My family consists of 2 adults and 2 preteens and our grocery budget is $500. We generally land somewhere within $100 of that budget, sometimes higher and sometimes lower.

I have a friend with 4 teenage boys and her budget is nearly twice what mine is!

That's per week or month?? Mine seems to be close to $200-$225 per week and includes everything--ie paper products,soaps, wine, etc

That's per month for groceries, we generally buy paper products, soaps, etc. in bulk at costco and they are not included in our grocery budget. We also don't drink alcohol so that may be why our numbers seem low.

running a little less right now with coupons. we are lucky that the teens hang out here but it does cost. The older ones, acturally 20's home from college, eat healthy foods while the younger are still into pizza and such. The healthy food -trail mix, fruit, smoothies etc cost more but what are we going to do -push junk! LOL

The kids hang out at my house too - I'm about to start charging them for all of the soft drinks they consume, but I figure it's a small price to pay to know where my kids are and what they're up to. We keep inexpensive frozen pizzas, chopped barbeque and peanut butter and jelly on hand for easy and quick lunches.

One alternative to more expensive snacks is microwave popcorn. My kids pop 2-3 packages every day, it's a cheap snack and they love it!

we've been spending an average of about $40/week on groceries, for just me and hubby. But we've been having BBQ's every other week, which is why its so much. I've also put off buying things we usually do (lunch meat for sandwiches, etc - since we have all these leftovers all the time). Once July comes, we are done with our parties and can relax thank god!! We just moved into our house last Oct, so everyone wants to come over and enjoy the backyard lol.

Although for our last bbq, if anyone looked at my credit card receipt they would have considered me an alcoholic - luckily we have leftovers to use for our upcoming (and last hopefully) bbq for a while.

Generally we spend about $100/month on groceries overall. which i think is still too high, but when those frozen pizzas or hot pockets are on sale, they are hard to resist!! such an easy dinner after work, and it keeps me from hitting Taco Bell or McDonalds!

sorry enough rambling :)

Hmm - if it does not include meals out on the road, our monthly for 4 adults is about $300. We could do much better.

We grocery shop once per month or less since we found a discount supermarket and a discount butcher. A small freezer holds enough for more than a month.

Shopping once per month cuts down ENORMOUSLY on impulse buys, saving us hundreds per month. Also save us about 8 hours of time simply driving and shopping.

The selection is not as broad as our SuperHumongousMarket, but we don't get all that other stuff, and those places are simply getting too big to navigate. One store takes up as much space as an entire strip-mall of 20 years ago.

Stop-and-Shop and BigY have done such a good job of putting their high priced premium items in front and scattering the necessities, that we simply can't be bothered with the new huge stores.

The discount butcher has commercial bags of prepared frozen veggies at about 1.05 $/lb, so meals are easier for our adult kids to prepare. Shake out veggies into a Corning dish and microwave for 6 minutes.

Ginger drink -
1+ tsp ground ginger
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar
water to 1/2 gallon

Our kids like this. The vinegar somehow makes it taste carbonated. Vary the ginger a bit according to how strong it is. A quart (?) cannister of powdered ginger is about $4 US

There are two adults, two girls, three boys and occasionally another one. We spend about $600 groceries a month(shop once a week) and maybe another $50 for household items (a month). We shop SAL and whatever stores close by that has sales on meat products. Recently stopped buying 1-1 1/2 cases of pop (not name brands unless on sale) down to 2-4 2litres a week (just could'nt keep it around long enough) and sustituted frozen lemonade (1 gal) which is inexpensive in comparison and to making ice tea (2 gals a day +)juices also included (necessity) and all the store bought water (incl in groceries). Also buy household items in bulk when on sale. I planted a corner small garden of veggies. I am so looking forward to corn, tomatoes and green beans. I want potatoes next year. Sometimes it seems like alot of $$$ but I've skinned it down and down. Now if I can only not have to do it once a week...Heavenly!!!