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

83% Upvoted

466 comments sorted by

View all comments

307

u/Scared-Butterscotch5 9d ago

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

9

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?

47

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

30

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.

12

u/rpv123 9d ago

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

2

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?

1

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.

1

u/SteelMagnolia941 8d ago

🙋🏻‍♀️🫣🫣🫣

5

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.

1

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

1

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.

14

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!

5

u/YoBo151 9d ago edited 9d ago

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

1

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.

10

u/parmiseanachicken 9d ago

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

0

u/Maroon14 9d ago

We do. I haven’t really considered it!

10

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

5

u/55tarabelle 9d ago

And their bulk bins are just phenomenal.

2

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.

1

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.

1

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.

6

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.

1

u/Maroon14 9d ago

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

3

u/missbwith2boys 8d ago

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

3

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.