If you only spend like £50 on your weekly shop

[mindutopia]

Can you tell me what sort of meals your family has (breakfast/lunch/dinner)?

We spend a lot more than that, but I don't think it's because we buy a lot of fancy foods (though that does include alcohol, cleaning supplies, toilet roll, etc.). We eat what I think is pretty normal food, but we also don't really buy food out (we pack breakfast & lunch every day for work, don't even get a coffee out, we both take our own coffee to work).

I'd like to get some ideas for how to reduce the cost of our weekly shop (family of 4, dh & I and 2 dc, who mostly eat school lunch except during the holidays one has a packed lunch), and I want to see what everyone else is making that isn't too expensive. Is there some magical trick I don't know about?

What do you have for breakfast, lunch, dinner? What snacks do you buy?

I am working on this too. It seems to be the three key things are:

A. Work out cost per meal and what your aim needs to be on average per meal to meet your budget
B. Get costs of ingredients down (bulk buy, work out cheapest place)
C. Avoid/minimise waste

I think one of the problems is that we don't have the option to shop around. I need to shop online for delivery due to distance from any supermarket (we live rurally) and my work schedule. The closest shop is a Tesco, no option for Lidl/Aldi/any other discount places, and I don't have time for multiple stops when I'm shopping as I work long hours with a long commute and weekends are busy.

Doing it online helps because you can see the total add up.

However £50 for a family of four including cleaning supplies and so on is very little.

As you've been doing shops online you can look at what you're currently spending the most on - see if you can download the shopping lists/receipts/confirmations and then categorise products? Then you'll see what you're spending the most on, whether it's frequent purchases of "cheap" things or less-common but more expensive things. See if there's any way you can cut down or things you'd like to make sacrifices on.

DH and I at the moment are trialling a system where once a month we do a big shop where we bulk-buy all of the longlife stuff (dried/tinned goods, toiletries, cleaning stuff) we will need for the month and then the other weekly shops are just fresh stuff. I don't think it will actually get the cost down but it spreads it differently.

Smart shopping - do the sums, for example, a discount on a 500g pack may not actually be cheaper than buying 2 x 250g packs - I find this quite often.

Buy bigger packs of meat and fish, split and freeze.

Bulk buy when things are on offer - I like Galaxy chocolate. About every three months a pack of four bars drops to a quid. So I buy multiple packs and don't buy again until it's a quid. Ditto tea, coffee, loo roll, cleaning products and pretty much anything with a long date.

Look at what you eat and what you waste. Buying kale every week and chucking it away because you don't use it for example - don't buy things because you 'should eat healthy things' if you never get around to it. Just stop buying it.

Have a look a Jack Monroe's recipes. Brilliant food for pennies.
cookingonabootstrap.com/

Just seen you shop online - my chocolate example is basically gaming the algorithm. Buy a lot when on offer, the algorithm then notices you're not buying for a few months so drops the price.

I’m interested in the replies too, we are a family of 4 and I genuinely cannot get the weekly shop below £95 a week. Usually around the £100 mark and during the school holidays more like £110. And I am very savvy with offers and cook from scratch 6 days out of 7. That includes toiletries etc.

Tesco is expensive.
We spend £50-60 per week but we go to Asda or Aldi (an only have one 3 year old DS)

Do you buy a lot of fancy fruit as snacks? That's a mistake we often make - because you are so happy the toddler likes fruit and veg you chuck lots of berries/mango/tenderstem brocolli and plum tomatoes in the trolly.
Luckily for our shopping budget the favourite fruit atm is tangerines.

I spend around £50 per week.I dont need cleaning supplies every week though,could you cut down on those? I buy a pack of lean mince but freeze half for the next week and try and bulk out with veg etc.We eat fresh meat,fruit and veg etc.

I’m not on a specific budget but s pending a huge amount on breakfast or lunch. Lunch for me is prime raid cupboards/fridge/leftovers time. I do get bored of the same thing on repeat though so tend to have a selection of bread products in the freezer (bagels, rolls, pita etc) so can just take one as and when I fancy. I also make veg based soups and eat a lot of salads with chicken from the night before, or roasted veg and chickpeas, ham, egg etc. If I’m at home I like tomatoes or mushrooms on toast.
Breakfast is not my thing but again beans, eggs mushrooms on toast are all good options.
I always plan for one less meal than I expect to need because plans are always changing. But I do have well stocked store cupboards and fridge so always have stuff I can cobble together.

@BertieBotts I did this when my 3 were younger and it did save me some money. I also shopped around and utilised Savers, Wilkinson and Poundstretcher for cleaning products, soap, shampoo and conditioner etc as they were often 10p or 20p cheaper than the supermarket. The other thing I did (as I was lucky enough to have the space for) was bulk buy when stuff like toilet rolls were on offer. I also went to Asda for their massive bags of pasta and rice then decanted it into a more manageable container for the kitchen.

I used our local greengrocer for fresh stuff and butcher for meat - although they were more expensive per pound, the quality of food meant you actually got more for your money than when using supermarkets.

Im starting to cut down massively. This has helped me:

Meal plan..write down what you will eat evening times and make sure breakfast and lunch are same most days (we have cereal, juice, lunhc is sandwiche or salad)

Go to budget supermarkets - Aldi and Lidl are so much cheaper for everyday items

Write a list of items you need AND stick to it, do not buy anything extra

Bulk cook - I made chilli the other night but did enough for 3 more extra meals - so they are in my freezer for next week

Have a couple of meat free meals - I do stirfry or pasta with pesto (pasta 50p bag with 79p jar of pesto)

Alcohol and meat are expensive. Use all leftovers. Lentils, chick peas and beans are cheap. Your target is quite low for 4ppl

I can shop and eat for 4 under £50 but it's not fancy, and it becomes a struggle to get the fruit and veg I'd like (7-10 a day) into the us, but it can get 5 a day in. And it assumes a good spice rack.

30 eggs £4
1 bag lentil £1
1 bag of flour £0.45p
4 loaves of bread £2
Butter £1.60
1 bag spinach £1
1 bag potatoes £2
550g cheese £3.50
Frozen peas £1
Frozen broccoli £1
Onions £0.60p
Carrots£0.49p
Celery £0.50p
Swede £0.50p
Tin of tomatoes x 3 £0.90p
Tin of beans 3 x £0.90p
Mushrooms two punnets £2
Fruit £5
Plain Yoghurt £1
Frozen chips £1
Frozen corn £1
2 bags of salad £1
2 tins of chickpeas £0.60p
Stock cubes £0.40p
Spaghetti £0.50p
Pasta shapes £0.50p
Rice £0.50p
Milk 8 pints £2
Porridge £1
Sugar £0.60p
Oil £1

3 for £10 meat- usually a chicken, a mince and pork steaks.

I'll make a roast chicken dinner on Sunday, and a chicken sweet corn soup the next day for lunch. I can make mac and cheese with broccoli, spag Bol, dhal and flatbreads , pork steaks with sautéed mushrooms, potatoes and peas, risotto, or veg fried rice with a crispy fried egg for evening meal.

Lunches will be beans on toast, tomato or any other veg soup, chickpea salad, hummus and flatbread, spinach and mushrooms on toast, omelettes, etc

Breakfast will be a mix of eggs/ mushroom muffins/ on toast, porridge, fruit and yoghurt, corn cakes or muffins.

Thanks, yes, I seem to do all those things. I know the things we use a lot of, so I always stock up whenever they are on offer. I buy bulk (2kg of rice instead of 500 g). I always check if two 500ml bottles of olive oil or whatever are cheaper than the 1L bottle. We don't buy loads of cleaning supplies (I have literally no free time to clean anyway), but a box of washing power and 8 pack of kitchen roll is 10 quid. If then next week you need stain remover and toilet roll, that's another 10 quid, so over the weeks it adds up (but we need toilet roll, so can't exactly cut that out). I buy own brand most of the time, nothing particularly fancy. I make things from scratch 4-5 out of 7 days.

I wonder if it's just because we live in a not inexpensive part of the country and have no discount options (unless I want to drive 45 minutes to Aldi, which I don't because I get home at like 7pm and need to put my kids to bed). I wonder if it's also because we eat all meals from the weekly shop. Do other people not do this when they say they spend so little? I did see an article once about some mum feeding her family of 6 on like £40 a week, but she gave her meal plan, priced out per meal, but it was only dinners. I'm assuming they must have eaten breakfast, lunch, snacks, drinks, etc. at some point that week.

I buy cleaning and household items in bulk about 4 times a year, Amazon is an option for this but I use Aldi usually.

I do an online shop monthly and buy staples and restock my store cupboard, I then buy (in person) my fresh ingredients, it comes to about £80 a week for 4 adults including one vegetarian.

It's possible for less but you need to be eating a lot of bean and chickpea based meals in my experience, I can make food for as little as 50p a portion but it gets boring

£50 for 4 is tight £100 is easy it also depends on kids ages if 3 and 5 it is about the same as 3 adults is 12 and 14 it is like 4 adults, in fact growing teenagers especially is active often need more food than adults

we are a family of 3 and it works out about £80 including toiletries cleaning stuff and occasional wine and DH crisp addiction

you need toilet roll but why do you need 8 kitchen rolls 1 should last ages use washable clothes instead

I think as you say some of these feed 6 for £40 are forgetting washing up liquid school lunch money toilet roll etc

Don't use kitchen towel, use cloths. You have to live how people used to live 50 years ago when things like kitchen towel did not exist.

I spend about 70 a week on food for two adults, four DC (although DC4 is only seven months old!). That does include cat food for two cats, nappies and cleaning stuff.

Breakfasts are porridge, toast, or pancakes usually. DP and I don't really eat breakfast, we consume our weight in decent coffee instead.

Lunches, packed lunches for school for the children, DP and I also eat packed lunch style things, or homemade veggie soup or pasta with cheese and pesto and veg.

Dinners...nothing that unusual...last night we had sausages, wedges, corn on the cob and beans. Night before was bolognaise, tonight is chicken fajitas.

I do two or three vegetarian dinners a week, which helps keep the costs down. I only buy snacks that are on offer and generally shop from the offers section of the online shop too. I also buy in bulk when something is on offer...recently grabbed a month's supply of nappies as they were half price!

We mostly use frozen veg, as much to cut down wastage as for price. I tend to always buy apples and bananas as they are cheap, then frozen berries unless another fruit is on offer. We don't eat fish very often as its expensive.

I do buy super cheap cleaning stuff.

I shop online at Tesco but put everything through mysupermarket.com first. I find it foes save you quite a bit as it works out cheaper alternatives.

Oh, I don't buy alcohol with our food budget. It comes out of our fun money! Deliberate, to make me think of it as a treat rather than a staple!

We spend £60 on two of us so would be intrested how to spend 50 on 4

Meat is the main thing to cut down on or replace.
Eat bread, every day, not a popular thing on mumsnet, it would seem.
Supermarket brands are absolutely fine, including the basic brands.
Buy cheap seasonal fruit and veg - ordinary boring things like carrots and cabbage.

Batch cooking and freezing portions
Bulking out bolognese, etc with lentils
Value cereals like weetabix
Cheap filling meals eg baked potatoes and beans , egg on toast a couple of times a week
Basic fruit and veg eg apples versus mangoes
Frozen eg for less waste
Smaller portions, esp if you are trying to lose weight
No puddings

I spend around £50-60 on food shopping but I shop at Lidl which really helps. 2 kids, 2 adults. We always have porridge for breakfast even though its sometimes a faff on school/work mornings, but it's super cheap! I make it half milk half water to make it creamier than just water.

We all eat our lunches elsewhere during term time and for dinners we have things like bolognaise, roast chicken, meat balls, bean stews etc. I try to make a veggie meal a few times a week and always make more than we need and freeze the rest. I never ever throw leftovers away, but always pop them in the freezer for future use. Fruit wise I only buy apples, bananas and oranges as they are cheap.

I also make pancakes, omelettes and soups every now and again as they are all very cheap but filling meals.

Bar soap is 15p in Tesco, lasts ages and is better at cleansing than hand wash and shower gel.
I don't bother with fabric conditioner or stain remover at all.
Most household cleaning can be done with a cloth, soap and hot water.