Free tool for shared households
Shared grocery budget estimator
Food is the shared cost people argue about most, usually because nobody knows what normal looks like. Tell us who eats at your table and how you shop, and you get a monthly and weekly budget, a per-person share, and an honest comparison with what you spend today.
Estimator
Shared grocery budget estimator
A realistic monthly food budget for your household size and eating habits — and how your current spending compares.
Groceries only, per month — we'll compare it with the estimate.
Monthly grocery budget
€500
Realistic range €440–€560
Per week
€115
€6,000 a year
Per adult, split evenly
€250
Counted as 2 eating units
Add what you spend today to see whether your household is over or under a realistic budget.
Share these results
Every version carries the SharedNest name and a link back with your numbers, so whoever you send it to can reopen the exact same result.
How the estimate is built
- 01 — Everyone at the table is converted into eating units: an adult is 1, a teenager is 1, a six to twelve year old is 0.7 and an under-five is 0.5.
- 02 — Each unit is priced at your shopping style — €180 budget-first, €250 mid-range, €340 premium per month:budget = eating units × style cost × eating-out factor × local price factor
- 03 — Eating out lowers the figure (up to −15% at five meals out a week), and local prices move it between −15% and +20%. The range shown is ±12% around the result, because no two months are identical.
Worked example
Two adults and a nine-year-old, mid-range shopping, two or three meals out a week, average prices: 2.7 eating units at €250 gives about €675 a month, or roughly €156 a week. Move to an expensive city and it becomes €810.
Questions people ask
- How much should a couple spend on groceries per month?
- For two adults shopping mid-range in an average-priced area, roughly €450–€560 a month is realistic. Budget-first shopping pulls it towards €350, while organic or premium shopping pushes past €650.
- How much do children add to a food budget?
- Less than an adult when they are small, and about the same once they are teenagers. This estimator counts under-fives at half an adult, six to twelves at about seven tenths, and teenagers as a full adult.
- Do takeaways count as groceries?
- No — keep them in a separate eating-out line, otherwise you cannot see which one is growing. Eating out often does lower the grocery figure, which is why the estimator asks about it.
- How do couples split the grocery bill fairly?
- Two common approaches: split it evenly because you both eat at home, or fold it into an income-proportional share of all shared costs. If incomes differ a lot, the second usually feels fairer.
- Why is my real spending higher than the estimate?
- Usually top-up shops, delivery fees and food waste rather than the weekly list itself. Tracking a single month of grocery spending is normally enough to find the leak.
Turn the estimate into a real budget
SharedNest tracks grocery spending as it happens, splits it between you and warns you before the month runs over.
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