How much should I be spending on food each month? (plus suggestions)

I'm a single guy,I dont go out to eat much, maybe once a week. I probably spend about $45.00 wkly at the grocery store.

 

Me and my roomate spend about 500 a month between the 2 of us on groceries.

We cook breakfast at home before we go to work(we work together)
We have some TV dinner for lunch (or leftovers)
We cook dinner each night.

 

I budget aboout $500.00 per month for the home budget(groceries/home supplies). That is strictly for home stuff, but I have a family of 6. This does not include going out to eat/movies/stuff like that.

 

I'm trying to cut down on food spending too. I think the definite key is to learn how to cook. I don't have any other tips, sorry. I'm trying to figure it out too.

My GF and I spend about 3k a month eating out. We've been trying to cut it down to 1k a month, but it seems impossible. Neither of us knows how to cook... the one time I tried, it took hours to prepare and it ended up being crappy.

 

it depends,

are you fat?

 

When I was single, I spent about $50 a week on food at the grocery store.

Spaghetti, eggs, cereal, sandwiches, microwaved meals, chicken breasts, etc... are all pretty cheap

 

That's $100 a day! damn

 

$20 a day?! Sheet.

An expensive day for me is like $15. Otherwise, it's like $65 at the grocery store every 2 weeks or so. And eating out now and then cause I work 24hr shifts....

 

Learning to cook helps, but it is more important to have a routine. I recently started using Sunday night to make my lunches and dinners for the rest of the week.

For lunches, I'd make big bowls of salad and bring them to work. That involves washing and properly storing all my veggies, and deboning a store-bought rotisserie chicken. In the mornings, I would just take 5 minutes and put together the salad and bring it with me in a container. I keep an assortment of dressing at work, so it doesn't get boring.

For dinners, I usually make a good quantity of lean chicken breast or tenderloins in the oven. You can season it however you like, and you can get pretty creative. After it is done, keep it in the fridge. If you want to eat it, then nuke it. Frozen vegetables are also major time-savers too, I like the broccoli and the spinach.

For one person a week, that probably adds to no more than $25 per week. I also budget my eating outside money to about $50-75, so that gives me a few meals outside, and some money for snacks and such.

 

$20 a day is A LOT. That's eating out every day, for every meal. You'll spend half that cooking probably. I've never broken down my food budget though.

 

yeah, thats the way to go.

 

I cannot get over this. It's going to be haunting me the rest of my life

 

If you like the idea of cooking for yourself and is willing to learn, you can easily cut down your monthly food/meal cost down to a couple of hundred $'s for a single guy.

Easy solution: hire a family cook. He/she doesn't have to a professional chef.

 

damn! i can live on $200/month. buy yourself a george forman grill and stock up on beef and chicken. i supplement my meat with rice all the time so it's dirt cheap.

 

Wow. I used to go out for lunch all the time w/ coworkers, and even then we wouldn't be spending $11 on lunch. Honestly your routine sounds ridiculous.