Grocery budget: how much to spend and how to cut it

How much should you spend on groceries? The benchmarks

The most detailed public benchmark is the USDA’s food plans. Every month, the USDA prices four market baskets that meet US dietary guidelines, assuming every meal and snack is prepared at home. The Thrifty plan is the basis for SNAP benefits; the Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost and Liberal plans cost more because they include more varied and more convenient foods.

The family of four is a man and a woman aged 19–50 (20–50 in the Thrifty plan) plus two children aged 6–8 and 9–11. The Thrifty figures come straight from the USDA’s reference family; for the other three plans we added up the USDA’s per-person costs for the same four people. The USDA calculates monthly costs as weekly costs × 4.333, rounded to the nearest 10 cents.

For other households, add up the per-person figures in the USDA tables, then adjust: add 20% for a single person, 10% for two people and 5% for three; subtract 5% for five or six people. Example: a woman aged 30 living alone on the Low-Cost plan: $276.10 × 1.2 = $331.32 a month.

Two limits. These plans exclude restaurant meals, takeout, alcohol and household products such as detergent. And they assume you cook everything, which few families do. For comparison, the average US household (a “consumer unit” in BLS terms) spent $6,224 on food at home in 2024, about $519 a month, plus $3,945 on food away from home (BLS, Consumer Expenditures 2024).

In the UK, the ONS Family Spending survey found households spent £70.50 a week on food and drink in the financial year ending March 2024, out of total spending of £623.30 a week. In the following year, food spending rose by £3.20 a week in cash terms, mostly because of higher prices rather than bigger baskets. Where you shop matters as much as how much you buy: in Which?’s August 2026 comparison, the same basket of 92 branded and own-label items cost £159.36 at Aldi, £161.10 at Lidl and £223.75 at Waitrose, a £64.39 gap.

Set your number in four steps

A benchmark tells you what is reasonable. Your own receipts tell you where you actually are. You need both.

1. Add up the last three months. Include every supermarket, market, corner-shop and online grocery order. Keep toiletries and cleaning products on a separate line if you can, since the USDA plans leave them out.
2. Take the average. Three months smooths out a birthday or a big stock-up.
3. Compare with the benchmark closest to your household. If you spend more than the Moderate plan and still eat out often, there is room to cut.
4. Set a target about 10% below your average, and turn it into a weekly figure. Monthly budget × 12 ÷ 52 = weekly budget. A weekly number fits one shopping trip and you can check it at the till.

The 10% is a rule of thumb, not a research finding. It is big enough to change habits and small enough not to leave you eating plain rice by the last week.

A worked grocery budget for a family of four

Maria and Kofi live in Ohio with their two children, aged 7 and 10. Their grocery spending over the last three months was $1,470, $1,410 and $1,560: an average of $1,480. That is $88.90 above the USDA Moderate plan for the same family, and they also eat out about twice a month.

They set a weekly grocery budget of $300. Over a year that is $300 × 52 = $15,600, or $1,300 a month: $180 less than their average, which comes to $2,160 a year. They split the weekly $300 like this:

The pantry line matters more than it looks. Without it, a good deal on a 10 lb bag of rice blows the week’s budget, so people skip it and pay more per pound later.

A weekly meal plan template

The shopping list should come out of a meal plan, not the other way round. Copy this template, fill in dinners first (they usually drive the shopping list), then write the list from it.

WEEK OF: __________        WEEKLY GROCERY BUDGET: $______

ALREADY IN THE FRIDGE / FREEZER / CUPBOARD (use first):
- ______________________________________________
- ______________________________________________

            BREAKFAST        LUNCH             DINNER
MON         __________       __________        __________
TUE         __________       __________        __________
WED         __________       __________        __________
THU         __________       leftovers         __________
FRI         __________       __________        __________
SAT         __________       __________        __________
SUN         __________       __________        cook double

SHOPPING LIST (by aisle)
Produce:       ___________________________________
Dairy / eggs:  ___________________________________
Meat / fish:   ___________________________________
Pantry:        ___________________________________
Frozen:        ___________________________________
Other:         ___________________________________

SPENT THIS WEEK: $______   LEFT: $______

Two rules make it work: plan one leftovers lunch and one cook-double dinner, and start by writing down what is already at home. Our weekly planner template has a version that includes meals alongside appointments.

Tactics that actually lower the bill

Plan meals, then write the list. In the French NutriNet-Santé study of 40,554 adults, people who planned meals ate a more varied diet that was closer to guidelines (Ducrot et al., 2017). It is an association, not proof that planning saves money, but a list from a plan is the simplest guard against buying what you already have. Food waste is the other reason, covered with figures in our 30 tips for saving money.

Compare unit prices, not pack prices. The unit price is the price per pound, per ounce, per kilo or per litre, printed on the shelf label. It is the only fair way to compare a family pack, a small pack and a “2 for $5” deal. In the US there is no federal rule: according to NIST, nine states and the District of Columbia require unit pricing, nine jurisdictions have voluntary rules and 33 states have none. Where the label is missing or mixes units (per ounce on one pack, per count on the next), a phone calculator does the job. In the UK, the amended Price Marking Order, in force since 6 April 2026, requires unit prices to use consistent metric units (per kilo or per litre) and covers loyalty-card prices and online shops.

Try the store brand, one product at a time. Consumer Reports says store brands typically sell for 25% to 30% less than name brands (2026). Start with staples where the recipe is simple: flour, sugar, canned tomatoes, frozen vegetables, milk, rice. Keep the brand where you really taste the difference. One swap a week is enough to find out.

Don’t shop hungry, but know what the evidence really says. You may have read that hungry shoppers buy more calories. That claim often cites a 2013 paper by Aner Tal and Brian Wansink in JAMA Internal Medicine. The journal retracted it in November 2018, along with two other Wansink papers, after concerns about the validity of his research. Don’t rely on it. Better evidence exists, though it is smaller. In a Dutch virtual-supermarket experiment with 94 students, impulsive participants bought the most calories, especially snacks, but only when hungry (Nederkoorn et al., 2009). In five laboratory and field studies, Xu, Schwarz and Wyer (2015) found that hunger even increased people’s intention to acquire non-food items such as binder clips. Neither study measured a family grocery bill. Shopping after a meal costs nothing and removes one risk.

Shop once, with the list. Every extra trip is another chance to buy on impulse. That is why the worked budget above allows one main shop and one short top-up.

Compare stores once, not every week. The Which? gap between Aldi and Waitrose shows that the choice of store can matter more than any coupon. Price your usual 20 items in two stores once, then stick with the cheaper one.

Track the budget without spreadsheets

A budget only works if you know, mid-week, how much is left. The hard part is logging every receipt. With Binome360 you type or say the expense in one sentence, or photograph the receipt, and the amount and category are proposed for you to confirm. You can set a budget per category, such as Groceries, and see what you have spent against it.

For the full picture beyond food, see how to make a monthly budget.

Frequently asked questions

What is a reasonable grocery budget for one person?

Using the USDA July 2026 tables, a man aged 19–50 living alone would spend about $380.88 a month on the Low-Cost plan ($317.40 plus 20% for a one-person household), and a woman of the same age about $331.32. That assumes everything is cooked at home. Your own three-month average is the better starting point.

Should the grocery budget include toiletries and cleaning products?

Keep them on a separate line if you can. The USDA plans cover food only, so mixing in detergent and toiletries makes your spending look higher than the benchmark. If they come on the same receipt, split them roughly when you log it.

Is it cheaper to shop weekly or every two weeks?

There is no solid research showing one is cheaper. Fewer trips mean fewer impulse chances, but fortnightly shopping only works if fresh food lasts or gets frozen. Many families do one main shop a week and one short top-up with a list.

How can I save money on groceries fast?

This week: shop your cupboards first, write a meal plan, shop once after eating, and swap three staples for the store brand. Next week, compare unit prices on your ten most-bought items.

In short

Use the USDA plans or ONS data as a sense check, but set your grocery budget from your own receipts, about 10% below your recent average, and track it by the week. Plan meals, compare unit prices, test store brands and shop fed. First action: add up your grocery spending for the last three months tonight and divide by three.

Sources

• USDA Food and Nutrition Administration, “Official USDA Thrifty Food Plan: U.S. Average, July 2026” and “Official USDA Food Plans: Cost of Food at Home at Three Levels, U.S. Average, July 2026”, issued August 2026: fna.usda.gov.
• US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Consumer Expenditures — 2024”, news release, 19 December 2025: bls.gov.
• Office for National Statistics, “Family spending in the UK: April 2023 to March 2024”: ons.gov.uk; “Family spending in the UK: April 2024 to March 2025”, 11 June 2026: ons.gov.uk.
• Which?, “Supermarket prices: which is the cheapest supermarket in 2026?” (August 2026 results): which.co.uk.
• Tobie Stanger, “How Store-Brand Groceries Can Help You Save”, Consumer Reports, 4 May 2026: consumerreports.org.
• NIST, “A Guide to U.S. Retail Pricing Laws and Regulations”, updated 31 July 2024: nist.gov.
• The Price Marking (Amendment) Order 2024 (SI 2024/1055) and The Price Marking (Amendment) Order 2025 (SI 2025/592), which moved commencement to 6 April 2026: legislation.gov.uk.
• Pauline Ducrot et al., “Meal planning is associated with food variety, diet quality and body weight status in a large sample of French adults”, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 14, 12, 2017: doi.org/10.1186/s12966-017-0461-7.
• Aner Tal and Brian Wansink, “Fattening fasting: hungry grocery shoppers buy more calories, not more food”, JAMA Internal Medicine, 173(12), 2013, retracted: Howard Bauchner, “Notice of Retractions”, JAMA Internal Medicine, 178(11), 1450, 2018: doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.5761.
• Chantal Nederkoorn, Rosa Guerrieri, Remco Havermans, Anne Roefs and Anita Jansen, “The interactive effect of hunger and impulsivity on food intake and purchase in a virtual supermarket”, International Journal of Obesity, 33(8), 905–912, 2009: doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2009.98.
• Alison Jing Xu, Norbert Schwarz and Robert S. Wyer Jr, “Hunger promotes acquisition of nonfood objects”, PNAS, 112(9), 2688–2692, 2015: doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1417712112.

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