How much do I spend on groceries? The 30-day test to find your own figure

To know how much you spend on groceries, measure it: for 30 days, log every receipt for food and non-alcoholic drinks, add them up and compare the total with two Swiss references. The first is a measured average, CHF 638 a month for a household of 2.07 people, 6.2% of gross income (Federal Statistical Office, FSO, 2023); the second is a planning guideline that depends on your type of household and your net income (Budgetberatung Schweiz, the umbrella body of the Swiss budget advice centres, 2025/26). The result is your own figure instead of a guess.

Updated October 2026. Sources: Federal Statistical Office (FSO), Household Budget Survey 2023 (press release of 17 November 2025) and tables by household type for 2018-2019 and 2020-2021; Budgetberatung Schweiz, budget examples 2025/2026 (viewed on 9 October 2026).

How do I find out how much I spend on groceries?

With a 30-day test in five steps. All it takes is not throwing any receipt away; the sum at the end takes ten minutes.

1. Decide what counts. Count as groceries what the FSO counts: food and non-alcoholic drinks for home. Note restaurants, takeaway, alcohol, cleaning products and toiletries separately, so that the comparison with the averages holds.
2. Keep every receipt for 30 days, even the one for a croissant or from a vending machine. Photograph it the same day, or download the digital receipt from the loyalty programme’s app.
3. Write down purchases without a receipt. Market, farm shop, kiosk: one line on your phone with the date and the amount.
4. Add up and sort. At the end of the month, add up only the lines for food and non-alcoholic drinks. Shortcut: in the VAT summary of a Swiss receipt, the part at 2.6% is mostly food and non-alcoholic drinks, the part at 8.1% almost everything else.
5. Compare and look inside. Put the total next to the references in the table below, then look at your three biggest categories.

How much does a Swiss household spend on groceries on average?

Food and non-alcoholic drinks consumed at home, per household, rounded to the franc (FSO, Household Budget Survey, tables by household type and by number of children). Guidelines: from the lowest to the highest net income in the budget examples of Budgetberatung Schweiz; add CHF 50 to 100 for each child aged 12 or over. For the FSO, adult children also count as children, as long as at least one is under 25. The FSO does not publish a 2023 figure by household type; the 2022-2024 series is due in November 2026. Every figure, also per person, is in the grocery budget by household size, the daily figures in the guide to the food cost per day in Switzerland.

Why 30 days and not one week?

Because one week on its own misleads. There is the week of the big shop and the week the fridge is still full, the week with guests and the week on holiday; a month evens them out. And the month is the unit of every reference: rent, salary, health insurance and the FSO figures are all monthly.

Two tricks make the test more precise. First, a month is not four weeks but 4.33 (52 ÷ 12). If your test runs exactly four weeks, multiply the total by 1.09 (30.4 ÷ 28 days) to get a month. Second, note what was unusual: a party, a week away, a stock-up bought on promotion. If the month was very different from usual, repeat the test the following month and take the average of the two. Converting between month and week is explained in the guide to the weekly grocery cost in Switzerland.

How do I read the result of the 30-day test?

Compare your total with the row for your type of household, not with CHF 638: that figure is the average of all households, at 2.07 people. Then keep the two references apart: the FSO average says what households actually spent, the guideline how much to budget depending on net income. Being above the average is not a mistake if you stay within the guideline and your budget works.

Then look inside the total. Three things often show up once you measure instead of guessing:

• The small top-up shops. Bread, milk, a snack: one by one they barely register, added up over the month they count. Count how many receipts you have and the average amount of each.
• What you buy again and again. Items that appear in three weeks out of four are your core list: these are the products worth checking the promotions for.
• What ends up in the bin. You paid for it anyway. Note for a month what you throw away; ideas to cut it are in the guide to reducing food waste.

The ten possible analyses, from categories to the share bought on promotion, are explained step by step in the guide to analysing grocery receipts.

What should you do if you spend more than the guideline?

Start where most of the money goes. In the Swiss average, meat, bread and cereals, and milk, cheese and eggs together make up about half of spending on food and non-alcoholic drinks (FSO, 2023, our calculation: meat 120 + bread and cereals 102 + milk, cheese and eggs 99 = CHF 321 of 638, about 50%): that is where a different choice weighs most. Three levers that do not mean eating worse:

1. A shopping list with prices before you go: you know in advance what the shop will cost and stick to what you need. The guide to the grocery list with prices shows how.
2. Promotions on your core list, not on products you would not have bought.
3. The price per kilo or litre on the shelf label, to compare brands, budget lines and pack sizes.

Repeat the test after two or three months: two measured months side by side tell you more than any average.

How do I do the 30-day test with Rappn?

Rappn is a free Swiss app (iOS and Android) that compares the current promotions of seven Swiss retailers and turns receipts into a spending overview. For the test, photograph each receipt when you get home, upload others from your gallery and enter purchases without a receipt by hand. The app sorts your purchases into categories and shows your spending by month, next to your own monthly average; at the end of the month you can export the receipts as PDF or CSV if you want to carry the total into a spreadsheet. Rappn covers groceries, not rent, insurance or taxes, and has no subscription and no commercial agreement with any retailer. For a readable photo, see the guide on how to scan receipts.

If you do not want to wait 30 days, the free Rappn app imports the receipts of three big Swiss supermarkets’ loyalty programmes, up to 12 months back, and you add the others by photo; it then shows your spending by category and by month. You need a Rappn account and must be an adult; the programmes’ terms still apply and the operator can restrict the link (how linking works).