Our household is three adults – two vegetarians and one (decidedly) not. Our family indulged heavily in grocery spending over the past two years, to compensate for not going out. We ate well, but we’ve also stretched our food dollars. We stopped our 2020 weekly takeout habit in 2021, we bring homemade lunches to work and school every day, and we cook our dinners at home.
Last January, we bought a freezer, allowing us to stock up on deals. Next, Link started batch cooking on the weekends. They began cooking on-sale roasts, chicken thighs, etc. and using them for sandwiches and stir fries throughout the week. I bring salads to work most days so I can use up what I bought that week, and not fuss too much about variety. Nevertheless, I was stopped in my tracks a few weeks ago when a co-worker saw my salad and joked, “That’s $40 right there!”
I know how much we spend on groceries by category, so I had to find out what my salads really cost! We spent $1475.81 for vegetables last year, or $28.38 a week. That includes all fresh, frozen and canned vegetables, but not freebies (such as cucumbers and zucchini that home gardeners gave us). It doesn’t include condiments and sides like ketchup and pickles. $28.38 provides vegetables at lunch and dinner for all three of us for seven days, so it’s $9.46 per person per week.
We each have 1-2 servings of vegetables for lunch and 3-4 for dinner. Estimating 1.5 and 3.5, that’s 5 servings a day, or 35 a week, for each of us.
Dividing the $9.46 by 35 servings, that’s 27 cents CDN per serving.
My salads are 1 cup raw veg and 2 cups greens (2 servings total) so actually only 54 cents. Being cheap, I sometimes add peeled broccoli stalks and skip buying lettuce when it costs too much (more than $4/week) 
Then I add salad dressing (34 cents) and nuts (56 cents) and accompany the salad with crackers (38 cents) and fancy cheese (80 cents). Total for meal is $2.62. Not dirt cheap. But nutritious, luxurious, and I never get tired of it. Again, I do substitutions. For example, if I use pumpkin seeds instead of nuts some days, that is 8 cents instead of 56! And generic cheddar rather than my favourite posh cheese is 28 cents less.
To round out my workday meals, I typically have cereal and milk for first breakfast, a bagel with peanut butter when I get to work, yogurt with frozen berries in the afternoon, and two or three pieces of fruit. For dinner we have vegetarian stews, curries and stir-fries with lots of vegetables, beans, lentils and/or tofu. Some of our recipes include milk, cheese or eggs.
Long-time readers know I love sweets, but I have a plan afoot and I’ll update you on that in a few weeks.
The Details
*In 2021, we spent $10,903 on groceries or $303 per person per month.
*In 2022, we spent $11,340 on groceries or $315 per person per month, an increase of 4%.
These totals include EVERYTHING we bought (such as cleaning supplies, paper goods and personal care items) but not pet supplies.
Our spending in each category was remarkably similar both years. I wondered: since we spent so close to the same amounts, did we get less food for the money? Or did we change our habits and buy cheaper items?
As an example, we spent $136 more on dairy products in 2022. This proved to be the result of buying 40% less cheese, but more soy milk and yogurt.
The differences were greater for fruit and vegetables. We spent $175 more for fruit this year. Several reasons:
In 2021, the apples available were not good (bad crop, I guess), so I bought a lot less. This year they are better apples and the price actually declined, on average. For apples, bananas and grapes, we paid more in total than the year before, but we received more kg of fruit.
I buy oranges year-round. This year they averaged $3.86/kg. Yet I hesitate to buy peaches or pears in season because they seem expensive. Actual price? $3.88/kg.
The biggest price increase in our “fruit basket” was for California raisins at Costco. We substituted cheaper Thompson and sultana raisins last year, but this year we decided the premium raisins are worth it. You might think, how many raisins can one actually eat? I assure you, it is a lot. Rom has an ounce of them with cereal or oatmeal every day.
Meanwhile we spent $145 less on vegetables this year.
Rom was a bit obsessed with celery the previous year but it wore off and he only had half as much in 2022. He switched from cherry tomatoes as snacks, to regular-size slices of tomatoes with lunch. We bought more local romaine lettuce and less imported greens like Spring Mix. I’ve switched from red radishes to daikon in my salads which is a fraction of the price. We haven’t bought tinned soup for a few years now and others must not be buying it either, because the selection in the store is down by half. I stopped making green chili because imported or tinned green chilies, tomatillos and salsa verde add up quickly. More often, I see a new price on a familiar item and strike it off my list, saying – nope, I will not pay that.
I am not blaming Rom for our increased grocery costs. I buy many things for myself that he doesn’t eat or drink, like coffee and sweets. Likewise, although Link eats meat or fish daily, our dairy/dairy alternatives cost just as much.
All in all, I think it took a lot of conscious shopping to keep our grocery budget to a 4% increase. We have made changes in what we buy and how much, to stay on track. Sadly, we ended up eating more kinds of snack foods, and more of them. We didn’t need to add to our 5-9 fruit and veg a day, but bigger helpings of meal foods might have lessened snacking. This may have been related to a feeling of deprivation from having fewer restaurant meals and takeout, or just a desire to cheer ourselves up. Now Canada is telling us that zero alcohol is acceptable – maybe we’ll need even more cheering!
Have you changed the amount you spend on groceries or, are you choosing different foods? Any other new strategies?
