Weekly/Monthly Shopping bills?

[M24L]

Just looking for some advice/tips in regards to shopping bills.

After a discussion with DH about how we feel our income isn't lasting the month (full time and part time) I have sat down and made a list of our incoming and outgoing bills.

Most bills are fine in terms of gas, electricity, internet, phone bills etc but after going through the last month of bank statements to check how much has been spent on shopping i have came to the realisation that we spend almost £700 in the course of a month.

The £700 is mostly on the food shop with the odd £20-£40 spent in home bargains or BnM on cleaning products.

We are a family of 3 soon to be 4 so the reality of spending that amount of money has shocked me.

Looking for any sort of ideas, tips or advice on how to cut this down.

We love home cooked meals, not really a family of snackers so chocolate etc is very rarely bought although DH and DD both have sandwiches, rustlers burgers, crisps, fruit and yoghurts for lunch at work and school, I on the other hand tend to have noodles or toast for lunch at work. So it does seem that the biggest bulk is spent on dinners/teas.

What do you spend on average weekly or monthly for what size of family? Also meal ideas or anything would be great 😀

We are a family of four and we put aside £500 a month for groceries.

This never lasts though and for example this month ran out yesterday half way through the month.

My only advice would be to plan your meals for the week, and use ingredients that compliment each other and can be used in 2 dishes. So roast chicken one night, curry with the leftovers the next say. Spat Bol one night, then turn it into chilli with peppers and kidney beans and spices for the next night etc etc.

We save the most money when we batch shop at the start of the month for non perishables, so we go to bnm or home bargains and get the cleaning products, laundry products cordial, beans etc. This means week by week we should only be shopping for fresh food.

We haven't been able to do that since covid really but it does work with saving us money.

For 4 of us, I would say we spend around what you spend. I'd say it's maybe an average of £160 ish a week on food shopping, with maybe a few top ups here and there from the village shop, so close to £800 some months. That includes all the usually household items like toilet roll, cleaning products, nappies and wipes, plus alcohol.

For us, that's not an issue in terms of our incomes, and I would struggle to get it down to less as we literally make all food ourselves and take packed lunches everywhere, so has to literally include everything we eat in a week, including packed lunches for days out on the weekend and dc's school lunches. I cook pretty much from scratch every night. But we do eat a lot of fresh food, which is probably more expensive than cheaper stuff in packages. Again, I'm fine with this because I'd rather spend more on quality.

I think where we could cut down would be on convenience foods, like packaged lunch things or single serving kids snacks, and alcohol. But life is busy and generally those things make it less busy if I can just get them to grab something out of the fridge themselves. What has helped is cooking so we have leftovers, so making one meal and getting two nights out of it. It saves on all the little things you might buy for a recipe, the double cream or the herbs (which are expensive for what they are) and bulking things out with veg (carrots, etc.) to make it go further.

I thought £700 per month was a bit much but it seems like this is normal if we want to continue to eat the quality foods we do.

We enjoy home made meals each night and do try to use up fresh veg with different meals for example a pack of peppers will do a sweet and sour chicken, beef stroganoff and spagbol we very rarely waste any veg or anything and if purchasing 500g of mince etc this normally does us 3 with little to no left overs. I also do sometimes purchase the frozen veg packs which come in handy if im putting something in the slow cooker in the morning before we all head to work and school.

I just don't think I realised how steep the cost of living is 🤣 maybe we can have a look at meal plans and making sure we are using everything we have at home to our full advantage as there is sometimes where our fridge and freezer could be full but there's nothing in that we "fancy" which results on a trip to the shop which also almost always results in some purchasing of unnecessary items we didn't/dont need.

Have you gone through your receipts and checked what the most expensive items are?

I know there are some specific things I often end up buying but could easily save £50 per month if I didn't. Especially any convenience foods/snacks/drinks but also sometimes more expensive cleaning products, hair spray etc.

Also make sure you are not buying things you already have. Sounds silly but at some point I realised I had about 4 bottles of window/mirror cleaner stashed away in the cupboard under the sink even though I rarely use it.

I disagree that £700 is normal: a lot of people spend far less. We are a family of 5 (3 DC, 2 of which are teens but I'm vegetarian so don't eat the expensive meat) and spend about £450 a month. I shop in Aldi for the vast majority (Sainsbury's for things o can't get there) but cook from scratch almost every night and only buy free range chicken and Aberdeen Angus beef and lots and lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Perhaps the difference is that we all eat vegetarian meals 2/3 times a week and teen DC are at their dad's for 2 meals. Lunches for DH 4 days, teens 2 days and none for DS9 or myself (school dinner/ lunch canteen). We eat really well with plenty snacks and treats.

I do meal plan and I think not being tempted by all the variety in Sainsbury's helps a lot.

We are a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 teens) and our spending is around £85 a week or £365 per calendar month. That is for all food, toiletries, cleaning stuff and beer/wine.
I buy very little ready prepared food and use seasonal products which tend to be better value (no fresh raspberries in December etc).
I shop mostly in Lidl / Aldi and top up in other stores for any other bits. Home bargains is great for cleaning stuff and toiletries too.
We waste very little food and I often use cheaper cuts of meat ie beef shin which is wonderful slow cooked. 500 g of lean minced beef made into a chilli or spag bol will do at least two serving each as I pad it out with lots of veg.
I don't buy many premium brands.........I'm happy to try cheaper versions, if I don't like it I don't buy it again!

I read a lot of these mostly shop posts but £700 seems like a LOT for a month.
Granted, at the moment, it's just me and DH and we probably spend about £200 max on groceries each month. Do a big shop when I get paid then buy fruit, veg, milk, bread, yogurt etc as and when needed throughout the month. Here are my tips:
Buy frozen...Farmfood have a massive bag (I think it's 5kg) of chicken mini fillets for £6.99 we get every month (defrost a few the night before cooking). Same for veg. They usually have good multi-buy offers and quality is good.
We buy family packs of fresh mince, portion them out and freeze for meals. As you're already a family you probably need the full pack but freezing fresh meat allows you to keep it for longer without compromising on quality. We do the same for pack of stir fry beef. If they're on offer because the use by date is nearing, get it and freeze straight away. Defrost night before cooking as with chicken.
We usually get sauces and condiments from Home Bargains as they're the same brands but cheaper than Tesco etc.
If you have a Tesco Clubcard, make the most of the Clubcard prices. They can save you quite a bit if you do a big shop there.
We usually shop at Tesco (for what we can't get anywhere else or if we prefer Tesco branded stuff), Lidl, Aldi, Farmfoods and Home Bargains.

I meant to say that you need balance. For example, the steak for tomorrow night's dinner cost £24 but the 750g steak mince for tonight's chill was under a fiver. The free range chicken I used for the stir fry was expensive at over £4 or 2 fillets but that dinner is lots of veg and noodles.

Also, don't buy sauces/ dressings make them if you have time. My teens are good at this and quite enjoy it. They're also good at making burgers/ chicken burgers/ humous and it works out far cheaper.

Prices can vary hugely. For example, Scottish, cold-pressed rapeseed oil is £3.99 in Sainsbury's but £1.59 in Aldi. I just bought it yesterday again,so was in my mind.

Do you have a market near you that had a fruit and veg stall? If so that could be worth checking out.
Ditch the rustlers and think of a better value healthier alternative.

Family of 4 Inc 2 teens. We spend £400 at the most on food, cleaning products and toiletries a month. That doesn't include the kids school dinners though at £120-£150 per month.

That's lidl for food and home bargains for cleaning products etc with an occasional tesco top up.

Just me and OH. We spend about 350-400 p/m.

700 sounds a lot to me for family of 3. How old is your DC? I think it depends on where you shop too??

All wonderful tips that are 100% worth trying out, in terms of frozen meat i can be classed as "fussy" as I feel that frozen mince and beef just isn't the same as fresh 😢

I shop mostly in morrisons and they often do 2.2kg of chicken breasts for £9.99 this normally has around 8 breasts in it which I split up into 2 bags of 3 and one bag of 2 (the bag of 2 having the biggest ones in it) so effectively this does 3 meals. Morrisons also sometimes do 1kg of diced beef which I separate into 2 bags weighing each out at 500g so this does 2 meals.

Sometimes meals like spagbol will do 4 meals so I always either freeze the left over or pop it in the fridge for a lunch for someone the next day meal sizes/portions purely depends on the type of day we've had and how hungry we are. If not as hungry we do have smaller portions and freeze the rest but if its been a hard working day and we've burned off more than we've eaten then we tend to look forward to the bigger portions at tea time.

If we do freeze leftovers this most likely only does 1 meal and we typically prefer to sit down as a family at the same time and eating the same so although we aren't wasting anything there is sometimes when the frozen left overs aren't used as we only have 1 portion.

@SwimBaby DH takes rustlers burger and sandwiches as he works in a cold environment and only gets 15 mins for lunch so the rustlers burger is a quick and easy solution to making sure he has something hot for at least one of his breaks.

@azizam DD is 8 so eats exactly what we have, shes a great eater and would sit down to anything that she is given.

I think it depends where you shop OP? If you go to Aldi and just went to M&S for odd bits I bet you would save.

Places like Sainsburys to do a food shop I find extortionate.

£700 is an awful lot, and rustlers burgers are expensive and grim. He presumably has access to a microwave at work, so why doesn’t he take leftovers to heat up? My DH will often take left over spag bol, chilli, etc that is filling and warming but also cheap.

There must be some significant other spends though because I would really struggle to spend that amount each month if you are cooking mostly from scratch. Can you post an average weekly shop and people can give you ideas of where you could save?

(If you don’t get leftovers at the moment then increase the amount you are making, the more you make the more the price per serving will reduce).

OP I don't buy frozen meat or fish (except fish fingers as DS3 loves a fish finger sandwich for lunch/ snack) ever, or anything frozen really- except ice cream/ lollies and peas/ sweetcorn. All our meat and fish is fresh from Aldi and I like to know where it's from, thus buying free range or Aberdeen Angus. It can be done, it really can.

Food prices have gone up a lot in the last 18 months so it may be just be reflective that. Including more veggie meals always help, or alternatively, use meat as a flavouring rather than the main element. Things like bacon and chorizo are ideal for that.

What are you drinking?
Alcohol
Coffee
Juices
Soft drinks
all can be expensive.

Also, depending on the meal and size of the chicken breasts you may not need one each, especially an 8 year old. In something like a curry try using chickpeas with the chicken to reduce the amount of meat. In a stir fry, reducing chicken but adding water chestnuts, or peanuts works well.

We spend £60/£70 a week including pull-ups and toiletries for me, dh and ds (3)
We do our food shop at aldi and don’t buy bits midweek from anywhere else.
We don’t buy treats really (maybe one or two nice things we fancy) or pre-prepared meals etc so that helps keep the cost way down. We try and eat veggie meals (lentils etc) 3 times a week, and I cook from scratch. I’m also fussy with meat and would rather eat less but slightly nicer quality.
I do a meal plan (including breakfasts and lunches) for the week and we stick to it so I’m not spending unnecessarily.
Honestly I could easily spend more (couldn’t imagine spending more than £100 a week max though!) but we don’t feel deprived on the amount we spend now and financially it’s all we can afford at the moment.

That’s a lot of money for 3 people. We have 5DC so 7 of us (granted the youngest is 8 months old so doesn’t eat much and we use reusable nappies but still), we spend £120 a week in aldi. Shopping in aldi is definitely what saves us a lot, we easily spent at least £50 more per week in morrisons.

We’re mostly vegetarian so I think that helps because fish and meat is expensive. We cook most things from scratch and tend not to buy too much crap. We also meal plan so we don’t fall short and need to go to the shop for random top ups.

Rustlers, sandwiches and noodles for lunch can’t cost more than say £6 so you must be spending at least £10/£15 per evening meal.

I shop on line as this helps me budget better than if I actually go to the shop. I try to keep the shop under £100 a week which includes cleaning products, toilet roll, toiletries, dog food and the all important bottle of wine! There are 4 of us, kids are teens.
I plan the evening meals I'll cook that week and what we need for lunches, breakfast snacks etc. I try to make things from scratch if I've the time as I do think it's so much cheaper and I agree with those who said try budget brands if you don't already.

2 adults and 2 preteens here that eat adult size portions and lots of snacks. We spend about £130 a week. I don’t buy lamb or beef joints as I don’t eat it - but I do buy burgers and beef mince for the rest. We have 2 meat and veg meals a week, one Mexican meal, one rice meal, one freezer/easy meal, an omelette or fish meal. I don’t spend much on cleaning products or toiletries.

It sounded like your meat portions are large - what do you cook with the 3 chicken portions?