Our weekly $64 grocery budget has been a big question from family, friends, and readers for years. While I’ve shared the many tips and tricks we use for our $64 grocery budget, I’ve never explained why we have it. Well, today we are going to break it down. I’m going to share why our grocery budget is now at this price point. What a hint to the big reason? Because our $42 grocery budget was too low! I’ll explain this below.
Why Do You Have A $64 Grocery Budget?
It all started with a baby. When I was pregnant with my second child, I realized that our $42 grocery budget just wasn’t going to be enough. I was hungrier, and my 4 year old son was eating like a horse. We’d decided on our $42 grocery budget once we went through our income, and realized that at $42, while using coupons, we could eat real, unprocessed food. We could eat LOTS of real food. No junk. The thing is, I was tired of coupons. So, we had a hungry and tired pregnant mom, a hungry toddler, and an obsession with getting rid of food junk in our home. Our grocery budget needed to increase.
But Why The Specific $64?
I spent time assessing what was working and not working with our grocery budget. I also looked at our household budget and saw spots where we were putting extra money into savings. We sat down and decided that some of the extra savings could go to our groceries. Yes, we stopped putting extra money into our savings to eat well each week. Please notice the word “extra.” When we have an increase in income, we always default to putting it in savings. Since we had that mindset, it was easy to decide to take some of that extra income and move it to the groceries line of the budget. We felt comfortable using an extra $22 per week toward food. Nothing more.
Your Income Is Much Higher Now. Why Not Increase Your Budget?
Great question! Truthfully, our $64 grocery budget is working so well that I see no need to increase it. We now have another kiddo in our home, so we may have in increase it eventually, but because I have a system to our grocery shopping and meal planning, I haven’t had the need to increase it. We still purchase groceries without coupons (Aldi is my new favorite place to shop), and we buy MOSTLY real foods (I love me some Nutella and boxed cake mix).
Also, the lower I keep our grocery budget, the more money we can put towards the FUN parts of our lives. Disney vacations. Tae Kwon Do class. Visiting family members whenever we want. Skydiving. Ok, maybe not the last one, but by keeping our grocery budget as low as possible, we are able to have guilt-free family experiences.
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Want to see the $64 grocery budget in action? Check out these posts:
64 Dollar Grocery Budget – Aldi Breakdown
64 Dollar Grocery Budget – Trader Joe’s
64 Dollar Grocery Budget – Safeway
Do you have any other questions about our $64 grocery budget? Ask them in the comments below, and I’ll answer!
I totally thought this was $64 a month and nearly had a heart attack, LOL. Seriously though, I am skimming through your sample posts/menus, and it is all extremely helpful!
Natalie! Ha! If we were on a $64 a month budget, I don’t know how we would survive lol. Yes, this is per week, real food, no coupons. I’m putting together a more detailed post of our “rules,” in case anyone wants to try this budget out. Check out the $64 grocery budget challenge posts for some great tips and tricks.
Even at $64/week, that’s awesome!
could you do a frugal shopping 7 day menu for fred meyers??
its where i do most of my grocery shopping
thanks a million
Hi Heather! We don’t have a Fred Meyers here, but hopefully I can find a blogger friend that lives near one and will do the challenge.
Fred Meyer is a WA state grocery store but Kroger is an affiliate store.
Fred Meyers is in Alaska also.
Thanks for this Amiyrah! I have a HARD time budgeting food. Always have. Watching your scopes and reading your posts motivate me to stay in line! And I love Aldi as well.
oxoxox
Wow. I didn’t realize at first that you’re in NJ but assumed that you’re somewhere with a lower cost of living.
I have trouble figuring out how to compare budgets for different family sizes, so I calculate food by per person per day rather than per week for the family. It also helps figuring it out for families with part time family members. If you count the baby as half a person, you’ve got it down to $2.03 pp pd. I don’t know how much he eats, though, since mine were all mostly bfed at that age.
I’ve gotten it down to $3 but not without relying heavily on white flour and heavily processed white foods (bread, pasta, cheap rice, etc). With a more balanced diet, even with a ton of homemade stuff, it’s usually 4+. However, I’ve got 2 teenagers and one approaching teen-appetite, which definitely changes things.
OH, and your children are DELICIOUS! Very, very sweet pictures 🙂
I am in desperate need of help in some kind of budget for groceries. Currently I average close to 325 a month for groceries. My husband loves deli meat and cheese, keurig starbucks coffee, name brand everything, and our two girls ages 3 and 10 always snack on junk. Please help, any ideas are welcome.
Hi Courtney! Check out our $64 grocery challenge series. Many of our contributors tried the challenge and succeeded. They gave great tips in each of their posts. Hope that helps! https://4hatsandfrugal.com/tag/64-dollar-grocery-budget
Thank you for your helpful posts! My husband was recently laid off, and we are on a tight budget until he finds another job. So basically we have $250 per month (a little less than $64 per week) to feed our family of four (me, hubs, and two kids ages 5 and 9). If you had to choose just one of the grocery stores you tested, which would it be? Which was your favorite in terms of value, variety and bang for your buck? Thank u!
Hi Amanda! I wold wholeheartedly pick ALDI. For someone on a VERY tight budget, ALDI gives great value, great pricing (if you pay attention), and the quality is getting better and better each day. Check out our ALDI posts for more information: https://4hatsandfrugal.com/?s=ALDI
I am a family of 2. Husband and i. Our 2 week budget is 120 every 2 weeks. Any advice?
Hi Heather! Can you share with me what your goals are? It’ll help me give more tailored advice besides “cut down your spending.” Thanks!