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

I'm single and I spend $300-400 per month on food, and that's including eating out for most meals on weekends, and occasionally on weekdays.

Cereal for breakfast
Turkey/ham/cheese sandwiches for lunch
Spaghetti, simple stir-fry, etc for dinner

The goal is to save as much as you can when cooking or eating at home/alone. That way you don't feel so bad about spending $20-30 on a meal during the weekend with friends.

 

If you mixed in some sandwiches, or even something like Subway or whatever once in a while, wouldn't that help? Isn't hard to cook sandwiches, I would think.

 

20$ a day is insane, I'm rich and I don't spend close to that much on food. In grad school, I spent about $70 on food at the supermarket about every three weeks and ate pretty well. Maybe went out to eat once a week. That adds up to maybe $5-6 a day.

breakfast- mix it up between cereal, toast, eggs or a bagel with cream cheese.

lunch- $1 for a box of pasta, mix it with sauce, meat and some fresh or frozen vegetables. All the ingredients cost about $9 and is good for 3-4 meals.

Rice, beans and meat is another alternative. Also, fried rice works.

Sandwiches are okay too, but can get expensive if you load up on a lot of meat. Burgers are unhealthy and the good kind is expensive.

Frozen pizzas are unhealthy but are cheap. For me, a $4 tombstone is good for two meals, thats $2 a meal if i drink water.

To cut down on time, I usually make a big ass thing of pasta or rice and that usually lasts me 3-4 meals.

I am in NY city now, which is the most expensive city for food. I'm at $25 a week for groceries and eat out maybe twice. Add another $6-7 for coffee and snacks.

-
I think first thing to cut back on is spending $10 for lunch. If I eat in the office, first thing is to either drink water (free) or get your soda/juice at bulk and keep it around. Drinks are the most overpriced thing in restaurants, so cutting that out will save you $3-4 a day. Don't ever pay for bottled water at 20oz or buy starbucks coffee as a daily habit. If you have a mid level income and you indulge in those things, you have no one to blame but yourself if you have trouble with finances.

 

WOW, when I was living by myself I was spending 60-90 a week on groceries and that was with nice meats and cheeses when ever I wanted.. I also never ate out more than one meal a week on my dime, cooking for one can be very reasonable if you are willing to eat leftovers for lunch and stay away from prepackaged meals..

 

3K a month for food! You two sure have some bucks, I wish we could just afford that life style. That is like a 50k plus job just for eating and nothing else.

 

Can you list some of the restaurants you go to, and what you tend to order?

Even if you're eating out 3 meals a day, that comes out to $16 per meal. That's way too much.

 

$200 max.

What the hell are you spending $500-$600 on?

 

Hey CHI, hook me up with a job, yeah?

 

you're spending too much money man. cooking at home is easy once you actually do it and you can cook for like 5 days and store the food in the fridge. you can make so many different things with cheap ass tuna, it's awesome.

for example i eat 6 meals a day, 400 calories per meal. beginning of the month i stock up on a supply of tuna, chicken, brown rice, pasta, eggs and oatmeal. during the month i go through a whole bunch of skim milk and wheat bread but i spend no more than $120 a month on food total. you'd be amazed at the amount of money you save if you're smart about it.

of course i still go to restaurants and get the occasional fast food item but no more than maybe once during the weekends. that adds to the $120 but it's a negligible amount.

 

Get work to pay for it!

 

Admittedly, we don't try too hard to keep to our 1k/mo budget. But, it's not even that we eat extravagantly. Even if we eat at a chain restaurant like Applebees, or Outback, we usually end up spending $40-$50 for the both of us. The other day we had Chinese for lunch and that ended up costing almost $60; all we ordered was 3 dishes, 1 appetizer, 2 drinks.

I do have a lobster sandwich every other day though. If any of you ever come to San Francisco, try out The Lobster Shack. Their lobster rolls are crack!

Anyway, I didn't know my comments would cause such a stir. Let's get back to helping the OP out!

 

lmao, that's because it's.... wait for it.....

$1000 to $3000 on food!

 

Seriously, imagine how many starving Ethiopian kids could eat off that kind of food budget!

 

What's the secret of the George Foreman Grill? Why does it seem like everyone (except me) owns one?

 

45 dollars max.

I might go out once a month to eat at a full service restaurant. And once or twice to a subway or taco bell.

I eaaassssssssily spend more money on alcohol and going out than I do food. (hence me cutting back tonight)

I'm surely not alone.

staples in my grocery list

tostinos pizza like 3 of them
waffles
PbJ
Burritos
few hot pockets
ceral store brand(i dont buy milk)
Kool Aid
Rice
Ground beef(rotate b.w spaghetti and fajitas with this)

 

U guys hiring right now?

I'm fresh out of college. I'd be more than happy with you twos food budget as my salary

 

You could probably easily find a chef to follow you around 24/7 and cook for you on command for 3k a month.

 

A foot long subway/quiznos sub or a double-whopper meal (king sized) will set you back about $7. A box of cereal lasts a whole week ($3) and a half-gallon of milk costs $2. Overall, around $300 a month for a single guy is probably reasonable if you live in Houston.

 

they're pretty cheap and it cooks on both sides of the meat so you don't really have to flip it or pay attention to it. i have one but it's an older version that doesn't let you remove the grilling platforms to clean, thus i really never use it anymore. it's a pain in the ass to clean that thing, but that seems to be solved on the newer models. or you can just cook the old fashioned way, probably tastes better.

 

I could care less where you live. As most people have pointed out, your food budget is r****ded. Cook at home and invest the money, or don't. Either way, I've no sympathy for you...

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/y-AXTx4PcKI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/y-AXTx4PcKI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>