A Family of 3 Monthly Food Budget: June 2025
I often see people talking about how expensive groceries are in 2025, and that they are spending upwards of $1000 a month on groceries. We are currently a family of 3 and a half (I’m 7 months pregnant) while my husband is deployed. This includes me and my two toddlers (3 and under).
I’d love to talk about what we spend in a month on food in my newest series and give you a monthly breakdown of what we’re spending, what we’re making and how we’re doing it.
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Pie Chart of 2025 June Monthly Food Budget for Family of 3
How Does This Food Budget Stack Up Against the National Average?
This food plan is far below even the “thrifty” food plan that was put out by the USDA for the month of May 2025. Per their chart, we should be spending somewhere around $552.80 a month to feed our family of three. But we came in just a little more than half that at $240.90.
PS. If you’re following along with my math for the USDA calculation using the table below, it says to add 5% if a 3 person household (and if you’re over a 4 person household you start subtracting costs).
Credit: USDA.gov website for thrifty food plan
What Kind of Food Do You Buy For Your Family on a Budget?
I know what you’re probably wondering. What are you buying and is any of it organic food?
I think when people think budget food, they automatically think “beans and rice” and a plethora of “struggle meals” (I’m looking at you packaged ramen).
My family buys organic-ish. I try to prioritize the things we eat often or have the highest risk of pesticide contamination to be organic. Things like milk and flour I try to buy organic when I can, but if the cottage cheese I buy once a month or the bacon as a weekend treat isn’t organic, I try not to stress when it’s not in the budget. Living rural and having Aldi as my main shopping destination means I can’t always be choosey about what is available.
Since we make almost everything from scratch and are what you’d call an “ingredient household”, I try not to worry too much since I know we’re avoiding all of the other added ingredients typically in a standard American diet.
This is not to say that we never buy processed foods. I usually let my kids pick out one treat for the week, usually something like animal crackers or a special cereal. And I usually pick out one for myself, with this pregnancy it’s been a lot of salty treats.
However, I really try to still make our snacks when I can. I always make our sweets, our breads, and pretty much anything that goes in the oven to be made.
What Meals Do You Make to Keep a Low Budget?
Here is a list of meals I made to keep our budget low this month.
Mexican Fried Rice
Veggie Curry
Potaotes Au Gratin with Sauage/ground chicken
Lots of eggs with potatoes
Homemade "Hamburger Helper"
Noodles for my toddler
Bacon and Broccoli Creamy Pasta
In addition to these meals, we eat oatmeal, yogurt and other simple breakfasts to fill in the gaps when we don’t want big meals.
I usually always have some sort of loaf of bread made too, which is a great easy meal when you add peanut butter, eggs or if we have lunch meat (not often) a good sandwich.
How Much Do You Spend Per Food Category Per Month?
For the month of June, we spent around $10 on snacks, $55 for Pantry, $20 on Milk, $15 on Fruit, $55 on Protein (includes eggs), $35 on Dairy and just over $50 on veggies.
I expect our veggie bill to go down as the garden starts kicking off more and we start to put up more food in our pantry. I love to can foods, and if you’re wanting to learn, I have a great beginner canner tips article you can check out. It helps us save a lot of money and have good control over what is in our food.
I’m excited to see how our spending in different categories changes each month.
What do you do to keep your groceries low each month?