To learn how much money you spend on groceries every month, you can add up receipts, view your credit card transaction history or track your spending with a budget app.
But figuring out how much you should spend on groceries isn’t quite as straightforward.
What is the average cost of groceries per month?
The average cost of groceries for U.S. households is $5,703, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released in late 2023. This works out to about $475 per month. Grocery spending increased 8.4% in 2022, the latest data available, vs. 2021.
A different measure of food prices can give you a more-recent check of how food prices are trending.
But while broad statistics can confirm trends, they aren't the best indicator of how much you can actually afford.
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Your grocery budget depends on many factors, including where you shop, what you buy, how many people you’re feeding and whether you shop online or in person. Not sure where to start? Here are a couple of guidelines you can use to come up with a number.
Follow USDA food plans
The U.S. Department of Agriculture creates monthly food plans you can use as guidance for grocery spending. The plans estimate the average cost of nutritious, home-prepared meals and snacks by gender and age, and are broken into four different spending levels: thrifty, low cost, moderate cost and liberal.
The most recent estimate for a family of four, defined as a male and female between ages 20 and 50 and two children, ages 6 to 8 and 9 to 11, put the cost of the thrifty plan at $969 per month .
These food plans can suggest a monthly grocery budget for your household, but they’re still estimates, and won’t be perfectly tailored to you.
Use the 50/30/20 rule to budget for groceries
The 50/30/20 budget can help you work out how much to spend on groceries based on your specific income and expenses. Following this framework, you spend about 50% of your monthly after-tax income on needs, 30% on wants and 20% on savings and debt repayment.
Most groceries fall under the “needs” category, but not every item at the grocery store qualifies as a necessity. Purchasing filet mignon for a special dinner would be a “want,” for example.
If your monthly take-home pay is $3,200, here’s how you’d divide that among your expenses:
$1,600 for needs like basic groceries, housing and transportation.
$960 for wants like meals out, entertainment and travel.
$640 for savings and loan payments beyond the minimum.
How much of that $1,600 should go toward groceries depends on the monthly cost of your other essentials. Let’s say you pay $850 for rent and utilities, $200 in student loan payments and $415 for your car payment and insurance. That adds up to $1,465 — leaving just $135 per month for vital groceries. If that won’t cover everything you need, or if you want to plan for some treats, you can take additional money from your “wants” budget.
Find ways to stretch your grocery budget
If you’re struggling to fit food costs into your budget, look for ways to save money on groceries. Start with these simple strategies:
Look in your refrigerator and pantry before making a shopping list.
Check the Sunday paper, use an app and explore other ways to get coupons.
Your financial position, expenses and spending behavior will presumably change throughout your life. Make sure to revisit your grocery budget every month and adjust.
According to the USDA guidelines, you might spend $979 a month on a thrifty plan, $1,028 on a low-cost plan, $1,252 on a moderate-cost plan and $1,604 on a liberal plan. The USDA guidelines can provide a starting point for a food budget, but they don't consider all the variables that can affect cost.
The rule is to split your after-tax income into three categories of spending: 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings. 1. This intuitive and straightforward rule can help you draw up a reasonable budget that you can stick to over time in order to meet your financial goals.
In his free webinar last week, Market Briefs CEO Jaspreet Singh alerted me to a variation: the popular 75-15-10 rule. Singh called it leading your money. This iteration calls for you to put 75% of after-tax income to daily expenses, 15% to investing and 10% to savings.
The 70-20-10 budget formula divides your after-tax income into three buckets: 70% for living expenses, 20% for savings and debt, and 10% for additional savings and donations. By allocating your available income into these three distinct categories, you can better manage your money on a daily basis.
Planning out your meals so you use all of the ingredients, both raw and cooked, plus pantry staples and frozen goods means you can make a week's worth of dinners for around $50 in groceries.
Ready to talk to an expert? Are you approaching 30? How much money do you have saved? According to CNN Money, someone between the ages of 25 and 30, who makes around $40,000 a year, should have at least $4,000 saved.
If you're looking for a ballpark figure, Taylor Kovar, certified financial planner and CEO of Kovar Wealth Management says, “By age 30, a good rule of thumb is to aim to have saved the equivalent of your annual salary.
Consider an individual who takes home $5,000 a month. Applying the 50/30/20 rule would give them a monthly budget of: 50% for mandatory expenses = $2,500. 20% to savings and debt repayment = $1,000.
Never borrow more than 20% of your annual after-tax income. Keep your monthly debt payments to less than 10% of your monthly after-tax income. Keep track of your purchases and don't buy expensive and unnecessary impulse items.
It's an easy way to calculate just how long it's going to take for your money to double. Just take the number 72 and divide it by the interest rate you hope to earn. That number gives you the approximate number of years it will take for your investment to double.
Bottom Line. With $800,000 in savings, you can probably cover $4,000 in monthly living costs. However, retirement accounts alone cannot safely sustain that spending for a 25- or 30-year retirement.
The idea is to divide your income into three categories, spending 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings. Learn more about the 50/30/20 budget rule and if it's right for you.
The average two-person household can expect to spend between $510-$820 per month on groceries. The average moderate cost between these two figures is around $655 per month.
On average, a family of four can expect to spend anywhere between $500 to $1,000 per month on groceries, depending on factors such as dietary choices, quality of ingredients, and location.
Creating a budget can help keep costs in check. On average, a family of five spends anywhere from $922 to $1,488 a month on groceries, according to USDA monthly food plans. If you're looking to curb your spending, consider meal planning, buying in bulk, and shopping at more affordable grocery stores.
While this is a good starting point, there are two exceptions to this rule in general. First, for a single-person household, consider budgeting $200 per month. Second, for a two-person household, consider $300 per month.
Introduction: My name is Patricia Veum II, I am a vast, combative, smiling, famous, inexpensive, zealous, sparkling person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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