Grocery Spending Statistics in the United States
Published September 15, 2026 · StatsGalore
Average annual food-at-home expenditures [1]
The average consumer unit spent $6,224 on food at home in 2024. BLS separately recorded $3,945 for food away from home. Together, those categories made up the $10,169 average food total, with the usual rounding conventions used in the survey. [1]
The numbers
| Food category | 2024 annual average | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Food at home, total | $6,224 | [1] |
| Cereals and bakery products | $779 | [1] |
| Meat, poultry, fish, and eggs | $1,414 | [1] |
| Dairy products | $631 | [1] |
| Fruits and vegetables | $953 | [1] |
| Other food at home | $2,447 | [1] |
| Food away from home | $3,945 | [1] |
A grocery-store receipt is not the same measure
Food-at-home expenditures are a food category, not the total bill at a supermarket. A shopping trip can also include cleaning products, personal care goods, or other purchases recorded elsewhere in the expenditure survey.
The food-at-home figure is useful for understanding national food spending. It cannot be treated as the complete cost of every grocery-store visit, and it does not measure the nutritional quality of what people buy.
[1]Putting the annual amount into perspective
Dividing $6,224 by 12 gives roughly $519 a month. That is a calculation from the annual mean, not a separately reported monthly estimate. The figure still applies to a consumer unit, rather than to each person in it.
The average unit can contain several people with different food needs. Dividing by an assumed family size would create a per-person estimate that the source did not publish. A matching household-size breakdown is a better basis for that question.
[1]What the category differences show
The table separates several broad food groups. Other food at home is a substantial category, so interpreting the entire grocery budget from meat, produce, and dairy alone would leave out a large portion.
The categories describe spending, not physical quantities. Higher expenditures on one food group do not necessarily mean more servings, calories, or nutritional value. Prices and the mix of products can differ greatly across groups.
[1]Reading changes carefully
Food-at-home spending averaged $6,053 in 2023 and $6,224 in 2024. The reported increase was 2.8%, but this measures a change in average expenditures, not grocery-price inflation on a fixed basket.
The BLS table marks statistically significant changes separately. Differences between rounded dollar values should not be treated as precise measures of how every household's bill changed. Individual experience can differ from the national mean.
[1]Sources & notes
Source: BLS Consumer Expenditures—2024, Table A. Consumer units are financial groupings. Monthly equivalence is a calculation from rounded annual spending; the survey figures are not a recommended food budget.
Source review: 2026-09-15. Article publication and underlying data dates are separate. How we use statistics · Suggest a correction