How Much Should I Spend on Groceries in Canada? Benchmarks and a Budget Formula

A grocery budget can start from three numbers: what households like yours spend, how prices where you live compare with the national average, and what share of your take-home pay groceries take. This page puts the three together into a monthly figure for a budget. It is part of our budgeting guides; the full spending data, by household type and by province, is on the average grocery bill in Canada page.

Prices have kept rising since the latest spending survey: food bought in stores cost 2.8% more in August 2026 than a year earlier, according to the consumer price index. A benchmark from the survey is a starting point to build on rather than a current price tag.

Grocery spending benchmarks by household type

The benchmark is Statistics Canada’s average spending on food from stores in 2023, from the latest Survey of Household Spending. It excludes restaurant meals and takeout, so it measures groceries only.

Statistics Canada, Survey of Household Spending 2023, Table 11-10-0224-01. Monthly = annual ÷ 12. The share is food from stores divided by total current consumption, which is spending on goods and services and leaves out income taxes, pension and insurance contributions, and gifts.

These are averages across all households of each type, of every size and income, so they describe a typical bill rather than a recommended one.

Per person

Per person, a one-person household spends more than a couple. A person living alone spent about $383 a month on groceries, while a couple without children spent about $341 a month for each of the two. Cooking for one leaves more food to spoil and fewer chances to buy larger, cheaper sizes. The cost of living alone page has the rest of a one-person budget.

A current figure for a family of four

For a more recent number, the annual Canada’s Food Price Report estimates what a family of four (two adults aged 31 to 50, a boy aged 14 to 18 and a girl aged 9 to 13) will spend on food. Its 2026 edition put that at up to $17,572 for the year, about $1,464 a month. The report’s figure covers all food, including restaurant meals, so the grocery part of it is smaller.

Adjusting the benchmark for where you live

Statistics Canada publishes average prices for selected grocery items in every province. Comparing each province’s prices with the national price for 106 items, prices in July 2026 were lowest in Quebec (a price level of 98.0, where Canada = 100) and highest in Newfoundland and Labrador (108.8). The average grocery bill page lists the price level and household grocery spending for every province, plus the cost of a food basket in fly-in northern communities, where prices are far from any provincial figure.

Multiplying a benchmark by your province’s price level ÷ 100 adjusts it for local prices. Statistics Canada publishes grocery prices by province (plus Whitehorse and Yellowknife), not by other cities, so a city’s grocery costs are best read from its province’s figure.

A formula for your grocery budget

1. Start with the benchmark for the household type closest to yours (the monthly column above).
2. Adjust for prices by multiplying it by your province’s grocery price level ÷ 100.
3. Adjust for how you eat. A household that cooks most of its meals at home buys most of its food at the grocery store, so its grocery bill is a bigger part of its food spending; the survey’s average household also spent $3,316 a year on restaurant meals. Special diets, baby formula and frequent entertaining raise the grocery figure.
4. Compare it with your own spending. Tracking your spending for two or three months shows your actual grocery bill, and the gap between it and the adjusted benchmark shows how far your bill is from what similar households spend.

The percentage-of-income check

A benchmark says what is typical; a share of take-home pay says what fits an income. Across all households, food from stores took 11.3% of spending on goods and services in 2023 (the last column of the benchmark table gives the share for each household type). Applying that share to monthly take-home pay gives a rough figure to compare with the formula above.

The check has limits. A larger family on a modest income can need a much larger share for groceries simply because more people need to eat, while a high-income household can spend a small share and still buy whatever it likes. When groceries take a large share of take-home pay, the bill itself is usually the place to look, not the percentage. The 50/30/20 budget rule counts groceries as a need, alongside housing and transportation.

What pushes a grocery bill up

The same household can spend very different amounts depending on how it shops. Common reasons a bill runs past the benchmark:

• ready-to-eat and prepared meals from the grocery store instead of cooking the same food from scratch;
• shopping at full-service or specialty grocers rather than discount banners;
• name brands where a store brand would do;
• food thrown away: the average Canadian household wastes about 140 kg of food a year, at a cost of more than $1,300, according to the National Zero Waste Council’s household food waste study;
• single-serve snacks and pre-chopped produce instead of larger packages;
• frequent top-up trips, which make unplanned purchases more likely.

Spending less on groceries

Once the budget is set, the main levers are where you shop, what you buy and how much goes to waste: discount banners, store brands, flyer apps, meal planning and loyalty points. The guide to ways to save on groceries goes through each, and the comparison of the best grocery stores for value shows how the chains compare on price.

Related reading

• Average grocery bill in Canada
• How to save on groceries in Canada
• Average household expenses in Canada
• Budgeting 101: how to make a budget
• Best budgeting apps in Canada
• How to save on utilities