£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?

@Sainsburysaddict You do have a Nectar Card don't you?
I shop in a local butcher, local farm shop and tend to top up anything else I need at Waitrose, sometimes I do Aldi or Sainsburys or Tescos but they're out of the way (I live in Waitroseland near their HO and have a choice of 3 or 4 to shop in within 5 miles)
Anyhow, I have noticed that the Nector/Tesco clubcard price is MASSIVELY lower. So staples we buy that are on offer can be 1/3 to 1/2 cheaper 'with the card' . Sainsburys have recently noticed I'm not spending every shop with them, and only buying limited things so have taken to posting me a bunch of vouchers to use with the Nectar card eg spend £80 get £12 off. So I do go and spend £80 for £68 - and buy all the offers about once a month.
I would suggest if you have a Nectar card but not getting the offer vouchers in the post is go AWOL for a bit, don't shop there every week and see if they try to woo you back with vouchers.

£120 a week for 4 people we shop deals. Morrisons, Aldi etc. We just limit our meat and fish consumptions 1 portion of meat and 1 portion of fish weekley.
Lots of veggie dishes. All home cooked usually batch cooker.

How are you spending that much??????

There's 2 adults now the kids have flown the nest, but I spend around £50.00 a week on average and that includes feeding 6 of us one day a week. I am careful and don't buy alcohol every week but I think £1000.00 is double what you need to spend.

’groceries’ is a very broad term. Some people exclude toiletries/cleaning products etc from the total so they seem more frugal than others.

If that includes washing liquid, fabric conditioner,cleaning products, shower/bubble bath, toothpaste etc etc even not cutting down on food you could cut down by buying items that are on offer for the month or two months. Ie washing liquid, (or pods, powder whatever) on offer buy enough for two months, another time something else is on offer, stock up on that. I saved 75p on washing liquid last week (on each one, so i had 4) saved £3 then saw fabric conditioner 4 for price of 3 (saved 3 x 45 + 1 x 44p = £1.79) may not seem a lot but, it mounts up, especially when its big savings like on tea bags, coffee etc. Start with small savings, drop money into a jar that youve saved, then,you get the savings
/bargain hunting bug 😂😂

He seems very ignorant.

Can you share your weekly shopping?

We shop in Sainsbury’s for mostly for fruit, veg, fish and meat. Asda are cheaper for tinned and store cupboard stuff. We have a Nectar card for Sainsbury’s (£26 earned in nectar points atm and we save money every shop with nectar prices. I’m part of the ASDA rewards scheme (£19.61 currently in my cash pot for doing nothing extra). I also have a Tesco club card and look out for their offers.

Sainsburys do good multi packs of fish like seabass and salmon, and chicken breasts. Buy them and freeze what you dont use immediately. You can also buy expensive butter (we like anchor spreadable) when it’s on offer and freeze it, I never pay full price for it.

if you drink wine look out for the 25% off if you buy 6 offers. All the supermarkets do it periodically. Don’t wait until you need it, and buy odd bottles at half price, buy when it’s on offer.

Just a few tips which may be helpful I hope.

Just added up from our bank statement and have spent £750 at the supermarket this month. Probably need one more top-up before payday, so call it £780. 2 adults, 1 teen DS, 11yo DD. This also includes pet food for 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 guinea pigs, cleaning products and most of our toiletries. I think we eat well and could cut down from this. It also includes alcohol - probably 2-3 bottles of wine per week and 8-12 cans of beer.
For £1000 you must be being quite extravagant. We do about half our shopping in Tesco and a quarter each in Sainsbury’s and Aldi. Used to live a Waitrose splurge but haven’t done that for ages.

That seems quite low. I’m experimenting with a weekly on line shop and including things like loo tools and a bottle of wine our spend this week was £75 for two.

My kids are still young I expect it to go up when they are teens. They mainly eat cereal for breakfast then potatoes or pasta with everything which cost next to nothing for tea. If their home for lunch its usually a sandwich, yoghurt and fruit. I buy frozen veg and only tend to buy cheaper fruit like apples, oranges and bananas and we don't get many snacks.

That's a lot for us. We spend around £560pm on just food for 4 of us. The DC eat lunch at school and college, I WFH and DH takes his lunch to work. We buy dried food and household stuff in bulk from Costco, cleaning products from B&M. We buy meat in bulk from a butchers cash and carry. Other than that we mainly shop in Lidl, sometimes in Aldi or Sainsbury's home delivery.

We probably spend £130 per week. Two adult vegetarians, no alcohol.

My spend is for two adults, not much pasta and more wine😳

I hope that's not what life with teens looks like! We shop at Waitrose and don't get anywhere near that for 4 (but toddlers), including wine and craft beer.

£150 a week here for 2 adults and a toddler. We shop at Sainsburys. DH has lots of allergies so it's mostly ingredients we buy vs ready meals etc. We don't really drink.

If we could afford to send more we would and use the local farm shop more.

With toiletries and cleaning products that’s not that bad.

I spend around £450 on 2 adults, one very large dog, a cat, 4 foxes, garden birds and the crows on the common.

Yep, we're 2 adults and 2/3 teens (one at uni but home often) and spend about £900 a month (plus the odd takeaway and home bargains shop). Includes some booze, crates of Diet Coke, toiletries, cleaning products and cat litter/food etc.

Could we reduce it? Probably. But we can carry it for now... next September year they'll all be at uni and bill should shrink significantly.. I hope!

I will miss the eggs but all good things must come to an end but i will have enough jam to last a lifetime 😁

We spend approximately £1500 a month at Tesco - 2 adults and 5 children. Plus the odd trip a couple of times a week for fresh bits, where a basket can be about £40. We plan meals but it’s all the little bits that add up each week.

That's a years supply for me!

Ye but if what you say is true this covers absolutely everything (almost)

lots of people have smaller grocery shops but then they

buy meat, toiletries, alcohol, maybe a top up shop, lunches for work, cleaning supplies, etc from elsewhere but not include any of that in the budget they gave.

Divide the total by the number of people and while it could be lower and there will be swaps you could make I suspect it could be higher too!

I mean I don’t know if you are buying the highest expense cuts of meat or spending silly month on tuna steaks etc in which case you could definitely make swaps but for 4 people for everything I don’t think it too too bad.

Don't despair, @Sainsburysaddict , I spend at least the same (family of four, greedy kids, greedy cat) I shop online with Tesco (mobility probs) so can't get yellow sticker items or shop around, but oh, it's so easy, I thank God for online deliveries!
I admire anyone who can spend a small amount per week, but having two stuffed fridge freezers is important to me. I suppose it depends where your priorites are - we don't run a car, so can splurge a little!

What market is this? Assuming you are in scotland