Posted by I added up all of our grocery expenses for 2022 to see how much we spent on food. We live in the United States and our household consists of two people. The majority of our grocery shopping is done at one store which is just down the street from our home. I put in an online order about every 3 weeks and my partner will shop at the store, usually once a week to pick up things I may have missed. I usually take my time placing an online order, so that I can take advantage of every discount available. My goal is to spend less than $100 per order. In the past year, I placed 15 orders with an average price of $96.35. Orders typically consist of 32 or 33 items that we consume most frequently. For 2022 online orders came out to $120.44 per month.
Analysis of my partners grocery spending is where our food budget takes a hit. There were 50 in store transactions in the past year. That is about twice per week. Since we live so close to the store, it is easy to walk over there when the weather is above freezing. Each visit averaged $50.27 and consisted of the items like meat and fruit that you would want to pick out in person. The thing about shopping in person is that you often fall victim to impulse buying. With that said, the monthly average for in store shopping was $209.47. Combined, the amount we spent on groceries each month was $329.90 or $82.48 per week. The total spending on food for the year was almost $4000. I had set a budget of $200 per month, which may have been optimistic.
I believe that we would have spent more if I had not taken advantage of discounts and used online orders for the items we use most frequently. With only two people in our household, we usually don’t buy items in bulk. If you have a large family you end up spending more, but your average cost per person will be less. It’s a good idea to keep track of spending on things like food because it is a variable expense. I don’t think food prices are going to go down in the next year. If anything, packages will continue to get smaller, and prices will stay the same. I know that we will need to adjust our food budget for 2023 to at least $300 per month.