Take a closer look at your grocery budget. Find ways to cut costs!
Grocery Budget Calculator
Use the calculator below to get an estimate based on the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Low-Cost Food Plan.
How does what you spend on groceries compare to the estimate below? Remember, restaurant meals are not included here.
Figures for the grocery budget calculator are based on USDA Food Plans: Cost of Food, Low-Cost level for latest month available.
Calculate Overall Costs
To calculate overall household grocery costs we:
- Adjusted food costs for each person in household.
- The Cost of Food at Home table provides an amount for each family member by their age and gender if they ate all their meals at home.
- From this amount 1/21 is subtracted for each meal they ate away from home.
- An adjustment is made for household size:
- 1-person — add 20 percent
- 2-person —add 10 percent
- 3-person — add 5 percent
- 4-person — no adjustment
- 5- or 6-person — subtract 5 percent
- 7- (or more) person— subtract 10 percent
- Summed the adjusted food costs for each family member to get the cost of food at home for the household. Note: cost of food at restaurants and costs for school meals are not included in the grocery budget calculator.
*This calculator can be exported to other websites – follow these simple directions to embed it on your own site.
