From a weekly meal plan to a monthly grocery budget

Write a repeatable week

List breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks for the actual household. Note meals eaten elsewhere and ingredients already on hand. This is a budgeting exercise, not dietary advice. Translate the menu into shopping quantities and distinguish food consumed in the week from packages that last longer. Buying a bottle of oil does not mean consuming the entire bottle every week.

Separate consumption from checkout cash

Price the quantities used for a recurring food estimate, but keep the full packages in your first-shopping cash list. Illustratively, a package costing 8 that lasts four weeks contributes 2 per week of use while requiring 8 at checkout. Do not count both figures in the same spending total. Keep spoilage or unused ingredients visible rather than assuming every package is fully used.

Scale and verify after arrival

For a 52-week planning year, multiply a stable weekly consumption budget by 52/12 to obtain an average month. Do not extrapolate a celebration or first pantry setup as every week. After arrival, compare several ordinary shopping periods with the plan and adjust quantities before attributing every difference to city prices. Keep household supplies outside the food subtotal.

Sources and further reading

• Lifovra — methodology and limitations