How a California Family of 4 Spends $202 a Week on Groceries

Name: Pamela
Location: San Diego, CA
Number of people in household: 4; two adults and two children
Age: 38
Occupation: Recently laid off; husband is a scientist 
Household Income: $250,000
Where you shopped: Sprouts Farmers Market and Trader Joe’s 
Weekly food budget: $250 a week, roughly; with room for minor splurges at restaurants and cafés
Amount spent: $201.50 on groceries; $106.71 out to eat 

This week, I shopped at Sprouts Farmers Market and Trader Joe’s. I typically make one monthly trip to Costco, then rotate among Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Vons and, occasionally, Whole Foods Market, H Mart or local Mexican grocery stores.

I stick to stores that are nearby, have predictable inventory, and layouts that I know well. I’m not a strict budgeter or dedicated couponer, and I start each month with a $1,500 grocery budget. 

I make one large trip to Costco (usually about $450) for freezer meats, snacks, and pantry staples. The remaining budget is divided by four, for a weekly grocery target of about $250. The Costco trip also covers household essentials such as toilet paper, paper towels, dishwasher pods and laundry detergent, so it is not exclusively food. 

According to the United States Department of Agriculture Moderate-Cost Food Plan, a family of four is estimated to spend $1,209.50 per month on food, while the Liberal Plan estimate is $1,478.20. Our spending falls roughly in line with those figures. We live in San Diego, a high-cost-of-living area that has experienced inflation above the national average.

I follow an 80-10-10 framework for weekly shopping. About 80% of purchases are fresh produce, proteins, and dairy that I plan to cook and consume that week to meet my family’s nutritional needs. Another 10% is reserved for new items or treats that make cooking more enjoyable (like a new jar of chili crisp or ice cream sandwiches).

The remaining 10% goes toward items that help shape the following week’s meal plan. That might mean stocking up on ground turkey if it is on sale, freezing a fresh loaf of bread for later, or picking up bacon if we have not had it in a while. These purchases provide a starting point for the next week.

I am almost always meal planning. I keep a running note on my phone and add meals whenever I see a recipe, talk with someone about a dish, or get a new idea. Beyond that basic approach, I do a few things to support the mental work.

I feed my brain ideas by flipping through favorite cookbooks and reading blogs and newsletters. I bought The Kitchn Cookbook when it was published in 2014 (my friend’s older sister, Anjali, wrote for The Kitchn at the time) and I still cook from it regularly. I also love the Defined Dish cookbooks by Alex Snodgrass and the Smitten Kitchen series by Deb Perelman.

Every meal I plan has a “hook” that motivates me to cook it. In The Weekday Vegetarians, Jenny Rosenstrach writes it is “crucial to always have one thing on the plate that you … are excited about,” and I agree. If I plan a nourishing lentil soup, I add flatbread. I top tofu with homemade peanut sauce. There has to be something appetizing to anticipate each night. It is the only way to sustain the steady work of meal planning, shopping, and cooking.

These are the constraints I am working with: I have two young children and I am conscious of their nutritional needs and their evolving relationship to food and their bodies. I have a husband who is currently experimenting with intermittent fasting and eating more fiber. I am done having children and breastfeeding and kind of just muddling my way through feeding myself in my late-thirties body.

I need variety to keep things interesting. I try to cycle through all the proteins: chicken, turkey, pork, beef, tofu, eggs, beans, and occasionally shrimp or lamb. I cook one meal for the whole family, and we eat an early dinner together every night. 

I mostly just plan to cook what sounds good to me, and everyone else has to deal with it! Usually we are all on the same page, but sometimes I make shrimp and my kids cry and refuse to eat it and I just cover my ears. Hopefully other parents can relate. 

I try to cook something new every night, and then leftovers work well for lunch. My husband in particular will assemble the most random scraps of food from our fridge for his lunches, and I’m so grateful because it helps prevent waste.

We kick things off on a Wednesday. My husband wakes me each morning with a whole-milk latte. We are working through a 2-pound bag of Bird Rock Roasters medium-roast blend beans from Costco. He makes a pot of drip coffee for himself and adds a splash of milk. 

We wake the kids and feed them. One has Honey Nut Cheerios with milk. The other has a granola bar with milk. I eat a toasted English muffin with salted butter (both from my most recent Costco trip). Later in the morning, my husband makes a protein shake. 

I come home, unpack, and make a light lunch: an apple; the rest of a wedge of Brie; a few more slices of cheese and crackers from that day’s shop. My husband spends $13.96 on a falafel wrap near his office.

Kid two brings a packed lunch to daycare: cold leftover salmon and leftover rice pilaf from Trader Joe’s, sliced strawberries from last week’s Sprouts shop, three Girl Scouts of the USA Trefoils cookies, and an apple sauce pouch from our last Costco trip. My husband packs the kids’ lunches.

Kid one goes on a field trip to a local restaurant and orders chicken tenders and fries (and likely goes through a generous amount of ketchup).

Afternoon snacks include an oatmeal cranberry walnut cookie and a square of milk chocolate with tea for me, and animal crackers from Costco for the kids when I pick them up. My kids demand a “car snack” for the ride home from school and daycare.

Dinner tonight is crispy oven-baked tofu with charred broccoli and rice, jasmine rice, plus steamed edamame. We top it with Fly By Jing Sichuan Chili Crisp for the adults and Bachan’s Japanese Barbecue Sauce for the girls, both from earlier shops. My older child loves roasted cruciferous vegetables because they “taste like pretzels.” I’ll take it.

We share a couple of vanilla ice cream bars, and I have another oatmeal cookie for dessert. Kid one is too full from dinner and opts for no dessert.

Welcome to Thursday. I start the day with my latte and the same buttered English muffin, and add a tall glass of kefir. My husband has the same drip coffee and protein-fiber shake. The kids both have Cheerios with whole milk.

After drop-off, I grab a maple bar and a small drip coffee for $7 with a mom friend, and we enjoy a quick catch-up. I snack on a banana, more kettle chips and another oatmeal cranberry walnut cookie.

For lunch, I slice a Honeycrisp apple and make tuna salad with pickles, celery, mayonnaise and a can of tuna. I like tuna salad very cold, so I store one can of tuna in the back of my fridge’s cheese drawer. I use leftover celery in tuna salad or stir-fry. Celery is underrated in stir-fry.

I am currently unemployed, so I spend the day at home and make a big pot of pinto beans for dinner using a recipe from The Kitchn. After lunch, the beans finish cooking, and I eat a bowl topped with crumbled cotija. My husband packs a “fridge scraps” lunch: slices of leftover ribeye steak from Costco, a tortilla and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He sometimes adds a handful of plain wheat square cereal to boost his fiber intake. Kid one eats pepperoni pizza on a field trip, and kid two has the same packed lunch as yesterday.

Dinner features the Southwest-Spiced Pork Tenderloin recipe from the The Kitchn Cookbook (one of my favorites). I bought and froze the tenderloin a couple of weeks ago from Sprouts for $9.19. I reheat the pinto beans and make Mexican rice from a TikTok recipe. I plate the beans, rice, and pork with the last of an opened jar of corn salsa from Trader Joe’s, plus crumbled cotija and Tapatío.

For dessert, kid two finds one last Butterfinger ice cream bar in the freezer, and I cut it into segments to share. Kid one has a Mochi from Bubbies.

Happy Friday. My mom (grandma) and stepdad fly in today, and the kids are excited. We have the same breakfast as the previous two days.

Kid one has no school today, and kid two takes the same lunch. One of my weekend specialties is a snack plate, assembled on request. I aim for a balanced mix and use up small leftovers. 

I have a haircut scheduled, so I drive to Encinitas. On the way, I eat a protein bar. In Encinitas, I order an iced whole milk latte from Ironsmith Coffee Roasters.

After my haircut, I stop at Prager Brothers Artisan Bread to pick up lunch for the family: a spicy Italian sandwich, turkey chimichurri sandwich, ham and Gruyere baguette, a cheese Danish, a slice of flourless chocolate cake and a loaf of Bauernbrot, a dense German-style rye. At home, my mom, husband and I eat a quarter of the loaf with salted butter, standing at the kitchen counter. The total, including tip, is $48 and comes from our weekend discretionary budget.

For dinner, the six of us go to Chili’s Grill & Bar to get margaritas, a Triple Dipper and chocolate lava cake. The total is about $120 for us all, and my mom pays.

Same breakfast, but with two sliced-up pears from our Sprouts shop. I’m not usually this same-y with my meals, but I bet on the big pack of English muffins from Costco and then my kids were not into them and that sealed my fate. I’ll be eating them for a long time. 

I want my mom to try a local coffee shop, which just opened in our area, so we drive over there as a group of six and order two pastries and various lattes. Mine is an iced honey cinnamon oat milk latte. My stepdad pays the $37.75 bill. 

Then we do a medium-size Trader Joe’s shop to top us off for the week ahead, especially since my husband will be on a work trip for two nights. I slice up the rest of the cheese I had on hand with extra accouterments, and the six of us eat the whole thing. 

Dinner tonight is The Kitchn’s Spaghetti Bolognese recipe, with a simple green salad. I’ve been making this recipe for years, and I especially loved making and freezing the sauce near the end of my pregnancies. Now, it’s perfect to make with my kids, who enjoy helping peel carrots and garlic, and do other age-appropriate tasks. 

I’m using 2 pounds of organic grass-fed ground beef and one pack of spaghetti from Costco. We grate some Parm, and I dress the greens from Trader Joe’s with some olive oil, cracked pepper, sea salt, and balsamic vinegar from the pantry. We open a nice bottle of wine that my mom left in our cupboard over the holidays last year, and it is the perfect meal.

Today my plan is to eat breakfast at home, lunch out somewhere, and then serve the Bolognese for dinner again, but we end up changing some things around and I roll with it. I want to show off my virtuous budgeting for you, but alas. 

My mom wants to try a new breakfast place near our home, so she takes the six of us out for a hearty meal. The kids finish their pancakes, bacon, and fruit, and I have the breakfast quesadilla with potatoes. My husband has multi-grain pancakes. Coffee for all the adults. I never see the total. 

The weather is incredible, so we drive down to Coronado to stroll along the beach. Coronado has a popular ice cream shop called Moo Time, and we go there to get single scoops for everyone. The kids get birthday cake ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, my husband gets birthday cake ice cream (no sprinkles), and I get toasted coconut ice cream. My stepdad pays. 

Our least budget-friendly moment of the week comes when we leave our Owala bottles in the car and buy two bottles of water from the lobby of Hotel del Coronado for $17. Consider it a cautionary tale.

The rest of the day is spent out and eating out. We get tacos for dinner, and when I get home the Sunday scaries kick in and I cook two packages of instant noodles for the kids’ school and daycare lunches and hard-boil the rest of last week’s eggs. It is light prep, but it restores a sense of order. 

My mom and stepdad fly home this morning, so it’s back to equilibrium for a couple of days, and then my husband leaves for a work trip.

I finish off the kefir and get down to the last pack of six English muffins! Kid one has Cheerios; kid two finally agrees to eat an English muffin (!) and also has a yogurt drink. I defrost the loaf of French bread, and my husband packs the kids’ lunches using the noodles I prepared yesterday and a few leftover fruit and snacks from last week.

For lunch, I have salad greens and more crackers with blue cheese and honey. Later in the day, I snack on a banana and more crackers.

Dinner is a no-recipe meal: eggs poached in tomato sauce with garlic bread. Everyone in my family loves this one. I dice an onion and sauté it with garlic and herbs, and then add a can of crushed tomatoes and simmer. Then I crack eight eggs into the sauce and simmer covered until they are cooked. I hope the kids grow into their spice tolerance a little more, because I very much want to make this with calabrian chilis, but instead I do smoked paprika. I served it with a giant loaf of garlic bread made with fresh garlic and butter. 

For dessert, we polished off the rest of the Bubbie’s Raspberry Cheesecake Mochi. 

Breakfast is the same: English muffins and the kids eat their cereal. 

For lunch, I eat more greens and blue cheese, but instead of crackers, I pull two frosty slices of sourdough from out of the freezer, purchased after a haircut in early December.

I get a head start on dinner by cooking a cup of dried farro from the pantry and washing and drying the green beans.

Dinner is Garlicky Grains with Green Beans and Sausage from What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking by Caroline Chambers. The dish comes together as a warm grain bowl with nutty farro, crisp garlic green beans, chicken sausage, grated Parmesan, and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

For dessert, we have some Trader Joe’s caramels.

At week’s end, I conduct a mini audit. Reviewing the receipts, we open everything except the salmon fillet, edamame, raisin rosemary crisps, and frozen potato puffs. In the fridge, an unopened container of plain whole milk Greek yogurt remains from last week. I begin planning the next seven days around what we already have.

I also note what goes unused. The raisin rosemary crackers were an impulse buy — insurance in case there is not enough for our cheese plates — and now linger in the pantry. We abandon the oatmeal cranberry walnut cookies from Sprouts; next time, I return to the coffee cake. I decide not to spend $9.49 again on four chicken sausages.

As I write, I realize I have not made my favorite turkey meatballs with Rao’s marinara in a while, so I add that to next week’s plan. Then the cycle begins again.

At The Kitchn we believe setting a food budget for you and your family is an essential part in getting your financial life in order. Don’t know where to start? We have a guide for that. Want to share your Grocery Diary with The Kitchn? See how here.