What Groceries Should Actually Cost, by Household Size

"Are we spending too much on groceries?" is one of the hardest household-budget questions to answer, because there's rarely an obvious number to compare against. There actually is one — the USDA publishes it every month — most people have just never seen it.

The USDA's four benchmark plans

Each month, the USDA prices out a full nutritious diet at four spending levels — Thrifty, Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost, and Liberal — for households of every size and age mix. Thrifty is the leanest of the four (it's also the basis used to set SNAP food-assistance benefits); Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost, and Liberal relax the budget in stages from there. All four assume every meal and snack is prepared at home, and all four are updated monthly against real food-price inflation.

A family of four, by spending level

For the USDA's reference family of four (two adults, two children ages 6-8 and 9-11), the most current figures — Thrifty from the May 2026 report, and Low-Cost/Moderate-Cost/Liberal from the June 2026 report, the newest available as of this writing — look like this:

Source: USDA Official Food Plans, Cost of Food at Home. These are updated monthly, so check the source directly for the latest figures rather than treating this snapshot as permanent.

Scaling the numbers to your own household

The table above is priced for a specific four-person household. The USDA's own suggested adjustment for other household sizes: add 20% for one person, add 10% for two, add 5% for three, no adjustment for four, subtract 5% for five or six, and subtract 10% for seven or more — applied to the sum of what each person in the household would cost individually, not to the family-of-four total directly.

Two worked examples on the Moderate-Cost plan: a single adult (age 20-50) costs $336.40/month on their own before adjustment — add the 20% single-person adjustment and that's about $404/month. A couple with no kids (one adult 20-50 of each sex) costs $734.20/month combined before adjustment — add the 10% two-person adjustment and that's about $808/month.

Which number is realistic for you?

Thrifty assumes the most cooking-from-scratch and the least flexibility on brand or cut of meat — realistic, but genuinely tight for most households not budgeting under real constraint. Moderate-Cost is the more common real-world reference point: nothing fancy, but room for actual variety. Liberal is closer to what a household spends when price isn't the main constraint. If your own grocery bill sits well above Liberal for your household size, that's a genuine signal worth digging into — not necessarily a problem, but worth knowing why.

Comparing this benchmark against a number is one thing; seeing where your own money actually goes is another. Shopolit's spending insights build that real picture automatically from your receipts, free for every user. Get started free.

Common questions

Does this include eating out?

No. These are USDA "food-at-home" plans. They cover meals and snacks made at home, using groceries you buy and cook yourself. Restaurant meals, takeout, and delivery sit in a separate category. The USDA tracks that one on its own, called "food away from home." A household's real total food spend is usually higher than the food-at-home number alone. Add eating out back in, and the total climbs. These benchmarks are useful for comparing your own grocery bill. They're not meant for your total food spend, restaurants included. Keep that in mind when you compare your own numbers against the table above.

Why four different numbers instead of one?

They're different spending choices for the same basic diet, not different regions or family types. Thrifty is the leanest of the four. It's also the base used to set SNAP food-aid benefits. Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost, and Liberal loosen the budget in stages from there — mostly through pricier cuts of meat, more variety, and quicker meals that take less time to cook.

Are these numbers the same everywhere in the US?

These are the U.S. average — real local prices vary. The USDA publishes separate statewide estimates for Alaska and Hawaii specifically because their grocery costs diverge enough from the mainland average to need their own report; the four-plan U.S. average here is the right starting benchmark for most of the country.