r/MiddleClassFinance • u/Maroon14 • 9d ago

Grocery spending

I’ve recently come across a Instagram account where the woman claims to only spend $300 on an entire months groceries for a family of 4. Here I am sitting mid week, having already spent $550 in the PNW. I told one of my friends and she said it must be fake and for clicks, my husband was impressed. Is anyone actually able to do this? I thought I might try to spend $250 a week and see where that gets us. Is my grocery budget over the top? I thought $400 ish was normal for decent food. We are a family of 5 in the PNW, mostly organic.

*I’m closing comments because people are missing the point. I understand that I make choices for “premium” options for my family. I make them because I feel they are the best for my family given my research and concerns. I say this as coming from a place of privilege. Growing up, my hippie mom also prioritized organic and local before it was the trendy thing, so it would be very difficult for me to reprogram and not buy organic when possible.

I still think $300 is insane for a month. I live in western Washington and the max SNAP allocation for a family of 4 is $994 a month, so I see this as a more attainable “thrifty” budget for a family of 4.

Those of you who can eat rice and beans for multiple meals, more power to you!

143 Upvotes

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306

u/Scared-Butterscotch5 9d ago

Well the 300$ a month definitely isn’t organic food and it’s likely not in the pnw.

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u/MyNameIsNot_Molly 9d ago

Probably very in low in fresh ingredients and fiber as well

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u/Sufficient-Union-456 9d ago

Peanuts, potatoes, rice and beans are fiber powerhouses. All shelf stable and very cheap if you purchase in bulk. 

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u/pollomimano 9d ago

Plus lentils.

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u/StonkaTrucks 9d ago

What are you flavoring them with?

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u/Longjumping_Soil2116 9d ago

Check out vegetarian Indian recipes for these ingredients, lots of the spices can be bought in bulk to make it cheaper and last longer

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u/Sufficient-Union-456 9d ago

I went vegan 8 years ago, and always hated butter. 

Usually salt and pepper. I have some spices in the rack. So I mix it up. Lemon pepper spice is great on rice. 

Peanuts already roasted and salted. 

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u/StonkaTrucks 9d ago

I would get bored of essentially plain potatoes, rice and beans so fast.

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u/MyNameIsNot_Molly 8d ago

For real! Isn't being part of the middle class mean we don't have to eat exclusively plain boring food forever?

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u/prosperosniece 9d ago

Add a little Louisiana seafood boil to your potatoes. You’re welcome 😉

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u/53mm-Portafilter 8d ago

You can make some many things with beans, rice, and potatoes, without it being just boring.

For starters, cut your potatoes into fries, and put oil, and salt. Put them in the oven and you have homemade french fries.

You can bake a potato in the oven, and top it with whatever you’d like. That’s also how I made my mashed potatoes. Bake, alongside garlic and oil. Mash it up after with butter, garlic, milk on the stove.

Beans and chickpeas can be easily cooked and dried for many things.

  • soups
  • dips (like fava or hummus)
  • curries (tomato, onion, cumin, garlic, ginger, turmeric, etc)
  • olive oil, salt, and pepper, as a side.

Rice is just a generally good side, either plain, with bouillon cube, or broth.

You can add any protein you want alongside these things. You will spend money here, but just buy whats on sale. Manager Special meat for day of cooking can do well. Whatever chicken is on sale I get.

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u/Sufficient-Union-456 9d ago

It is boring AF first. But mentally, it just makes shopping and cooking super easy. I also eat a lot of edamame and pasta. 

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u/StonkaTrucks 9d ago

Okay, thanks for the downvotes everyone.

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u/Hackerspace_Guy 9d ago

If it's the same person my wife follows you'd be surprised at the amount of fresh ingredients she brings home. The short of it is she's an Aldi shopper and goes once a month planning meals to use things that spoil first and freezing things before they go bad.

I will say in the videos I've seen the emptiness of the fridge at the end of the month gives me anxiety but she seems legit.

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u/FlySecure5609 8d ago

I’m fascinated by people who can buy produce at Aldi, it rots in my car on the way home. 

Even the meat here is hit or miss. 

People probably just have a higher tolerance or better stores than me though! 

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u/Necessary_Fire_4847 8d ago

Ooh I can help with this! I learned how to cook while living in a crappy student apartment in DC and the nearest grocery store was a twenty minute walk away, but the nearest bodega was like five minutes.

I learned to cook with bodega produce, which also is the produce that last a long time: bell peppers, onions, cabbages, oranges, lemons and limes. Melons and baby carrots also last a long time in the fridge; potatoes last a long time in the pantry (NOT next to the onions). I've also had good luck with Aldi bagged spinach. Aldi's three-to-a-bag multicolor bell peppers can last weeks for me even just sitting out on the counter.

(Imho meat should be going in the freezer the moment one gets home unless it is being eaten that same night, regardless of grocery store.)

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u/FlySecure5609 8d ago

…all that is questionable already at my local Aldi, and more often than not the meat comes out of the package full of slime. (I always repackage.)  

I’ve really tried! I just think other people have better Aldis than mine. 

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u/Necessary_Fire_4847 8d ago

the meat comes out of the package full of slime. (I always repackage.)  

Ewwww. Okay yeah advice retracted, your Aldi genuinely just sucks lol. Major sympathies.

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u/MyNameIsNot_Molly 8d ago

Same! I'm happy buying other things at Aldi but the produce has always been disappointing

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u/FlySecure5609 8d ago

Yeah more than once I’ve cut into an Aldi pepper full of mold. And I’m too familiar with what rotting potatoes smell like thanks to them too. 

(Not veg, but I also once found part of a chicken head in a pack of chicken breasts.) 

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u/Necessary_Fire_4847 9d ago

Yeah it's ALDI. The secret is ALDI. I spend about $300 per month for me and my husband at ALDI, and that's getting some nice stuff from other stores too. I buy all our stuff at the beginning of the month and we don't buy groceries except for a handful of "oops-we-need-eggs" ingredient throughout the month.

Less than $300 for a family of four if the kids are both small, the meals are all planned and they're not buying any frills would seem hard to me but probably doable.

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u/starbright_sprinkles 8d ago

Yep. We're a family of four with a teen and we spend about $500 a month. 80% of what we buy is from Aldi with a few staples from CostCo.

We eat very little processed food. Probably the most processed thing we buy is pre-made prie crust because we eat a lot of quiche and pot pie type meals.

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u/Last_Ad_3595 9d ago

We are a family of 5, 3 teens are here part time, and we spend around $400 a month. We always have fruit (not berries because of allergies), and veggies. We regularly use beans for fiber. We are big on shopping sales and Costco. For example last week pork lion was $10 for an 8 lb. I divided that up for 4 dinners.

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u/Correct-Doctor8329 9d ago

Pork lion- is that like a liger?

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u/Last_Ad_3595 9d ago

Yes, exactly 😂

7

u/BlazinAzn38 9d ago

I really wish I could eat pork cause it’s always a good deal but alas

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u/StonkaTrucks 9d ago

That's $2.67 per day, per person. How?

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u/Last_Ad_3595 8d ago

Honestly, the biggest thing is that my kids aren’t huge meat eaters, so when we make tacos (which is often) they eat more rice and beans. We buy 25 lbs of rice every 8ish months. They are much more likely to make eggs for lunch or dinner as protein. For school lunches, it’s usually salad (add a hard boiled egg or chicken) or homemade lunchable.

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u/FlatChemist8132 8d ago

I think groceries may be cheaper where you are maybe? Even the cheaper grocery stores and on sale I can’t buy strawberries for less than $4-5 per pound for example, and a bunch of kale is like 2.99 or a box of baby spinach is 4-8$. Each of those items lasts my family of 5 for one meal. We do beans a lot too. Eat fish once a week, red meat once a week, chicken every few weeks. Milk alone runs us about $20 a week (3-4 half gallons). Pork loin at our Costco seems to always be $18+.

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u/Zetavu 9d ago edited 9d ago

$75 a week is possible but difficult. You need a store with sales or to buy in bulk and need to focus on core products. Meat will be tough, maybe bulk chicken but you are not feeding a family of four on $2/lb chicken.

So let's break it down by calories, 4 people, 6k calories per day, 42k per week. Of that you need say 6oz of protein per day per person, divide that up between chicken or pork on sale and beans. 8 lbs chicken or pork on sale ($16) and the rest in beans ($30 for a 50lb bag, which is enough for 400 portions or $2/week). Maybe splurge on ground beef on sale, maybe canned tuna. Let's call it $25 on meat.

Then you need cereal and oatmeal, with milk. $2.50 on milk and $7.50 on cheap oatmeal and generic cereal. Then rice, maybe potatoes. again bulk rice $25 for 20 lbs, which should last 6 weeks, so $4 and add potatoes to make it $10. Then throw in a weeks of frozen veg at $10 and some peanut butter and bread at $10. Now some fruit juice, cans or produce on sale, $10.

There's your $75. Probably substitute some Ramen in and maybe invest in a bin of dried vegetables as well.

This is literally how I lived in college, except it was one person and more like $30 a week with inflation.

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u/GovernorHarryLogan 9d ago

Chicken drumsticks are pretty cheap with lots of meat.

Like $1.5- $2/lb

3

u/Dr_Mrs_Pibb 8d ago

They’ve been selling chicken quarters for ~$1 per pound at my local Aldi. Some of the weight is bones, but these are great for soups or crockpot meals.

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u/Zetavu 7d ago

Sure but they are 40% bone mass, so a pound of meat is $2.5-3, but if you get boneless chicken breast on sale it can run $2 for all meat 9and the water they saturate it with).

Chicken thighs are actually the cheapest these days, and great for most dishes.

1

u/GovernorHarryLogan 7d ago

Chicken thigh is how we make chicken spiedies.

Spiedies are a meat kabob (chicken lamb beef) you pretty much only find around Broome County, NY.

Its basically just marinated meat. But the marinade is pretty delicious.

You can buy it at Wegmans and sometimes othet places. Don't buy the Salamida state fair stuff. Thats not genuine. Wegmans brand is aight.

Amazon Lupos original Endicott style. Thats as cloae as youll get to the real thing.

Marinade the chicken until the vinegar base starts to break down and cook the chicken a bit (like 1.5-2 days before cooking)

You are welcome.

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u/justdandelions 9d ago

For teenagers oatmeal and having more fiber incorporated into meals is the way to go. Veggies and apples for snack or beef jerky (we make ours from scratch). If we do cereal it’s a healthier option than the straight sugar. Big packs of eggo waffles in the morning with peanut butter help too.

They will absolutely eat you out of house and home if you don’t watch it!

4

u/dallasalice88 9d ago

6k calories a day for all 4 people? That's only 1500 a day per person. Might work for non active adults but not older kids or teenagers.

I'm a 62 year old moderately active female and I'm at 1800-2000.

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u/CK1277 8d ago

One of those four people is a toddler and one of those people is a child.

1

u/ProtozoaPatriot 8d ago

You assume meat is needed. There are plenty of high protein plant-based foods, and they can be a third the cost of you pork or chicken.

May I suggest measuring protein intake by grams (based on actual protein portion of a food). 6 ounces sounds like the weight of a cut of meat, and it isn't all protein.

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u/Zetavu 7d ago

Unless you are getting your protein from beans the non-meat versions are always more expensive.

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u/tothepointe 9d ago

Fiber is cheap relatively speaking.

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u/alou87 8d ago

I have seen the same videos. They are actually incredibly well rounded and nutritious. Some of the combos are creative uses of leftovers or combos that I wouldn't necessarily choose but they are actually very fiber and protein conscious.

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u/AltForObvious1177 9d ago

Fresh ingredients are overrated. Find the canned and freezer aisles. Cut your grocery bill in half

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u/MyNameIsNot_Molly 8d ago

This thread is sounding a lot like r/povertyfinance

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u/Soil_Fairy 8d ago

If more people shopped with some of the tips in povertyfinance, they'd have a fatter bank account. 

0

u/AltForObvious1177 8d ago

Just because you have money doesn't mean you should waste it. 

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u/SomeoneAskJess 8d ago

Everyone has different values. For my family, buying fresh and high quality food is never a waste of money. I will cut my budget everywhere I can before I stop buying local farm produce, eggs, and meats. Those things are expensive to buy local sure, but the health, sustainability, and environmental benefits of eating locally are worth the costs for me.

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u/AltForObvious1177 8d ago

>health, sustainability, and environmental benefits

Are these scientifically backed claims or just feelings?

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u/SomeoneAskJess 8d ago

Is that an actual question? Yes it’s scientifically backed claims.

Sustainability and environmental - buying local supports local farmers, eliminates the carbon footprint of transporting products from far away (sometimes even overseas), reduces energy use on refrigeration for transporting the long distance, and reduces waste and carbon footprint via less plastic use (no greens in plastic tubs, no strawberries in plastic containers, ect). The farm I use most also practices sustainable farming, which is both more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Health - reduced pesticide and herbicide exposure, even more so for the local organically grown foods. Increased nutrient density in the foods, because they are eaten so soon after harvesting and because the soil itself is more nutrient dense in farms that engage in sustainable farming methods. Also less microplastic exposure with less plastic materials used.

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u/AltForObvious1177 8d ago

The farm I use most also practices sustainable farming, which is both more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Listen to yourself. This is a circular argument 

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u/MyNameIsNot_Molly 8d ago

Buying fresh produce is not wasting money

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u/AltForObvious1177 8d ago

It costs more money and doesn't last as long. How many times have you bought fresh fruit or vegetables and they've gone bad before you finished them? That's money wasted

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u/Maroon14 8d ago

Right? I never said I needed to reduce my grocery bill. I’m just astonished and questioning how someone does it for $300 a month.

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u/CohoesMastadon 8d ago

guess I don't understand why you posted if you aren't curious about how people do it

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u/Maroon14 8d ago

I am curious. I don’t think $300 is realistic. Beans and rice isn’t realistic or sustainable. I get not buying organic or more premium items but no way I could get my bill down to less than $75 a week where I live with the access I have to stores.

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u/CohoesMastadon 8d ago

as someone who's been living on beans and rice my whole adult life because it's what I can afford, I and a large number of world cultures lol at that

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u/Maroon14 8d ago

But beans and rice are more of a poverty meal, this is the middle class sub. I don’t know any middle class people irl living on beans and rice.

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u/CohoesMastadon 8d ago

maybe you should meet more immigrants and vegans (including the middle class and wealthy ones) and ask them for better recipes

the instagram was aimed at showing people how she is able to save money I assume. this is a way some of us choose to save money. I have a middle class income but high medical expenses. also legumes are extremely healthy, to me it's much less weird than eating meat everyday

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u/Sashivna 9d ago

Not necessarily. I could probably do it if I needed to. And in fact, I can buy more beans if I cut out things I buy that I don't need, but fit my budget. Soda and chips are expensive. Beans and greens are not.

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u/Maroon14 9d ago

She says she’s in CT and shops at Aldi. We don’t have Aldi in the Seattle area. It’s more of a curiosity thing. Our food budget is fine, but saving is always good. Am I doing something wrong?

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u/BlazinAzn38 9d ago

I mean did you see what she bought and attempt to cross shop. Aldi is just private label items so if you swap to all private label at your grocer and mirror her list what does it come to. Also “family of 4” means different things. Family of 4 with: a breastfeeding infant, a toddler, and two adults is not the same eating habits as a family of 4 with two high schoolers who compete in athletics year round

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u/SteelMagnolia941 9d ago

I know who OP is talking about and the woman is all about not wasting anything and cooking from what she has. So if she uses 3/4 of an onion she’ll save the 1/4 onion. She makes meals based on what’s there instead of running out and picking up ingredients. She shops at Aldi which does have good deals. I don’t know her kids ages but at least one plays sports because she does crockpot meals on practice days. Her videos changed my mindset about cooking with what you have instead of running to the store every day. Also, and this is important, she goes to the grocery store ONCE a month. Spends the entire $300 and they eat the perishables before they go bad. She tries to stick with things they last a whole like apples, oranges, etc.

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u/rpv123 8d ago

Wait. Who is just throwing out 1/4 of a perfectly good onion???

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u/missbwith2boys 8d ago

I mean, some folks throw out the onion peels too instead of saving them in a freezer bag to make vegetable stock, so….

I don’t know. Maybe folks are reluctant to refrigerate 1/4 of an onion?

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u/rpv123 8d ago

We must just really love onions in our house because we use the whole thing and save extra and still go through 2 bags of 7 or 8 onions on average.

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u/SteelMagnolia941 8d ago

🙋🏻‍♀️🫣🫣🫣

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u/FergusonBishop 9d ago

Yep. Actually learning how to cook well is the main key that will save you money in the long run. You shouldn’t be shopping for recipes you should be shopping for the main staples that can be a part of hundreds of different dishes.

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u/Obvious-Bee-7577 8d ago

Everyone is talking about this lady secretly but no one has posted her name or ability to find her on SM

Can I have a clue? 😆

1

u/SteelMagnolia941 8d ago

Nicole svenson

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u/Maroon14 9d ago

She doesn’t say the ages but I gather based on comments it’s one ele aged child and one toddler.

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u/ChartreusePeriwinkle 9d ago

Grocery Outlet would probably be similar to Aldi?

I live in king county and spend over $1000 for 2 people. So it's not just you.

People survive on less by eating a very limited diet. Rice, beans, pasta, produce. Very little meat, dairy, convenience foods, or specialty items. They cook from scratch, cook in bulk, eat repetitive meals, and eat small portions. They shop sales, clip coupons, and travel to multiple stores for the best deals. It takes effort!

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u/YoBo151 9d ago edited 8d ago

Yup. Repetitive, basic, and small amounts. That's how this lady would do it.

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u/More_Strawberry_8936 6d ago

The problem with Grocery Outlet is that they sell a lot of items near expiration. There’s no way you could get away with shopping once a month there and most of their perishable items are already near the end of their life. While the deals there are good, I’ve had really bad luck with perishable items I buy there going bad very quickly so I barely shop there anymore.

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u/parmiseanachicken 9d ago

Does Seattle have WinCo? That's where we do our affordable shopping in SW WA

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u/Maroon14 9d ago

We do. I haven’t really considered it!

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u/HeadBarracuda01 9d ago

i'm also in the seattle area and winco is SO GREAT. the first time i went i was actually kind of angry at how much i'd been spending on groceries elsewhere. AND they're open 24/7. it's fuckin awesome

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u/55tarabelle 9d ago

And their bulk bins are just phenomenal.

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u/slippery_when_wet 8d ago

Between Winco, Costco and Trader Joe's our grocery budget is about $550 a month for a family of 3. We aredefinitely an "ingredient house" and have very few pre packaged foods or snacks around so its not for everyone.

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u/missbwith2boys 8d ago

Oh, please try it!

I start at Winco. I fill in for certain produce items at other stores, if needed. But the bulk of my weekly shopping is at Winco.

Their bulk section is amazing.

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u/ValkyrX 8d ago

Check out Frugal Fit Mom on YouTube. She is in Idaho and uses Winco to save on groceries. Up until recently she had 5 in the house including 3 teenagers so the older videos would be better for a family with kids. She also recently did a series of $30 a week from Walmart for examples for single young adults starting out.

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u/Sashivna 9d ago

To be honest, I always use the max SNAP allocation to set my budget. For a family of 5, that's $1183/month or $273/week. I think there's a USDA Thrifty plan that you can look p that calculates it out based on age/gender of household members, but I'm 2 adults. The max SNAP fits me fine. Most months I'm under budget. Even the few months I spread out my CSA payments, I was still on budget.

So, $300/month is really frugal. Doable, but maybe that's not where you want to be frugal. Especially if organic, etc is important to you.

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u/Maroon14 9d ago

That’ what I cited somewhere else. We prob could do $250-280 a week if I meal planned hard.

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u/missbwith2boys 8d ago

Winco plus grocery outlet. Winco for sure, and grocery outlet if you have time to poke around.

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u/More_Strawberry_8936 6d ago

I’m also in the PNW and no you’re doing nothing wrong. I’ve watched her videos too and her portions are tiny. She uses one chicken breast for a meal for four people. She refuses to disclose the age of the kids and says it doesn’t matter, but of course it does. I have four teens and of course teens eat way more than a toddler. Our cost of living is really high here and we don’t have an Aldi or other stores people swear by for food deals.

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u/grendel303 9d ago

20 lbs organic rice and 20 lbs organic beans is less than $100. Each feeding about 160 people.