It's only two of us and two cats but I answered 300-$400, which sounds high to me. I usually spend $70-$80 on an average grocery trip, but there are still always additional weekly runs for milk, bread, or whatever. I've easily spent over $100 a week during the holidays or if I'm hosting something.
You know it's funny that a lot of you mentioned Trader Joes. I just went there the other day, and TJ is new to the area and small. Are your's regular size grocery stores? It seemed to me that Trader Joe stocks a awful lot of frozen prepared meas with a smattering of Whole Foods type organic stuff. It just doesn't seem cheap to me, and had a very limited selectin.
It's only two of us and two cats but I answered 300-$400, which sounds high to me. I usually spend $70-$80 on an average grocery trip, but there are still always additional weekly runs for milk, bread, or whatever. I've easily spent over $100 a week during the holidays or if I'm hosting something.
You know it's funny that a lot of you mentioned Trader Joes. I just went there the other day, and TJ is new to the area and small. Are your's regular size grocery stores? It seemed to me that Trader Joe stocks a awful lot of frozen prepared meas with a smattering of Whole Foods type organic stuff. It just doesn't seem cheap to me, and had a very limited selectin.
TJs is pretty small. We find it great for cereal, oatmeal, granola, cheese, yogurt. Milk price is sometimes better than our regular grocery store, sometimes not. I prefer their meat.
I also like getting the kids snacks there because nothing contains HFCS or artificial sweeteners, both of which we avoid. So I don't have to read every label. And their cookies are amazing!
It's only two of us and two cats but I answered 300-$400, which sounds high to me. I usually spend $70-$80 on an average grocery trip, but there are still always additional weekly runs for milk, bread, or whatever. I've easily spent over $100 a week during the holidays or if I'm hosting something.
You know it's funny that a lot of you mentioned Trader Joes. I just went there the other day, and TJ is new to the area and small. Are your's regular size grocery stores? It seemed to me that Trader Joe stocks a awful lot of frozen prepared meas with a smattering of Whole Foods type organic stuff. It just doesn't seem cheap to me, and had a very limited selectin.
Around here, TJs and Whole Foods are the epitome of all things grocery. I think it's overpriced crap. I'm get Makayla Maroney towards TJs and Whole Foods.
It's only two of us and two cats but I answered 300-$400, which sounds high to me. I usually spend $70-$80 on an average grocery trip, but there are still always additional weekly runs for milk, bread, or whatever. I've easily spent over $100 a week during the holidays or if I'm hosting something.
You know it's funny that a lot of you mentioned Trader Joes. I just went there the other day, and TJ is new to the area and small. Are your's regular size grocery stores? It seemed to me that Trader Joe stocks a awful lot of frozen prepared meas with a smattering of Whole Foods type organic stuff. It just doesn't seem cheap to me, and had a very limited selectin.
Around here, TJs and Whole Foods are the epitome of all things grocery. I think it's overpriced crap. I'm get Makayla Maroney towards TJs and Whole Foods.
Around here, TJs and Whole Foods are the epitome of all things grocery. I think it's overpriced crap. I'm get Makayla Maroney towards TJs and Whole Foods.
Not impressed.
The fuck?
TJs has boxes of wine for $10. Boxes. Of wine.
They can do no wrong in my book.
Boxes of bottles of wine or boxes of wine like Franzia?
Don't get me wrong. Their alcohol prices are decent. We had Two Buck Chuck at our wedding. The food is wildly overpriced, though. And the parking at the Everett store is a fucking nightmare.
I should've specified I was talking about the food.
It's cask wine. Aka Franzia. But better. Also cheaper.
Their bananas are cheaper than Safeway, as are their frozen mangos and frozen veggies (actually those are about the same, but taste better), most of their produce is in line with Fred Meyer too. And their eggs are cheaper than Freddy's.
Also the coffee. That's cheaper too, And their pasta!
I don't buy a lot of canned goods or peanut butter or staple -like goods--- and things like cheese and meat are more pricey for sure-- but they are quite comparable on many products. I try to hit up Freddy's every other week and TJs the others.
Post by SusanBAnthony on Aug 18, 2012 18:12:07 GMT -5
We spend about 600-700 for 2 adults and kids age 2.5 and almost 5. Considering we eat almost all organic, I am ok with that.
We use almost no paper products other than toilet paper, and I buy the absolute cheapest of that, bcc we just don't care. No pets. DH's razor blades are expensive, but really we spend very little on that kind of thing (I don't wear makeup, etc).
For food, we get tillamook cheese, holly guacamole, brown rice, quinoa, almonds, walnuts, organic chicken, wild salmon, and almond butter at Costco.
I bulk order oatmeal and beans through a local Eco store for 10% over wholesale. I get smaller quantities of barley, millet, etc form them too.
We get most of our summer produce at the farmers market, as well as whole wheat flour.
The main things I buy at the regular grocery are diet coke and bubbly water, my weaknesses, and rice cakes, bread, tofu, tempeh, crackers occasionally, etc. we try to have our diet be mostly fruits, veggies, grains, beans. Eta: we are heavily influenced by the documentaries mentioned on the last page, trying to be mostly vegan in the house, other than occasional cheese for the kids, and about 2 or 3 servings of meat a week for DH. But I don't know that it saves any money as we buy a tin of fresh fruits and veggies.
I have a good sized garden and can applesauce, tomato products, and jam for the whole year, from my own produce and also buying things bulk from the farmers market.
Around here, TJs and Whole Foods are the epitome of all things grocery. I think it's overpriced crap. I'm get Makayla Maroney towards TJs and Whole Foods.
Not impressed.
The fuck?
TJs has boxes of wine for $10. Boxes. Of wine.
They can do no wrong in my book.
Ah, they can't sell alcohol here. Maybe that would change my opinion of them, but I still doubt I'd drive past the 7 closer grocery stores to get to Trader Joes.
It's only two of us and two cats but I answered 300-$400, which sounds high to me. I usually spend $70-$80 on an average grocery trip, but there are still always additional weekly runs for milk, bread, or whatever. I've easily spent over $100 a week during the holidays or if I'm hosting something.
You know it's funny that a lot of you mentioned Trader Joes. I just went there the other day, and TJ is new to the area and small. Are your's regular size grocery stores? It seemed to me that Trader Joe stocks a awful lot of frozen prepared meas with a smattering of Whole Foods type organic stuff. It just doesn't seem cheap to me, and had a very limited selectin.
The selection at TJ's isn't huge, but it's all stuff I want.
Like I said, I don't usually buy produce there - at least not things I can get locally. But their bananas are $0.19 each. The only time I ever spend more than $5 on one item at TJs is when I buy fancy cheese. Items I buy there regularly are milk, bread, cheese, other dairy (sour cream, butter), fresh salsa and hummus (when I don't make my own), tofu, soy chorizo (so amazing), tortilla chips (when not at the farmer's market), pasta, rice, quinoa, couscous, nuts, dried fruits, vinegar. Yes, there are also a few pre-packaged things I love, like their mushroom truffle flatbread (frozen) and fresh ravioli. They also have fat free vanilla half and half for coffee (yeah, I don't know how that works, either), which has less junk than coffeemate.
They have really limited spices, but they have saffron for like $6. SIX DOLLARS. They also don't have things like sliced jalapenos, or my preferred hot sauce. They don't have many name brands - but a lot of the "trader joes" brand things ARE really good, oragnic name brands you get for a lot more in the regular grocery stores. They also have limited selections because they only keep things around that sell well, so they keep overhead low. For example, they'll have 2 kinds of veggie burgers instead of 4 kinds of Boca burgers and 6 kinds of Morningstar Farms burgers or whatever. Oftentimes the regular price on this kind of stuff at TJs is cheaper than sale prices elsewhere.
And like someone else mentioned, most of it is organic, has no added preservatives, and contains "real" ingredients rather than HFCS.
The first time I went to a TJs, as someone who was used to Wegmans, I was NOT impressed. But once I got used to it and figured out that it really fit into my diet, I really prefer it to a conventional grocery store. I still have to run to the regular store every few weeks for things like, say, sauerkraut, but I don't like most of the packaged stuff in conventional stores anymore. It just doesn't seem wholesome to me.
Around here, TJs and Whole Foods are the epitome of all things grocery. I think it's overpriced crap. I'm get Makayla Maroney towards TJs and Whole Foods.
Not impressed.
The fuck?
TJs has boxes of wine for $10. Boxes. Of wine.
They can do no wrong in my book.
They don't in my stupid state. It drives me crazy. I have to go to VA for the wine.
We spend too much for 2 people. Our weekly grocery bill (which includes some, but not all, of our cat food and most of our cleaning supplies) can range anywhere from $150 - $225 for just my husband and I. And that is with almost no waste. And we haven't kept a very stocked pantry up until now since we haven't had the space. The only place I save money is by buying our meat at costco. Other than that I don't really go to places based on sales, we like 1 store in particular and shop there, we buy quite a bit of organic and I do a lot of dairy free options too, we eat a ton of greek yogurt and we like an expensive brand, and I like buying pre-cut, washed, made salads, even though I know they are a total price gouge, they are just really convenient. But, my goal this year is to figure out how to save some $$ in our food budget.
75 a week and we eat mostly healthy, non prepackaged foods.
I'm the queen of the bogo and sales (I don't coupon unless there is a $5 off total purchase one). Last week, for example, chicken was on sale (and a really really good price) so I bought about 10 meals worth and froze it. Our freezer is always full of various proteins. Right now we have lots of chicken, a fair amount of salmon and tilapia, and some various cuts of beef. We stock up when sales roll around.
We also eat a lot of veggie meals and when we do eat meat, we eat smaller portions. The three of us easily split two chicken breasts, usually with left overs.
Post by charminglife on Aug 19, 2012 19:44:13 GMT -5
about $400 a month, including paper products and beer for 2 adults. Neither of us really eat breakfast but it includes a couple of days of packed lunches and 5 - 6 dinners per week.
I use coupons, but mostly for paper products and toiletries and that's helped to cut my bill. Buying in-season produce from the farmers market also cuts the bill down. For about $12 I got a pint of tomatoes, green beans, a half-dozen ears of corn, butter lettuce and a handful of zucchini and cucumbers. I love our farmers market.
all of maryland. Though wegmans is trying to dance around the liquor laws and sell booze in their columbia location.
They have wine and beer at grocery stores in Talbot County. The Graul's in St Michaels has a pretty decent selection. MD liquor laws are so weird.
Oh right...I always forget that some of the eastern shore counties allow more stuff.
I think maybe some of the far western counties do too? Or else I've actually been in WVA or VA when I saw beer in gas stations. I have a hard time keeping track of which side of the border we're on when we're out there. But I think all of central maryland is crappy.
They have wine and beer at grocery stores in Talbot County. The Graul's in St Michaels has a pretty decent selection. MD liquor laws are so weird.
Oh right...I always forget that some of the eastern shore counties allow more stuff.
I think maybe some of the far western counties do too? Or else I've actually been in WVA or VA when I saw beer in gas stations. I have a hard time keeping track of which side of the border we're on when we're out there. But I think all of central maryland is crappy.
No I think you are right - I think Garrett County is a lot more lenient with that stuff. It's so weird and makes me mad, because there is not a Whole Foods or TJ in Garrett County to have cheap good wine. LOL.
all of maryland. Though wegmans is trying to dance around the liquor laws and sell booze in their columbia location.
oooh...tell me more about this!
When they built the new columbia store, they added a 2nd floor for a "seperate retail establishment". And a guy with a potential lease on that space has applied for a license to open a liquor store. And it's been contentious as hell - all the area liquor stores are opposing it and saying that this guy is just a front for wegman's. Which is an accusation with some teeth since his wife is a higher up in the wegmans managment. Apparently wegmans has done that exact same thing elsewhere.
I think they're still going through hearings in front of the board.