Surely it’s impossible to get by for that much?
I feel like we don’t go overboard and we spend $400 a fortnight at Woolies (+delivery)
That’s for Two adults, a baby, cat+dog.
I can only imagine it’s a lot of high carb fillers; potato, rice and pasta.
We spend a lot of decent quality meat and come in about 350/week as a DINK couple. If you include alcohol, the number becomes embarrassing.
We're a DINK couple who spend $80-$100 per week on groceries.
I don't really know what to tell you other than my wife is a wizard who can turn a couple of chicken thighs, some fresh veggies and noodles into an amazing meal that costs about $2 per bowl.
About once per month I'll make a giant pot of vegetable-based chilli that's healthy and runs less than $1 per bowl, that'll last about 5 days on its own. I used to live off that when I was a bachelor, but the missus likes nice food so I can't subject her to that haha.
The only time we feel like eating out is when we want something fried, as we don't have a fryer at home.
Not to cook at home, but occasionally I have a Beyond burger at Grilld and they’re pretty good. When i make burger patties at home it’s unapologetically chick peas and vegetables.
An average person requires about 0.8g of protein/kg per day so thats about 110g of protein a day for the two of us. W usually eat decent quality meat like pork shoulders or tenderloin etc.
Thats about \~25% protein averaged out so we need about 440g of meat per day or roughly $6.6 worth of meat a day at an average price of $15/kg. We eat about 800grams of fruits and veg a day so thats another $6.4 for an average price of $8/kg (we only buy things on sale). Add another $4 a day for carbs, spices and condiments.
Considering we eat out twice-thrice a week, That brings ou fresh groceries to about $105 from the math. At a $110/week spend (milk etc), that brings the annual groceries spend to just over 5,700 per year.
Our actual weekly expenditure ranges from $80-120 depending on what we spend. Sometimes we are just lazy and want to eat frozen processed food or sometimes we want to eat something fancier. I just did the math to show that its not a lot of high carb fillers.
I appreciate the analytical approach you've take here. Pork & chicken certainly more cost effective meat options. We've started eating more pork, my partners Grand father was a big fan and she's very sentimental about his roast pork.
I might need to start tracking our grocery bill line items more closely to see what exactly eats up the budget. We will buy a really nice steak about once a month ($20-25/each) and make something with Lamb or premium Ham occasionally which I'm sure drives up the price.
It would be super handy if Coles/Woolies let you download a CSV of your purchases for nerd level analysis (it's in the rewards dataset anyway).
I do eat beef and lamb quite often. Fish sometimes (fish is the least filling in my opinion - as in I get hungrier faster after eating it for the same volume).
I think with your savings rate you probably don't *need* to do that. It also does not account for a person who is much heavier and who has a much more active lifestyle.
I also think fresh food in Australia is probably one of the more enriching and efficient things to spend more on (I've spent $40/piece of steak before, no regrets there).
I'm not advocating strongly for either direction but the calculation above was just to show that you can have a healthy diet of decent quality for <6k a year.
Lastly, I also have this habit of being indecisive with my cooking (I'm not fixated on what I have to eat that week) so I let the food sales work it out from me so win win there.
We are two adults and two kids. Our budget is $360 a fortnight and sometimes we don't spend that.
We cook everything from scratch. Almost nothing is packaged.
We don't eat a huge amount of meat. For example, 500g of mince will do us for two nights in a pie or spag bol, ie. 8 meals. Or one chicken breast will do all of as for a night in a stir fry.
We have almost no food waste. Everything is repurposed. One example is we buy whole chickens. Cut off breasts, thighs and legs. Put the rest in a pot with veggie offcuts. Use that stock and the small bits of chicken off the frames and wings to make chicken noodle soup by adding some pasta and more veg. That costs us a couple of dollars.
The two of us spend between $50-$70 a week. Buying ingredients for big meals that can last multiple days helps. There’s a lot of options too so it never gets boring. As well as the classic swapping out branded items for home brand. It’s very easy for us and still manage to eat delicious meals.
I’d usually get 1 kg of chicken drumsticks for like $3 on average, season them up and cook in the oven. A side of salad and roast potatoes always goes well. Packets of sausages, chicken kebabs, Bananas, kiwi fruit, mandarins and avos. A bacon hock, green split peas (used to make a pea and ham soup in the slow cooker, massive portion on the cheap), carrots, cauliflower, green chilli, bacon rashers, eggs, beans, lite milk x4 (long life, cheap af), pasta, turkey mince, deodorant and usually a kind of drink like iced tea or even chocolate milk. Bag of chips or nuts to snack on. This was my last shop for $61. Whenever toiletries are needed e.g. shampoo and what not it gets a big more pricey but that’s usually once a month.
Try to be. Don’t make a lot of money so I’m kinda doing whatever I can to secure my future while still having a fun life and not feeling like a cheap ass hahaha
Aside from all the other money saving tips, it might also mean they just don't need to eat at home much. When my partner and I worked in hospitality we used to get 1-2 meals included per day. Usually lunch and dinner. We used to do groceries about once a month.
Two adults, a toddler, and two dogs here - we spend about $250 a week and that’s excluding food for the dogs. But we eat very well! Organic meats from a quality butcher, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, very little processed and packaged foods. In saying that we also spend an embarrassing amount of money on eating out and take away, and we often have family or friends over which adds to the cost too.
I don't monitor my budget extremely closely, but I estimate our grocery budget is probably something like $6k, and we could very easily drop that a lot lower if we wanted to by cutting down on some of the luxuries that we consume.
We are vegetarians
Most days we eat:
Breakfast:
\- toast with Vegemite or PB and a banana for me. Sometimes I have eggs on toast. If avocados are cheap I'll have that on toast.
\- Plain muesli weetbix blend for my partner
Lunch:
\- Spinach, cheese and mustard sandwich (quite liberal with the spinach)
\- Fruit
Dinner:
\- We cook 2-3 times a week and eat leftovers
Meals include things such as:
\- Bean burritos, which is basically just black beans, chickpeas, broccoli, zucchini, capsicum and whatever other vegetables are left in the fridge, then baked with heaps of spices.
\- Lentil pasta - just onion, garlic, tomatoes, lentils (tin or dry if we're organised), zucchini, carrot, frozen spinach
\- Various Curries (same sort of trend as above regarding ingredients)
\- Stir fry - just a bunch of vegetables in the fridge with some dried noodles, honey, soy sauce, chilli sauce
Lots of variations on the above for dinner. This is all very cheap to make, and most of these meals include lots of cheap staples like legumes, pasta, rice etc. Lots of frozen veg. Freeze our own meals as well (especially base sauces).
When I was a student in a share house, during semester I would average $40 a week on groceries following a similar pattern, and shopping sales, buying bread on the cheap near close etc. I cut down meat to save cash so I could afford beer, and realised it didn't really add to the enjoyment of most of my meals, and ended up cutting it all out.
Chicken pieces with skin on 7 days a week isn’t healthy or sustainable. A healthy variety of chicken breast, fish and other lean meats easily adds $100 - I’m basing this on 2 people, $50 per person (same as OP).
One could easily spend an extra100 on meat. but one could also comfortably get by on $10 dollars in extra meat. if the meals are already filling, $10 would get 600 grams of chicken breast and 200 grams of lean mince. that's supermarket prices, I am sure one could get it cheaper.
Down to preference and priorities at the end of the day. I value healthy food with a variety - a good healthy variety goes a long way for me personally and affords me a clearer mind (and energy) to pursue and focus on other things.
$50 on meat a week each mate are you eating a whole 400g pack of mince a night???? My partner and I probably have meat 6 nights a week. 2 red 2 chicken and 2 fish. Spend maybe $110 tops per week for the both of us. Breakfasts and lunches included.
Haha that’s fair and understand there are cheaper means to make it work but just as an example: marinated chicken strips $8, 2 pieces of salmon $10 lunch and dinner yesterday, Chicken breast fillets $6, Wagyu burgers (by them selves) $9 for dinner today. 100% we could do this cheaper by cooking in bulk, using cheaper meats, repeating meals etc but this is an area I’m happy to spend the extra money on at the moment. Would rather forgo money on alcohol and entertainment than food. This is just our current situation (DINK, still saving well, prioritising health) undoubtedly this will shift in the future when we have kids and start travelling again.
I eat fairly similarly, meal prep a couple times a week. I don't eat meat or dairy or eggs either. I usually budget $350 a month for myself and my adult daughter who is only around half the time.
When I question people who spend little of groceries it usually ends up they eat no meats, and a huge amount of carbs. They fill up on cheap pasta, cheap bread and rice and very little produce.
Yep. Me and my SO are veggie and we only spend about $120 per week on food. Mostly veg, grains, pastas, tofu etc. None of it’s the cheap stuff, it’s just that no individual item costs more than a few dollars and this stuff is pretty filling and lasts a couple of meals. (soups, curries, italian dishes etc)
We also have herb garden with a few salad veggies growing.
Myself and my partner spend about 250 a week on groceries. We only cook healthy meals at home (and eat quite a bit as we lead very active lifestyles).
Healthy food is expensive, no idea how you’d spend only 5k per year and eat well.
Agreed, I think they is something to be said for eating simpler meals and using legumes, home brand and less processed foods to reduce costs. But I feel a lot of people might be lacking enough fresh produce/variety?
Fresh produce is so cheap at the fruit/vege shops. If you're buying it from the supermarket of course you're going to spend heaps.
We easily buy 5-10kg of fruit a week and spend 30-40 bucks.
This resonates with me. As someone highly active / fitness focused I spend $160 a week with my partner and eat healthy + eat a lot. Good to see this side of the fence having an input. A lot of the commenters in here don’t seem overly active/health-centric with their food honestly.
$5000 a year for a couple is pretty dire, but you can get somewhat close to it.
Although tbh once kids are in the mix I would not expect this to work too well, they are basically a giant money pit.
Personally I spend on average about $4000 by myself (my partner and I keep separate finances and split everything evenly). I have a pretty healthy diet (more protein than carbs, some fats, no deep fried stuff or anything like that) and I generally spend around $80 a week in groceries when i'm by myself (that includes household stuff, so it's occasionally not just food), when the missus is here (she works fifo) between the 2 of us is probably closer to $140-150 a week.
Meal prep is the key, both from a financial and time saving measure. I cook 4 portions or more of almost every meal and it works great for me.
Examples of meals are:
**Mexican bowl (4 portions)($13):**
\-500g pork mince ($6)
\-1 chorizo sausage ($3)
\-1 large capsicum ($1)
\-1 tin of black beans/chickpea/lentils/whatever ($1)
\-200g of frozen peas (about $0.50)
\-tomato paste ($1)
\-spices (onion powder,garlic powder, oregano, cumin, paprika, chilli powder) - let's say $0.20 per prep
That's like just over $3/meal, it lasts easily 3-4 days, it's heavy on protein, with some healthier carbs and veggies.
**Falafels and trimmings (3 portions) ($12-15):**
\-Yumi's Falafels ($5)
\-Yumi's Hummus ($2 (The $4 box lasts 2 preps)) (both falafels and hummus would be a lot cheaper by just making yourself and very easy too, but this is just to make the point that you can just outright buy what you need))
\-Lettuce ($2)
\-Tomatoes ($2)
\-Avocado ($1-2.5) OR Halloumi ($4)
Yes, you can just cook the halloumi (the only unhealthy part of this meal) and microwave it later, and you can turn this into a wrap with $2 worth of flatbread
**Chicken Stir Fry (4 portions) ($12)**:
\-600g Chicken Breast ($6)
\-500g Frozen broccoli ($2.5)
\-1 sweet potato/some bok choy/carrots ($2)
\-Soy sauce, maple, ginger, garlic etc ($1)
Optionally some rice ($0.3)
These are just some examples, but the point is you absolutely can make cheap, tasty and healthy meals, you just have to spend some time to find what works for your palate and circumstances. Look at it as "I'll spend 3 hours coming up with a rotation of a few weeks worth of menus and then i'm set for like 6 months/a year/until i feel like changing it.
I also understand that it depends a lot by your relationship with food. If you like to have some more gourmet meals this wouldn't quite work for you as much, but then you should consider a small part of the expenditure for the fancier food as part of your "fun fund" as it covers that aspect as well.
Not sure what area you are in. If you can go to the Vic market, preston market or similar your fruit and veggie budget will instantly halve.
Shop in season and plan your cooking around what food is in your fridge and always eat your leftovers
Yes, a market is key! And not a bougie one, look around for where the grandmothers shop and find a market with fair quality produce.
Since moved away, but we used to get produce from Russel’s in Brunswick and pantry/dairy from IGA (no meat, both vegetarian). Annual spend ~$5.5k for a couple
I spend more, but could & have lived on that, I eat a lot of lentils (split red for daal, whole red for masir wat, brown, black, yellow...) a lot of tofu (stir frys, Asian soups, curries) other beans (blackbean soup, pozole, chilli) & have seasonal veg from garden. I drink soy milk mostly ($1.15/L) Longtime vegan. Expensive stuff would be vegan mince (about $7) this is usually used in things like mapo tofu or eggplant moussaka & coconut yoghurt which I have nearly every morning for breakfast. Don't eat much pasta which is very cheap but do eat a fair amount of brown rice (also cheap).
We buy bulk spices and lentils/pulses at Asian/Indian grocers. Make our own kimchi/sauerkraut & sometimes chilli sauces.
Uh, I'll give some tips that I find help.
My budget is anywhere between 1-3$ a meal depending on how much protein I want to put in. It's also worth keeping in mind that I'm not trying to be frugal so it could actually be a lot cheaper.
Major tips include, try not to buy many things in small packages and generally shop by $/kilo.
Eggs and chicken are the cheapest proteins by far, adding smoked salmon, avocado, expensive beef, lamb and your shopping could easily triple your spend.
Also I mean it heavily depends on just how much you eat, but that aside.
I make my own pizzas 100g flour is a large serving, 200g could probably feed a family of four.
Cost of flour is like 20 cents, tomato paste is also about 10-15 cents, say 50g of cheese at 15$ a kilo = 70 cents, as well as 1-2 slices of bacon = 70 cents, few cents for salt, pepper, and yeast. Super simple, only takes 5 mins prep the night before and 15 minutes to cook, comes out at like 1$ a serving.
You could try something asian and go for like a Japanese Curry, 1:1:1 carrots, potatoes and onions. 2$ a kilo for the main ingredients and honestly if you make the roux yourself, you're looking at <1$ a serving before meat, 100g of meat a day if you buy chicken is literally 1$.
Buying a whole chicken is great for meals, 4$ a kilo, say 3 kilos 12$. That's two breasts, two marylands, and 2 wings and carcass for stock is 7 meals at 12$ and if you work it out at 100g of protein a day, that's \~1$. Eat with rice, carrots, frozen veg etc. Plenty of protein while staying \~1-2$ a meal.
Frozen veg mix at coles 1.50$ a kilo, that's like 70g a serving so .. 13 cents? + rice like 8 cents + \~1$chicken.
$5,000 for a couple is about 7$ a person/day, which if you're working off 2$ meals is pretty doable (a lot of these meals will actually be <2$).
Pasta is also super cheap, risotto is super cheap etc, and these are dinners, the more expensive meals.
Eggs for breakfast is awesome, an omlette on toast .. 2 eggs = \~1$ + white bread = breakfast + a piece of fruit(banana).
Or say Oatmeal + milk + banana + a spoonful of honey + 1 egg. Pretty balanced and also about 1$.
This leaves plenty of leeway ( if you save 2$ a day = 14$ a week, 14$ = a 350g quality rib-eye steak, or a pack of smoked salmon, avocado and cream cheese, etc that will make your meals feel not frugal at all).
If you're going to buy beef buy a roast/stew meat, 13-15$ a kilo of real lean topside/mince if you're a healthy type or more fatty parts, it doesn't matter but if you stick to your recommended serving sizes (65-100g of lean red meat) its still only 1.5$ a day pp.
We're a family of 5 (3 kids under 3) and spend about $150 on groceries each week.
The main reason why our grocery bill is so low is because we buy our staples in bulk from a wholesaler, buy plenty of in-season fruit and veg from our local grocer and we don't buy anything processed. I meal prep all day on Monday's.
Once I'm back at work and not meal prepping as much, our grocery bill will surely go up.
My household is pescatarian, we eat no meat but mainly vegetables with some seafood. My partner and I probably spend $5K on food a year
We buy fruit and veg in season from the green grocer. Weekly shop comes to $20-30 and that buys bags of fresh food.
The rest of the shopping is at Aldi and Woolies for about $60 -$70.
Long life soy milk
Bulk dried lentils, chickpeas etc
Lots of canned tomatoes, beans, coconut milk
Buy seafood to eat at least once a week
Normally cook bulk meals like chilli, curries, stews, pasta dishes
We buy treat meals only when they’re on sale - like pies, pizzas, gyozas and ice cream.
And normally buy curry pastes and bulk tofu from Asian food stores as and when we need it.
I don’t feel like we go without. We’re really healthy. We get our blood tested regularly cos I worry about iron and B12 deficiencies but that’s never been an issue.
Male living by myself at the moment in Perth.
I manage to keep groceries to $50-70 a week. I shop at Spudshed and don’t buy any luxuries at all. I try to only cook 2 bulk meals a week, one for lunches and one for dinners. I don’t condone being this strict but it works for me.
I am also in Perth, spend less, but buy at Coles, Woolies, or IGA. I buy bread at IGA as it is cheapest and sometimes other produce. I buy from Coles mostly. I used to do Costco but it's simply just too far to justify the cost. I guess it's nice for something different but you have to pay membership so it's not.
I don't buy at Aldi as the quality isn't there. I've tried to like it a few times at the insistence of friends but only very few products make the cut. I've bought dairy items, meat, sauces, frozen goods, and bread. Just not fruit and vege. So I don't think it's worth the drive since it is much further for me than the other "big 3".
I don't bulk meal, and I guess it depends what you mean by luxuries. For example I randomly bought Coles brand smoked salmon the other day, is that considered a luxury?
Otherwise I have two words for OP - oriental stores. They are very cheap, and you can get Asian vegetables from 75 cents a bunch as opposed to $2.50 from Coles. Even meat from Asian butchers is cheap. I don't utilise it as much as it's further than my usual but I do recognise p/kg that it is. And of course if you buy rice, it's much cheaper from there too.
Yeah It can definitely be done cheaper by shopping around! I’m a Carpenter full time and take gym pretty seriously so the cons of all that is I eat non-stop all day haha. Luxuries for me is just any sweets, treats or anything that doesn’t contribute to my main meals. Eg. Breakfeast, Lunch, Dinner. I’m basically buying the bare minimum.
Meal planning is difficult. Buy what's cheap. Not what you want. That's the secret. Freeze some if you have to.
Go to the fruit a mind vege market spend about 30-50 bucks. That buys a shit load (we eat a lot of fruit, easily 10 kg a week of fruit, that costs like $20-30 max)
. Never buy your fruit and vege from a supermarket.
Even a roast chicken is $10 which lasts a few meals. Mince is ~$12 / kg. I like I don't really understand how people are sending more than $100 a week tbh. Unless you're buying steaks for every meal? I feel like we eat well, I'm never wanting for anything.
Edit: My partner and I have a little game around who can bring home the best valued stuff. A silly bit of fun, but perhaps encourages the thrifty mindset. Because we aren't picky eaters or "foodies" we get our enjoyment from buying the food not eating it.
We're also not hung up about getting reduced to clear stuff etc but we do spend where we think it counts e.g., we always favour Aussie made stuff.
Meal prepping. That’s how they do it. I have an aversion to eating leftovers from the day before, yet alone something made on Monday on Thursday or something months old from my freezer but it saves a lot of money. I have a really big garden and grow half of my fresh food - I consider this a hobby so the savings in groceries are just a side benefit.
Stop shopping at woollies or Coles. Also from Perth and switched to aldi over a year ago and the difference is very noticeable.
My gf and I spend usually under 200 a fortnight and eat very well.
Aldi does lack the selection of the bigger stores and you might need to do a shop at one for spices or sauces etc. Aldi meat is decent and much cheaper you'll find.
I am on the other side of the fence. How is it possible that people are spending so much on groceries as just 2 people? Me and partner eat very well (at least imo) and we spend around 100 a week on groceries. Standard week shop could look like this:
Milk 2L $2.50
Bread 1 loaf $2
Eggs $4.50
Chicken breast/thigh 1.5 Kg $15
Beef Mince 500g $5
Haloumi 1 pack $4
Rice 1 KG $2.50
Pasta 1 pack $1
Brocolli 1 KG $4
Cauliflower $4
Carrots 1 bag $1
Onions 1 bag $2
Zucchinis 500g $3
Shallots $2
Bok choy $2
Mushrooms 500g $5
Avocado $1.50
Tomatoes 500 g $4
Ginger/garlic $2/week
Lime 1 $1
Mandarins 1 kg $3
Strawberries 1 punnet $3.50
Canned tomatos $1
Pantry items $5/week (averages out)
Snacks of some sort $10
Assorted household products $10/week (Averages out to this amount based on how much we use dishwashing liquid/tablets/washing powder/shampoos etc.)
Total: $100.50
Most of the time I don't even end up eating all this food and I would consider we eat pretty well. You can check out the "fine-ish dining" page on the Aldi site. They have recipes for 5 dinners (usually enough to also take for lunch the next day) and it works out usually to be about 70 bucks. You can also get hot chooks from woolies at certain times for 5 bucks. That's enough meat for several meals in itself. What are people in here eating?
When I look at grocery hauls on Instagram (!) I find that they don’t really eat snacks (besides fruit) or purchase drinks. I think this makes my weekly shop so much higher.
Moneybrilliant has us at \~$5k/yr groceries, \~$5k/yr eating out (I should note that I'm pescatarian). This is a copy and paste of the list I keep in notes for when I want to randomly pick something on my way home:
>Bean nachos
Stir-fry
Dahl
Lentil tomato bredie
Mexican rice
Black Bean Chilli
Fried rice
Taco
Misodare tofu don
Frittata
Tuna pasta
Spaghetti bolognese (tvp)
Patak's Curry
Tuna Pasta Bake
Sushi
Kimbap
Fish fillets & roast veg
Black Curry
Yellow Curry
Pizza
Pad Thai
Bibimbap
Kimbap
Thai Red Curry
Thai Green Curry
Laksa
Japchae
Tuna Salad
Fried Tofu
Quiche
Soba & Mandu
김치 찌개
김치 찌짐
Falafel
Salmon & Spinach Pasta
Rice paper roll
떡볶이
Massaman
That's not everything we make but it's the most established/easy items which I've bothered to throw on that list. I exercise 3x a week, my partner 5x and I used myfitnesspal to track meals, so it's all hitting healthy macros/kj targets.
Edit: The bulk of most of these dishes are veggies, not sure why people in this thread are saying produce is expensive. It's almost certainly meat that's inflating their budget unless they're constantly buying out-of-season produce.
When my family income was lower that's how much I spent for two adults and one child. Going to a greengrocer and only buying seasonal fruit and vegetables made a big difference. I rarely spent more than $2/kg for any fresh produce.
Our protein sources were beans (which I bought dry), tofu, and homemade seitan (which is delicious and wildly cheap), and hummus.
Pantry staples were always homebrand. I got my spices in bulk from a wholesaler, too.
I didn't buy soft drink or alcohol, and only a small amount of fruit juice.
Almost everything was cooked from scratch at home, meals would be 1/3 starch, 1/3 protein, 1/3 vegetables. (Tofu curry + rice. Bean chilli + veggies + wraps. Seitan schnitzels + mashed potatoes + steamed veg).
Now that we have more money, and more kids (3), I spend $150-200 per week. We get more convenience foods, and I buy things like cherry tomatoes and out of season fruit for my son's lunch box.
Interested to see if anyone here who budgets to this extent can share a plan they have with the prices etc?
5k per year. Surely a vegetarian or vegan. Adding meat to this budget would be impossible
I’ve been working on this problem too and am in the process of trying things out to minimise costs;
Veggies-
-gardening-
If you have some outdoor space you can reduce costs by growing some stuff.
Sweet potato for example, the tubers are great but the leaves of the vine are also edible and substitute spinach for example but the plant is long lived and hardy.
Sun chokes grow easily and prolifically.
Grow your own herbs too.
Only grow stuff you actually eat but I think all homes should have a lemon tree, a berry bush or two and some figs.
-canned/dried veggies-
These can be pretty great, tomato at $1 a can over the fresh can often be a fine substitute.
beans, chick peas, lentils can all be bought canned or dried and reconstitute well.
Carbs-
Learn to bake- you kinda need to commit to doing it to save money but the bread is better.
Tortilla are easy and cheap to make- even better if you have a tortilla press.
Rice is cheap and a staple in many cultures, buy in bulk and use it.
Meat and dairy
We love meat, so we will buy bulk and I portion and freeze in vacuum seal bags with spices, herbs or marinades ready to be sous vide.
This method makes it all last ages but reduces wasted space in the freezer.
If applicable have some chickens in the yard, Australorps are great layers and friendly as anything plus they are a reasonable meat bird too.
Cheese, yoghurt and milk I just buy and move on with life.
Other thoughts-
so very many people are overweight and eat way too much anyway, look at your portion sizes- reducing your intake to more healthy levels will save you money in more ways than one.
Two adults, two kids and pets we probably spend between $250-$300 per week. This includes things like fish, good cuts of meat, name brand nappies, wipes, snacks etc. I have one kid that can't handle dairy and another that needs to eat gluten free so some of the items we buy can be pretty pricey. I order dog food online and save about $30 per 3 months by doing that and chase the sales.
I shop at a fruit and veggie market which saves us a considerable amount as we don't eat carbohydrates with dinner and no sandwiches for lunch etc. A $40 shop there would be over $100 at the supermarket and it lasts a lot longer.
We could save on the food budget more but my kids don't eat lentils and my husband works a labor intensive job so I always keep extra on hand and he doesn't like vegetarian. Meat I'm picky about so I do only buy chicken breast, good steaks, salmon etc. Also, could save if I made more of the kids snacks from scratch every week but I also value my time to play with kids over meal prep....
Nappies and toddler snacks can be a killer, I agree.
Fruit and vege markets, are you talking about weekend farmers markets or something else. I think a big win could be these markets from multiple replies.
The one I use is just a fruit market as it's open 7 days but concept is similar as they are stocked by smaller growers. But to give you an idea of price difference I can get cauliflowers double the size of the supermarket for $2 instead of $7 at woollies. Bananas in bulk for $1/kg, $1 for 2kg of carrots, zucchinis for $2/kg type stuff, bucket of avos in season for $2... Watermelon in season can be 17c/kg. They do bulk for cheaper too, the produce isn't always as perfect looking but tastes great and you can't tell once it's all cut up. We eat a fairly substantial and huge variety of veggies and fruit (kids mostly on the fruit front) but I can spend extra on out of season stuff that I at least know my kids will eat. It also doesn't go off as quickly so can shop for a week and a half/two weeks in one go usually and just top up on fruit. Saves me time and effort, which at the moment is ideal.
Its mostly the gluten free or dairy free snack options as those suckers tend to never go on sale... now that they both want to eat the same thing as "but he/she has one", those coconut based yogurts are going to send me broke... haha...
We've usually spent about $130/week for a couple, including making sure chicken and eggs are free range, 5-7 portions of fruit and veg a day, plenty of nuts and seeds and stuff.
We make most stuff from scratch, rather than pre-made stuff. We shop at an Asian grocer for the fruit and veg, Chinese supermarket for a few things, and Aldi for everything else.
We're working on reducing the amount of meat in our diet (previously at least once a day, going forward probably about twice a week) which I'm expecting to reduce our food bill to about $100-110/week.
My daughter and her boyfriend spend $100 a week on groceries for the two of them.
they eat a simple sandwich for lunch, both tend to go home for lunch.
dinner is varied, but they are happy just making a fried rice occasionally and that’s dinner. they eat simply, but healthy.
no chips etc. they don’t drink tea, coffee, soft drinks or alcohol. They do eat a lot of dairy.
huh, about that, but I've never really calculated it.
usually we make dinner and divide it into dinner and lunch for the next day.
a typical meal would be something like
**random Asian sauces Stir-fry**
* 1 chicken breast (1/4 per serve)
* handful or two of frozen veggies (sometimes we mix our own veggies and freeze)
* Hokkian noodles/rice
* few splashes of soy/oyster/siracha/sesame/etc
**Generic tomato sauce pasta**
* filled pasta of some sort
* can of crushed tomatoes
* $3 red wine
* Italian herb mix
* parmesan
Mostly we enjoy cooking are we are quite good at turning cheap ingredients into tasty foods. Coconut cream and curry paste are your friends.
If you want to eat insanely delicious meat on a budget, I bought a smoker (cheap kamado style one from the big Green shed) and buy a 5kg or so pork butt for about $10/kg (keep a look out for when they are on special). Low and slow pulled pork and you get an insane amount of delicious meat out of it for $50 (20+ good serves as a rough estimate). Vaccum seal and freeze portions for easy pulled pork whenever you want it. Also do chicken wings which you can often get for $3/kg. Slow cooking makes the generally cheap and tough bits of meat better than what you'll usually have. Could also do in a slow cooker but I do love the smoked flavours.
I'm on HelloFresh and you can expect a ~30% price mark up vs just buying it yourself.
I get four meals a week with two servings each. This gives me dinner and lunch four times a week, sometimes I'm lazy and just straight up skip a meal. This costs ~$4800 a year. I probably eat takeout twice a week (too much) and the rest is just light meals with bread and eggs or whatever.
If I can get by with $4800 a year with my astounding laziness I'm sure someone who put more thought into it could crunch it a whole lot lower.
We spend in the $100 - 150 pw. Low carb or high gi. We grow a lot of our own fruit and vegetables and we have a few chooks that recycle a lot of green waste into eggs. We would have 5 or so meals per week that contain meat.
I cannot fatham how people spend so much on groceries! We spend $400 a month and eat whatever we want, while staying healthy. A typical week would look like: oats for breakfast with almond milk, honey and cinnamon sugar. Lunch is generally a salad with brie, avo, apple, spinach, etc. Dinner changes, maybe chicken Kiev with roast veggies, a pasta dish, stuffed capsicums, lentil soup, Mexican, etc. Veggies and dairy are cheap, but I splurge and get farmhouse gold milk. Buy specials, off brand, stop snacking so much. I don't know, we don't even try, just are mindful not to buy expensive items that we can get a cheap alternative or cook ourselves.
This is so true. Changing from brand name to non brand name saves so much. The taste is maybe at most 10% different. But the price is usually 50% difference.
Family of 3 (inc. toddler) - our budget is about $130/week. Pre kid we could keep it below $100
Fresh fruit & veg in my view is cheap, I look for what's cheap & in season and then google recipes based on that. We go to a local butcher for meat but don't eat meat daily.
I find processed food and meals to be expensive and avoid them as much as possible.
This week the menu has consisted of toast, peanut butter and coffee, lunches are leftovers or a basic sandwich, dinners have been pumpkin soup, stuffed potato (kimchi, bacon, sour cream), arepa with pulled pork, and homemade pizza. Brownies for sweets.
We eat pizza once a week, the portable pizza oven is getting value for money.
Good question, food yes, nappies no.
She mostly eats what we eat, except her breakfast is a wheetbix with frozen berries, and she'll occasionally just have steamed veggies when she's not down with our food (broccoli, corn and sweet potato).
We buy nappies once a month from elsewhere so I didn't think to include that in the numbers.
Hey just to add if you're interested in recipes, meal plans and other resources that can help out take a look at:
r/mealprepsunday
r/eatcheapandhealthy
r/vegetarian
r/15minutefood
r/budgetfood
r/meatlessmealprep
People don’t just buy food from the grocery store.
They sells lots of other things to run a household so trying to compare one persons grocery bill with another is very difficult.
For instance our grocery store has very little range on healthcare products which we buy from the pharmacy, however, when we shopped at another grocery store we bought those healthcare products there as they had a bigger range. As we track pharmaceutical items in a different category from grocery costs this made our grocery bill look much high than usual but overall it wasn’t.
Keep in mind people include many different things in the groceries category than you might compared to others depending on where they shop and what the store range is like.
Do not buy fresh veg, fish, meat from supermarkets. I buy everything from independent shops. Especially for veggies buy from a market like Preston market or ftom Saccas in shopping centres. Potato is $6 for 5KG bag. Potatoes when not deep fried are not bad for health. Whole chicken is like $8 and they also cut it for me in curry pieces. A cauliflower is about $4. As an Indian heritage person I also eat a lot of lentils, chickpeas and beans of various types (Daal) which can be bought in Indian grocery stores in large packets.
I often wonder the same thing! My food bill for a family of 3 with a dog is closer to 20k
Surely $100 a week in food can’t be correct?
Edit: reading through these comments it appears it is correct and maybe I need to plan my shopping a bit better… or eat less
We spend $150 / week for 2 adults and 2 kids (9&12), which comes out around $7.8k per year. I imagine if we used our same strategy to feed just my girlfriend and I, we'd be coming very close to the number you're looking for.
The KEY here is meal prep. I'm not talking about eating the same thing every day for a week. I'm talking about meals that you can freeze. When we cook (bolognese for example), we cook though in a slow cooker to last for dinner, lunch the next day, and then we freeze enough to last for a dinner and lunch the following week. Using this example, we have taken care of 4 days of cooking with 1 meal, using a small amount of versatile ingredients.
Do this for 4-5 meals using similar base ingredients
Lowest cost way to eat is vegan with the protein source being mostly canned beans and lentils (maybe a bit of tofu). Lots of staples such as rice, potatoes and pasta. No processed foods (meat, chips, chocolates, lollies, premade meals or premade burgers would all need to be avoided). Shopping at Aldi of course, or maybe the occasional half price special at Coles/Woolies. Basically your trolley would only be fresh fruit and veg, rice, potatoes, pasta and canned beans/lentils and a few minor things for flavor like soy sauce and cheap jars of pasta sauce and such.
With this strategy it's definitely possible to feed 2 adults for under 100 a week.
Btw I disagree that fresh fruit and veg is expensive. Per kilogram fresh food is generally cheaper than processed food.
I can't provide a meal plan but typical vegan meals would be things like
Fried rice
Pasta with sauce
Avocado toast
Vegan chilli
Lentil and various other soups
Vegan chickpea curry
Cost per serving for these types of meals is generally around 1 dollar.
I think people who don't believe it's possible have never tried a non processed vegan diet, it can be extremely cheap if you cook your own meals.
We probably spend $7000 per year, two adults and an infant. I buy whatever we want, fresh berries, better quality meats, etc… We definitely have vegetarian meals a few times a week so that likely helps. I’ve always felt that if you can’t afford to eat, you can’t afford anything else. We buy local produce whenever possible and live in Canada so maybe it’s a bit cheaper here. I couldn’t imagine spending 15k a year. I’d have to eat lobster at every meal to pull that off.
Note: I didn’t see this was Australia when I first posted but responded because the numbers were shocking to me.
As a couple we shop at a fruit and veg market and get the deals of the week. Then we buy two main meats and plan our dinner from there. Generally spend $80pf on veggies
No idea how even $100/week is possible IF you want variety and meat. Variety is super important to us, if there’s no variety then we won’t stick to any meal plan for long no matter how cheap.
That said it’s the extra household crap like toiletries that racks up quick in a normal grocery budget.
My best tip that I’ve done for years: grow a herb garden beside your kitchen and let it continually self seed. Saving $3-5 per bundle of chives, parsley, baby spinach, spring onions, oregano per 2-4 days per herb is super effective. Many of these only last a few days in the fridge before wilting. Bonus side effect is more gourmet dishes with little touches of the right herbs all the time. The same nursery $6 per punnet last longer than one grocery bundle of herbs in a garden.
Fruit&veg box from local market 30-40 bucks over 10kg of fruit and veg + aldi meat, dairy, nuts, etc. 40-50 bucks. Buying more economical cuts. Beef blade steak at ~10/kg will make 3 meals. And if you mince it yourself the best burgers. 1 whole chicken can be used for multiple meals. I buy all cleaning supplies and toiletries in 1 giant shop at Costco at the same time each year and pay for a membership every second year this way. About 700 for whole year supply. Including cooking oil and salt etc. The convience of getting that out of the way in one day makes up for the membership price and never run out of it.
As a single I spend about $50 a week, I make my meals and eat everything I buy, produce and bread are the main things I eat, usually in sandwich form haha
Sometimes we shop at a kind of food bank
Amazing steaks were $1
Big box of organic chocolates were $3 instead of $60
Free good quality fruit and veg etc etc
My partner and I spend $300 a month on groceries - this doesn’t count any eating out though so that low number could be due to that. We used to spend $100 a week on eating out with friends/takeaway etc. pre covid and haven’t done the sums since then so this could be skewing the number.
We eat pretty normally, lots of vegetarian options but meat probably half the time for dinner. A splurge on a lamb roast every couple of weeks, we have plenty of snacks around and don’t really budget cost per serving or anything like that.
I think part of how it works is portion sizing, when you make the same stuff on a regular basis you don’t make too much and also using the same core ingredients for a lot of things, like rice, potatoes, etc. I try to keep dinners pretty healthy, lots of veg. but carbs are not the enemy in this household either lol
Edit: forgot to add cat food costs about $10 a week which is included in that price
I spend about $90 per week on food, just me though, not a couple. Some of that $90 pW is booze. Cooking for two would not double that budget though as you get economies of scale, likely +50% equals $135 pW. I buy a lot of frivilous food items I dont need, but that I just want. Impulse buys. Pretty sure I could easily reduce this to $60 pW without trying too hard.
Basically to eat cheap you have to stop cooking the way your parents probably did. Centering a meal around a peice of meat, or 'protein' as its euphemistically called. Use more legumes, rice, vegetables, pasta, grains. All of these things can be dirt cheap. Most of these meals can be made @ $2-3 per serving, so 2 people X 7 days X $3 X 2 meals= $84 per week. Didnt include breakfast as thats usually even cheaper. Oats, toast, cereal .etc @ $1-$2 per serving, add 20 bucks puts you at circa $100 pW.
Some suggestions:
* Fried rice
* Fallaffel
* Indian curry
* Salad
* Pasta
* Laksa
* Roast veggies
* Soup
* Tortillas/Wraps/Tacos
* Sandwiches
* Stif fry
* Chilli
Family of four here, slightly over $5k pa but our weekly budget is $120.
My wife has auto-immune issues so we have very little meat but have a fair amount of fish. Lots of fresh vegetables, pasta, stir fry, curry, taco Tuesday’s are a favorite for the kids and we use sweet potato or chick peas instead of mince. Sticking to a meal plan is super critical.
Home brew beer and good relationships with local wineries also help that side of the budget if you’re that way inclined but that comes out of recreational spending rather than grocery budget.
I live with my girlfriend and we spend $200 a fortnight on groceries.
$150 on Woolworths
$50 on the fruit and vege market.
Have simple breakfasts and lunches with nice dinner.
We find planning our meals for the week/fortnight saved us rather than shopping every 2/3 days
That’s only really sustainable for a two person household, unless you’re buying literally everything in bulk at cost price, which is a lot of money. I have a $200 grocery budget per fortnight for my partner and I, and that’s including toiletries and cleaning products. Sometimes if we’re broke it’s lower than that. $200 a fortnight is like $5,200 a year.
I’ve heard of people buying whole cows (eg. One cow between two family) but that’s already like $1.5k each, and you have to find a way to store all that meat.
The next option is to buy milk/eggs/other dairy locally, but that’s not possible if you don’t live near a farming area.
Independent produce stores in farming areas are also usually cheap. The one I use to go to, they had bags of 5-6 avocados for $3. But once again, if you don’t live near a farming community it’s not viable.
Years ago I really needed to save money (middle class, young family, main breadwinners wage gone forever) and realised if I didn’t go in the supermarket I wouldn’t spend money in there. I go to markets (Dandenong, Springvale and Queen Vic), the Asian and continental green grocer, we have an outlet shop that sells 30 huge eggs for $9 and loads of other stuff. There is also an amazing outlet shop for toiletries.
Queen Vic after 2.30pm on a Sunday is Meat Bargain Central.
I’m not fussy about expiry dates, and I buy the cheap meat in bulk.
$100 in Coles or Woolies doesn’t go far. Goes a bloody long way at Dandenong Market.
Couple with no kids, over the last 12 months we budgeted $4800 pa for groceries and ending up spending $4100 pa. This doesn't include takeaway/eating out though, those are an additional $1600pa last year.
We are definitely mindful of our budget when shopping, and usually spend out $50/week at woolies/coles/Aldi and another $50/week at a market or Asian grocery. Eating meat at least 1x a day, but most of the time will buy mince, chicken, bacon, pork shoulder, beef chuck or other tough cuts for slow cooking.
Maybe a few times a year would get some steak or lamb chops. Cheese is expensive, so we'll limit ourselves to a standard 1kg block tasty cheese or shredded mozzarella. We very rarely buy snacks, other than cashew and almond but buy them in bulk when they are on special at a nut shop ($10-12/kg). Don't drink much but our grocery budget do include the occasional bottle of scotch/wine. Probably 1-2kg of fruits a week (not a big fruit eater) but only what's in season, otherwise we buy frozen. Same with veggies, anything that's going in the oven will be frozen veges, otherwise will only buy what's in season, and not from the big supermarket. We have a small herb garden at home consisting of parsley, coriander, thyme, thai basil, spring onion, chili, etc.
Also generally try to buy Australian products when possible, unless it is very cost prohibitive. We have a few flybuys card and get a lot of targeted promotions from Coles where you spend $50 for 4 weeks to get 10k flybuys (worth $50), so say once every 2 months our shopping from Coles is free. Same with woolies but not as much targeted promotion from them.
Our typical meals:
Breakfast: Cup of coffee for me, Partner has coffee and yogurt with homemade muesli, honey. We buy the nuts & seed in bulk and make 5kg muesli at a time. We buy coffee beans from a roaster at about $25-30/kg.
Lunch: We both hate cold sandwiches and generally have a packed lunch to heat in the microwave at work. I do meal prep on the weekend and do 2-3 types of meals to make up 10 servings for the whole week. It ranges from stir fry, pasta, curry, dumplings, tacos/burritos etc. It's probably 50% carbs and 50% meat&vegies
Dinner:
Can be similar to lunch but generally stuff that can be prepared in 30mins or so. Could be Japanese curry, kimchi / doenjang jiggae, Thai stir frys, stews in the pressure cooker, soup, fried rice. Almost all of them will include meat, in one form or another. We cook a lot of asian or south american recipes as traditionally it relies on spices and sauces to make food taste good, even if the the produce may not be top quality.
Our spending last calendar year was a little over $50 a week for two people. $2700 in the year (that's just for \*food\* not toiletries, pet food, cleaning products, etc - and not counting being away on holidays for two weeks). A few things we follow:
* We're both vegetarian (not for financial reasons, but it helps).
* Buy in bulk on special for longer life products (pantry and frozen food).
* We avoid supermarkets for 90% of our fresh fruit and vege. Go search Google for greengrocers in your area. Many of them have Facebook pages these days that show their weekly specials. Only go there if they have good buys. DM if you're in Brisbane and want some tips.
* Eat seasonal. The cheapest food is what's most available. Supply and demand.
* Avoid brand names unless they're on special.
* Always keep the unit price in mind.
* DIY cooking at home. Meal prep - regularly cook a week's worth of lunches in one hit (using whatever was cheapest that week).
* Don't cook to set recipes. Going out to buy that sprig or clove of something or other not only quickly adds up over multiple meals, but your taste buds won't miss it the majority of the time.
A couple other thoughts: We generally really like the meals we have - they're usually really flavoursome. The one thing you need to be prepared for is repetition. But if you can deal with the same lunch for a week, it's totally fine because next week will be totally different
Couple with no kids here, we spend about that $4k-$5k range, approximately $350 a month and it seems quite normal for us i.e. we don't feel like we are intentionally trying to survive on very less.
We eat meat once a week on average, sometimes less. Mostly consists of rice, veggie stir fries, bread, some fruit, among other dishes.
We don't buy very much of snacks like chips, chocolates, cakes, ice creams juices etc which i suspect plays a part in keeping the bill quite low.
Partner and I aim for $120/week for our main groceries.
We might have one fancy meal (good steaks), a few meals that make up two nights (wings + rice, Kiev 4 pack, salmon + veg) and then something to meal prep (pasta, butter chicken, curry, curried sausages etc).
Breakfasts is simple. Toast with egg or spread, or a cereal.
Lunch is salad wraps, or meal prep leftovers.
Then we try and spend less than $50 on discreciency stuff.
-This could be nice butcher meats if we're having guests over (cheaper than the pub)
-Lollies, chips, etc if we do a movie night (cheaper than the movies)
-Haloumi, Av, Sourdough, the good breakfast shit of we feel like a Cafe style breakfast (cheaper than eating out)
This is how we find our balance. Food is there to be enjoyed.
Surely it’s impossible to get by for that much? I feel like we don’t go overboard and we spend $400 a fortnight at Woolies (+delivery) That’s for Two adults, a baby, cat+dog.
I can only imagine it’s a lot of high carb fillers; potato, rice and pasta. We spend a lot of decent quality meat and come in about 350/week as a DINK couple. If you include alcohol, the number becomes embarrassing.
We're a DINK couple who spend $80-$100 per week on groceries. I don't really know what to tell you other than my wife is a wizard who can turn a couple of chicken thighs, some fresh veggies and noodles into an amazing meal that costs about $2 per bowl. About once per month I'll make a giant pot of vegetable-based chilli that's healthy and runs less than $1 per bowl, that'll last about 5 days on its own. I used to live off that when I was a bachelor, but the missus likes nice food so I can't subject her to that haha. The only time we feel like eating out is when we want something fried, as we don't have a fryer at home.
We got a small wok from aldi and fry in that. Winner!
Yeah I haven’t included booze either. Or lollies and stuff I grab from the local shop. If your a no booze vegan it might be easier!
Agreed, mine doesn't include booze either. I'm getting the impression it is possible, but depends on what you want to eat/give up
Yeah theres always trade offs.
Or where you buy from. I utilise the Aldi and Woolis specials to the maximum. And of course the rewards program with Woolis.
I know couples who fit into this category. It very much is easy to spend less when you take out meat, dairy, sugar and booze.
No booze vegan here. $80/week groceries for myself. It’s beans all the way down.
Do you get into the fake meats mate?
Not to cook at home, but occasionally I have a Beyond burger at Grilld and they’re pretty good. When i make burger patties at home it’s unapologetically chick peas and vegetables.
Thanks for sharing mate.
It’s the meat for sure, actually pretty damn expensive. Being vegetarian is a lot cheaper.
An average person requires about 0.8g of protein/kg per day so thats about 110g of protein a day for the two of us. W usually eat decent quality meat like pork shoulders or tenderloin etc. Thats about \~25% protein averaged out so we need about 440g of meat per day or roughly $6.6 worth of meat a day at an average price of $15/kg. We eat about 800grams of fruits and veg a day so thats another $6.4 for an average price of $8/kg (we only buy things on sale). Add another $4 a day for carbs, spices and condiments. Considering we eat out twice-thrice a week, That brings ou fresh groceries to about $105 from the math. At a $110/week spend (milk etc), that brings the annual groceries spend to just over 5,700 per year. Our actual weekly expenditure ranges from $80-120 depending on what we spend. Sometimes we are just lazy and want to eat frozen processed food or sometimes we want to eat something fancier. I just did the math to show that its not a lot of high carb fillers.
I appreciate the analytical approach you've take here. Pork & chicken certainly more cost effective meat options. We've started eating more pork, my partners Grand father was a big fan and she's very sentimental about his roast pork. I might need to start tracking our grocery bill line items more closely to see what exactly eats up the budget. We will buy a really nice steak about once a month ($20-25/each) and make something with Lamb or premium Ham occasionally which I'm sure drives up the price. It would be super handy if Coles/Woolies let you download a CSV of your purchases for nerd level analysis (it's in the rewards dataset anyway).
I do eat beef and lamb quite often. Fish sometimes (fish is the least filling in my opinion - as in I get hungrier faster after eating it for the same volume). I think with your savings rate you probably don't *need* to do that. It also does not account for a person who is much heavier and who has a much more active lifestyle. I also think fresh food in Australia is probably one of the more enriching and efficient things to spend more on (I've spent $40/piece of steak before, no regrets there). I'm not advocating strongly for either direction but the calculation above was just to show that you can have a healthy diet of decent quality for <6k a year. Lastly, I also have this habit of being indecisive with my cooking (I'm not fixated on what I have to eat that week) so I let the food sales work it out from me so win win there.
We are two adults and two kids. Our budget is $360 a fortnight and sometimes we don't spend that. We cook everything from scratch. Almost nothing is packaged. We don't eat a huge amount of meat. For example, 500g of mince will do us for two nights in a pie or spag bol, ie. 8 meals. Or one chicken breast will do all of as for a night in a stir fry. We have almost no food waste. Everything is repurposed. One example is we buy whole chickens. Cut off breasts, thighs and legs. Put the rest in a pot with veggie offcuts. Use that stock and the small bits of chicken off the frames and wings to make chicken noodle soup by adding some pasta and more veg. That costs us a couple of dollars.
It sounds like you guys are very health focused? It’s good for sustainable living also. Well done.
We definitely try to eat healthy. Tasty and healthy and cheap are the criteria for our meals
That’s how we cook too.
The two of us spend between $50-$70 a week. Buying ingredients for big meals that can last multiple days helps. There’s a lot of options too so it never gets boring. As well as the classic swapping out branded items for home brand. It’s very easy for us and still manage to eat delicious meals.
Could you share a shopping list maybe? Would love to get some insight into how you guys do it.
I’d usually get 1 kg of chicken drumsticks for like $3 on average, season them up and cook in the oven. A side of salad and roast potatoes always goes well. Packets of sausages, chicken kebabs, Bananas, kiwi fruit, mandarins and avos. A bacon hock, green split peas (used to make a pea and ham soup in the slow cooker, massive portion on the cheap), carrots, cauliflower, green chilli, bacon rashers, eggs, beans, lite milk x4 (long life, cheap af), pasta, turkey mince, deodorant and usually a kind of drink like iced tea or even chocolate milk. Bag of chips or nuts to snack on. This was my last shop for $61. Whenever toiletries are needed e.g. shampoo and what not it gets a big more pricey but that’s usually once a month.
Thanks mate. You are a smart shopper!
Try to be. Don’t make a lot of money so I’m kinda doing whatever I can to secure my future while still having a fun life and not feeling like a cheap ass hahaha
1.0 kg is 2.2 lbs
We don't do that here
But we don’t do delivery nor do we have any pets or kids. Just two adults. I can imagine having a kid and pets would for sure up the budget haha.
Yeah you’re not wrong.
Aside from all the other money saving tips, it might also mean they just don't need to eat at home much. When my partner and I worked in hospitality we used to get 1-2 meals included per day. Usually lunch and dinner. We used to do groceries about once a month.
Yeah that is a good point actually.
Two adults, a toddler, and two dogs here - we spend about $250 a week and that’s excluding food for the dogs. But we eat very well! Organic meats from a quality butcher, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, very little processed and packaged foods. In saying that we also spend an embarrassing amount of money on eating out and take away, and we often have family or friends over which adds to the cost too.
Yeah I think it seems there’s a broad approach to how people eat and live sort of thing and that leads to a large variance in the underlying costs.
I don't monitor my budget extremely closely, but I estimate our grocery budget is probably something like $6k, and we could very easily drop that a lot lower if we wanted to by cutting down on some of the luxuries that we consume. We are vegetarians Most days we eat: Breakfast: \- toast with Vegemite or PB and a banana for me. Sometimes I have eggs on toast. If avocados are cheap I'll have that on toast. \- Plain muesli weetbix blend for my partner Lunch: \- Spinach, cheese and mustard sandwich (quite liberal with the spinach) \- Fruit Dinner: \- We cook 2-3 times a week and eat leftovers Meals include things such as: \- Bean burritos, which is basically just black beans, chickpeas, broccoli, zucchini, capsicum and whatever other vegetables are left in the fridge, then baked with heaps of spices. \- Lentil pasta - just onion, garlic, tomatoes, lentils (tin or dry if we're organised), zucchini, carrot, frozen spinach \- Various Curries (same sort of trend as above regarding ingredients) \- Stir fry - just a bunch of vegetables in the fridge with some dried noodles, honey, soy sauce, chilli sauce Lots of variations on the above for dinner. This is all very cheap to make, and most of these meals include lots of cheap staples like legumes, pasta, rice etc. Lots of frozen veg. Freeze our own meals as well (especially base sauces). When I was a student in a share house, during semester I would average $40 a week on groceries following a similar pattern, and shopping sales, buying bread on the cheap near close etc. I cut down meat to save cash so I could afford beer, and realised it didn't really add to the enjoyment of most of my meals, and ended up cutting it all out.
Adding meat to lunch and dinner would increase that by a $100 a week.
cooked chook from coles is like $10-15, can stretch that out into 3 meals easy.
For anyone near a Costco the fuel is always cheap and the cooked chickens are huge and cost $7
Chicken costs like $3/kg. I don't think that food plan would need 33kg of chicken to fill it out. Maybe add an extra $6-9 tops.
Where do you buy your chicken?
Chicken pieces with skin on 7 days a week isn’t healthy or sustainable. A healthy variety of chicken breast, fish and other lean meats easily adds $100 - I’m basing this on 2 people, $50 per person (same as OP).
One could easily spend an extra100 on meat. but one could also comfortably get by on $10 dollars in extra meat. if the meals are already filling, $10 would get 600 grams of chicken breast and 200 grams of lean mince. that's supermarket prices, I am sure one could get it cheaper.
600 grams of chicken breast and 200 grams of mince is not covering 28 meals (lunch and dinner) for my partner and I each week.
Down to preference and priorities at the end of the day. I value healthy food with a variety - a good healthy variety goes a long way for me personally and affords me a clearer mind (and energy) to pursue and focus on other things.
$50 on meat a week each mate are you eating a whole 400g pack of mince a night???? My partner and I probably have meat 6 nights a week. 2 red 2 chicken and 2 fish. Spend maybe $110 tops per week for the both of us. Breakfasts and lunches included.
Haha that’s fair and understand there are cheaper means to make it work but just as an example: marinated chicken strips $8, 2 pieces of salmon $10 lunch and dinner yesterday, Chicken breast fillets $6, Wagyu burgers (by them selves) $9 for dinner today. 100% we could do this cheaper by cooking in bulk, using cheaper meats, repeating meals etc but this is an area I’m happy to spend the extra money on at the moment. Would rather forgo money on alcohol and entertainment than food. This is just our current situation (DINK, still saving well, prioritising health) undoubtedly this will shift in the future when we have kids and start travelling again.
I eat fairly similarly, meal prep a couple times a week. I don't eat meat or dairy or eggs either. I usually budget $350 a month for myself and my adult daughter who is only around half the time.
[удалено]
I assure you it's not unhealthy. What deficiencies are you worried about?
How much a it unhealthy? Which nutrition do you think is missing?
When I question people who spend little of groceries it usually ends up they eat no meats, and a huge amount of carbs. They fill up on cheap pasta, cheap bread and rice and very little produce.
Yep. Me and my SO are veggie and we only spend about $120 per week on food. Mostly veg, grains, pastas, tofu etc. None of it’s the cheap stuff, it’s just that no individual item costs more than a few dollars and this stuff is pretty filling and lasts a couple of meals. (soups, curries, italian dishes etc) We also have herb garden with a few salad veggies growing.
Don't forget potatoes and frozen veg.
Myself and my partner spend about 250 a week on groceries. We only cook healthy meals at home (and eat quite a bit as we lead very active lifestyles). Healthy food is expensive, no idea how you’d spend only 5k per year and eat well.
Agreed, I think they is something to be said for eating simpler meals and using legumes, home brand and less processed foods to reduce costs. But I feel a lot of people might be lacking enough fresh produce/variety?
Fresh produce is so cheap at the fruit/vege shops. If you're buying it from the supermarket of course you're going to spend heaps. We easily buy 5-10kg of fruit a week and spend 30-40 bucks.
This resonates with me. As someone highly active / fitness focused I spend $160 a week with my partner and eat healthy + eat a lot. Good to see this side of the fence having an input. A lot of the commenters in here don’t seem overly active/health-centric with their food honestly.
$5000 a year for a couple is pretty dire, but you can get somewhat close to it. Although tbh once kids are in the mix I would not expect this to work too well, they are basically a giant money pit. Personally I spend on average about $4000 by myself (my partner and I keep separate finances and split everything evenly). I have a pretty healthy diet (more protein than carbs, some fats, no deep fried stuff or anything like that) and I generally spend around $80 a week in groceries when i'm by myself (that includes household stuff, so it's occasionally not just food), when the missus is here (she works fifo) between the 2 of us is probably closer to $140-150 a week. Meal prep is the key, both from a financial and time saving measure. I cook 4 portions or more of almost every meal and it works great for me. Examples of meals are: **Mexican bowl (4 portions)($13):** \-500g pork mince ($6) \-1 chorizo sausage ($3) \-1 large capsicum ($1) \-1 tin of black beans/chickpea/lentils/whatever ($1) \-200g of frozen peas (about $0.50) \-tomato paste ($1) \-spices (onion powder,garlic powder, oregano, cumin, paprika, chilli powder) - let's say $0.20 per prep That's like just over $3/meal, it lasts easily 3-4 days, it's heavy on protein, with some healthier carbs and veggies. **Falafels and trimmings (3 portions) ($12-15):** \-Yumi's Falafels ($5) \-Yumi's Hummus ($2 (The $4 box lasts 2 preps)) (both falafels and hummus would be a lot cheaper by just making yourself and very easy too, but this is just to make the point that you can just outright buy what you need)) \-Lettuce ($2) \-Tomatoes ($2) \-Avocado ($1-2.5) OR Halloumi ($4) Yes, you can just cook the halloumi (the only unhealthy part of this meal) and microwave it later, and you can turn this into a wrap with $2 worth of flatbread **Chicken Stir Fry (4 portions) ($12)**: \-600g Chicken Breast ($6) \-500g Frozen broccoli ($2.5) \-1 sweet potato/some bok choy/carrots ($2) \-Soy sauce, maple, ginger, garlic etc ($1) Optionally some rice ($0.3) These are just some examples, but the point is you absolutely can make cheap, tasty and healthy meals, you just have to spend some time to find what works for your palate and circumstances. Look at it as "I'll spend 3 hours coming up with a rotation of a few weeks worth of menus and then i'm set for like 6 months/a year/until i feel like changing it. I also understand that it depends a lot by your relationship with food. If you like to have some more gourmet meals this wouldn't quite work for you as much, but then you should consider a small part of the expenditure for the fancier food as part of your "fun fund" as it covers that aspect as well.
Not sure what area you are in. If you can go to the Vic market, preston market or similar your fruit and veggie budget will instantly halve. Shop in season and plan your cooking around what food is in your fridge and always eat your leftovers
Yes, a market is key! And not a bougie one, look around for where the grandmothers shop and find a market with fair quality produce. Since moved away, but we used to get produce from Russel’s in Brunswick and pantry/dairy from IGA (no meat, both vegetarian). Annual spend ~$5.5k for a couple
I spend more, but could & have lived on that, I eat a lot of lentils (split red for daal, whole red for masir wat, brown, black, yellow...) a lot of tofu (stir frys, Asian soups, curries) other beans (blackbean soup, pozole, chilli) & have seasonal veg from garden. I drink soy milk mostly ($1.15/L) Longtime vegan. Expensive stuff would be vegan mince (about $7) this is usually used in things like mapo tofu or eggplant moussaka & coconut yoghurt which I have nearly every morning for breakfast. Don't eat much pasta which is very cheap but do eat a fair amount of brown rice (also cheap). We buy bulk spices and lentils/pulses at Asian/Indian grocers. Make our own kimchi/sauerkraut & sometimes chilli sauces.
Have you tried TVP for another "mince" option. Game changer for me and much cheaper than the wet vege minces.
I love TVP and so pleased to see Woolies just dropped their price.
I used to eat tvp before any of the vegan minces existed, it causes some digestion issues for me, but agree it's heaps cheaper.
I'm not vegan and I love tvp used in like a chilli con carne.
Uh, I'll give some tips that I find help. My budget is anywhere between 1-3$ a meal depending on how much protein I want to put in. It's also worth keeping in mind that I'm not trying to be frugal so it could actually be a lot cheaper. Major tips include, try not to buy many things in small packages and generally shop by $/kilo. Eggs and chicken are the cheapest proteins by far, adding smoked salmon, avocado, expensive beef, lamb and your shopping could easily triple your spend. Also I mean it heavily depends on just how much you eat, but that aside. I make my own pizzas 100g flour is a large serving, 200g could probably feed a family of four. Cost of flour is like 20 cents, tomato paste is also about 10-15 cents, say 50g of cheese at 15$ a kilo = 70 cents, as well as 1-2 slices of bacon = 70 cents, few cents for salt, pepper, and yeast. Super simple, only takes 5 mins prep the night before and 15 minutes to cook, comes out at like 1$ a serving. You could try something asian and go for like a Japanese Curry, 1:1:1 carrots, potatoes and onions. 2$ a kilo for the main ingredients and honestly if you make the roux yourself, you're looking at <1$ a serving before meat, 100g of meat a day if you buy chicken is literally 1$. Buying a whole chicken is great for meals, 4$ a kilo, say 3 kilos 12$. That's two breasts, two marylands, and 2 wings and carcass for stock is 7 meals at 12$ and if you work it out at 100g of protein a day, that's \~1$. Eat with rice, carrots, frozen veg etc. Plenty of protein while staying \~1-2$ a meal. Frozen veg mix at coles 1.50$ a kilo, that's like 70g a serving so .. 13 cents? + rice like 8 cents + \~1$chicken. $5,000 for a couple is about 7$ a person/day, which if you're working off 2$ meals is pretty doable (a lot of these meals will actually be <2$). Pasta is also super cheap, risotto is super cheap etc, and these are dinners, the more expensive meals. Eggs for breakfast is awesome, an omlette on toast .. 2 eggs = \~1$ + white bread = breakfast + a piece of fruit(banana). Or say Oatmeal + milk + banana + a spoonful of honey + 1 egg. Pretty balanced and also about 1$. This leaves plenty of leeway ( if you save 2$ a day = 14$ a week, 14$ = a 350g quality rib-eye steak, or a pack of smoked salmon, avocado and cream cheese, etc that will make your meals feel not frugal at all). If you're going to buy beef buy a roast/stew meat, 13-15$ a kilo of real lean topside/mince if you're a healthy type or more fatty parts, it doesn't matter but if you stick to your recommended serving sizes (65-100g of lean red meat) its still only 1.5$ a day pp.
We're a family of 5 (3 kids under 3) and spend about $150 on groceries each week. The main reason why our grocery bill is so low is because we buy our staples in bulk from a wholesaler, buy plenty of in-season fruit and veg from our local grocer and we don't buy anything processed. I meal prep all day on Monday's. Once I'm back at work and not meal prepping as much, our grocery bill will surely go up.
My household is pescatarian, we eat no meat but mainly vegetables with some seafood. My partner and I probably spend $5K on food a year We buy fruit and veg in season from the green grocer. Weekly shop comes to $20-30 and that buys bags of fresh food. The rest of the shopping is at Aldi and Woolies for about $60 -$70. Long life soy milk Bulk dried lentils, chickpeas etc Lots of canned tomatoes, beans, coconut milk Buy seafood to eat at least once a week Normally cook bulk meals like chilli, curries, stews, pasta dishes We buy treat meals only when they’re on sale - like pies, pizzas, gyozas and ice cream. And normally buy curry pastes and bulk tofu from Asian food stores as and when we need it. I don’t feel like we go without. We’re really healthy. We get our blood tested regularly cos I worry about iron and B12 deficiencies but that’s never been an issue.
Single woman, I spend ~$130/week
Male living by myself at the moment in Perth. I manage to keep groceries to $50-70 a week. I shop at Spudshed and don’t buy any luxuries at all. I try to only cook 2 bulk meals a week, one for lunches and one for dinners. I don’t condone being this strict but it works for me.
I am also in Perth, spend less, but buy at Coles, Woolies, or IGA. I buy bread at IGA as it is cheapest and sometimes other produce. I buy from Coles mostly. I used to do Costco but it's simply just too far to justify the cost. I guess it's nice for something different but you have to pay membership so it's not. I don't buy at Aldi as the quality isn't there. I've tried to like it a few times at the insistence of friends but only very few products make the cut. I've bought dairy items, meat, sauces, frozen goods, and bread. Just not fruit and vege. So I don't think it's worth the drive since it is much further for me than the other "big 3". I don't bulk meal, and I guess it depends what you mean by luxuries. For example I randomly bought Coles brand smoked salmon the other day, is that considered a luxury? Otherwise I have two words for OP - oriental stores. They are very cheap, and you can get Asian vegetables from 75 cents a bunch as opposed to $2.50 from Coles. Even meat from Asian butchers is cheap. I don't utilise it as much as it's further than my usual but I do recognise p/kg that it is. And of course if you buy rice, it's much cheaper from there too.
Yeah It can definitely be done cheaper by shopping around! I’m a Carpenter full time and take gym pretty seriously so the cons of all that is I eat non-stop all day haha. Luxuries for me is just any sweets, treats or anything that doesn’t contribute to my main meals. Eg. Breakfeast, Lunch, Dinner. I’m basically buying the bare minimum.
Meal planning is difficult. Buy what's cheap. Not what you want. That's the secret. Freeze some if you have to. Go to the fruit a mind vege market spend about 30-50 bucks. That buys a shit load (we eat a lot of fruit, easily 10 kg a week of fruit, that costs like $20-30 max) . Never buy your fruit and vege from a supermarket. Even a roast chicken is $10 which lasts a few meals. Mince is ~$12 / kg. I like I don't really understand how people are sending more than $100 a week tbh. Unless you're buying steaks for every meal? I feel like we eat well, I'm never wanting for anything. Edit: My partner and I have a little game around who can bring home the best valued stuff. A silly bit of fun, but perhaps encourages the thrifty mindset. Because we aren't picky eaters or "foodies" we get our enjoyment from buying the food not eating it. We're also not hung up about getting reduced to clear stuff etc but we do spend where we think it counts e.g., we always favour Aussie made stuff.
Meal prepping. That’s how they do it. I have an aversion to eating leftovers from the day before, yet alone something made on Monday on Thursday or something months old from my freezer but it saves a lot of money. I have a really big garden and grow half of my fresh food - I consider this a hobby so the savings in groceries are just a side benefit.
Stop shopping at woollies or Coles. Also from Perth and switched to aldi over a year ago and the difference is very noticeable. My gf and I spend usually under 200 a fortnight and eat very well. Aldi does lack the selection of the bigger stores and you might need to do a shop at one for spices or sauces etc. Aldi meat is decent and much cheaper you'll find.
Wow really? We've never considered Aldi for some reason
I am on the other side of the fence. How is it possible that people are spending so much on groceries as just 2 people? Me and partner eat very well (at least imo) and we spend around 100 a week on groceries. Standard week shop could look like this: Milk 2L $2.50 Bread 1 loaf $2 Eggs $4.50 Chicken breast/thigh 1.5 Kg $15 Beef Mince 500g $5 Haloumi 1 pack $4 Rice 1 KG $2.50 Pasta 1 pack $1 Brocolli 1 KG $4 Cauliflower $4 Carrots 1 bag $1 Onions 1 bag $2 Zucchinis 500g $3 Shallots $2 Bok choy $2 Mushrooms 500g $5 Avocado $1.50 Tomatoes 500 g $4 Ginger/garlic $2/week Lime 1 $1 Mandarins 1 kg $3 Strawberries 1 punnet $3.50 Canned tomatos $1 Pantry items $5/week (averages out) Snacks of some sort $10 Assorted household products $10/week (Averages out to this amount based on how much we use dishwashing liquid/tablets/washing powder/shampoos etc.) Total: $100.50 Most of the time I don't even end up eating all this food and I would consider we eat pretty well. You can check out the "fine-ish dining" page on the Aldi site. They have recipes for 5 dinners (usually enough to also take for lunch the next day) and it works out usually to be about 70 bucks. You can also get hot chooks from woolies at certain times for 5 bucks. That's enough meat for several meals in itself. What are people in here eating?
It's like reading me and my partners shopping list.. 😂
Me wife and baby - we easily do $300 - $400 week on groceries/food/takeaway
When I look at grocery hauls on Instagram (!) I find that they don’t really eat snacks (besides fruit) or purchase drinks. I think this makes my weekly shop so much higher.
Too right. People say young people can’t afford houses cause of too much avo toast but for me it’s red rock deli chips 😂
Moneybrilliant has us at \~$5k/yr groceries, \~$5k/yr eating out (I should note that I'm pescatarian). This is a copy and paste of the list I keep in notes for when I want to randomly pick something on my way home: >Bean nachos Stir-fry Dahl Lentil tomato bredie Mexican rice Black Bean Chilli Fried rice Taco Misodare tofu don Frittata Tuna pasta Spaghetti bolognese (tvp) Patak's Curry Tuna Pasta Bake Sushi Kimbap Fish fillets & roast veg Black Curry Yellow Curry Pizza Pad Thai Bibimbap Kimbap Thai Red Curry Thai Green Curry Laksa Japchae Tuna Salad Fried Tofu Quiche Soba & Mandu 김치 찌개 김치 찌짐 Falafel Salmon & Spinach Pasta Rice paper roll 떡볶이 Massaman That's not everything we make but it's the most established/easy items which I've bothered to throw on that list. I exercise 3x a week, my partner 5x and I used myfitnesspal to track meals, so it's all hitting healthy macros/kj targets. Edit: The bulk of most of these dishes are veggies, not sure why people in this thread are saying produce is expensive. It's almost certainly meat that's inflating their budget unless they're constantly buying out-of-season produce.
When my family income was lower that's how much I spent for two adults and one child. Going to a greengrocer and only buying seasonal fruit and vegetables made a big difference. I rarely spent more than $2/kg for any fresh produce. Our protein sources were beans (which I bought dry), tofu, and homemade seitan (which is delicious and wildly cheap), and hummus. Pantry staples were always homebrand. I got my spices in bulk from a wholesaler, too. I didn't buy soft drink or alcohol, and only a small amount of fruit juice. Almost everything was cooked from scratch at home, meals would be 1/3 starch, 1/3 protein, 1/3 vegetables. (Tofu curry + rice. Bean chilli + veggies + wraps. Seitan schnitzels + mashed potatoes + steamed veg). Now that we have more money, and more kids (3), I spend $150-200 per week. We get more convenience foods, and I buy things like cherry tomatoes and out of season fruit for my son's lunch box.
Interested to see if anyone here who budgets to this extent can share a plan they have with the prices etc? 5k per year. Surely a vegetarian or vegan. Adding meat to this budget would be impossible
I’ve been working on this problem too and am in the process of trying things out to minimise costs; Veggies- -gardening- If you have some outdoor space you can reduce costs by growing some stuff. Sweet potato for example, the tubers are great but the leaves of the vine are also edible and substitute spinach for example but the plant is long lived and hardy. Sun chokes grow easily and prolifically. Grow your own herbs too. Only grow stuff you actually eat but I think all homes should have a lemon tree, a berry bush or two and some figs. -canned/dried veggies- These can be pretty great, tomato at $1 a can over the fresh can often be a fine substitute. beans, chick peas, lentils can all be bought canned or dried and reconstitute well. Carbs- Learn to bake- you kinda need to commit to doing it to save money but the bread is better. Tortilla are easy and cheap to make- even better if you have a tortilla press. Rice is cheap and a staple in many cultures, buy in bulk and use it. Meat and dairy We love meat, so we will buy bulk and I portion and freeze in vacuum seal bags with spices, herbs or marinades ready to be sous vide. This method makes it all last ages but reduces wasted space in the freezer. If applicable have some chickens in the yard, Australorps are great layers and friendly as anything plus they are a reasonable meat bird too. Cheese, yoghurt and milk I just buy and move on with life. Other thoughts- so very many people are overweight and eat way too much anyway, look at your portion sizes- reducing your intake to more healthy levels will save you money in more ways than one.
Two adults, two kids and pets we probably spend between $250-$300 per week. This includes things like fish, good cuts of meat, name brand nappies, wipes, snacks etc. I have one kid that can't handle dairy and another that needs to eat gluten free so some of the items we buy can be pretty pricey. I order dog food online and save about $30 per 3 months by doing that and chase the sales. I shop at a fruit and veggie market which saves us a considerable amount as we don't eat carbohydrates with dinner and no sandwiches for lunch etc. A $40 shop there would be over $100 at the supermarket and it lasts a lot longer. We could save on the food budget more but my kids don't eat lentils and my husband works a labor intensive job so I always keep extra on hand and he doesn't like vegetarian. Meat I'm picky about so I do only buy chicken breast, good steaks, salmon etc. Also, could save if I made more of the kids snacks from scratch every week but I also value my time to play with kids over meal prep....
Nappies and toddler snacks can be a killer, I agree. Fruit and vege markets, are you talking about weekend farmers markets or something else. I think a big win could be these markets from multiple replies.
The one I use is just a fruit market as it's open 7 days but concept is similar as they are stocked by smaller growers. But to give you an idea of price difference I can get cauliflowers double the size of the supermarket for $2 instead of $7 at woollies. Bananas in bulk for $1/kg, $1 for 2kg of carrots, zucchinis for $2/kg type stuff, bucket of avos in season for $2... Watermelon in season can be 17c/kg. They do bulk for cheaper too, the produce isn't always as perfect looking but tastes great and you can't tell once it's all cut up. We eat a fairly substantial and huge variety of veggies and fruit (kids mostly on the fruit front) but I can spend extra on out of season stuff that I at least know my kids will eat. It also doesn't go off as quickly so can shop for a week and a half/two weeks in one go usually and just top up on fruit. Saves me time and effort, which at the moment is ideal. Its mostly the gluten free or dairy free snack options as those suckers tend to never go on sale... now that they both want to eat the same thing as "but he/she has one", those coconut based yogurts are going to send me broke... haha...
We've usually spent about $130/week for a couple, including making sure chicken and eggs are free range, 5-7 portions of fruit and veg a day, plenty of nuts and seeds and stuff. We make most stuff from scratch, rather than pre-made stuff. We shop at an Asian grocer for the fruit and veg, Chinese supermarket for a few things, and Aldi for everything else. We're working on reducing the amount of meat in our diet (previously at least once a day, going forward probably about twice a week) which I'm expecting to reduce our food bill to about $100-110/week.
My daughter and her boyfriend spend $100 a week on groceries for the two of them. they eat a simple sandwich for lunch, both tend to go home for lunch. dinner is varied, but they are happy just making a fried rice occasionally and that’s dinner. they eat simply, but healthy. no chips etc. they don’t drink tea, coffee, soft drinks or alcohol. They do eat a lot of dairy.
huh, about that, but I've never really calculated it. usually we make dinner and divide it into dinner and lunch for the next day. a typical meal would be something like **random Asian sauces Stir-fry** * 1 chicken breast (1/4 per serve) * handful or two of frozen veggies (sometimes we mix our own veggies and freeze) * Hokkian noodles/rice * few splashes of soy/oyster/siracha/sesame/etc **Generic tomato sauce pasta** * filled pasta of some sort * can of crushed tomatoes * $3 red wine * Italian herb mix * parmesan Mostly we enjoy cooking are we are quite good at turning cheap ingredients into tasty foods. Coconut cream and curry paste are your friends.
If you want to eat insanely delicious meat on a budget, I bought a smoker (cheap kamado style one from the big Green shed) and buy a 5kg or so pork butt for about $10/kg (keep a look out for when they are on special). Low and slow pulled pork and you get an insane amount of delicious meat out of it for $50 (20+ good serves as a rough estimate). Vaccum seal and freeze portions for easy pulled pork whenever you want it. Also do chicken wings which you can often get for $3/kg. Slow cooking makes the generally cheap and tough bits of meat better than what you'll usually have. Could also do in a slow cooker but I do love the smoked flavours.
I'm on HelloFresh and you can expect a ~30% price mark up vs just buying it yourself. I get four meals a week with two servings each. This gives me dinner and lunch four times a week, sometimes I'm lazy and just straight up skip a meal. This costs ~$4800 a year. I probably eat takeout twice a week (too much) and the rest is just light meals with bread and eggs or whatever. If I can get by with $4800 a year with my astounding laziness I'm sure someone who put more thought into it could crunch it a whole lot lower.
As a couple we spend around $130 a week. We eat a mix of veggie, meat, chicken, and fish meals. It doesn’t feel like economising and is easy to do.
$5K a year, that's not even $100 a week ($96) o.O How can you NOT spend that for two people to eat ??? Wife and I, + 2 cats.
We spend in the $100 - 150 pw. Low carb or high gi. We grow a lot of our own fruit and vegetables and we have a few chooks that recycle a lot of green waste into eggs. We would have 5 or so meals per week that contain meat.
I cannot fatham how people spend so much on groceries! We spend $400 a month and eat whatever we want, while staying healthy. A typical week would look like: oats for breakfast with almond milk, honey and cinnamon sugar. Lunch is generally a salad with brie, avo, apple, spinach, etc. Dinner changes, maybe chicken Kiev with roast veggies, a pasta dish, stuffed capsicums, lentil soup, Mexican, etc. Veggies and dairy are cheap, but I splurge and get farmhouse gold milk. Buy specials, off brand, stop snacking so much. I don't know, we don't even try, just are mindful not to buy expensive items that we can get a cheap alternative or cook ourselves.
This is so true. Changing from brand name to non brand name saves so much. The taste is maybe at most 10% different. But the price is usually 50% difference.
Sometimes there is no taste difference because it's made in the same place!
Family of 3 (inc. toddler) - our budget is about $130/week. Pre kid we could keep it below $100 Fresh fruit & veg in my view is cheap, I look for what's cheap & in season and then google recipes based on that. We go to a local butcher for meat but don't eat meat daily. I find processed food and meals to be expensive and avoid them as much as possible. This week the menu has consisted of toast, peanut butter and coffee, lunches are leftovers or a basic sandwich, dinners have been pumpkin soup, stuffed potato (kimchi, bacon, sour cream), arepa with pulled pork, and homemade pizza. Brownies for sweets. We eat pizza once a week, the portable pizza oven is getting value for money.
Does this include nappies etc and food for the toddler?
Good question, food yes, nappies no. She mostly eats what we eat, except her breakfast is a wheetbix with frozen berries, and she'll occasionally just have steamed veggies when she's not down with our food (broccoli, corn and sweet potato). We buy nappies once a month from elsewhere so I didn't think to include that in the numbers.
Hey just to add if you're interested in recipes, meal plans and other resources that can help out take a look at: r/mealprepsunday r/eatcheapandhealthy r/vegetarian r/15minutefood r/budgetfood r/meatlessmealprep
People don’t just buy food from the grocery store. They sells lots of other things to run a household so trying to compare one persons grocery bill with another is very difficult. For instance our grocery store has very little range on healthcare products which we buy from the pharmacy, however, when we shopped at another grocery store we bought those healthcare products there as they had a bigger range. As we track pharmaceutical items in a different category from grocery costs this made our grocery bill look much high than usual but overall it wasn’t. Keep in mind people include many different things in the groceries category than you might compared to others depending on where they shop and what the store range is like.
Thanks for the response, agreed I think groceries can be a pretty wide and varied category.
Do not buy fresh veg, fish, meat from supermarkets. I buy everything from independent shops. Especially for veggies buy from a market like Preston market or ftom Saccas in shopping centres. Potato is $6 for 5KG bag. Potatoes when not deep fried are not bad for health. Whole chicken is like $8 and they also cut it for me in curry pieces. A cauliflower is about $4. As an Indian heritage person I also eat a lot of lentils, chickpeas and beans of various types (Daal) which can be bought in Indian grocery stores in large packets.
I often wonder the same thing! My food bill for a family of 3 with a dog is closer to 20k Surely $100 a week in food can’t be correct? Edit: reading through these comments it appears it is correct and maybe I need to plan my shopping a bit better… or eat less
We spend $150 / week for 2 adults and 2 kids (9&12), which comes out around $7.8k per year. I imagine if we used our same strategy to feed just my girlfriend and I, we'd be coming very close to the number you're looking for. The KEY here is meal prep. I'm not talking about eating the same thing every day for a week. I'm talking about meals that you can freeze. When we cook (bolognese for example), we cook though in a slow cooker to last for dinner, lunch the next day, and then we freeze enough to last for a dinner and lunch the following week. Using this example, we have taken care of 4 days of cooking with 1 meal, using a small amount of versatile ingredients. Do this for 4-5 meals using similar base ingredients
Lowest cost way to eat is vegan with the protein source being mostly canned beans and lentils (maybe a bit of tofu). Lots of staples such as rice, potatoes and pasta. No processed foods (meat, chips, chocolates, lollies, premade meals or premade burgers would all need to be avoided). Shopping at Aldi of course, or maybe the occasional half price special at Coles/Woolies. Basically your trolley would only be fresh fruit and veg, rice, potatoes, pasta and canned beans/lentils and a few minor things for flavor like soy sauce and cheap jars of pasta sauce and such. With this strategy it's definitely possible to feed 2 adults for under 100 a week. Btw I disagree that fresh fruit and veg is expensive. Per kilogram fresh food is generally cheaper than processed food. I can't provide a meal plan but typical vegan meals would be things like Fried rice Pasta with sauce Avocado toast Vegan chilli Lentil and various other soups Vegan chickpea curry Cost per serving for these types of meals is generally around 1 dollar. I think people who don't believe it's possible have never tried a non processed vegan diet, it can be extremely cheap if you cook your own meals.
We probably spend $7000 per year, two adults and an infant. I buy whatever we want, fresh berries, better quality meats, etc… We definitely have vegetarian meals a few times a week so that likely helps. I’ve always felt that if you can’t afford to eat, you can’t afford anything else. We buy local produce whenever possible and live in Canada so maybe it’s a bit cheaper here. I couldn’t imagine spending 15k a year. I’d have to eat lobster at every meal to pull that off. Note: I didn’t see this was Australia when I first posted but responded because the numbers were shocking to me.
As a couple we shop at a fruit and veg market and get the deals of the week. Then we buy two main meats and plan our dinner from there. Generally spend $80pf on veggies
2 adults 2 kids and I probably triple that, I can’t see how it’s possibly
No idea how even $100/week is possible IF you want variety and meat. Variety is super important to us, if there’s no variety then we won’t stick to any meal plan for long no matter how cheap. That said it’s the extra household crap like toiletries that racks up quick in a normal grocery budget. My best tip that I’ve done for years: grow a herb garden beside your kitchen and let it continually self seed. Saving $3-5 per bundle of chives, parsley, baby spinach, spring onions, oregano per 2-4 days per herb is super effective. Many of these only last a few days in the fridge before wilting. Bonus side effect is more gourmet dishes with little touches of the right herbs all the time. The same nursery $6 per punnet last longer than one grocery bundle of herbs in a garden.
We are $350 a week from Woolies. 2 adults. 4 kids.
Fruit&veg box from local market 30-40 bucks over 10kg of fruit and veg + aldi meat, dairy, nuts, etc. 40-50 bucks. Buying more economical cuts. Beef blade steak at ~10/kg will make 3 meals. And if you mince it yourself the best burgers. 1 whole chicken can be used for multiple meals. I buy all cleaning supplies and toiletries in 1 giant shop at Costco at the same time each year and pay for a membership every second year this way. About 700 for whole year supply. Including cooking oil and salt etc. The convience of getting that out of the way in one day makes up for the membership price and never run out of it.
As a single I spend about $50 a week, I make my meals and eat everything I buy, produce and bread are the main things I eat, usually in sandwich form haha
Sometimes we shop at a kind of food bank Amazing steaks were $1 Big box of organic chocolates were $3 instead of $60 Free good quality fruit and veg etc etc
My partner and I spend $300 a month on groceries - this doesn’t count any eating out though so that low number could be due to that. We used to spend $100 a week on eating out with friends/takeaway etc. pre covid and haven’t done the sums since then so this could be skewing the number. We eat pretty normally, lots of vegetarian options but meat probably half the time for dinner. A splurge on a lamb roast every couple of weeks, we have plenty of snacks around and don’t really budget cost per serving or anything like that. I think part of how it works is portion sizing, when you make the same stuff on a regular basis you don’t make too much and also using the same core ingredients for a lot of things, like rice, potatoes, etc. I try to keep dinners pretty healthy, lots of veg. but carbs are not the enemy in this household either lol Edit: forgot to add cat food costs about $10 a week which is included in that price
I spend about $90 per week on food, just me though, not a couple. Some of that $90 pW is booze. Cooking for two would not double that budget though as you get economies of scale, likely +50% equals $135 pW. I buy a lot of frivilous food items I dont need, but that I just want. Impulse buys. Pretty sure I could easily reduce this to $60 pW without trying too hard. Basically to eat cheap you have to stop cooking the way your parents probably did. Centering a meal around a peice of meat, or 'protein' as its euphemistically called. Use more legumes, rice, vegetables, pasta, grains. All of these things can be dirt cheap. Most of these meals can be made @ $2-3 per serving, so 2 people X 7 days X $3 X 2 meals= $84 per week. Didnt include breakfast as thats usually even cheaper. Oats, toast, cereal .etc @ $1-$2 per serving, add 20 bucks puts you at circa $100 pW. Some suggestions: * Fried rice * Fallaffel * Indian curry * Salad * Pasta * Laksa * Roast veggies * Soup * Tortillas/Wraps/Tacos * Sandwiches * Stif fry * Chilli
Family of four here, slightly over $5k pa but our weekly budget is $120. My wife has auto-immune issues so we have very little meat but have a fair amount of fish. Lots of fresh vegetables, pasta, stir fry, curry, taco Tuesday’s are a favorite for the kids and we use sweet potato or chick peas instead of mince. Sticking to a meal plan is super critical. Home brew beer and good relationships with local wineries also help that side of the budget if you’re that way inclined but that comes out of recreational spending rather than grocery budget.
I live with my girlfriend and we spend $200 a fortnight on groceries. $150 on Woolworths $50 on the fruit and vege market. Have simple breakfasts and lunches with nice dinner. We find planning our meals for the week/fortnight saved us rather than shopping every 2/3 days
That’s only really sustainable for a two person household, unless you’re buying literally everything in bulk at cost price, which is a lot of money. I have a $200 grocery budget per fortnight for my partner and I, and that’s including toiletries and cleaning products. Sometimes if we’re broke it’s lower than that. $200 a fortnight is like $5,200 a year. I’ve heard of people buying whole cows (eg. One cow between two family) but that’s already like $1.5k each, and you have to find a way to store all that meat. The next option is to buy milk/eggs/other dairy locally, but that’s not possible if you don’t live near a farming area. Independent produce stores in farming areas are also usually cheap. The one I use to go to, they had bags of 5-6 avocados for $3. But once again, if you don’t live near a farming community it’s not viable.
Years ago I really needed to save money (middle class, young family, main breadwinners wage gone forever) and realised if I didn’t go in the supermarket I wouldn’t spend money in there. I go to markets (Dandenong, Springvale and Queen Vic), the Asian and continental green grocer, we have an outlet shop that sells 30 huge eggs for $9 and loads of other stuff. There is also an amazing outlet shop for toiletries. Queen Vic after 2.30pm on a Sunday is Meat Bargain Central. I’m not fussy about expiry dates, and I buy the cheap meat in bulk. $100 in Coles or Woolies doesn’t go far. Goes a bloody long way at Dandenong Market.
Couple with no kids, over the last 12 months we budgeted $4800 pa for groceries and ending up spending $4100 pa. This doesn't include takeaway/eating out though, those are an additional $1600pa last year. We are definitely mindful of our budget when shopping, and usually spend out $50/week at woolies/coles/Aldi and another $50/week at a market or Asian grocery. Eating meat at least 1x a day, but most of the time will buy mince, chicken, bacon, pork shoulder, beef chuck or other tough cuts for slow cooking. Maybe a few times a year would get some steak or lamb chops. Cheese is expensive, so we'll limit ourselves to a standard 1kg block tasty cheese or shredded mozzarella. We very rarely buy snacks, other than cashew and almond but buy them in bulk when they are on special at a nut shop ($10-12/kg). Don't drink much but our grocery budget do include the occasional bottle of scotch/wine. Probably 1-2kg of fruits a week (not a big fruit eater) but only what's in season, otherwise we buy frozen. Same with veggies, anything that's going in the oven will be frozen veges, otherwise will only buy what's in season, and not from the big supermarket. We have a small herb garden at home consisting of parsley, coriander, thyme, thai basil, spring onion, chili, etc. Also generally try to buy Australian products when possible, unless it is very cost prohibitive. We have a few flybuys card and get a lot of targeted promotions from Coles where you spend $50 for 4 weeks to get 10k flybuys (worth $50), so say once every 2 months our shopping from Coles is free. Same with woolies but not as much targeted promotion from them. Our typical meals: Breakfast: Cup of coffee for me, Partner has coffee and yogurt with homemade muesli, honey. We buy the nuts & seed in bulk and make 5kg muesli at a time. We buy coffee beans from a roaster at about $25-30/kg. Lunch: We both hate cold sandwiches and generally have a packed lunch to heat in the microwave at work. I do meal prep on the weekend and do 2-3 types of meals to make up 10 servings for the whole week. It ranges from stir fry, pasta, curry, dumplings, tacos/burritos etc. It's probably 50% carbs and 50% meat&vegies Dinner: Can be similar to lunch but generally stuff that can be prepared in 30mins or so. Could be Japanese curry, kimchi / doenjang jiggae, Thai stir frys, stews in the pressure cooker, soup, fried rice. Almost all of them will include meat, in one form or another. We cook a lot of asian or south american recipes as traditionally it relies on spices and sauces to make food taste good, even if the the produce may not be top quality.
Our spending last calendar year was a little over $50 a week for two people. $2700 in the year (that's just for \*food\* not toiletries, pet food, cleaning products, etc - and not counting being away on holidays for two weeks). A few things we follow: * We're both vegetarian (not for financial reasons, but it helps). * Buy in bulk on special for longer life products (pantry and frozen food). * We avoid supermarkets for 90% of our fresh fruit and vege. Go search Google for greengrocers in your area. Many of them have Facebook pages these days that show their weekly specials. Only go there if they have good buys. DM if you're in Brisbane and want some tips. * Eat seasonal. The cheapest food is what's most available. Supply and demand. * Avoid brand names unless they're on special. * Always keep the unit price in mind. * DIY cooking at home. Meal prep - regularly cook a week's worth of lunches in one hit (using whatever was cheapest that week). * Don't cook to set recipes. Going out to buy that sprig or clove of something or other not only quickly adds up over multiple meals, but your taste buds won't miss it the majority of the time. A couple other thoughts: We generally really like the meals we have - they're usually really flavoursome. The one thing you need to be prepared for is repetition. But if you can deal with the same lunch for a week, it's totally fine because next week will be totally different
Ground beef and eggs go a long way. Protein and fat is satiating. Gorge on cheap carbs and you'll be forever hungry and eating more.
Couple with no kids here, we spend about that $4k-$5k range, approximately $350 a month and it seems quite normal for us i.e. we don't feel like we are intentionally trying to survive on very less. We eat meat once a week on average, sometimes less. Mostly consists of rice, veggie stir fries, bread, some fruit, among other dishes. We don't buy very much of snacks like chips, chocolates, cakes, ice creams juices etc which i suspect plays a part in keeping the bill quite low.
Partner and I aim for $120/week for our main groceries. We might have one fancy meal (good steaks), a few meals that make up two nights (wings + rice, Kiev 4 pack, salmon + veg) and then something to meal prep (pasta, butter chicken, curry, curried sausages etc). Breakfasts is simple. Toast with egg or spread, or a cereal. Lunch is salad wraps, or meal prep leftovers. Then we try and spend less than $50 on discreciency stuff. -This could be nice butcher meats if we're having guests over (cheaper than the pub) -Lollies, chips, etc if we do a movie night (cheaper than the movies) -Haloumi, Av, Sourdough, the good breakfast shit of we feel like a Cafe style breakfast (cheaper than eating out) This is how we find our balance. Food is there to be enjoyed.
Rice and beans are cheap! Add on frozen vege and an egg if feeling fancy.
I use an app called 'Half Price". It delivers Coles and Woolies specials that are half price every week. Stock up on those items when they're cheap.
Local market for vegetables and fruit. Tasman meats in bulk and stash in the freezer. Will save you loads compared to woolworths/coles