$400 a month for 5 adults is doable, but itās not enjoyable unless youāre a big fan of cooking, and itās much harder if you dont have great access to stores or a car.
A few years ago I shared a house with four other people, and each week weād put $50 each into the kitty, which would pay for shared groceries but also all the bills, so it was important to have groceries come in as cheap as possible.
Most weeks I could get it around $80, but it was always under $100. It takes work to keep things that low, however.
Find your cheapest local store, or find out if itās worth travelling a bit further to buy at a bigger discount. Think your local aldi vs Costco. For us, we went to Costco at the start of the year to stock up on cleaning supplies and canned goods (that we KNEW we would use), and then did a weekly shop at aldi.
Find out the cost per weight (or volume) of products to get the most value for money. The calculation is a bit of a pain to learn but you can just plug in the numbers once you know it. Look up āunit price calculatorā if youāre struggling.
Learn to love cheap food. Cheap cuts of meat, bulking out dishes with lentils or rice, and learning how to save borderline produce will make a huge difference. There are many food bloggers out there who teach you how to stretch a dollar, but I recommend Jack Monroeās website for the best tips on improving clearance rack items. Things like casseroles and pasta bakes are also great for stretching food by adding filler.
For produce, I wont buy anything more than $4 per kilo (mushrooms are the exception). When carrots are on sale for $1 or less a kilo, Iāll buy multiple bags, because they make great filler when grated and cooked into dishes.
Learn how to store things. For instance, you can freeze grated carrot, and make those cheap bags last months. Google ācan I freeze ____ā, and if something can be stored, buy in bulk when itās cheap.
Oats and cheap bread are perfectly acceptable for breakfast/lunch. So are leftovers. Theres no need to get fancy, and cheap grains are pretty solid meals.
Try to avoid snacks. They easily destroy a good budget, because theyāre priced for convenience. If you can bake, making simple cookies is way more cost effective. Often even marked down baking mixes are better value.
HAVE A MENU PLANNED. This is the number one thing. I planned each week around two proteins, with the idea being that I could buy those in large packs for cheap, and then we could alternate them to keep it interesting. Anything leftover from the last weekās shop would be used first, or frozen to be used later. The idea is to buy things in bulk and then spread their use out over the week. Eg ground beef could be used on Monday for tacos, Thursday for bolognese, and Saturday for a meat pie (and the meat in these meals would be padded out with grated veg and lentils, to go even further). Same idea applies to fruit and vegetables - as many meals as possible from each type. Carbs, spices and sauces keep for ages, so you use those to switch it up and keep things interesting.
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