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?

Yes, we do. The weekly big shop is now easily over £110 whereas last year this would be the Christmas week shop when there's two extra adults in the house.

Yes, I religiously note every spending in my excel file. For two adults we are currently spend around £300-350. This doesn't include toiletries. No booze as well. I am trying to cut back, but it's becoming really hard. It's just normal food, I cook at home, we have odd treat of supermarket sushi or some mcdonald's, but no takeaway pizza, curry etc. My husband eats gluten free, so this tops up grocery bill. I am looking into what I can save on, and I can't think of anything else than eating less or worse quality honestly 🤔

I think it sounds like you're doing really well! We spend way more for two adults and two pets.

We have a similar shaped family to you. When DS is away at University it is £80-90 (2 adults and 1 16yo 2 of whom are veggi) when he is back more like £120-£130.

September 2022 a weekly shop for us ( 2 adults 1 teen 1 nearly teen and 7yr old ) was £140pw beginning of Jan £160 this week just gone it was nearly £200.

Ours works out to £283per month for 2 adults and a cat we have quite a bit of wine and beer. Cook from scratch and shop mostly at tesco with some lidl and morrisons.

We were budgetting £500 a month for the two of us. We've made some big changes recently, most of our spending is fresh fruit and veg, eat veg at least 3 times a week, often more. No alcohol, minimal treats. We have swapped quite a bit this month, cheaper yoghurts, raspberries to grapes, and aldi for everything that's cheaper than tesco. This month we had almost 50 left (started half way through Feb) so have stopped up on expensive items - nuts, laundry stuff, massive pack of chicken breasts. Also buying a lot more frozen veg, brocolli, cauli and beans all great. Hopefully in March we can just do top ups with fresh stuff. £500 sounds astromical and it's depressing that the treats (although lovely) are healthy things like fruit/veg/nuts but it is what it is. I am also gluten intolerant but avoid most free from stuff, but things I eat a lot of (like oats) are much more expensive than normal oats, cereal is half the size and 60p more expensive.

For clarity ours does include toiletries, things like loo roll and dishwasher tabs are a bit hit.

Sorry, by veg I meant vegetarian meals!

Don't track as such, but generally I spend £120 a week on food - there's 3 of us, 4 if DS is back from Uni

I might start tracking as I would love to get on top of the grocery spend and set a proper budget. Off the top of my head probably spend around £700 a month. Two adults and 3 children.

It's the top up shops that ruin us. I don't seem to be capable of thinking ahead for the week and we always seem to run out of things.

Does anyone meal plan lunches? I always plan dinners but often find myself in Sainsbury's for lunch and that's when I piss money up the wall!

We spend about £120 a week, that's for 2 adults, 2 dc, 3 cats.

Me neither, reading it back. I'm so tired! Was trying to say I don't think you're doing too bad at all for the number of people you're feeding :)

2 adults, 1 teen. I budget £80 a week to include alcohol, cleaning etc. Includes lunches for the adults but doesn’t include school dinners or occasional meal out.
The budget hasn’t changed, but we’ve gone from buying (within reason) what we fancied in Ocado to mainlining the budget ranges on Sainsbury’s website. We still eat tasty meals but there’s definitely been a downshift. It takes more planning, thinking and ultimately more cooking skills and knowledge too.

I plan lunches to some extent, DH and I WFH most of the time so often have left overs. I do buy some things for Dd to take to school. When things were very tight in 2008-2011 I planned everything including after school snacks.

i do track
this month it is £60 per week roughly.
for two of us

Yes. Our budget is £50pw for two including toiletries and cleaning products, oh and some wine. I don't meal plan as I like to do whatever spur of the moment or make a point of using things up. I do my shopping on foot, so tend to do 3-4 shops a week (luckily two supermarkets very close to work). I keep an eye on roughly what I've spent, and if it looks like I haven't much left for my final shop I adjust what I'm buying - I always have certain store cupboard ingredients in and even spares of cleaning stuff/toiletries so easy to adjust my shop foodwise at end of week.

About 5% of the time I go over budget, but generally under - which is good as I can keep something in hand for full freezer shop every three months.

I do not track it. It would just depress me.

We have a budget of £500/month for 2 adults, a toddler and a formula-fed baby (dog food is bought separately on subscription). This includes all food, toiletries, cleaning products, nappies, etc. DH works from home, so all meals are eaten here except one weekly nursery dinner for DS.

We cook everything from scratch (lots of batch cooking as well) and spend maybe £10/month on convenience food like oven chips and garlic bread. Probably too many snacks, but we're cutting down. Eat vegetarian 3 times per week. Maybe 1-2 bottles of wine per month, but that used to be 1-2/week plus beer. DH has replaced most alcohol with Diet Coke and nice tonic, so it's healthier and less expensive, but still more costly than water and squash. Currently it's the disgustingly effing extortionate formula and nappies that are killing us, but DS2 needs to eat and be clean.

Food is more expensive in other countries (I have lived elsewhere), but wages here are very low in comparison and other bills are comparatively high.