How much do you spend on your groceries every months? (Including cleaning supplies, housing supplies, baby supply)

27 comments

1. I pay 1,000yen for the fruits I eat for dessert alone everyday. Obviously Toyko prices might be higher but I don’t think it’s possible to eat three meals for 1,000yen per day unless you eat rice only.

   To answer your question, food and groceries for my wife and me cokes out at around 180,000yen per month. Around 3,000yen per person per day. We are not really saving though and mostly just indulge a bit to get some of the nicer items rather than budgeting.

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3. Living in Hokkaido I spent around 15000円 for food and 15000円 for other grocery. 1000円 for 3 people per day is impossible IMO

4. My manager and his wife spends 200,000 monthly on food Bec they like high quality. No kids tho

5. There’s something called financial abuse, and that’s what you’re experiencing. If you and your kid are supposed to eat 3 meals a day with only 1000 yens, HE, needs only 500 yens. Ask him if he’s OK with that.

6. In Saitama, for myself alone, snacks and such included, I spend around 5000 yen per week. I don’t have breakfast, so between lunch and dinner ingredients for western style dishes, which may cost a little more to put together than Japanese ones, comes out at sometimes a bit more, 25,000~30,000 per month depending on if I need to get a bit more of something, like getting a new bag of rice etc. I also take care of two pets, with my cat taking up about 5000 yen per month and my hedgehog, 1500 per month. Taking that out of my total would put me at 20,000~ per month. For myself alone.

   1,000 yen a day though for *three* people is a bit unfair imo. Between two adults and a child, you should be able to get by on 2,000~2,500 a day I think without much difficulty, but 1,000 is a bit too low.

   Additionally, you haven’t actually mentioned how much you personally are spending on food. Only how much your husband gave you in *one* instance and how much you used to keep on hand/give to him prior to becoming pregnant, which has no actual bearing on how much you refer to is “spending a decent amount of money”. We need to know what that value is before we could make any particular statement on whether or not you’re spending too much on food.

   And, just to note, I would be *very* careful with the statement your husband made about, “only giving you X amount of money in cash” to spend. That’s financial abuse if he’s controlling all the finances to limit your freedom. Obviously issues like this should be first spoken through, but I think the best idea would be to build a budget together, and if he thinks that 1000 yen per day is enough, then he needs to break down what that 1000 yen goes into *precisely* in order to justify that amount. Otherwise, you should be building a daily/monthly budget too for how much you believe you and your family needs for that time period in order to justify those expenses as well and *prove* it’s required.

7. People are focusing on your budget, when the real issue is your husband. Giving starvation money to a wife who’s forced to starve herself to feed kids, is borderline, if not clearly domestic abuse. 1000 yen a day is a tiny amount, like ‘I am 1 paycheck away from being homeless’ lifestyle.

   The problem isn’t the amount you’re spending, it’s that your husband is an insane bastard. His mentality is toxic, he will always find something to complain about because he doesn’t like you spending ‘his’ money on yourself.

   You need to talk to him and his relatives and rebalance this. The amount you’re spending isn’t the issue here.

8. Well, if he wants the old fashioned way, *you* should be the one holding the purse strings and giving *him* the allowance for whatever horsetrack or pachinko he goes to.

   That said, you should know what he earns and break down a budget for monthly costs, savings, etc. that you can work out together. If there is some mystery money disappearing down a black hole, you can call him on it. Remember while his job is bringing in the money, you are by no means slacking. Your job is take care of the kids and hold the family together. Budget should be on an equal standing.

   Frankly ‘how much do you guys here spend a day on food’ is irrelevant, because it might not be what you can or should be spending. Everyone’s budget is different and you do have to work within it. Kids are definitely a stressor on finances as well, so that is understandable.

9. How much money does your husband earn? I struggle to believe that he doesn’t earn enough for food since all the other basic expenses are covered by his parents. You should start considering if you want to spend your lifetime with a person who happily leaves his family starving because he stressed out about money.

   If he really doesn’t make enough, you should cut down other expenses, like for house cleaning and prioritize food first.

10. I spend about 1500 per day for a family of 3 but we have a garden and our in laws have farmland so we get 80-90% of our veggies and rice for free.

    1000yens per day with a garden would be doable but without that, it’s pretty much impossible.

11. This is financial abuse and it’s not about money, it’s about control.

    Is his mother around? Try talking to her. In the short term his mother might be able to explain how much money you need to run the house. For the long term, you should be formulating a plan to leave and documenting the abuse.

12. I live alone in Tokyo, and I cook every day for myself (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and I like to bake.

    I think I spend about 2000~5000¥/week depending on how expensive things get, or if I buy some special foreign/vegan foods. So around 8000~20000¥/month on groceries alone.

    As per cleaning stuff, at most 5000¥ a month.

    I think you should really evaluate if your husband is really doing his part on keeping the family afloat. Sometimes being so focused on how many money you spend, can be the telltale signs of some abusive behavior and sometimes even of gambling addictions.

13. >we don’t pay the rent, electricity, gas, water, etc. My father in law takes care of it…

    WOW. If only we had the same luxuries. Your husband keeps all the other money then?!

    My wife and I sat down for 2-3 hours to understand our daily / monthly budget. From there, we knew how much we had for groceries, and extra money for eating out / weekends.

14. I am married with 2 kids (9 and 3 years old) in Tokyo.

    I give 80,000 yen a month to my wife for groceries, including what you list in the title. I think it is adequate and she also manages to keep something for her personal expenses.

15. We spend about 16,000/week, two adults and three kids, including two teenagers.

    OP – just to offer a different possible perspective here, it’s entirety possible that your husband just doesn’t realize how much stuff costs. That, combined with the financial stress that everyone is feeling these days, may be causing him to point the finger at you. Keep calm, and ask him to take you to the shops. Tell him you want to change your cooking habits, and you want to see what kind of things he wants to eat, whatever. Point is to get him walking around the supermarket and looking at prices. He should get the point pretty quickly.

16. man fuck that

17. Even when you were working you were giving him ¥100,000 a month? Even when you don’t need to pay rent? And now this? This is absolutely financial abuse. Feeling guilty for buying your favourite food is no way to live…

    I agree with the other comment asking if you can talk to his mum or dad about the situation. I’m sure they would be shocked. 1000 a day is impossible and will be a threat to you and your kids’ health. Not to mention the stress on you will be awful.

    Try and speak to his family members about it. If he gets angry about you speaking to his family, then I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay with this man 🙁

18. I am currently spending about 1650 JPY a day for myself only.

19. I’m single and I spend anywhere between ¥1500~¥3000 a day for food. Your husband is being highly unreasonable and it makes me wonder if there’s something else going on. Is he using a very unhealthy method of communication of asking you to work again?

20. It breaks my heart reading this. I have a different approach for food. It’s like investing in your health for the future. I’m willing to pay for quality food.

    Here’s a few tips I’ve learned over time here, not sure if it can help you:

    I get my rice directly from farmers of my area. I need to polish the rice using a rice grinder (kind of vending machine). It’s much cheaper this way and you can select the purity of the rice grain. Not making it super white is better for health.

    Buy your staple food in bulk. For me I get oatmeal and tuna can from Amazon because they have good offers when you buy in bulk (Rakuten as well). I guess it would also make sense to go to Costco for the same reason, if you have one nearby.

    Chicken breasts are so cheap and relatively high quality. In some supermarkets it is under 49 yens for 100g. (like Trial or Ramu). I’ve learned to cook chicken and it has changed my life (delicious and cheap).

    Some Penne Pasta, Italian brand are sold at 99yens for 250gr at Trial.

    The long “hotel type” bread sold in supermarket is such a good deal. You have to cut it yourself, which allows to control the thickness of the slices. Don’t buy already cut bread.

    Price of eggs vary so much depending on the location. Around 220 yens for 10 L-size eggs is a very good deal.

    If you can, go check local markets. They sell crazy cheap vegetables when in season (also overpriced ones), sometimes they even give-away stuff. Same goes for fish market if you can go early. I live in the countryside so I’m used to this, but I know not everyone have access to these places.

    Even though I still think Konbinis are great, I almost never buy anything there since it is overpriced. I prepare my drinks at home (making tea from sachet, coffee from beans and sportsdrink from powder). I almost never buy plastic bottles and use only canteens.

    I grow some vegetables and fruits. I know this one can be hard to do but if you can you should really give it a try. Green peppers, onions, carrots are so easy to make.

21. Could you get a job or work? It rebalances the power dynamic. Everyone should earn money that is unquestionably theirs, as it is a freedom as well.

22. It’s extremely suspicious to me that he’s causing such a huge fuss about this when all of the major expenses are already being paid for by his father. It seems pretty unlikely to me, if not *impossible* that he would be struggling to pay for food and can only spare 1,000 yen a day unless he has a terrible job or works low hours.

    Just where is that extra money going? Are you sure he’s not blowing the money on something else? Gambling? Women? Or is he just being exceptionally greedy? Is his business struggling so much that he’s spending everything he earns just to keep it afloat? Maybe he needs to consider closing it down and getting a different job if he can’t even support his family with his father picking up so much slack for him. Pretty outrageous imo.

    Either way, this doesn’t seem right. And for reference, I spend 40,000 ~ 50,000 per month for 2 people. 30,000 for 4 people sounds unreasonable to me. Your father-in-law seems very kind. Have you spoken to him about this issue? What are his thoughts?

23. To put things into perspective, the minimum wage per hour in Japan is about 1000 yen depending on which prefecture you live in.

    1000 to feed 3 meals for 3 people works out to about 111 for each portion. Sounds impossible.

    Assuming your husband is working baito (4hrs a day) at minimum wage in the worse case scenario, that is only 25% of his wage spent for 3 people, 3 meals with no rent or utilities to pay.

    Talk to him. Smells more live modern slavery than anything.

24. I don’t track my expenses…

    but your problem is not money.

25. Your husband has entrusted you to feed the family and take care of the house. I think it’s only fair he also trust you with the money.
    Tell him directly ¥1000 a day isn’t enough to feed the family and buy toilet paper and shower items. If he still doesn’t believe you, tell him he can go shopping after work everyday himself and find out how much it all costs.

    Also, if he’s so concerned about money, he needs to tell you how much he’s making, and share with you how much he’s spending. What does he heat for lunch? Is he having a beer after work? One beer a day at an izakaya can easily come to ¥3000.

    The trust has to be both ways in this situation.

26. None of this reads as normal. Get help.
    In Japan, traditionally, the women control the finances and husband receives a stipend every month.

    Your husband just comes off as abusive.

27. Sorry you’re going through that. Just want to add that in this heat, everyone’s spouse is acting crazy, and the best way to flip that on him is to leave for 72 hours and put him in charge of babysitting. That will teach him how far 1000 yen goes