Oh man I will watch this thread with interest. I’ve been budgeting like wildfire the last couple of weeks in preparation for college applications. We don’t track spending, but I’ve been doing a retrospective analysis of our spending since we’ll be on a super tight budget during college.
By my best estimate, we spend almost $2K per month on food with our 2 kids at home 
. That’s waaaaay above the national average for percent of take-home pay (average is 11%) and also way above the USDA recommended budget. It’s split up about half groceries and half dining out. I was surprised to find out that’s the national average as well. My spouse is the big food spender, and had a fresh new inspiration to curtail food spending when we had a conversation about this recently. That was nice.
If I divide the food bills by 4 and pro-rate for 9 months at college, that’s about $4K that my son shouldn’t be eating in our household each year. He’s mostly paying for his own college, so maybe that will be a savings for us? I’m not budgeting for the savings, but will be nice if it happens.