How much does the average U.S. household spend on food per year?

How to get close to this number

Compare with the Spanish figure on this site: around six thousand euros a year there. A wealthier country with more eating out and larger portions lands meaningfully above that, which puts it near ten thousand dollars.

The split in the explanation is the informative part: roughly sixty-forty between groceries and eating out, with the restaurant share climbing steadily for decades. Food spending has shifted from ingredients to prepared meals, which is why total food cost rose while the cost of the underlying food fell.

The ranking is the context: food is the third-largest household expense after housing and transportation. That ordering is stable across most wealthy countries, and it means a household budget is dominated by three categories, with everything else — clothing, entertainment, healthcare — competing for what is left.