Grocery Shopping and Food budgets

[TwoMisfits]

I did want to mention, you can't compare budgets if you don't also compare the eating out budget (or understand if someone is getting "comped" or reduced meals - like school lunch, work lunch, etc). My budget used to be $200 less/month on groceries, but we spent $400 more/month on eating out...so upping the groceries saved $200 month overall...we also never receive free meals from any source, except when we travel out of town for family (and then our "free meal" is paid for by the cost of gas, b/c we are 180 miles + from any family...