£1,000 at the supermarket every month!

[Sainsburysaddict]

So - have just gone through our finances and we’re spending £1,000 at the supermarket every month.

DH says this is average for a family of 4 and is rather alarmed that I’d like to budget. Spending less can’t be done apparently, without a life of boring meals.

We desperately need to save money.

Thoughts? Tips? How much do you spend?

Hi @Sainsburysaddict I work in grocery retail in strategy, worked for quite a few retailers looking at this kind of stuff.

Your spend does sound high Vs 'average' full shop.

Loads of pointers that have already been said. It sounds like you meal plan as you have very little waste.

I would look at your receipt and look at proportion of money spent on different areas e.g.
Protein
Alcohol
Dairy
Produce
Store cupboard - particularly oils and herbs & spices
Bakery
Household.......
Also look at how much is spent on brands and own label.

It would be interesting to see your spending by these areas then we could pinpoint where your problem areas are

Sometimes it isn't cheaper 'shopping around' at different retailers as the savings you make over the basket are minimal Vs petrol and your time.

Biggest way to save money on your groceries are:
Meal plan
Buy own label
Buy brands only when on offer and it is of value to you
Bulk cook
Trade down a 'tier' - although I wouldn't recommend this everywhere e.g. protein.

When I need to tighten the food spending a bit I always aim to have 3 days a week "on the cheap" So porridge and a banana for breakfast, omlette for lunch and jacket spud for dinner. Apples / grapes / oranges / few own biscuits from a pack for snacks.

Find it really makes a difference.

I would love a 1k food budget per month! If you have the money, why not? We spend like £150 per week I'd say- 2 adults, 2 primary aged kids, all carnivores , kids with packed lunches and loads of fresh stuff. We shop at Tesco and have some lovely varied meals, if I do say so myself 😆

No booze, no Fizzy drinks, rarely fresh juices.
Choose own brands as standard
Mid-range or Finest meat and fish
2 day meal at least once a week
Beige dinner once a week max

Good luck OP!

It is, we always buy free ranged British meat , mostly from our local family ran farmers markets, mostly the meat are for the boys, they are both under their teams sports nutritionist’s.

Ds2 for example is just turned 15 male, he weights 17.8 stone and is 6ft 4, his body as a rugby player needs 222g of protein a day, he only has 16% body fat (this is being closely monitored as he is a growing boy and is low for his build) he trains 6 days a week, 3 times a day, his day starts at 5.30am and finishes at 9/10pm.

He needs an average 3200 calories a day, this is normal for an athlete of his build and size, hence the absurd meat consumption.

Also ds2 is allergic to legumes and has an intolerance to pulses.

We spend around the same. Two adults, two teen DCs. No microwave meals but one bottle of wine a week.
That's with the weekly shop in Aldi and top ups in Tesco.

We spend about £100-£150 a week for 5. 2 adults, 12 and 9 year old, and a 1 year old who eats more than his sisters.

i usually plan atleast one veggie meal a week (chili, soup, lentil based something, etc). I usually bake bread or cornbread to serve with it.

I buy chicken thighs, cheap cuts of beef to stew or turn into rice bowls, or use a whole chicken for several different meals (soup, tacos, stir fry). We also have a fish dish- but no one is fussed what kind. We prefer salmon but have to fit it in for the week. I hVe also purchased tinned salmon and made delicious salmon burgers to freeze.

I also plan atleast 1-2 rice based meals (Greek chicken and rice, beef moussaka rice bowl, etc). And then we have atleast 1-2 pasta based meals (usually whole wheat). We do pizza night once a week, and I either make the dough and let the kids decorate with mozzarella and veggies, or we buy the cheap deep dish frozen Aldi pizzas (the ingredients are actually very good!) for £1.19 each.

sometimes if I’m tired we have eggs for dinner which my kids think is a treat.

lots of frozen veg in the freezer to throw in to various dishes.

i make a big pot of bircher for husband and I breakfast, kids eat Greek yogurt with fruit (I buy 3 containers of the Aldi own brand or the m&s which are £1.20 a container). Or we have porridge.

one child does packed lunch every day, the other has lunch at school, the rest of us eat every meal from that budget.

@ HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend Whereabouts are you based? It sounds like incredible value for money.

I know, it’s awful. But our area has issued 3 sewage contamination warnings in the past 18 months so my partner refuses to drink it or give it to our toddler. I tried to do filtered water but I was the only one who would top it up and we’d all end up going thirsty. I was buying the bottled Evian in glass bottles to reduce the plastic but it’s SO expensive now.

We’re installing an integrated filter in the new place but not moving for a few months yet 😔

A 1000 is a lot - what are you buying?

Wow that's impressive - could you share a month's typical shopping list please?

We spend around £100-150 a week for 4 of us plus a cat and I'd love to get that figure down.

Per month, not per week.

(There's a lot of confusion about weeks and months in this thread. Some people are quoting what they know they spend in a week and others are quoting figures for a month.)

Honeatly, both posts of 100something were prwtty clear it's per week 🙄

However, it shows how much bulshitting goes on on here with posters calling even innocents out!

I think if you cook from scratch generally apart from the odd 'posho' ready meal, and try and have non-UPF and high-welfare ingredients, then you can easily spend that much, especially with a couple of bottles of wine or beer. We are a family of 3-4 and spend at least £170 a week with top ups, and most of us are vegan.

Basic readymeals and prepared food is SO much cheaper - but it's full of stuff which really is fucking up your health longterm. Not sugar/salt/fat particularly but UPF stabilisers and emulsifiers etc.

It's really depressing.

2 adults, 2 dogs, we spend £150-£180 per week. DH says its more expensive when I go with him.

Does your bill come to £250 at the checkout Op or is top up shops?
What I found when I had teens,was they devoured all the snack foods immediately and expected more.
So I stopped topping up
The more I bought the more they ate, including homemade cakes etc

So it was tough, once its gone its gone
Cue moaning about being STARVING.
I pointed them towards the toaster .
Of course they were "starving" for nice stuff not toast 😂
Cut my bill right down though.

Interestingly, I have lost 2.5 stone over the last year. I gave up wheat, sugar, saturated fat, 80% of my red meat intake. I upped chicken, fish, legumes and fruit and veg. I think I have saved £30-£40 pw. I disagree that it's more expensive to eat well.

We spend:

£450 a month in the supermarket
50 school meals
Youngest gets free school meals so I suppose that would be another £50 if older.

So £550 on all lunch's, cleaning products, loo roll, food etc etc.

I cannot see how you are spending £1000. We aren't even scrimping.

Oh we shop at Aldi only. I nearly fainted at the prices in Sainsbury's

I suspect it's easily done. Both ds's have big appetites and play sport a lot, so We can spend £150 a week easily, plus also a big Costco shop of a tray of chicken, mince, etc. no surprise to me.

We spend about the same as you. Every month:

700 at the supermarket
100 on two Gousto boxes a month
50 on Riverford veg boxes
Then we buy alcohol separately but probably another 50.

And our kids eat school lunches - if they didn't, we would be very close to your figure.

For us, I think the main things driving it are a lot of fish - we eat salmon and/or trout every week, sometimes twice a week, we buy organic veg, one of our kids is lactose intolerant so a few expensive substitutions (oat milk, vegan cheese etc).

One thing I have done to bring the costs down without it feeling like too much of a drag is rather than try and cut costs across the whole shop, I have one day a week where I focus on everyone eating cheaply - I make things like jacket potatoes or soup or something like that. It's just one day a week so it doesn't feel really restrictive but it brings down the total a tad.

We spent around £180 a week of in entirely honest. Two adults, two teen boys and a smaller child. That doesn’t include animal feed. But does include nose toiletries and laundry and cleaning stuff. I spend £130 with an Asda shop delivered and the rest is top up.

These threads puzzle me. If you're buying brands and out of season food plus a lot of meat, fish and alcohol then you'll spend a lot. Clearly you could spend less. Different brands, less meat, less alcohol, etc etc.

Some ready meals are cheap, but not that nice. I tasted a lasagne the other and it was actually quite grim. What it costs me to make 2 : buy Costco mince, 2 packets of lasagne, cheese etc. actually very expensive. Or shepherd pie, I made 3, time consuming and actually quite costly. But nicer than a supermarket one.

Funny that in UK "from scratch" cooking is more expensive than premade stuff...
Honestlu, how, why?
I grew up central Europe and ready stuff waa and atill is for the well off priced. Bar tinne gulaah with sausage or similar not that lovely, mainly camping stuff