I spend about $200/month just for myself. I cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Take lunch with me to work everyday. I eat very very plain food (ie rice and chicken every day). With grocery prices up, I cut out a lot from my diet to keep around $200/month. No beef, no fresh fish, no fruits, no yogurt/kefir.
Meat: chicken, turkey, tuna fish, eggs and egg whites Veggies: kale, collard green, frozen veggies, tomatoes Carbs: rice, pasta, sweet potato, canned beans, peanut butter, granola bars, cereal Fruit: I admit I bought a bag of apples recently Dairy: milk, mozzarella cheese
I go to the gym regularly and drink 1-2 protein shakes per day.
Kind of embarrassing that I live on such a restricted boring diet, but at least I cook for myself, stay within budget, and stay away from processed foods/ snacks.
About £600 a month for two adults and one medium sized dog. Some shared stuff that my (adult) kids also use like cooking oil, milk, washing powder etc. also use. They buy their own meals and snacks to cook themselves.
Thats cooking from scratch majority of the time, gluten free, which costs more.
4-500 per month, family of 3, Slovakia
Single person, I probably could get by on $150 a month, but I eat out frequently, so I spend about $300 a month. This is in San Diego.
I’m paid bi-weekly with $1,200 USD going toward groceries from each paycheck
Granted we’re a very large family though inflation these past few years hasn’t helped
We live in central NC, USA
No aldi near you?
There is, though we usually do better buying in bulk elsewhere
for one person, about USD$200/mo. $40-$60/wk depending on sales, etc.
Central Florida.
Around 300-400€ for one person and two cats.
I never counted but I don’t think it’s much, eyeballing it I’d say less than 200€. I live alone in Spain and I cook almost every meal.
I could count it and see.
$40 (CAD) / Day
A bit expensive, but I’m both autistic and rather picky. I’m paying for my mental health there, not just food
Generally I’ll spend $15 on breakfast, $3 on a waterbottle at work, $20 for lunch, and sometimes I’ll buy those discounted meals made with offcuts and leftovers from Sobey’s. Around $10 - $15.
On my days off I eat whatever I have available in my pantry when I remember to eat.
why don’t you prepare more of your food? it allows you maximum control and saves tons of money. plus, it’s a lot easier than it might first appear.
I pay extra so I don’t have to do that. Carrying a waterbottle and a lunchbox was a significant contributor to my negative mental health as a teenager, and my life is way more pleasant without them.
In a similar vein, eating food that I don’t want to eat is very stressful for me, and I generally can’t know what I want to eat more than a couple of hours in advance. So eating food I prepared myself is usually rather disappointing.
Third, food waste. I never eat the same meal more than once a week if I can help it. That means that, when I buy a tomato, I end up only using a single slice and letting the rest rot in the fridge because there really aren’t all that many things I like that have tomatoes. The same goes for most ingredients. If I don’t use it within 4 hours, I may as well toss it, cause im never going to eat it.
I’ve tested out various ways of eating, and eating out often is cheaper yesterday constantly re-buying ingredients for meals I’m not going to eat.
Food alone? Varies, but around 1000-2000 EUR equivalent. Sometimes more, such as during holidays.
Family of 6, Norway.
Left to my own devices it’d be about $100/month.
Rice, beans, pasta, peanut butter, oatmeal, and then whatever fruit and vegetables are cheap.
With the social life included, there’s more expenses. Did dinner out last week for $60 (a nice local Thai place). Ordered a pizza with a friend who was feeling down and watched Star Trek together for like $30.
Other non-rice meals with my partner can also be more expensive. We air-fried up some potatoes and vegan “meat” last night and it was good.
There’s an app called “too good to go” that lets you get cheap food near the end of day. It’s stuff the restaurant or grocery was going to have to throw out. Sometimes you get like four slices of pizza for $4, or a platter of Korean food for $6. Seems good and not enshittified yet.
I’m in NYC, for context.
Where is your protein? Peanut butter and beans are mediocre to okay for protein.
TF would you have them eating for protein? Hummus? Gruel? Peanut butter and beans are some of the best proteins on earth pound for pound. I say this as a meat eater.
I think plant proteins are lacking in something. I’m sympathetic to vegitarianism, but their brains shrink like 7% or something after a number of years it’s been reported.
I’m gonna need to see some sources on that one. I seriously doubt that any credible studies have shown anything of the sort.
I’ll save the nonsense response you would’ve gotten from the person who says “something like 7%” without a source.
The credible studies say that simply cutting meat can cause some deficiencies like iron and b12 that you have to be mindful of. If not, there are negative reproductions on things like cognitive ability.
People who can’t fathom vegetarianism read that and think “vegetarians brains shrink” instead of “vegetarians know this and adjust their diet to maximize the missing stuff (or take supplements)”
Thanks. I’m not a vegetarian or vegan, but I know a lot of them and that didn’t sound right at all.
It was reported in the newspapers maybe 15 years back. Believe the study, or no, I don’t give a fuck.
Someone else already clarified what you are misremembering. You are spreading misinformation.
It’s not misinformation that is was reported, I didn’t say anything about it’s veracity.
I’ve been feeling okay on the beans, peanut butter, and sometimes peas.
If you have cheap vegetarian options I’m open to recommendations
Lentils are a complete protein, along with quinoa (one can be allergic to the coating on raw quinoa, wash thoroughly and test your compatibility carefully. I’m allergic.). Pea protein is great, my fave fake meat is pea protein based rather than soy. Rice balances out beans (black beans if possible) to make a complete protein, it’s no accident that combo is standard in many latino dishes. Obviously tofu, it’s just more work to prepare especially if it’s only 1 or 2 ppl.
Slow cookers are great, most veggie dishes are ~4 hrs since no need for meat safety, you can make a billion things and Tupperware it for 6-8 meals. Celery works great as a natural salt, stands the heat and gives a dish some character (mince it). Half a jalapeno minced up brings nice fire to veggie dishes, goes well with chopped green onions which is also friendly to many dishes.
I pretty much only eat cereal for breakfast, a small frozen meal and fruit cup for lunch, and only rarely eat dinner so I think I spend around $100 a month on food.
Single person and I do almost all of my own cooking. I average $500 - $600 a month.
This isn’t that far away from mine for two people: ~$600-$700 per month in a HCOL area and doing most of the cooking myself as well. I have found that sizing up a recipe for more people is only a marginal increase in cost. So, cooking for two is not just double that of cooking for one, but less.
Oh yeah. I made a YT video recently about money-saving tips, and one of the things I do is look at restaurants that have family-sized meals that they offer to-go. This works really well for pasta and rice, but I can get six meals for the cost of a few dollars each, package up five of them, and then I have five really yummy lunches for my in office days when I go in.
Jeez, are groceries really that expensive in the US? For me in germany I can get groceries for 2-3 month with this money.
They are. Luckily I cook nearly all of my own meals, or the bills would be way, way worse.
My grocery bill is well more than double what it was before 2020. Both ruling parties here refuse to address the corporate greed in any meaningful way, so each individual has to make the best choices they can for themselves.
Just below 900 euro per month
In Denmark
Household of 4
We have estimated about 6000 dkk per month or 200 dkk per day
On average between 400 and 450 euros. I live alone, do home cooking (mostly), vegetarian or vegan and I rarely look at prices when I shop groceries. Only if the final amount is surprisingly high I look at the receipt and will adjust my decisions next time.
