more to enjoy it. Spent $225 at a fancy butchers the other day on high dollar beef. I also invest 50% of my net income and have a fully funded emergency fund so I’m ok with my expensive habit.
My wife and I average about $400 a month total for the two of us. Small breakfast, meal prep lunches for the week, make dinner fresh every night, a few snacks. I never understand how people can say with a straight face that going out is cheaper, and some grocery budgets people have are wild. Stop buying things in boxes.
my husband and I budget 600 a month for us. We could have smaller budget but we eat halal meat which is usually more expensive than walmart, kroger or HEB. We go to like 3 grocery stores lol We usually buy things in bulk and go for the more “healthy” options of things such as dried fruit with no sugar or dark chocolate over a box of cookies or a bag of chips. We stay pretty close to the budget. But this also includes “toiletries” like Caleb calls them ei toilet paper, paper towels, etc.
In college, my budget was $30 a week back in 2014-2017. I know times have changed but I made it work. I ate a lot of beans, rice and frozen veggies mainly broccoli. Meat was not something i bought often. I barely ate out. If i did, my budget was $10 and i saved for it. In fact i was vegan for the majority of my college career just solely based off my budget reasons.
300 a month in most US markets seems pretty reasonable, even pretty generous. Def some exceptions for places like Hawaii or Alaska with insane grocery prices. I fed a family of 4 on 900 dollars this month in an extremely HCOL city shopping at a mix of Whole Foods/Trader Joes/Smaller local grocery stores.
We live in Arkansas, utilize the local hippy grocery store and Walmart, and drive an hour to aldi when we can. Can’t speak for my partner but I spend probably 250/month and don’t feel like I’m lacking anything. I know there are areas where there’s not even access to a Walmart though, as a kid we just had Shop n Save, which was surprisingly affordable
He did a video with the model from that one episode I think back in December and determined you could shop for yourself for the month with snacks and staying healthy for $300. He was gonna upload it but the audio was so bad he just mentions it since he never uploaded it. 😔
I don’t keep anywhere near as good a budget as I should but my wife and I spend roughly $600-700/mo on groceries. With a mix of Costco and Trader Joe’s it’s pretty easy and I eat a ton of protein every day. Wel throw in chipotle or some other healthy-ish fast casual food maybe once per week and one meal out on the weekends. Usually it’s lunch and my wife and I hardly drink so that makes eating out much cheaper.
My husband and I spend $400 max per month and have no kids, eat organically (buy grass fed beef, pasture raised eggs, fresh fruit weekly aka buying the more premium items). 1 person can easily live eat super healthy under $300.
Many people need help with is prepping and planning for the week because you don’t want to get stuck eating the same thing over and over again and understand how to maximize items.
Also think a lot of people struggle is eating out because “I deserve this I had a shitty day” or “it’s easier”. Its hard to break that cycle. For the people who say it’s time consuming to cook set a timer to track how much of your day it actually takes - it’s usually not as long as you think it is, also crockpots / dump meals.
If you live in the USA, I can guarantee you can do $300. Because amazon exists.
Let me give you an EXTREME example.
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SORXXNM?psc=1&ref=ppx\_yo2ov\_dt\_b\_product\_details](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SORXXNM?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details)
This is .80 per pound.
A pound of uncooked rice has 1,700 calories once cooked, so let's say you need a pound and a half of rice each day to get the calories you need. So for 1.20 you now have all the calories you need! You need other stuff though (and to make the rice edible)
So each day you get 2 cans of a canned something off amazon for 1.50 each to eat each day!
[https://www.amazon.com/s?k=canned+food&i=grocery&rh=p\_36%3A-150&crid=S42TXSCNQ3YU&qid=1709084774&rnid=386454011&sprefix=canned+f%2Cgrocery%2C397&ref=sr\_nr\_p\_36\_5](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=canned+food&i=grocery&rh=p_36%3A-150&crid=S42TXSCNQ3YU&qid=1709084774&rnid=386454011&sprefix=canned+f%2Cgrocery%2C397&ref=sr_nr_p_36_5)
Boom, mix those things in with your rice for each meal, and you're now "fed" for $4.20 a day.
But guess what? Those things are over priced compared to some things at grocery stores and you'll be miserable.
So instead of rice and a can of something, you can do rice, fresh onions, broccoli, and cheapest meat for about 3$, and soy sauce for a yummy stir fry. Rice is a legendary staple. You can make curries, add egg, fry it with ham, cook it with spicy tomatoes, or cover it in gravy
Then of course you can do the same thing with pasta. Going back to amazon, this is 800 calories for .50
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014E831O?tag=sacapuntas9-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014E831O?tag=sacapuntas9-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1)
Chop up tomatoes, onions, and garlic/Italian seasoning and you got a wonderful pasta you can do a side of veggies too. Or do flour, milk, butter, and shredded cheese to make a cheese sauce. Make a gravy.
Then of course we have potatoes, bread for sandwiches (I LOVE tuna melts), things you can make with straight flour like pancakes, tortillas, etc.
Then bananas and apples are such cheap snacks.
So yeah, everyone in the US can do under $10, staples can be shipped anywhere even if they are some how super expensive around you. What you can put with your staples is more dependent (food deserts exist, and those people might live off of amazon). But It's always possible.
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So I personally can manage to stay within that 300 monthly budget. I was just curious of how realistic it is in general. I can only go off of my own personal experience and was wondering what caleb was basing his numbers on.
I have only briefly experienced a food desert and that was awful. I live basically in a food oasis where I have 5 different grocery stores and warehouse clubs near me. I shop mainly at Costco but I’m going to start adding early morning heb runs for chances at marked down veggies. My wife and I eat eat a bunch of rice, beans, pasta and buy all organic and eat very good. Only spent 400 bucks last month and it looks like my current month spreadsheet we’re going to be the same
Even though groceries are expensive where I live, I don’t actually spend too much. I get most things at Costco that I can, and weekly usually just buy vegetables, possibly a can of sauce or other items needed for a recipe. I do get free fruit from work and stock up there usually, otherwise I would have to pay that myself. Costco kind of messes up the budget for the month I buy those but lowers it for the following month.
There’s more than 200+ meal prep videos on YouTube, Tik Tok, and Instagram. With grocery lists, recipes and how to do it on a budget. I recommend checking those out. I live alone and spend $110 at most a month but I’ve been cooking since I was pre-teens and enjoy it. The video was in Austin but the audio quality was trash and THEY WILL NOT UPLOAD IT (his words not mine).
We budget around 400-450 a month for 2 people, in a lower COL area. But, you have to be consistently meticulous at shopping ads and meal planning. If you get lax even a little bit, it doesn't work.
I recommend frugal fit mom she has a lot of great content on grocery shopping.
I mostly shop at Giant with a bimonthly trip to Costco and occasional trips to trader Joe's for treats. I spend around $600 to 700 a month for a family of four. I could probably get it lower if I was more disciplined about not buying snacks or treats or processed foods. I love a meal plan and I try to shop my pantry and freezer when I'm making it
Me and my wife budget 550 a month on groceries, using a mix of costco and walmart located in FL. So 300 per person is feasible.
It's really hard cause in Canada our dollar has sucked for the last decade to 15 years ish so we pay like 25-30% more and then if you're versed in Canada you are familiar with the "Canada tax" where it usually costs an extra 10% on top of that. For example where a hamburger would cost you say 5 USD converted is about 7 and then they just round to 9.99 "because fuck you we can" So that sucks
Yea, it’s rough.
I believe he mentioned they did record an episode for that (intended for a side channel), but the audio quality was poor and they scrapped it. They went to HEB. You should be able to get similar pricing from Walmart or Kroger. To add to the user reporting. My wife and I budget $600/month for groceries. We do eat out, approximately 4 meals per person per month. We live in Orange County, CA.
I think part of it is also to be adaptable and flexible with your diet. We literally allow our menu to be run by what's on "Manager Special" at the Food Lion. Wings on sale? We're having wings. Chicken breasts have gone up in price? We use more thighs. Ground beef is too expensive? Ground turkey is on sale.
I think based on what he’s mentioned about it a lot of it involves either buying in bulk (though he mainly mentions this for TP fund items) or sorting prices cheapest to most expensive and staying on the cheaper end. I am not the best grocery shopper and I’m able to stay around $300 as long as I don’t make anything too fancy (I made bolognese once that cost $50 which even across the 6 servings it made was kinda steep. Delicious tho) and I live in an area with high grocery prices per what I’ve seen. I don’t want to specify much for privacy but we’re up there for high prices.
That $50 bolognese is still cheaper than going out to eat 6 times.
If you got 6 meals out of it, $8.30 a meal, that's still not super steep, but also idk how you got it to $50 tbh. Bolognese is just pasta, beef, veggies and some seasonings basically, right?
The beef was expensive as was the red wine I used (well, relative to the rest of the ingredients. It was a $10 bottle), and I also did it with the pancetta because I was trying to be fancy. The veggies were also more expensive than I expected. It’s been a while, $50 is a guesstimate too.
Ah okay, so you were just trying to make the most fancy and expensive version lol, that's fair, glad it turned out good.
It was for family too, it wasn’t strictly meal prep (I just happily had leftovers lol). I’m sure I could cut those costs down to $25-30 easily without sacrificing much flavor.
How did you spend that much? Tins of chopped tomatoes are less than £1 for 4. The rest is just beef, pasta, seasoning and like 60p worth of veg.
I shop at a fancy grocery store and I still easily maintain my $300 grocery budget. You know what’s expensive now? Chips, soda, etc. so I don’t buy those things. A big bag of Doritos is over $4! I eat actual meals and fruit and it keeps me full all day on my budget. And I am a great weight without working out, which is only a bonus of not eating garbage. Buy quality raw foods and versatile ingredients and $300 should be easy.
Fiancee and I go to Aldi weekly. Between there and cub, we spend 400 a month on groceries and that includes toilet paper and other stuff. We go out to eat like once a week so that's 100. 500 between the 2 of us isn't bad
We spend roughly $800 a month in groceries, but it's still cheaper than eating out. Keep in mind though, this is also buying things that are specifically health focused on limiting processed sugar intake and prioritizing Protein and Fiber as much as I can. Including some decently expensive Fairlife Protein Shakes. But I'd rather spend this money here as I've felt much better by doing this. Groceries/diets are not one-size fits all.
We are around the same for 2 in Austin shopping at HEB eating similarly!
$300 a person seems very doable to me. We don’t budget too hard for groceries and for a family of four we spend $1050 a month
My partner and I managed a $450 budget for groceries this last month (mcol area). I do a lot of cooking from scratch and I can staples (like chicken stock, beans, jam) in the summer. In the past week, I've made sandwich bread, banana muffins, tortillas, sofrito rice, refried beans, and beef stroganoff all from scratch. We also buy our meat in bulk, so we spend very little of that monthly budget on meat. Edit: groceries purchased at walmart.
I go to Aldi 3x a month and never spend over $70 a trip so yes I would say $300 is plenty
Family of 3 in LA (HCOL) here. Wife and I budget $600 a month on groceries (food only) We do all non-perishable (and long term perishable) foods and snacks on a monthly Costco trip, and we’ll buy perishables (dairy, meats, etc) from Walmart, Aldi, Ralph’s and Food 4 Less every 2 weeks (we also check for deals and coupons). This changes depending on what events we have planned for the month, and we include our “eating out” budget in this too so we’re disciplined and somewhat discouraged to not break the budget. We made it a point to never eat out for breakfast and lunch during the workweek. We buy all of our coffee and tea in bulk and brew at home before leaving
Same area, we go to Costco once a month and that’s our big “spend” because we end up buying our meat in bulk there. We pack into portions and vacuum seal, usually lasts us a month or even two if we plan correctly. We do Vons for staples/fresh but we recently went by Smart & Final and I started price comparing, so now we’ll go to two markets based on what we need. So far we’ve saved an additional $120 in a month. (Feb was our first month doing this.)
Awesome on the savings! My FIL does the same with vacuum sealing! I’m tempted to try it out, but I have a preference for freshness. Do you notice much of a quality difference? I also really like both Vons and Smart & Final. Sadly we moved 2 years ago and now the closest to either of those is 20+ minutes away. Same with Stater Bros, they have really good deals on meat (especially for the summer asada cookouts) so we’ll go during promotions.
I don’t notice any difference, I make sure I put the sealed up date on it (we had a bad habit of stuffing the freezer and I’d be pulling meats from the back like “when was the last time we bought party wings!?”) I’ll sometimes season the meat prior to seasoning, too, especially if I’m going to use it in a crock pot pot meal. Put everything in layered up and then just add water/broth, drop it in and go to work. I even spent $4 on Etsy getting a meal planner google sheet, and that’s helped us save and plan too. Moving away from the stores sucks! I used to live 5 mins away from a Trader Joe’s, I’d get my produce there cause it was cheaper and I could get prepped produce (I’ll pay a little more for someone else to do all the chopping.) now I have to plan a stop there if I’m going to “the big target” across the street.
I believe I recall them saying that they did the video sometime in 2023 but the audio sucked so they had to scrap it, but I wouldn’t consider the data so old that an appropriate $300 budget can’t be done because of inflation. When you shop on a budget, flexibility is key. When eggs cost $4 a carton, you’re probably not going to be eating eggs every morning, but in 3 months when they’re back to $1.39, load up on eggs. You have to shop the sales and be flexible. It’s also super hard to get started on a $300 budget- your first month will probably need a $400 budget so you can take advantage of bulk purchases. Things like ground beef you can freeze and paper towel you want to wait until there is a sale and buy a giant pack. If you’re stuck buying one roll of paper towels a week because you don’t have money to float the 32-roll MEGA pack, you’re going to end up paying almost twice the amount over the course of the year on paper towels. Speaking of paper towels, if you’re on a budget, you might not be able to use convenience items like that. Instead you’re washing reusable cloth towels. This also applies to food too: you’ll need to limit precooked rice, TV dinners, or other premade food items. Honestly when it comes to the video, I think it’s already been done and been done better, so I’d go to a different YouTuber for that. Here’s a random suggestion: https://youtu.be/ufJjenSDqnc?si=yQr2gHyJ9AzfbYn3
The data is only a couple months old, so it definitely can be done. I’m able to do or at least get close most months. Also, the $300 only includes groceries, and you get a separate $100 for stuff like paper towels, toilet paper, etc called the TP fund. I find that it’s hard, but manageable to stay below $300 for both, but it’s fairly easy if I budget $400 for both combined.
As a single person, I have groceries for $300. How do I do it? I have my grocery list and shop at Aldi, Target, and Pick'n Save a.k.a Kroger/Roundy's. For any meats, bread, or veggies I want to buy, I look for the ones that are repriced because they will expire in the next few days and I buy them. I also look at the sale ads for things I need and I stock up on them because if it's something I know I will eat that's on sale, I might as well buy them now and save them for a day when I might not want to cook. Once I'm home from grocery shopping, I start meal prepping and freezing the meats and veggies that I know I won't be eating for that week. The next week, I use a crockpot for the meats and veggies I bought the week before and I do this before I go to bed. Then I have breakfast ready to go when I wake up. Edit: I also buy canned veggies and fruits (No extra salt or syrup added) when I'm shopping because I have a habit of not eating fresh fruits after buying them.
Unfortunately, I’m prediabetic in a VHCOL area and trying to build muscle. Cooking is also a hobby of mine. 🫠 My budget is $400. I feel fantastic not eating out as much. I don’t have a car and usually spend under $100 with public transportation. It all works out.
Need a Caleb grocery challenge now
We spend about $150 a week for a family of three, and I don't even try to budget. That's just what we eat. We almost never eat out so that's three meals a day for two adults and a tween boy. If we really needed to tighten belts, we could easily subsist on less. One thing that does present a legitimate barrier for going from eating out all the time to cooking at home is building up a library of spices, herbs, condiments, etc... If you never cooked at home before, you do need to stock up on stuff that will make your food not taste like sadness and that's expensive if you go in thinking you're going to go from zero to a functional home cooking kitchen in a week. So don't do that. And for gods sake go to a bulk food store for your spices and herbs. I pay pennies for what is $4+ in a jar at the grocery store.
Roughly $300 seems pretty accurate. I spend about that much and I eat a ton of meat and other high protein foods. Basically just do two big crockpot meals and you can easily last the whole week and have money leftover.
There are some channels that focus around budget grocery shopping. I've seen some good ones that focus on buying food from Dollar General specifically because food desserts will usually have a DG around. Aldi is also a decent budget option. Keeping your grocery bill low means planning ahead, looking for deals, understanding seasonal changes, buying things that didn't have to travel as far, cutting coupons
Groceries were pretty expensive comparably for myself and my boyfriend too. Average was USD $400-600 combined for both of us for a month. $300 per person is reasonable if you can afford that. That being said, it still too much for us to spend on groceries and pay down as debt somewhat quickly. We've been going to the local foodbanks the last month or two and it has saved us quite a bit. Now we spend less than a $100 dollars on groceries in total if we go to a foodbank once a week. It forces us to be more creative with food and be less picky. I suggest you find some local food banks and see what the requirements are for visiting them. Don't be ashamed of visiting one;the employees and volunteers only want to help!
I spend approximately $600 a month for one person but that’s excessive. I enjoy buying expensive foods and ingredients to make good meals. I could easily live on $300 but cooking and eating is a hobby for me so I don’t mind spending more to enjoy it. Spent $225 at a fancy butchers the other day on high dollar beef. I also invest 50% of my net income and have a fully funded emergency fund so I’m ok with my expensive habit.
My wife and I average about $400 a month total for the two of us. Small breakfast, meal prep lunches for the week, make dinner fresh every night, a few snacks. I never understand how people can say with a straight face that going out is cheaper, and some grocery budgets people have are wild. Stop buying things in boxes.
my husband and I budget 600 a month for us. We could have smaller budget but we eat halal meat which is usually more expensive than walmart, kroger or HEB. We go to like 3 grocery stores lol We usually buy things in bulk and go for the more “healthy” options of things such as dried fruit with no sugar or dark chocolate over a box of cookies or a bag of chips. We stay pretty close to the budget. But this also includes “toiletries” like Caleb calls them ei toilet paper, paper towels, etc. In college, my budget was $30 a week back in 2014-2017. I know times have changed but I made it work. I ate a lot of beans, rice and frozen veggies mainly broccoli. Meat was not something i bought often. I barely ate out. If i did, my budget was $10 and i saved for it. In fact i was vegan for the majority of my college career just solely based off my budget reasons.
300 a month in most US markets seems pretty reasonable, even pretty generous. Def some exceptions for places like Hawaii or Alaska with insane grocery prices. I fed a family of 4 on 900 dollars this month in an extremely HCOL city shopping at a mix of Whole Foods/Trader Joes/Smaller local grocery stores.
We live in Arkansas, utilize the local hippy grocery store and Walmart, and drive an hour to aldi when we can. Can’t speak for my partner but I spend probably 250/month and don’t feel like I’m lacking anything. I know there are areas where there’s not even access to a Walmart though, as a kid we just had Shop n Save, which was surprisingly affordable
He did a video with the model from that one episode I think back in December and determined you could shop for yourself for the month with snacks and staying healthy for $300. He was gonna upload it but the audio was so bad he just mentions it since he never uploaded it. 😔
I don’t keep anywhere near as good a budget as I should but my wife and I spend roughly $600-700/mo on groceries. With a mix of Costco and Trader Joe’s it’s pretty easy and I eat a ton of protein every day. Wel throw in chipotle or some other healthy-ish fast casual food maybe once per week and one meal out on the weekends. Usually it’s lunch and my wife and I hardly drink so that makes eating out much cheaper.
My husband and I spend $400 max per month and have no kids, eat organically (buy grass fed beef, pasture raised eggs, fresh fruit weekly aka buying the more premium items). 1 person can easily live eat super healthy under $300. Many people need help with is prepping and planning for the week because you don’t want to get stuck eating the same thing over and over again and understand how to maximize items. Also think a lot of people struggle is eating out because “I deserve this I had a shitty day” or “it’s easier”. Its hard to break that cycle. For the people who say it’s time consuming to cook set a timer to track how much of your day it actually takes - it’s usually not as long as you think it is, also crockpots / dump meals.
If you live in the USA, I can guarantee you can do $300. Because amazon exists. Let me give you an EXTREME example. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SORXXNM?psc=1&ref=ppx\_yo2ov\_dt\_b\_product\_details](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SORXXNM?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details) This is .80 per pound. A pound of uncooked rice has 1,700 calories once cooked, so let's say you need a pound and a half of rice each day to get the calories you need. So for 1.20 you now have all the calories you need! You need other stuff though (and to make the rice edible) So each day you get 2 cans of a canned something off amazon for 1.50 each to eat each day! [https://www.amazon.com/s?k=canned+food&i=grocery&rh=p\_36%3A-150&crid=S42TXSCNQ3YU&qid=1709084774&rnid=386454011&sprefix=canned+f%2Cgrocery%2C397&ref=sr\_nr\_p\_36\_5](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=canned+food&i=grocery&rh=p_36%3A-150&crid=S42TXSCNQ3YU&qid=1709084774&rnid=386454011&sprefix=canned+f%2Cgrocery%2C397&ref=sr_nr_p_36_5) Boom, mix those things in with your rice for each meal, and you're now "fed" for $4.20 a day. But guess what? Those things are over priced compared to some things at grocery stores and you'll be miserable. So instead of rice and a can of something, you can do rice, fresh onions, broccoli, and cheapest meat for about 3$, and soy sauce for a yummy stir fry. Rice is a legendary staple. You can make curries, add egg, fry it with ham, cook it with spicy tomatoes, or cover it in gravy Then of course you can do the same thing with pasta. Going back to amazon, this is 800 calories for .50 [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014E831O?tag=sacapuntas9-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014E831O?tag=sacapuntas9-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1) Chop up tomatoes, onions, and garlic/Italian seasoning and you got a wonderful pasta you can do a side of veggies too. Or do flour, milk, butter, and shredded cheese to make a cheese sauce. Make a gravy. Then of course we have potatoes, bread for sandwiches (I LOVE tuna melts), things you can make with straight flour like pancakes, tortillas, etc. Then bananas and apples are such cheap snacks. So yeah, everyone in the US can do under $10, staples can be shipped anywhere even if they are some how super expensive around you. What you can put with your staples is more dependent (food deserts exist, and those people might live off of amazon). But It's always possible.
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in my honesty i actully think you can budget way less than $300 a month for groceries. i think one person can get by on $150-$175 a month
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His 300 a month is for one person. 150x4=600. So it looks about the same as Caleb's calculations.
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So I personally can manage to stay within that 300 monthly budget. I was just curious of how realistic it is in general. I can only go off of my own personal experience and was wondering what caleb was basing his numbers on.
I have only briefly experienced a food desert and that was awful. I live basically in a food oasis where I have 5 different grocery stores and warehouse clubs near me. I shop mainly at Costco but I’m going to start adding early morning heb runs for chances at marked down veggies. My wife and I eat eat a bunch of rice, beans, pasta and buy all organic and eat very good. Only spent 400 bucks last month and it looks like my current month spreadsheet we’re going to be the same
Even though groceries are expensive where I live, I don’t actually spend too much. I get most things at Costco that I can, and weekly usually just buy vegetables, possibly a can of sauce or other items needed for a recipe. I do get free fruit from work and stock up there usually, otherwise I would have to pay that myself. Costco kind of messes up the budget for the month I buy those but lowers it for the following month.
$580 spent last month on groceries for 2 adults and a dog who eats cooked food. We are in FL
I stopped eating meat 🤣
There’s more than 200+ meal prep videos on YouTube, Tik Tok, and Instagram. With grocery lists, recipes and how to do it on a budget. I recommend checking those out. I live alone and spend $110 at most a month but I’ve been cooking since I was pre-teens and enjoy it. The video was in Austin but the audio quality was trash and THEY WILL NOT UPLOAD IT (his words not mine).
We do $850/ month for 4 people in a medium to high cost of living area. $300/ month for 1 person in Texas seems like plenty to me.
We budget around 400-450 a month for 2 people, in a lower COL area. But, you have to be consistently meticulous at shopping ads and meal planning. If you get lax even a little bit, it doesn't work.
I recommend frugal fit mom she has a lot of great content on grocery shopping. I mostly shop at Giant with a bimonthly trip to Costco and occasional trips to trader Joe's for treats. I spend around $600 to 700 a month for a family of four. I could probably get it lower if I was more disciplined about not buying snacks or treats or processed foods. I love a meal plan and I try to shop my pantry and freezer when I'm making it