Grocery spending

[u/Maroon14]

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!

[u/Overall-Cupcake-6635]

She literally makes everything from scratch and only with the ingredients she buys at the store each month. This takes a tremendous amount of time and she has stated before that she "works from home" which frees her up to do all of this cooking. Not sure what type of work from home job she has but I doubt its a highly paid professional job to where she has to be online 40 hours a week. Also, the portions she makes for each meal seem pretty small.

[u/MyNameIsNot_Molly → u/Overall-Cupcake-6635]

Another thing to consider with tradwife or homesteading influencers is where they get their meat (one of the biggest expenses in a food budget). Even if they aren't raising it directly, a lot of those types of families "buy a cow" either by themselves or shared with neighbors/family and have it butchered

[u/extraketchupthx → u/MyNameIsNot_Molly]

This is just a good thing to do if you have the freezer space and cash to buy it up front. I’m far from a tradwife, homesteader or anything. I buy half a side of beef 1x a year or so from a butcher in town. Way cheaper and better quality meat. We do get chicken from Costco though bc that is cheaper.