Do you track how much you spend on groceries?

[TomatoesTomatoes]

We are a family of 2 adults and two older teens, dh and I work from home and the teens both take food from home to school/college. I cook from scratch and keep the freezer stocked with chilli, curry, bolognese, soups, and casseroles and we love making homemade pizza.
Things are getting so much more expensive! I used to keep a general eye on how much I was spending on groceries but since 1st January I have been keeping a spreadsheet for all spending on groceries (including food, toiletries, alcohol, cleaning and laundry).
I find recording the cost of each shop focuses my mind on sticking to my budget!!
Over the last 8 weeks, our spending has averaged £93 a week, I shop between Asda / Aldi / Lidl/ Morrisons as they are all close. If I had to I could get it down a bit by cutting out the wine but at the moment we still have money left over at the end of the month so the wine is staying!
How does that compare to other families?

I don’t track how much we spend but we do an online weekly shop from Tesco and for a family of 5 (me, dh, two older teens and an 8 year old) we spend around £130-£140 per week including cleaning supplies and toiletries. That’s for 3 meals a day plus snacks for all 5 of us as we all take our lunch to work/school/uni.

Works out at £4 per person per day which isn’t bad at all.

Me and DS is currently working out to about £60 a week, three meals a day (inc pack-up lunch) for both of us...it's doable, but much more expensive than it used to be and there are a lot of things I just don't buy any more.

You'll get people telling you they spend 2 or 3 times that much on similar families and they think they don't spend extravagantly.

Your spend probably is below average for your family size, but that's because you're being economical, batch cooking, probably not wasting very much and spending little on more expensive 'essentials' like fresh fish or out of season fruit.

If you can afford it, you could probably justify spending more, but if not, you're in a fairly good position because being able to eat well on a below average budget is a good skill to have and it means you can free up money for other things without feeling like you're overly restricted on choice or amount of food.

I don’t track, but when I did go through my statements I was very shocked to find that we were spending £260 a week at Ocado.

that’s for 2 adults and 2 primary children

I do a shop every 7-9 days so track it like that, no top ups
For me I allow £240pm which covers the cheap weeks at £40 a week then more expensive ones (toilet rolls, cleaning stuff etc) at £60-70pw

I don't track it exactly, but our 'big shop' we usually pend £80-90 and then we do one or two top up shops of £30ish. So we spend more than you do and our DCs are only little.

We cook a lot from scratch but I think it's the top up shops that get us.

We track it on excel, by supermarket. It highlighted that we were spending a lot on little top up shops: if we needed bread and milk then we were adding a few things and it would be £10-£12.
So it's been good at making us buy only what we need, unless it's got a long life and is on offer. Feb's total was about £30 less than Jan.

I'm thinking of doing one month of totalling up by type of food to see where we could save, eg fruit/veg total; meat/fish total etc.

I try to keep to no more than £100 a week for two adults and a toddler. This includes nappies and wipes plus all cleaning things. We rarely have a takeaway so it also covers all meals. I aim for £85 online shop with £15 top ups.

We spend about £130 a week for two adults, one 7 yo and a cat. Thats food, cleaning stuff, wine. Mostly Tesco with the odd trip to Aldi. I cook everything from scratch and out of that DS & DH have packed lunch. So feels fairly extravagant but maybe it's not too bad.

I budget £100 a week for 2 adults a teen and two primary aged children, most weeks we use the entire budget.

We spend more than you and our dc are smaller (7&9). We probably spend around £150 a week including booze, some toiletries, cleaning bits and the odd bunch of flowers. I don't tend to keep track and we don't really set a budget for food as such. I don't think we massively over spend or end up wasting food and throwing stuff away.

I dont track but I do have a set budget of £70 PW.

I never go over. I just take all the nice things out the trolley until its back at £70...

I noticed Sainsburys was FULL of good offers last week and I got everything including meals, loo rolls, packed lunches, treats for £67! I had a victory dance and everything

I spent the remaining £3 on topping up on things like chopped tomatoes, baked beans etc

Next week it's probably really expensive again 😔

We have a similar set up but spend double what you do.
That doesn’t include dog food and we don’t drink a lot

Yikes. I spend a lot.

Too many uber eats at 20 each.

Similar to you OP, but doesn’t include dog biscuits. I have to really try to keep it under£100 a week - we are mostly vegan, and don’t drink. It’s still a struggle. Everything has gone up so much.

I don’t track as such but I’ve noticed that it’s now £200 per week when it used to be £170-180 per week. 2 adults and 2 children.

I do cast an eye over the receipt like I do with everything else, but that is far as it goes.

I don't track. I do a "big shop" once or twice a month and tend to pick up dinner daily on my way home from work. But I've been keeping an eye on certain things:

• baked beans
• loo roll
• butter

Shocking.

Last month we spend £629 for two adults and a toddler who was going through a growth spurt. That isn’t an amount we want to maintain and would like to get it down to at least £450

I shop online twice a week for a family of three and try to keep each shop to around £40. Although prices have been increasing I've kept costs down by being smarter about batch cooking/freezing, cooking a lot more veggie meals (which I actually prefer!) and buying more stuff on offer. I avoid temptation by not shopping in store at all. I do have a little wiggle room in that I could cut down on stupidly expensive starbucks coffee pods (which I'm totally addicted to) and alcohol, if I had to. I've also tried to eat more healthily for the past few years so don't buy the same sorts of 'treats' that I might have chucked in my basket in the past.

same here @Swisspolkadot - it all gets piled in and then the expensive/nice stuff gets taken out again! And if any of our favourite but expensive things is on offer I stock up and hoard (yes DS, this is your juice!!)

We have £600 a month for shopping (all food/cleaning/toiletrie/pet food).

We have to stick to that as there is nothing else.

3 adults, 2 children, 1 cat.

@uncertainalice same with soreen! 😂

I set a budget of £100 per week, and shop online so no going over budget. This includes meals, snacks, drinks, toiletries, cleaning supplies and pet food. Lots of basket jenga before checkout and cooking from scratch. It's annoying but means we stick to the budget.

I track mine as I use a credit card just for food shopping just because I get a great cashback rate. I try to keep it under £450 a month, the last week would usually be using up the freezer and just buying bread, milk, fresh fruit and veg.