Grocery Budget Calculator by State

The underlying national anchors come directly from USDA's USDA Food and Nutrition Administration — Cost of Food at Home Reports (August 2026 report, page last updated 2026-09-24, verified 2026-10-02): https://www.fna.usda.gov/research/cnpp/usda-food-plans/cost-food-monthly-reports. USDA publishes one national reference-family-of-4 monthly total per plan tier — that "reference family" is a specific USDA-defined household (male + female, 20-50 years, plus two children 6-8 and 9-11), not an average of every possible family and not a single "adult male" figure. The national Moderate-plan anchor is $1388.20/month; state figures below are modeled as disclosed next.

The four national figures above are USDA's own. The state figures below are this site's estimates: 48 states scale USDA's national figures by each state's grocery price index, the Grocery component of the C2ER Cost of Living Index (Q2 2026, via MERIC), so none of them is a USDA-published state figure. Alaska and Hawaii are the two exceptions: USDA publishes its own Anchorage and Hawaii reference-family Thrifty cost, so those two states use the ratio of that figure to the national Thrifty figure for all four tiers (USDA publishes no Low-Cost, Moderate or Liberal figure for either) and no price index on top of it.

USDA additionally discloses that rural Alaska Thrifty Food Plan costs run 0.79% (Urban), 28.52% (Rural I), and 56.42% (Rural II) higher than Anchorage. This site's Alaska calculator and table row are explicitly labeled "Anchorage" and never silently substitute a rural-region figure.

How much should you spend on groceries per month? Nationally, using USDA's August 2026 Moderate-Cost plan: 1 person $441, 2 people $808, 3 people $1,114, 4 people $1,388, 5 people $1,648, 6 people $1,978 per month. USDA's Moderate-Cost plan for one person costs about $441 a month — $102 a week, or $4.82 per person per meal — with a full range of $344 on the Thrifty plan to $549 on the Liberal plan. USDA's Moderate-Cost plan for a household of 2 costs about $808 a month — $186 a week, or $4.42 per person per meal — with a full range of $630 on the Thrifty plan to $1,007 on the Liberal plan. USDA's Moderate-Cost plan for a household of 3 costs about $1,114 a month — $257 a week, or $4.07 per person per meal — with a full range of $838 on the Thrifty plan to $1,362 on the Liberal plan. USDA's Moderate-Cost plan for a household of 4 costs about $1,388 a month — $320 a week, or $3.80 per person per meal — with a full range of $1,024 on the Thrifty plan to $1,679 on the Liberal plan. USDA's Moderate-Cost plan for a household of 5 costs about $1,648 a month — $380 a week, or $3.61 per person per meal — with a full range of $1,216 on the Thrifty plan to $1,993 on the Liberal plan.

Here is the worked arithmetic behind those household-size figures, using USDA's own two-step method rather than dividing a family-of-four total by four. Step 1 — sum USDA's own published per-age-sex rows for the household's composition. On the Moderate-Cost plan those monthly rows are: adult male 20-50 $398.10, adult female 20-50 $336.10, child 6-8 $304.50, child 9-11 $349.50 — which add to exactly $1,388.20, the published reference-family total. Step 2 — apply USDA's own household-size adjustment: 1-person add 20%, 2-person add 10%, 3-person add 5%, 4-person no adjustment, 5- or 6-person subtract 5%, 7-or-more-person subtract 10%. So a two-adult household is ($398.10 + $336.10) x 1.10 = $808 a month, and a single adult is the average of the two adult rows x 1.20 = $441. Only the 4-person composition is official: it is USDA's own official reference family — male + female aged 20-50 plus children aged 6-8 and 9-11. Every other size uses a household mix this site assumes — 1-person is one adult (this site averages USDA's adult-male and adult-female rows; a modeled composition, not a USDA-defined household); 2-person is two adults (USDA's adult-male + adult-female rows; a modeled composition); 3-person is two adults plus one child aged 6-11 (a modeled composition); 5-person is the official reference family plus one modeled average extra person.

Which states tax groceries, and what does it add? Of the 50 states, 41 exempt unprepared groceries from state sales tax entirely, 6 apply a reduced grocery rate, and 3 tax food at home at the same rate as general merchandise. That distinction is worth real money and is routinely misreported, because most sources quote a state's GENERAL sales-tax rate on a grocery page. The "Grocery tax" column in the table below is the EFFECTIVE rate charged on food at home plus the dollars it adds to that state's Moderate family-of-four basket over a year — for example Idaho at 6% ($1,037/yr). The 41 exempt states show a 0% state rate even where the general sales-tax rate is 6% or more. Prepared and restaurant food is taxable in most states regardless of the grocery treatment, and local sales taxes can still apply on top of a reduced state rate. In Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina, the state does not tax groceries but cities and counties (in Alaska, boroughs and cities) still may, so the table shows the state's 0% and each state's calculator has a box for your local rate. North Carolina charges no state tax on groceries, but its 2% local food rate applies in every county (N.C. Gen. Stat. 105-164.13B and 105-467(a)(5)), so its row and calculator include that rate.

This is an observational, source-reset release: it corrects the anchor figures and geography/tax logic and adds this comparison table, but does not change page titles, H1s, URLs, or canonical tags.