Separate food spending from mixed supermarket receipts before comparing your budget with a national benchmark. Use this worksheet alongside our USDA grocery budget guide for one person. Print this page or copy the table into your notes.
Set an observation window
Start date: __________ End date: __________ Days observed: __________
People covered: __________ Meals eaten away from home: __________
Separate food for home from restaurants, deliveries, toiletries, cleaning supplies, pet food and other purchases. Count each purchase once and deduct refunds from the relevant category.
| Date / shop | Food at home ($) | Meals out ($) | Non-food ($) | Stock-ups / fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| _______ | _______ | _______ | _______ | _______ |
| _______ | _______ | _______ | _______ | _______ |
| _______ | _______ | _______ | _______ | _______ |
| _______ | _______ | _______ | _______ | _______ |
| Totals | _______ | _______ | _______ | _______ |
Split mixed receipts
Fictional example: A $92 receipt includes $68 of food, $14 of toiletries and $10 of cleaning supplies. Record $68 as food and $24 as non-food. This simplified example assumes no additional tax or fees.
Use final amounts paid after discounts. Allocate tax and delivery fees consistently, or show them separately. Document any allocation you cannot make rather than comparing an all-in receipt total with a food-only benchmark.
Compare equal time periods
Food-at-home total: $__________ Days observed: __________
Weekly equivalent = total ÷ days × 7.
Average-month equivalent = total ÷ days × (365 ÷ 12).
Fictional arithmetic: $140 over 14 days equals $70 per week and about $304.17 per average month. This is neither a USDA figure nor a recommended target. Four weeks is 28 days, shorter than an average calendar month. Use the benchmark publisher’s conversion convention when reproducing its figures. Spending equivalents do not predict your next bill.
Next, use the USDA grocery budget calculator for your household to compare the worksheet’s food-at-home spending with a dated benchmark for the same weekly or monthly period. If your total is already food-only, enter it as the supermarket total and enter $0 for nonfood. If you enter an original mixed-receipt total instead, subtract only the nonfood items included in it, once. Check the tool’s source month and conversion convention before comparing monthly equivalents.
Explain variation before setting a target
Note guests, travel, illness, pantry stock-ups, food purchased in an earlier period, waste, changes in meals out, and transport or storage constraints. Compare the same people, categories and time window. Purchase spending differs from food consumed when pantry stocks change.
Try one practical change
Next period: __________
One change: __________
Why it is practical: __________
Result using the same categories: __________
Compare several periods. Lower spending alone is not an improvement if it reflects inadequate food, fewer meals, or costs moved to another category.
Sources and scope
This worksheet reproduces no current USDA dollar figures. Consult USDA monthly food-plan reports for benchmarks and keep their month, household adjustments and scope attached. This is a spending record, not a nutrition prescription.
Prepared for WorldLensia with AI assistance. Updated October 23, 2026. Editorial questions: info@worldlensia.com.
If your spending changes while the national price headline moves differently, compare the category mix using Your Inflation Rate vs the CPI: Spending Weights Explain the Gap.