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Handy Chart Tells You if You’re Overspending on Groceries

Do you know how much to spend on groceries? Because money is an issue that causes a lot of people to clam up, you might not have any idea what your friends and neighbors are spending at the store on a weekly basis. Fortunately, there’s a chart that will tell you how much your average grocery bill should be.

Shannon Clark, a stay-at-home mom who runs a blog called Affording Motherhood, created a table that shows how much families of varying sizes should be spending if they follow a “thrifty” monthly budget. Her numbers are based on the average cost of food, a statistic the U.S. Department of Agriculture releases. And while she used the 2016 figures, which aren’t far off from 2017’s stats, her chart has divided the internet. What do you think?

The Real Deal of Parenting shared Clark’s numbers, and some people commented, saying her math was spot-on.

Others, however, weren’t so sure.

Moms also brought up the fact that the numbers don’t take into account families that are shopping for picky eaters or people with food allergies.

And what about people who live in big cities like New York and San Francisco? You can throw those numbers out the window!

Whether or not Clark’s numbers accurately represent what you spend to feed your family, her chart provides at least a ballpark for what you should aim for. If you shell out way more than the numbers in the table, don’t fret! These averages represent what a family on a “thrifty plan” — and this is the government’s own label — might spend. For the next level up — the low-cost plan — a family of four with two children between the ages of six and 11 could eat for $843.50 per month. That translates to about $211 per person.

Now that you have an idea what the government thinks you should be spending, where do you stack up? Do you need to do some serious cutting back, or are you right where you’re supposed to be?

h/t Delish

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