How Much Should I Spend on Groceries?
发布时间:2022年09月05日
发布人:nanyuzi  

How Much Should I Spend on Groceries?

 

Geoff Williams

 

Determining how much to spend on groceries and creating a budget is a challenge for many households. But thanks to inflation, grocery budgeting has been especially difficult in the last year.

 

According to the Consumer Price Index, the average cost of eating food at home has risen 10.9% over the past 12 months.

 

For instance, breakfast cereal is 16.4% more expensive than it was a year ago.

 

That ham sandwich you’re having for lunch is more expensive, too. The ham costs 8.7% more than it did a year ago. The bread, if it’s white bread, is 12.9% higher than it was last year. If you’re having some potato chips with the sandwich, you’re paying 16.5% more for snacks than you did a year ago.

 

Having chicken for dinner? Chicken is 17.6% more expensive than a year ago.

 

As bad as that sounds, the CPI that was released in July showed that inflation has come down a little from June. But, still, food isn’t exactly cheap.

 

While inflation is a major reason grocery bills are higher, George Gansner, senior managing director of consulting, training and technical services in NSF’s Global Food Division, also cites the supply chain issues of the last year.

 

“The world’s reaction to the pandemic has caused increases in costs at every point of the supply chain, from farm to fork,” Gansner says. “Not everyone is aware that these increases across the board ultimately result in higher costs in the grocery store or at the restaurant.”

 

You may want to brace yourself and continue preparing for higher grocery bills.

 

After all, a host of other factors have been blamed for the spike in food prices and complicated government and businesses attempting to bring them down. For instance, some reasons that food prices have shot up in the last year:

 

The avian flu has driven up the price of eggs (fewer chickens to lay them).

 

Droughts, likely due to climate change, have affected crops, causing shortages in products like rice, coffee and olive oil (fewer products, with unceasing demand, mean higher prices).

 

The war in Ukraine hasn’t helped either; the price of wheat has gone up. Energy prices have skyrocketed as well. If it costs more to transport food, that’s going to affect the price a shopper pays at the register.

Amid rising food prices, consumers should keep these budgeting benchmarks in mind to guide their grocery spending, establish a grocery budget and rein in spending.

 

How Much to Budget for Groceries

 

Coming up with saving strategies to keep your grocery bill lower is a necessity, but how much of your budget should you spend in the first place?

 

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s most recent figures, in 2021, Americans spent 10.3% of their disposable personal income on food. In 2020, it was 8.6%. With inflation as it has been, one can only wonder what that number will look like next year.

 

For specific guidelines on how much you should aim to spend on groceries, the USDA publishes a food budget each month that offers an estimate for monthly and weekly spending, split up into a “thrifty plan,” a “low-cost plan,” a “moderate-cost plan” and a “liberal plan.”

 

How does that work out? Here’s a breakdown looking at how the USDA recommends a family of four (with two kids between the ages of 6-8 and 9-11 and with parents between the ages of 19 and 50) have their monthly budget for groceries.

 

Thrifty plan. For a thrifty budget for a family of four, you would spend $216.90 a week or $939.90 a month. The Thrifty Food Plan, incidentally, is used to decide the benefit amounts for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP.

 

Low-cost plan. For a low-cost budget for a family of four, you can plan on spending $234.10 a week or between $936.40 and $1,014 a month.

 

Moderate-cost plan. For a moderate budget for a family of four, you would spend $291.50 a week for groceries or between $1,166 and $1,263.5 a month.

 

Liberal budget. For a liberal budget for a family of four, you can plan on paying $352.70 a week or between $1,410.80 and $1,528.10 a month.

 

There are other factors to consider when deciding how much to budget for groceries.

 

Teenagers really do eat a lot. As your kids get older, the USDA recommends that your food budget grow. For instance, a moderate budget for a teenage boy between ages 14 and 18 would be $84.50 in groceries a week (or $66.50 a week if you have what the USDA calls a low-cost budget and $97.50 a week for a liberal budget). A child who is 9 to 11 years old, according to the USDA’s moderate budget, would eat $74 in food every week.

 

Teenage boys eat a whole lot. Not surprisingly, the USDA’s food budget allocates more of the grocery budget for teenage boys than it does for teenage girls, children or the adults in the household. For instance, it suggests if you have a moderate budget, you should plan to spend $67.30 a week on groceries for a teenage girl (approximately $17 less a week than for a teenage boy).

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Men in general cost more to feed than women. At least, that’s how the USDA sees it. An adult male from 19 to 50 years of age would account for $83 a week on a moderate food budget, and a 19- to 50-year-old woman would be allocated $70.30 a week.

 

How to Stay Within Your Grocery Budget

 

Coming up with a target amount to spend on food isn’t the hard part – it’s staying within a budget that’s tricky. Eileen Roth, an organizing expert in Scottsdale, Arizona, and author of “Organizing for Dummies,” has some ideas.

 

Create shopping lists. This is a common practice, but Roth suggests making your shopping lists better. For instance, if you’re scanning the contents of your refrigerator and pantry before you go to the grocery store, add items on your shopping list when they are two-thirds gone.

 

So if you aim to keep mayonnaise in stock, for example, get into the habit of buying a new jar when the current one is two-thirds empty, Roth recommends. This way, you’ll always have a refill ready and you’ll have more time to look for deals.

 

Create a meal routine. Routines make grocery shopping more predictable for your wallet, according to Roth. “Another way to watch your budget is to plan your meals,” Roth says. “Every Wednesday is spaghetti night. Every Friday is fish night. Every Sunday is chicken. Every Monday is steak night, etc.”

 

Create a shopping routine. Patterns also open the door to savings. “If you shop on the same day each week, at the same grocery store, you will know what they carry and where it is – saving you time as well as money,” Roth says.

 

Be careful with coupons. Coupon apps and strategies can be useful, but be aware of your spending mindset. “Don’t just use them because you have a coupon,” Roth says. She also advises consumers not to get sucked into the idea that you should buy two items because you have a coupon, especially if it is a product or brand you’ve never tried before.

 

“It doesn’t help to have bought three to four boxes of something you don’t like. Now you waste money instead of saving money,” Roth says.

 

Shop on sales days. Learn when your grocery store starts a new sales cycle. “Many stores have ads that come out on Wednesday, but grocery stores do differ,” Roth says. “Watch your newspaper ads and see if you notice a trend for sales too.”

 

She adds that a good time to save money is following a holiday. “Once a big sale is over – like a holiday sale – stores will discount the excess,” Roth says. “Valentine’s candy, the day after Valentine’s Day, and turkeys the day after Thanksgiving Day.”

 

How to Budget for Restaurants and Dining Out

 

The amount you spend eating out is a judgment call, of course, but if it helps, according to the USDA, in 2020, 27.9 cents of each dollar spent on food went to restaurants and other eating out places. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should spend 27.9% of your food budget eating out, of course, but maybe it’ll be a helpful guideline to help keep you on track in your spending.

 

In any case, if you’re looking to pare back your food costs, you may want to tally up your restaurant spending, including takeout food, over the past month. Knowing what you’ve been spending on food from restaurants should help you determine whether you think you need to cut back.

 

There are other strategies to consider. For instance, if you’re loyal to certain eateries, download restaurant apps to join loyalty programs and get discounts for dining at particular places. You could also pick up food rather than have it delivered. Even with gas as high as it is, you’ll likely save money.

 

Tips to Spend Less on Groceries

 

Strategies to cut your grocery bill include:

 

Order online instead of shopping in the store. Jessica Randhawa, owner, recipe creator and head chef at The Forked Spoon, a website featuring family-friendly recipes, opts for Whole Foods grocery delivery with the Amazon app.

 

It’s far more convenient than shopping in the store, according to Randhawa. “Instead of managing a grocery list, I can simply add items to my cart when planning recipes, or simply add items to my cart if I notice I am about to run out of an ingredient,” she says. “The reduction in time spent driving, waiting (in line) and wandering aisles, coupled with the lack of impulse buying, has been a huge saver of my time and money.”

 

You can also take your time with online shopping and look for affordable foods.

 

Use coupons. This tried-and-true method endures. “I know I sound old saying that, but it’s true. Coupons can really help,” says Audrey Del Prete, a fitness instructor and health and wellness coach in Los Angeles.

 

Del Prete advises looking in the mail for coupon deals and online for digital coupons. “If you use the store’s app, it can save you a decent amount of money as long as you use them for things you are already buying. Don’t buy something you don’t really need just because you have a coupon for it. That will end up costing you more money in the end,” she says.

 

Make a list. Avoid shopping without a plan. “Whether you use paper and pen or make a list on your phone, the No. 1 thing you can do prior to grocery shopping is to make a list with only your immediate needs and stick to it,” Del Prete says. “Don’t buy anything not on the list because you don’t need it. I use the app ‘Any.do’ for all of my lists.”

 

Use rewards programs. This is another classic strategy. “If you shop at a major retailer, the store most likely has a customer rewards program that gives you automatic discounts on most items. Definitely sign up for it,” Del Prete advises. “You will save a lot each time you shop.”

 

Buy store brands. Sometimes called generic products, these brands are only sold by the store where you’re shopping. Generally, they’re cheaper than name brands and usually just as good, Gansner says.

 

“Most stores have systems and programs in place to help ensure their products are just as good as the major brands,” he says.

 

Shop more often, not less often. That sounds counterintuitive. If you shop more often, won’t you spend more? Maybe, but Gansner recommends more frequent trips to the supermarket and says you’ll probably spend less than if you do one mega-visit every week or two.

 

The idea: You’ll buy what you know you will consume in the next few days rather than purchase a lot of items you think you will be using in the next week or two. “This can help to avoid food waste, which is a common problem for many,” Gansner says.