My wife and I spend over $600 a month to eat well. We buy our meats from a butcher, vacuum seal, and freeze them, and we buy produce and dairy from the grocery store once a week. We avoid the middle of the grocery store for the most part except for essentials like oils and spices.
It’s very expensive to eat properly. The draw to frozen, boxed, and canned foods is understandable considering their convenience. We usually “cheat” once a week and go out for a meal, but we shy away from fried foods and most starchy options.
Eating healthy is a choice nowadays. Most people opt for fast and cheap. If you can afford it and have the patience to cook every night, eating healthy has its benefits.
Less when I have stuff from the garden and / or deer in the freezer.
Grilled or baked chicken and fish at least 5 days a week, burgers once or twice, homemade pizza, oatmeal, eggs, whole grains...
More expensive to eat the unhealthy processed stuff.
We probably spend 2.5 to 3X that on actual groceries then add at least a few meals out every week.
We eat as well as we possibly can and I don’t sweat it one bit-—nearly impossible for me to take vacations because of my work and we live reasonably otherwise so food is our luxury and I really just like eating a thirty dollar steak or piece of fish almost every night.
I do get some funny looks at the grocery store however when I’ve got $400 worth of stuff in my basket and it fits in 6-7 bags.