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Forum -> Household Management -> Budgeting & Bargains

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hotcocoa1234

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 2:49 am

We are a family of 4. 2 adults, a toddler and an 8 month old and we spend around $2,000 per month on groceries. Is that normal? I feel like it is an excessive amount. How do people budget over here when groceries tend to be so expensive?

WitchKitty

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 2:58 am

Depends where you live and where you shop and what you buy. If you're buying like an American that's probably normal Smile

We're like you just without the baby, and it costs less than 2,000 shekel. I don't buy too many expensive foods though, and I buy in cheap places (=mishnat yosef)
Food has become more expensive here since the beginning of the year. Shemitta brings prices up. The new taxes too.
You're not in the Life in Israel forum?

Bnei Berak 10

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 3:09 am

Where do you shop? Do you buy the best brand products? Are you strict with hechsherim? Do you try to buy on sales? Do you shop in wealthy areas or in poor areas?

SG18

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 3:13 am

We spend 1300-1500 shekels per month. We would like it to be less, but are still stocking up on essentials, because we made Aliyah recently. We're also still figuring out the cheapest places to get certain items. Our goal is to get down to 1000 shekels per month.
We're a couple with an 8 month old baby, living in Jerusalem.

ChalieB

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 3:25 am

We're still trying to figure things out, but we've spent between 1300-1500 shekels a month for just the two of us (in the Mercaz)

camp123

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 3:37 am

We are two adults and four young kids and spend about 4500 shekel per month. Includes diapers, toiletries

worldtraveller

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 4:10 am

WitchKitty wrote:

Depends where you live and where you shop and what you buy. If you're buying like an American that's probably normal Smile

How do I do that?

lovecouches

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 6:06 am

A friend of mine told me it's normal to spend 750nis a week on groceries if you don't buy from sales. This is people who are not crazy frugal and only buy chareidi hechsheirim
.

lovecouches

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 6:06 am

worldtraveller wrote:

How do I do that?

You go to the forums and request to join. You do need a minimum of posts to join I think.

hotcocoa1234

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 6:17 am

Op here, I live in beitar and I buy chareidi hechsherim

lovecouches

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 6:46 am

hotcocoa1234 wrote:

Op here, I live in beitar and I buy chareidi hechsherim

What do you spend in shekel? Is that like 1500 shekel a week? I do one shop in a bigger store once a week and the rest of the time I fill in at the local makolet. I don't shop that frugally and probably spend about 7-800 shekel a week on food. I have only 1 toddler who eats most of his food in maon.

6000miles

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 6:48 am

I shop like an American and we spend about 1000 shekel a week, including fruits n veg excluding chicken. 2 adults, 2 toddlers.
It's a lot but I can't go running around trying to find the best sales. It's hard just shlepping all the bags home from the corner makolet.

Iymnok

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 6:51 am

Ask if there is Mishnat Yosef or Mechira Shechunatit in your neighborhood. It generally saves you money.

lovecouches

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 7:12 am

Iymnok wrote:

Ask if there is Mishnat Yosef or Mechira Shechunatit in your neighborhood. It generally saves you money.

I find that unless you live right by the mishnat Yosef then it's not so worth it. The prices are not so much better for food items and it's usually a madhouse. Though they sometimes do have good clothes. In beitar there are places to get cheaper meat and chicken.

WitchKitty

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 8:58 am

lovecouches wrote:

I actually do it less for the price and more because it saves me time.
Instead of walking around the store for half an hour, I pick up everything in 10 minutes.

lovecouches wrote:

A friend of mine told me it's normal to spend 750nis a week on groceries if you don't buy from sales. This is people who are not crazy frugal and only buy chareidi hechsheirim
.

For how many people?

ray family

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 9:03 am

We’re a family of 8 and I spend around 4,000 shekels a month only mehadrin hechsheirim.
If I recall correctly I once read spending 100-150 shekels per person per week is avg. I think there needs to be a baseline beyond that lets say 200 shekels and then the 100 shekels per person , but could be I’m wrong.

lovecouches

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 9:40 am

WitchKitty wrote:

For how many people?

She said for a family of 3-4. This is someone who buys everything in the grocery and doesn't do any neighborhood sales. I just spent 600 shekel tonight but I stocked up on stuff because I did a delivery that I don't do every week.

ora_43

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 9:42 am

We spend less than that with more people, even with buying some frozen premade foods and dealing with some special food needs.

But we also eat rabbanut heksher and mostly eat vegetarian during the week.

General rules for getting grocery bill down:

First, look at where you're spending. Are you buying a lot of meat? A lot of fancy imported stuff? A lot of disposables? Do you use all the food you buy, or is some going bad before you can use it?

Plan meals in advance. Build at least some of them around cheaper proteins (white fish, eggs, hummus + pita, rice + lentils, etc). Don't make them too complicated, if you have to spend an extra hour a day cooking it might not be worth it.

Use mostly the fruits and vegetables that are in season.

Kitchen appliances can help. Eg a rice cooker makes it a lot easier to cook rice, lentils, quinoa, etc, a food processor makes it easier to cook with lots of vegetables.

Also a decently big freezer, so you can take advantage of sales.

Oh, and we do all of our 'big shopping' (once-in-two-weeks purchase of all dry goods) at the cheaper stores, like rami levi and osher ad, and buy the store brand unless it's truly terrible (I will happily pay more for Osem pasta and ketchup).

shabbatiscoming

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 1:48 pm

hotcocoa1234 wrote:

is that shekels or dollars you are sending. If it is dollars then yes, I think that is a bit much for 4 people where 2 of those people are not eating all that much. We are 3 people 2 adults, one teen, and we spend around 2500 - 2800 shekels a month of groceries.

Thu, Jan 06 2022, 1:50 pm

we are 10 ppl including a few teens (one is out of the house in yeshiva but we send lots of packages Smile

)
I don't think we spend more than 1000 nis per week probably less most weeks.

I am careful - like I always look for the cheaper brands etc. but I won't buy a cheaper brand if it is truly inferior. we do mishnat yosef but not sure if thats the biggest savings. I don't buy luxury items (like brocolli for example) except for special occasions.

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