Help me reduce my grocery bill please?

[Evianna83]

I've tried to reduce our grocery spending but struggled. We very rarely eat processed foods so I think that increases the overall spend. We live in London and use online grocery delivery services so I think that rules out Aldi / Lidl. (We've no car and no Aldi/Lidl close by and we are time poor so need delivery).

I've tried shopping around most of the online supermarkets taking advantage of various newbie offers. I have actually given up with ASDA as I have ordered from them 4 times and each time the order has been late (after the slot sometimes by hours) with no communication and once was cancelled at the last minute. I wanted to persist as they seemed the cheapest but the massive inconvenience makes it not worth it.

We are two adults and a two year old. I'm including nappies and all household stuff like cleaning products in the shop, but struggling to get it down each month below about £95 a week! I meal plan every dinner and I eat an apple for lunch (DH at work & toddler at nursery).

Does anyone else have any tips? Especially if you do tend to eat healthier foods?

Have you tried going down a brand so buying supermarket own rather than Heinz beans?
check Amazon because some items are much cheaper
could you sometimes shop at asda or lidl where basics are cheaper eg once a month
cook simpler recipes and avoid out of season stuff

Do you eat a lot of meat? That ramps the bill up quite a lot I find.

I think you will struggle to have a healthy diet for less especially if you can’t use a budget supermarket.

Are you using own brands? Especially for cleaning products and using washing powder rather than tablets.

@Orangesare we don't eat processed foods but for things like washing up liquid yes we do. As I said in my OP Aldi & Lidl don't seem to deliver.

@Shgytfgtf111 not really no. We tend to have chicken once a week and fish twice a week and the rest vegetarian.

You can save a lot on cleaning products and toiletries. They can be bought from stores like b&m and Savers. Do you have any of those near you?

Nappies wise I do big bulk orders from boots you get a lot of discount. Plus you get the points.

I think it's fruit and veg that drives up the price - it's horrendous at the moment

Assuming at least £20 of your weekly shop is going to be nappies and hygiene / cleaning products (?) then actually, £10 a day to feed three people three meals each sounds like there isn’t a lot of cutting down you can realistically do. Not helpful maybe, but if doesn’t sound as though you’re especially frivolous as it is.

Can offer replacing fresh fruit and vegetables with tinned or frozen if you’re going to be using them in dishes like curries / stews / soups / bakes / smoothies. Use half the quantity of ground meat in e.g. bolognese or lasagne and lentils as the other half.

Eat seasonally - and on the offers! Use tinned and frozen fruit and veg. And consider a veg box subscription.

Shop online but only use one shop. We used to go to ASDA for food, Lidl for nappies, Home Bargains for toiletries and it just became very expensive!

Now, we use Morrisons online and it's the best thing we did. The fruit and veg lasts way more than the expected best before date. We found ALDI fruit was on the verge of mould before we'd even got it home!

Meal Plan absolutely everything; breakfast, dinner, tea and snacks. They go through your meal plan and search for only things that you need for said meals.

Don't look at offers as that makes it more expensive as you see things that are a good deal but you don't actually need.

We buy veg frozen and it's great. Either boil in the pan or the microwave. We also buy frozen fruit to go in porridge/feed our toddler.

Does your local aldi do click and collect?

Can you cost up Amazon subscribe & save for the nappies and cleaning products?

You may find you already have Amazon Prime as well without realising.

Or go to lidl/Aldi once a month with a granny trolley and cart nappies and cleaning products back on the bus.

For food you may have to pare down what you're cooking - if you're doing an Ottolenghi fish dish with a tonne of fresh herbs it's going to be more expensive than a roast chicken from which you can then make soup. Apologies if you're only making dhal and rice already!

I think I save most on the more expensive items, by buying up when they're on offer (cleaning products, laundry, toiletries) or switching brands to whatever is on offer (cheese for example - I have 3 brands I switch between!). However, that is much harder when doing the online shop, because it means looking at all your regular non perishables every 2-3 weeks. It also means an expensive shop when my favourite cleaning brand is on offer.

Another thing I do is look up regular items on Amazon to see if subscribe and save is worthwhile. That's a bit trickier because Amazon prices fluctuate. But, I get enough ever 3 months to get an extra 15% off. I just add in whatever I need/is on a good price that month. Anything that isn't I push back by 3 months.

Oh and nappies will definitely be worth shopping around for!

(Or switch to cloth 😉)

A large number of Aldi stores do click and collect, hopefully store near you does.

I think you have to make time and go shopping at least once a week so you have a better knowledge of what is there in the supermarkets

A shopping list for a typical week would be useful for people to suggest changes

Look at each meal - what is expensive within it that can be cut down or switched and what can be scaled up for more calories or nutrients

Carrots and cabbage are very cheap almost all year and can make huge coleslaw salads whilst tomatoes lettuce and peppers would be more expensive

Mac cheese - a lot less cheese and add perhaps a spoonful of yogurt

Breakfast - oats is probably cheapest

Replace squash , tea and coffee with water or hot water sometimes

I agree you need to go shopping occasionally as it’s cheaper. Lidl is much cheaper for cleaning products and nappies
by basics I mean tinned tomatoes, flour sugar those sort of store cupboard items
switching to tinned or frozen veg is also much cheaper

I think you should be able to manage one fortnightly trip to Aldi / Lidl - they open late, despite being busy and working.
You must have some spare time!

Are you able to give an idea of typical items on your shop so we can see where the cost is coming in? We are also 3 and use Tesco's and with top ups it works out at around £70-75 per week. We don't buy many brands at all though and find the Tesco nappies good too.

I think Morrisons deliver now.

How much does the fish cost, that's often quite expensive unfortunately? If you switched to frozen, it should be cheaper. Perhaps try Iceland to stock up on frozen fish, veg and some fresh stuff?

If you've discounted Asda, plus Tesco and Morrisons have got more expensive, maybe Ocado, but stick to own brand/stuff on offer and see how that stacks up cost wise?

What vegetables do you buy? I don't really understand why people say fruit and veg is expensive, some of it costs almost nothing, so buy cheaper types if you want to spend less - for example, standard broccoli is about a fifth of the price of sprouting broccoli.

Lots of supermarkets are doing meal plan features using cheaper food so have a look at those for ideas.

She doesn't drive and doesn't have a local aldi.

Frozen veg often much cheaper than fresh and just as good for you

Things like fish - make into a pie / sauce and use less than 1 slice per person

Which grocery services do you use OP? Can you give us an example receipt?