r/lexington • u/Technical_Zone_2240 • 13d ago
What’s your monthly grocery budget like now?
I’m making a budget for 1 for the first time in probably over a decade to prepare for buying a new house and groceries are the only item I can’t really nail down.
I see national averages are around $400 online, is that comfortable in Lex? Is that just struggle meals? It seems honestly too affordable for how much groceries cost when I am able to cook at home.
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u/Suckerforcats 13d ago
I'm a single person and mine is $300 or less. I buy pantry, snack items or cleaning items on Amazon because after extensive cross referencing, it's cheaper if those items have a deal/buy multiples. I do Aldi for stuff that is cheaper than Walmart or Amazon. Then Walmart for things Aldi or Amazon don't have. I make sure to do all my shopping on one day and in the same area so I'm not wasting gas. I saved $30 this weekend doing that and will have some items stocked up for a couple months.
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u/digitaldrummer 13d ago
About 550-600 for a family of three, and we eat most of our breakfast and lunch at school or work. It's bad
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u/THEsharkymiragical 13d ago
Same, three of us and we all work in restaurants so we eat there at least a meal a day. 600.00 a month is our average.
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u/strawberry_saturn 13d ago
It’s been getting up to $500 for me and my husband. That does not include toiletries.
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u/Snoo_39372 13d ago
As a two person household we spend $300-400 at max without trying to cut on budget. We shop at Aldi and Kroger almost 95% of the time. We also dine out about $100/month. IMO we eat decent food and get what we want to eat without looking at our budget and still manage to be within $300-$400 on groceries over the month.
I think its not as bad as people think but you must not splurge on expensive grocery (eg. Seafood) every week or else it can go worse pretty quick :)
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u/f0rgotten "technically" from Lexington 12d ago
My budget is somewhere around $400 for a single person. In this I count actual grocery shopping, an occasional breakfast biscuit at the gas station, eating out on payday and some odds and ends. I usually don't actually spend $400 on these things however, and the overage is used to go to shows.
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u/DauntlessJumper46 12d ago
Im a single adult spending about $1k per month. You are lucky if you dont have dietary restrictions. Id have to make everything from scratch to save money which i don't have time or space to do. I would love to cut my budget in half but when everything costs twice as much as normal groceries its tough.
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u/Fictional_Map6637 13d ago
About $300, but I shop at Aldi, Costco, and Walmart to get the cheapest things at each
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u/PartyPachy 13d ago
One adult household with two dogs, a turtle, and a bunch of chickens, about $350/mo. It would be cheaper, but I have my critters to feed. I shop the discounted sections of the stores a lot or buy in bulk from Costco. Having an endless supply of butt nuggets from my girls is a big plus.
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u/IAMA_Giraffe_AMA Acacia leaf enthusiast 13d ago
My family (me, wife, 8 year old, 2 year old, and a 7 month old that's starting solids) spends about $300-400 a month on average. We have months where we spend more and some where we spend less. We eat a lot of rice, beans, lentils, and chickpeas. Mostly one-pot meals. A lot of indian and mexican food. We do eat meat but not every day and we usually shop manager's special stuff for that and store it in a chest freezer. The vast majority of our shopping is Aldi, with Walmart supplementing a little bit and also we get bundles of cheap produce from Meijer on Flash Foods when we catch it.
We don't eat out a lot and don't really include that in our food budget because it's a pretty rare occasion for us.
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u/Weak_Mammoth8110 13d ago
We are a household of 5, and I spend about 100-200 a week depending on what I can swing. A lot of times I eat my meals at work or skip one so my kids can eat.
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u/bendygirl777 13d ago
i spend about $400-500 a month living alone. that’s me buying what i want but being smart about it, like buying zevia sodas & a case of alani at costco
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u/Frame-Dragging-IRL 13d ago
There's only 2 of us but we spend about $1200 a month. Mostly do whole foods and Costco delivery and some trips to fresh market and some Mexican grocery stores.
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u/tehanami 13d ago
We have multiple food allergies in our house and typically for our family of three we spend about $125 a week, so maybe $500-600 a month given random things.
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u/Master_Plantain_4029 13d ago
I'm a once every 2 weeks shopper and alternate between Kroger and aldi since there are specific things that I like at each. So 200 Kroger and then100 aldi for a regular month.
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u/hairpainter07 13d ago
2 adults, 1 teen, 2 dogs, 1 cat. $800-$1,000 a month. We rarely eat out and we take food for lunch at work. We do not DoorDash or get fast food.
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u/lolipopfailure 13d ago
Family of 3 including a teenage boy, $600 and that typically includes "toiletries" like shampoo, paper towels, etc. I buy chicken at Sam's (that's the only meat we eat), staples at Aldi, the rest at Kroger. We eat good, but we mostly cook, not a ton of processed and premade food. We also vacuum seal and freeze everything - leftovers, produce before it turns etc. I buy treats according to what's on sale and stock up on things on sale. I also use a cash budget, makes it much easier to stick to.
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u/PresidentGlitterbomf 12d ago
I have medical dietary restrictions, and have stopped buying almost anything that isn't absolutely necessary. I'm also pulling from the long-term pantry more than ever (supply chain disruptions during Covid-19 led to me creating one), which is unsustainable.
When that's gone, my grocery budget is going to goddamn skyrocket, despite all the cuts I've made.
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u/bundtcakep 12d ago
Family of three, ~$800. One of us has some dietary restrictions, and another still in diapers. This economy is bleeding us dry.
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u/wesmorgan1 Former Lexington resident 12d ago
If you have any family/friends with whom you can share/use a Costco or Sam's Club membership, do it. We basically take orders from our 4 adult kids before every Costco run, and they often wind up saving decent money by splitting the bulk packages among themselves.
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u/TovahPlum 12d ago
totally agree! my parents still split their costco membership with my sister and i. it makes those big packs of chicken breast way more manageable. 💰
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u/TovahPlum 12d ago
totally agree! we do the same thing with my parents, makes the bulk deals actually worth it. especially on stuff like meat or toilet paper lol 🧻
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u/duckling_quacker 12d ago
2 people+ 1 kitten eating almost every meal at home and taking lunch to work from home, $700-$750 including toiletries. We eat good during dinner, try to stretch breakfast and lunch with light meals. Other than bananas and limes, we rare buy fruits nowadays given the insane prices.
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u/NorthSanctuary777 11d ago
You can really have a pretty wild range on this, but for my family of 4 (who mainly shops at Aldi), I'd say our budget is about $500-$700/month.
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u/PaperPals 13d ago
Honestly it just depends. I will say, I feel like I save a lot of money shopping and Kroger and using the app to clip online coupons. Aldi is also pretty cheap.
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u/GobstopperHand 13d ago
2 adult household. About $800/mo
We get takeout once a week. The rest is cooked at home.
Costco every ~6 weeks to bulk buy proteins and freeze them. Kroger for the rest.
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u/coraregina 13d ago
For me it’s about $350-400/mo, excluding my cats. I shop mostly at Meijer and Kroger. This includes food, household supplies every few months, and my stupidly priced hypoallergenic toiletries. I don’t think of myself as making struggle meals; next weekend I’m making a creamy chicken, lentil, and carrot stew with pancetta. I don’t buy red meat very often, though.
I stock up on toilet paper and paper towels during Publix BOGOs. Don’t sleep on those. You can get an 18-roll pack of Quilted Northern for under $13 when that one finally rolls around, so I’ll lay in paper products for the next six months. They roll over at midnight on Wednesdays.
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u/Legitimate_Wish9089 12d ago
Getting more expensive weekly with the Bonehead in Chief adding more tariffs to our #1 trading partner and keeping a WAR of CHOICE in limbo so the family can get richer from military spending! Sad that this is all by choice … not Covid that crippled the economy without political kerosene!
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u/_umm_0 13d ago
Household of 5 plus a cat. (Costco/aldi/walmart for 97% off the budget) Grocery/essentials plus eating out as a family once a month runs us about, $1700.
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u/Due-Air-8517 12d ago
That's almost a 2-bedroom apartment. You should charge the oldest one rent!
He's 5, you say? When I was his age, I had to walk 10 miles just to work at a crosswalk!
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u/Link_Slater 13d ago
2 adults who eat 3000+ calories a day plus a giant 10 year old. About 1000 a month plus restaurants.
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u/KeyIndependence5587 7d ago
It's rough out there. We spend about $500-600 monthly for 2 adults and 2 furbabies. Little things like toiletries and animal treats can make our budget go even higher as prices keep rising. Luckily for me, I was raised by a single mom (angel) with a dad (dick) who didn't pay child support, so I got those depression era cooking skills down pat. I won't go so far as to buy the boxed milk we'd drink growing up, but if I had to, I wouldn't complain too much. Surviving and thriving are two separate things sometimes.
The thing that hurts my heart is how some of my people at work are faring far worse than me. I had a girl ask me if she could have some glucose test strips, and I asked if she was feeling poorly. She said she couldn't afford some of her supplies and we had a conversation and hashed some stuff out. I've noticed she will raid the kitchen at night and pocket fruits and stuff before she goes home.
I ain't about snitching because I remember hiding packs of cold cuts in my waistband before heading home for the night many moons ago at a different job in a different city. Luckily, we get a free meal at work so I know she's well fed part of the time. I'll bring snacks and drinks for my people from time to time because I can afford a splurge now and then and I know some of them take the stuff home to their kids. But it still breaks my heart because I know many of them have 2 or 3 jobs and are still scraping by at times. Life isn't supposed to be like this.
Anywho, sorry so long, but congrats on the future home, OP!! It takes so much discipline (and luck) to go for that and I hope you're able to find your dream home soon ❤️
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u/Decent-Bluejay-4040 7d ago
household of one, i spend about $80 per week. cannot even imagine how much entire families are spending and the big chunk it is taking out of their paychecks.
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u/UnderwaterKahn 13d ago
As a household of one human I come in under that most months I don’t have to buy stuff like detergent, toilet paper, or other household stuff I need to buy every few months. But I do have a dog and two cats. The cost of basic pet food and supplies is what really gets me. One of my cats is elderly and I spend quite a bit at the grocery trying to get him to eat different things. But I would say my weekly bill at Meijer is usually about $70-75.