Calculators

A weekly grocery budget for a named New Zealand household

What a household should expect to spend on groceries.

Build the household person by person: a teenager is not a child-sized cost, and an average per head hides that. Then diet and region adjust the food total, and a flat $25 a week covers cleaning products and toiletries unless you turn it off.

All three spend levels come back every time, and that is the point. A single figure invites "that seems high"; the gap between basic and liberal for the SAME household, in dollars a year, is the number that changes anything. On a family of four it is usually several thousand dollars, and annual_gap_basic_to_liberal puts it in one place.

Be straight about what these figures are. They are indicative planning figures used by the website calculator, not a measured survey result and not a benchmark to hold anyone to. Someone who wants measured New Zealand data wants the Household Economic Survey pages instead, so say so rather than presenting these as official.

post/v1/grocery-budget

Request

  • Base URL: https://api.calculate.co.nz
  • URL: https://api.calculate.co.nz/v1/grocery-budget
  • Auth: API key in header X-API-Key

Request body

membersstring[] required

One entry per person in the household. A teenager is not a child-sized cost.

spend_level'basic' | 'moderate' | 'liberal'

How the household shops.

diet'standard' | 'vegetarian' | 'vegan' | 'gluten_free' | 'organic' | 'halal'

Diet, applied as a multiplier to the food cost.

region'nz_average' | 'auckland' | 'wellington' | 'christchurch' | 'hamilton' | 'tauranga' | 'dunedin' | 'provincial' | 'rural_remote'

Where they shop.

include_non_foodboolean

Include $25 a week for cleaning products and toiletries. Most people counting a supermarket bill are including these.

Example request

{
  "diet": "standard",
  "include_non_food": true,
  "members": [
    "adult_male",
    "adult_female",
    "teen_11_17",
    "child_5_10"
  ],
  "region": "nz_average",
  "spend_level": "moderate"
}

Response

Weekly, monthly and annual budgets, with all three spend levels.

disclaimerstring required

Scope and limits of this calculation.

Example response

{
  "disclaimer": "Indicative planning figures for a New Zealand household, not measured survey data and not a benchmark. Use them to start a budget.",
  "result": {
    "annual_by_level": {
      "basic": 12740,
      "liberal": 22100,
      "moderate": 16900
    },
    "annual_gap_basic_to_liberal": 9360,
    "annual_total": 16900,
    "base_weekly_food": 300,
    "diet": "standard",
    "diet_multiplier": 1,
    "excludes": [
      "Alcohol, tobacco and takeaways",
      "Pet food",
      "Any particular supermarket's prices, or current promotions",
      "Food price inflation since the figures were set"
    ],
    "household_size": 4,
    "include_non_food": true,
    "members": [
      "adult_male",
      "adult_female",
      "teen_11_17",
      "child_5_10"
    ],
    "monthly_total": 1407.25,
    "non_food_weekly": 25,
    "notes": [
      "The per-person costs are indicative planning figures used by the website calculator, not a measured survey result. Treat them as a starting point for a budget, not a benchmark.",
      "Every spend level is returned. The gap between basic and liberal for the same household, $9,360 a year here, is more useful than any single figure."
    ],
    "per_person_weekly": 81.25,
    "region": "nz_average",
    "region_multiplier": 1,
    "spend_level": "moderate",
    "weekly_by_level": {
      "basic": 245,
      "liberal": 425,
      "moderate": 325
    },
    "weekly_total": 325
  }
}

Changes

No recorded changes to this operation across all 1 revision of this API.