When I was in Canada, our grocery bill was the following - 2011 (3 adults and 2 small children) -

Each week at the Chinese store - $ 70 (incl meat and fish and mutton) - $ 294 monthly
Each week at the Indian store - $ 40 (cheese, some vegetable, pulses) - $ 168 monthly
Monthly milk - $ 40
Eating out - $ 200 (including take outs, lunches etc..)

Total - $ 700

However, this is too much. I remember throwing out vegetables since we could not cook them. I had a workable budget by my brother would not agree since he wanted to show off his money. My budget for a comfortable living is as follows :

Each week at the Chinese store - $ 40 (incl meat and fish and mutton) - $ 168 monthly
Each week at the Indian store - $ 20 (cheese, some vegetable, pulses) - $ 84 monthly
Monthly milk - $ 40
Eating out - $ 100 (including take outs, lunches etc..)

Total - $ 400

Of course, you can live much below this but then you will have to depend on $ 1 michellena pasta and frozen pizza's and maggie. The problem is that they are very unhealthy. They contain lots of fats and salt, which is not good for health.

Steamed veggies, baked salmon, rice / chappathi with subzi, whole wheat bread, subs, sandwiches will make you life last long.

I have seen some philipines (in Canada and Saudi but less in Canada) live on bread, jam/eggs/ mayo, steamed rice with little sauted veggies. Their monthly budget for food is not more than $ 100 but they will gamble for $ 1000 every month and be broke at the end of the month.

Murali

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

$ 100 per person per month is more than enough to eat well in Canada provided you shop smart and go to cheaper grocery stores like No Frills, food Basics, Freshco etc and watch their specials, sales, promotions

So watch their Weekly flyers. Bread will be $ 1.50 this week, and could be $ 3.00 next week , so buy 6 loaves when they are on sale

Here you always have to buy in adavance and stock up if things are on sale to save money, time and energy.

Distances are huge, so generally 1-2 trips a week is ALL you do to buy groceries. Its not like India, where every 10 metres a hawker, vendor, shop keeper , bazaar is sitting on the foot path, so you buy groceries pretty much each day from these guys

Chinese stores and Indian stores are NO longer as cheap as before. Chinese store smell like hell, and are extremely unhygenic. If you are vegeterian DON'T even step into a filthy, unhygenic Chinese store. You will die from the smell alone

Plus fruits and vegetables bought from Chineses stores go bad in 2-3 days, so you will have to throw them away. So any little money you save in Chinese store will be nullified due to bad quality, wastage and throwing away of food . Flies and other bacteria, viruses from the improperly stored fish, chicken etc in Chinese stores will contaminate the fruits and veggies in Chinese stores, hence they go bad in 2-3 days

Only buy fruits and veggies in Chinese stores if you are going to come home and clean and thorougly wash them almost IMMEDIATELY and going to eat them in the next 2-3 days, otherwise it will rot, spoil very quickly and you will HAVE to throw it away . The food safety standards and the hygeine of workers is very low in chinese stores

Buy selectively at the Chinese stores.
I agree to your observation about Fresh veggies / fruits.

What is cheap in Chinese stores are the following :

1. Chicken - $ 0.79 per lb
2. Chicken wings - $ 1.39 per Lb
3. Salmon bones - $ 2.99 per lb.

Just buy the above 3 and with just one Lb of chicken you can make nice stew that can last for 2 days.
Canned items and frozen items must not be taken by the Desi population due to the fat content andt he salt content.

As said by Adam, it is easy to restrict your monthly food needs to $ 100- $ 150 for a family of 4 (excluding Milk).

Murali

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

Our food habits did changed a lot over the period of time. It is not that we completely eat non-Indian food now a day. Indian food is still major portion of our daily meals but slowly and gradually Thai, Mexican, Italian, Chinese and Middle Eastern food did became regular.

I can see two reasons for this - As the time passed by, we came to know other Vegetarian options and the dishes those tastes similar to ours. And as the Kids grew up, not only they did introduced us to other cousins, but they also became expert in preparing those.

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A Proud Indian Canadian

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Originally posted adamthorat

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That's too much you need to visit some of TK's famous food banks to lower your bills

Guests are leeches and free loaders and should be kicked out ASAP

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whnever I visit people, thy welcome and treat me like their own family so guests are most welcome to my home and I treat thm with due respect. We treat our guests like family so thy walk in without notice and I mke sure that, nobdy goes hungry frm my home.