How much should groceries cost? The USDA food plans as a weekly budget

The USDA publishes a grocery benchmark every month: the cost of a nutritious diet, cooked at home, at four spending levels, for each age and sex. The Thrifty plan is the one the federal government uses to set SNAP benefits. Below are the September 2026 numbers, how to adjust them to your household, and what they mean per meal.

The four plans, per person per week

The plans are named Thrifty, Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost and Liberal. Each price is the weekly cost for one person in a four-person household, U.S. average, September 2026:

The Thrifty table uses the age band 20–50; the other three use 19–50.

Why "Thrifty" can cost more than "Low-Cost"

Look at the first row: for a man aged 20–50 the Thrifty plan is $73.60 a week and the Low-Cost plan $73.30. The same happens for children aged 4–5 ($43.40 against $41.30). It isn't a typo. The Thrifty Food Plan was re-evaluated in 2021, "for the first time since 2006", and is based on 2013–16 eating patterns and 2015–16 prices. The Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost and Liberal plans still rest on 2001–02 data from the 2007 plans. Both are brought up to current dollars with the Consumer Price Index each month, but the baskets underneath are different. Treat Thrifty and Low-Cost as roughly the same level for adults, and Moderate-Cost as the step up.

The Thrifty figure, $236.30, is printed in the report as the "reference family". The other three are our sums of the four people in the same report: for Moderate-Cost, $91.90 + $77.60 + $70.30 + $80.70 = $320.50.

Adjust for your household size

The per-person costs assume a four-person household. The reports say how to adjust: add up the people in your household, then add 20% for one person, 10% for two, 5% for three, nothing for four, subtract 5% for five or six and 10% for seven or more.

The same couple on the Thrifty plan (where the age band is 20–50): ($73.60 + $58.60) × 1.10 = $145.42 a week. On the Liberal plan: ($112.30 + $99.10) × 1.10 = $232.54. Monthly amounts here are weekly × 4.333, the factor the reports use; the USDA multiplies its unrounded weekly costs, so its own monthly figures can differ from ours by up to about 20 cents a person. Alaska and Hawaii have separate cost reports on the same USDA page.

An illustrative budget per meal

These are U.S. model food budgets, not observations of Mintquiet users or a target every household must meet. They exclude household goods and eating out, and assume every meal and snack is made at home. Spread over 21 meals a week, the reference family's Thrifty budget is $236.30 ÷ (4 people × 21 meals) = $2.81 per person per meal, snacks included. At Moderate-Cost it is $320.50 ÷ 84 = $3.82. For the couple on Moderate-Cost: $186.45 ÷ 42 = $4.44.

That number is useful when you plan. Say a dinner for four needs a cut of meat that costs $16: that one ingredient is $4 a plate, more than a whole Moderate-Cost meal. It doesn't make the dinner wrong; it tells you the cheaper meals elsewhere in the week are carrying it.

Where a meal plan fits

None of these budgets says what to cook. They describe a nutritious basket at a price. A plan can help you list purchases, but it does not establish that you will meet a USDA budget: our sample templates plan 12 meals and leave 9 for leftovers and simple breakfasts, and in the cook-once week one pot of chili covers three meals. The grocery list then shows exactly what those meals need, so you can price it before you go.

Mintquiet doesn't know prices. Price your own purchases and compare like-for-like: these templates cover 12 meals, while the USDA benchmark covers a full week of food and snacks. Add the food for unplanned meals, and separate non-food items before comparing. We have not measured household savings from Mintquiet.