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Form GB-34 · The Market Ledger

Grocery Budget Calculator

The USDA prices a monthly grocery basket for every age and sex, four ways: Thrifty, Low-Cost, Moderate, Liberal. Build your household below and the ledger returns its four official budgets (August 2026 figures), then tells you where your actual spending lands.

Source: USDA Cost of Food at Home, August 2026 (issued September 2026). Store-tier, area, and waste levers are clearly labeled modeled estimates on top of the USDA numbers — not USDA figures.

Step 1 — Build your household

    Step 2 — Your actual spending

    Step 3 — The levers (modeled)

    The EPA estimates Americans waste about $728 of food per person per year (2025). The waste slider only reframes what your budget must cover — it is your estimate.

    THE MARKET LEDGER

    Enter your monthly grocery spending to see which USDA plan you are living in.

    Your household's four official budgets

    USDA planMonthlyWeeklyPer person per meal

    Weekly = monthly × 12 / 52 (the honest conversion). Per-meal assumes 3 meals a day, 30.44 days.

    The receipt

    Model note: the four plan rows are pure USDA (August 2026, all meals at home, household-size adjustment applied). The store, area, and waste levers are this ledger's modeled estimates, shown separately in the receipt so you can see exactly what is official and what is estimated.

    Grocery budget questions, answered

    How much should I spend on groceries per month?
    The USDA's four official food plans give the benchmark, priced monthly by the government (August 2026 report). For the reference family of four (two adults, children 6-8 and 9-11): Thrifty $1,023.70, Low-Cost $1,125.80, Moderate $1,388.20, Liberal $1,678.70. Most middle-income households land between Low-Cost and Moderate. Build your exact household above for its own four numbers.
    What is the USDA Thrifty Food Plan?
    The Thrifty plan is the cheapest of the four federal food-cost benchmarks: a nutritious market basket with every meal cooked at home, priced from national retail surveys. For a single adult man it is $382.68 a month in August 2026 ($318.90 x the 20 percent one-person adjustment). It is also the exact basis for SNAP benefits: the October 2026 maximum for a family of four ($1,023) sits 70 cents from the Thrifty plan's $1,023.70.
    How does the calculator figure my household's number?
    It adds up the USDA's monthly cost for each person by age and sex, then applies the USDA's household-size adjustment: one person adds 20 percent, two add 10 percent, three add 5 percent, five or six subtract 5 percent, seven or more subtract 10 percent. That is the USDA's own published method, and the store-tier, area, and waste levers are clearly labeled as modeled on top of it.
    Why is my grocery bill higher than the USDA number?
    Four usual suspects. One: dining out and delivery mixed into the grocery line. Two: food waste, which runs to hundreds of dollars a month per household. Three: brand premiums on packaged goods. Four: the weekly-math trap — $1,388.20 a month is $320.35 a week (x12/52), not the $347.05 you get dividing by four, so a weekly budget built the lazy way overspends by $1,388 a year.
    How much should a single person spend on groceries?
    One-person households get a 20 percent USDA adjustment because they lose bulk-buying economies. For a single adult man (19-50): Thrifty $382.68, Moderate $477.72, Liberal $583.44 a month in August 2026. Per person, that is 38 percent more than a family of four pays for the same Moderate plan — the steepest penalty in the household-size curve.
    What percentage of income should go to groceries?
    Food at home runs about 6 to 7 percent of annual spending for the average American household (BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2024: $6,224 a year, or $518.67 a month). Under the 50/30/20 budget rule groceries sit in the 50 percent needs bucket alongside rent and utilities, so a grocery line over about 15 percent of take-home pay is worth auditing.

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