College · College Success · Money

A week of groceries,
priced to the meal.

List what you buy in a typical week and how many meals it makes. The planner prices each home meal, adds what you eat out and shows the week, the month and the term.

Price my listWhat you get
$5one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $5

Included with the Caveat Academy pass and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the College application season kit, $29 for 16 items.

The grocery budget planner

The worked example is a student’s spring term in an apartment. Nothing you type leaves this browser.

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What you get

College · College Success$5

What you finish with
The weekly grocery bill, the cost of a home meal, food a week, a month and a term, the gap to your budget and what cooking more saves, item by item. It prints as a summary and downloads as a spreadsheet.
Who it is for
College students cooking for themselves for the first time, students coming off a meal plan, and families teaching a teenager to budget for food.
Format
Browser planner for a phone, tablet or computer, by touch or keyboard. Prints a priced list; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); export and import a file.
Access
$5 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with the Caveat Academy pass and Whole-school licenses. Also in the College application season kit ($29) and the Caveat Suite pass ($299). Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The College Success space in Caveat College.
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. List a typical week of groceries.
  2. Use prices from the store app or a receipt.
  3. Count the meals the list makes.
  4. Add meals you buy out.
  5. Set a weekly budget and shop with the list.

Price my list

How the week is priced

Price the list, then divide by the meals it makes.

The worked example: spring term in the apartmentThe list$48.2012 items, a typical weekA home meal$3.21÷ 15 mealsPlus bought$39.003 meals × $13A week$87.20$1,395 for 16 weeksThe worked example: spring term in the apartmentThe list$48.2012 items, a typical weekA home meal$3.21÷ 15 mealsPlus bought$39.003 meals × $13A week$87.20$1,395 for 16 weeks
Price the list, divide by the meals it makes, add meals bought out, then scale to the month and the term.

A home meal

Each item’s weekly cost is its price times how often you buy it; an item bought every other week counts as half. The list’s total divided by the meals it makes is the cost of a home-cooked meal, the number to compare against buying out.

Week, month, term

Bought meals are added to the groceries for the week’s food bill. A month is 52 weeks divided by 12, about 4.33 weeks, so it is a little more than four weekly bills. The term multiplies the week by its length.

Sources

  1. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service. USDA Food Plans: Cost of Food reports (fns.usda.gov).
  2. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP eligibility for students in higher education (fns.usda.gov).
  3. U.S. Department of Agriculture. MyPlate: shop smart and save (myplate.gov).
  4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Price Index: food at home (bls.gov/cpi).

The worked example’s prices are examples, not any store’s. Your entries stay in this browser. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.