Grocery question

[fancytalk]

This question is mostly posed to those who shop/cook for two, but I'm not discriminating because I'm curious. How much do you guys spend on groceries in a week? Rough estimate.

I'm wondering because I have officially changed places where I shop. I was going to probably 3 different stores on a regular basis because they are all within a 1 mile range of the house and each store had certain things that were better priced. Well, the Larry's market that I was doing most of my shopping at has officially changed to a Tops. Not sure what I can compare it to except the IGA that my grandmother did most of her shopping at which either was exceptionally cheap or grossly overpriced depending on what item you were buying. Larry's was the preferred place since Berkeley Bowl is 12 hours away. Ronette and I made one last excursion through Larry's/Tops and had such a bad shopping experience that we decided it was time to move on. We were buying for a group meal, spent $110, and had 1 lb of coffee thrown in because the store manager didn't know the code. I freecycled the coffee because it was NASTY. They dumped all the good brands.

We nixed Albertson's because it's too far away. Safeway was nixed because the closest one has got to be one of the oldest ones and is gross all the time. Tried QFC, but the reason I don't do all shopping there is because I know that if I buy things like nuts, Trader Joe's is cheaper. So we decided to give Whole Paycheck a chance. We had a pleasant shopping experience. We redeemed them back to Whole Foods and I was excited to find bulk food bins of hard to find items like spelt flour. Then someone said that we just HAD to go to a PCC, they LOVE PCC. Horrible Horrible Horrible All the fruits and veggies are organic, no choice of non-organic and most of it isn't even local. Sorry, organic from Honduras doesn't cut it. We spent $60 for 2 nights worth of dinner and that was already having meat in the freezer.

Today I return to Whole Foods and spent $120. I have breakfast, lunch & dinner for the next week. I bought meat and I bought my $10 worth of sushi for lunch. So yeah, I'm curious about what other people are spending for a weeks worth of groceries.

Comments

[thunder-pants.livejournal.com]

Per week... hm. We don't really shop weekly. I will run to the store a couple times to pick things up and spend maybe $10 - $20 at a time. So maybe our weekly shopping is about $40-50.

[yesimthegirl.livejournal.com]

And that is why I miss California. Vegetables are cheap and abundant no matter what time of the year. However, Whole Foods definitely has cheaper veggies. I spent $50 for Carol's shopping. She wanted cantaloupe - so out of season here. I spent $6 on one. I saw them at WF today and weighed one of similar size out of curiosity. It would have been half the cost. OK, I'm rambling now, but am now on a mission to see how I can reduce my grocery bill in half.

[thunder-pants.livejournal.com]

I scour the ads - like starting today Safeway had 8 ounce packages of mushrooms 10/$10 so I bought 5 of them. I will look at all the Wednesday grocery ads and go to different stores to save. But then out here we have these stores nearby enough to do that without wasting too much gas.

[neebs.livejournal.com]

When I live on my own, I try to keep it to $25 or $20 per week.

Keep in mind:
I don't eat a lot of meat.
I am poor. I don't have more than that.
My mom knows I am poor and supplements my purchases with things like pasta and rice because she worries.

[hippiedork.livejournal.com]

We spend about $100/week, sometimes more if we're out of staples. And I have no idea how we spend this much, except that food prices have gone up SO much over the last year. And we usually try to make it to the farmer's market at least twice a month where veggies are cheaper! I don't really eat processed/boxed foods either (too much sodium for me) and those are usually the expensive things, you know?

I recently went back to whole foods too and was pleasantly surprised. Their prices seem much more reasonable now, but I don't know if they lowered them or if regular stores are just so much more expensive that WF seems reasonable, lol.

Every time I go to TX to visit, I usually end up in a grocery store at least once and I'm always perturbed at how much lower their food prices are! Not that I want them to pay more, I just want to pay less! Oh, and someone on my fl lives on the east coast, and they did a photo post and had some photos of grocery store shelves, and o.m.g their organic prices were like half of what non-organics cost here. Seriously, SoCal is getting ridiculous!

[yesimthegirl.livejournal.com]

We went grocery shopping with Ronette's mom while we were in Florida. I was checking out prices and definitely perturbed at the lower prices on the east coast. It really is the staples that get you. I didn't realize I hated grocery shopping as much as I do until the good store went bad. And I can't wait for the farmer's markets to get back into full swing so my veggie shopping can go down again.

[carush-girl.livejournal.com]

hmmmmm I would say we spend $400 on 5 people a month - even though my oldest is only here on weekends making it 5 people but then Joe's brother eats alot over here as well to cover the days when my oldest is not here.

(that is not including the $5.50. pizza from lil' ceasars or the $1 burger from McDonalds that we on occasion do because after working a late night - a cheap fake hamburger will do. But we were bad and spent $15. at Steak & Shake yesterday.)


So we use to spend more but seeing as we make less lately - weve had to cut back.