How much do you spend on food per month?

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#1169631 6-Nov-2014 00:08

Just looked at our last year's figures for two adults and a 2 year old and it comes to $96 a week. There are some toiletries, nappies and general household items in there but it's primarily food. We have some separate purchases for personal toiletries and I will often add another $10-$15 a week on items for myself or the family from the greengrocer, my partner would have something similar. So, maybe round it up and say about $130 per week. The toddler eats what we eat (gets through a fair bit of oat milk though), is in cloth or no nappies during the day, biodegradable commercial ones at night. We're vegan (so another $15 or so each per year for B12) and don't smoke or drink, I also don't have hot or cold beverages.

bfginger

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#1169645 6-Nov-2014 07:00

Elpie: Our biggest expense is bottled water. I loathe water and will only drink the stuff when its fizzed.

You could buy a carbonation machine to make your water fizzy at home. If the water has a bad taste a water filter may help with that.

Inphinity:
Bee:
Here's the secret : shop at Paknsave..

I must say I don't understand the love for PaknShave. Every time I've tried to shop there, it comes out miles more expensive, a thousand times more stressful, and I end up having to go off to other shops to get everything anyway. Oh, plus their in-house branded stuff seems to be foul rubbish. What am I missing?

It may reflect what products you buy. Pakn Save is aimed at low income people and the things they buy. Lower volume items have higher markups put on them to justify the shelf space. Foodstuffs supermarkets are more customised for their local area than Countdowns are too.

DravidDavid:
CokemonZ:

Doesn't specify where the actual fruit came from. Our fish is the same, caught here, shipped to China or Vietnam for processing and shipped back here.

What a waste of time and effort :(

The high minimum wage has a cost.

PhantomNVD: BUT this doesn't include the "health" supplements that SWMBO has recently decided we all need, which must run to at least another $200 a month (easily) these days too!

What are those?

ckc

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#1169923 6-Nov-2014 12:00

bfginger:

DravidDavid:
CokemonZ:

Doesn't specify where the actual fruit came from. Our fish is the same, caught here, shipped to China or Vietnam for processing and shipped back here.

What a waste of time and effort :(
The high minimum wage has a cost.

No, corporate greed has a cost. You know what someone on the minimum wage earns in Vietnam? Less than NZ$200 a month. You want NZ to match that?

On the back of US$1.1bn profit, I think Heinz could probably afford to be paying at least minimum wage to workers in NZ making NZ products.

PhantomNVD

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#1170053 6-Nov-2014 14:33

PhantomNVD: BUT this doesn't include the "health" supplements that SWMBO has recently decided we all need, which must run to at least another $200 a month (easily) these days too!

currently she had our 'ADHD' son on 'alternative medicines... about 6 or 7 pills and potions every morning :(

off the top of my head, there is iron, fish oil (Omega3) a multivitamin, Vitamin D, and some others... i can check this arvo if you'd like more?

PITA if you asked me!

CokemonZ

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#1170064 6-Nov-2014 14:54

PhantomNVD:
PhantomNVD: BUT this doesn't include the "health" supplements that SWMBO has recently decided we all need, which must run to at least another $200 a month (easily) these days too!

currently she had our 'ADHD' son on 'alternative medicines... about 6 or 7 pills and potions every morning :(

off the top of my head, there is iron, fish oil (Omega3) a multivitamin, Vitamin D, and some others... i can check this arvo if you'd like more?

PITA if you asked me!

That sucks man.
It is hard to challenge people with these beliefs with rational evidence, especially if someone like a naturopath/homeopath is involved.
What drove me mental was it would make my pee bright yellow and I could actually watch myself piss money down the loo.
Luckily not my wife, my wife is just as sceptical as me about all of this psudeoscientific/heavily marketed crap.

Good luck.

Sideface

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#1170094 6-Nov-2014 15:17

... off the top of my head, there is iron, fish oil (Omega3) a multivitamin, Vitamin D, and some others ...

There is no evidence that any of these have any effect on ADHD - but I think that you have already worked that out from your own observations.

Sideface

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Elpie

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#1170162 6-Nov-2014 16:17

Disrespective: I've been using some software called You Need A Budget for nearly a year now and have noticed that our monthly grocery bill feels ridiculously high on average.

How do you find that software? Is it really worth the $60 cost? I was somewhat interested in trying it out but am kinda put off by the Dropbox side of things.

Geektastic

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#1170163 6-Nov-2014 16:22

bfginger:
Elpie: Our biggest expense is bottled water. I loathe water and will only drink the stuff when its fizzed.
You could buy a carbonation machine to make your water fizzy at home. If the water has a bad taste a water filter may help with that.
Inphinity:
Bee:
Here's the secret : shop at Paknsave..

I must say I don't understand the love for PaknShave. Every time I've tried to shop there, it comes out miles more expensive, a thousand times more stressful, and I end up having to go off to other shops to get everything anyway. Oh, plus their in-house branded stuff seems to be foul rubbish. What am I missing?

It may reflect what products you buy. Pakn Save is aimed at low income people and the things they buy. Lower volume items have higher markups put on them to justify the shelf space. Foodstuffs supermarkets are more customised for their local area than Countdowns are too.
DravidDavid:
CokemonZ:

Doesn't specify where the actual fruit came from. Our fish is the same, caught here, shipped to China or Vietnam for processing and shipped back here.

What a waste of time and effort :(
The high minimum wage has a cost.
PhantomNVD: BUT this doesn't include the "health" supplements that SWMBO has recently decided we all need, which must run to at least another $200 a month (easily) these days too!

What are those?

Our local P&S is certainly like the Zombie Apocalypse in terms of the denizens that roam it's aisles.

However, all the food is same brands and same packaging as any other supermarket almost without exception. Shopping there is far cheaper for us for 'big shop' weekends - usually at least 30% cheaper.

The meat I tend to avoid but then that is true of all the supermarkets round here which labour under the misapprehension that I like eating meat that appears to belong with the dog or the cat....

PhantomNVD

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#1170180 6-Nov-2014 16:38

Sideface:
... off the top of my head, there is iron, fish oil (Omega3) a multivitamin, Vitamin D, and some others ...

There is no evidence that any of these have any effect on ADHD - but I think that you have already worked that out from your own observations.

Agreed, for reference I missed out Zinc, antioxidants ("Enzogenol"?) and probiotics... And the poor beggar is only 6 this weekend (!)

alasta

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#1170189 6-Nov-2014 16:57

Elpie:
Disrespective: I've been using some software called You Need A Budget for nearly a year now and have noticed that our monthly grocery bill feels ridiculously high on average.

How do you find that software? Is it really worth the $60 cost? I was somewhat interested in trying it out but am kinda put off by the Dropbox side of things.

I have been using it for a year and I find it absolutely brilliant. I can't recommend it highly enough.

As a professional financial analyst I am very particular about my personal budgeting and I find that it has all the functionality that I need while still being easy for a novice to use. I bought it as a replacement for Xero Personal which is about to be discontinued.

berry

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#1170202 6-Nov-2014 17:05

This is super interesting seeing the variation. We have a budget of $1200 a month which we almost never go over for 2 adults, 3 primary school kids friday-monday only (shared custody situation) and a large dog. Includes "normal" toiletries, cleaning products, dog food (meat not canned/dry) and takeaways usually once a week unless we've gone over budget that week. Cafe coffees and some of my work lunches are separate.

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heapsort

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#1170214 6-Nov-2014 17:33

Given there has been some mention of budget tools (well, just YNAB) I hope it's not too off-topic to ask if anyone here uses (or has used) heaps! which is a free online tool from KiwiBank.

We are looking for a good tool to start using, and YNAB may be what we pick, but heaps! sounds like a natural choice since our family banking is with KiwiBank, but there isn't a lot of info about it. All the demo videos I could find online for heaps were a few years old.

kingjj

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#1170226 6-Nov-2014 17:51

Thanks to this thread I spent a few hours today setting up YNAB and importing previous banking data. To my horror it turns out we spend, on average, $1720 per month on food (inc. health and beauty, cleaning products etc as well as eating out). We are DINK's however (2 adults plus a cat and dog), work odd hours and enjoy socialising so when I look closer it's not too bad I guess.

jnimmo

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#1170338 6-Nov-2014 21:12

I would definitely recommend spending the money to buy YNAB. Do the trial if you like. Don't worry about importing bank statements (I did back to the start of the month).
We had been using Kiwibank Heaps, but after switching to YNAB realise how poor Heaps was at really letting you know how you are doing financially.
Yes I could see how much I spent on different categories, yes I could see how much I saved that week, but it didn't encourage me to change spending habits. It was more just like 'oh we had a bad week this week'.

zespri

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#1170341 6-Nov-2014 21:19

Elpie:
Disrespective: I've been using some software called You Need A Budget for nearly a year now and have noticed that our monthly grocery bill feels ridiculously high on average.

How do you find that software? Is it really worth the $60 cost? I was somewhat interested in trying it out but am kinda put off by the Dropbox side of things.

I bought it when it was on sale for 20$. It's decent, but you HAVE to do things their way they are absolutely not flexible about their opinion on how you should run your budget and they don't allow any customization (options) in their software. I'd also say that you should be prepared to watch several hours worth of their tutorials, because they learning curve is rather steep. It's not that you won't be able to use the software without it, you will, but you'll be wondering how they heck you do this or that. (and the answer they will give you would be that you can't because if you use their philosophy you don't need to).

I'm not completely satisfied with this product, but I have not seen anything better. (Short of rolling out your own spreadsheet). I've used for several years both now ancient Microsoft Money and AceMoney and I tried for a few weeks at least half a dozen other packages.

The Dropbox side of things is perfect. I don't have a single complaint in this respect, both the concept and the implementation are really good.

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