£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?

Oh my..your going to get people on here who spend £2.50 per month with 6 kids , gluten free with allergies. I work in a supermarket. It's normal. Next time just vote differently. Supermarkets right now are paying for the thief's that's sail out with £500 worth of vodka. We watch them. We are not allowed to stop them. When I say supermarkets are paying..they are not. Your paying. Welcome to England 2024 labour.

We're a family of 8 and we spend 700-800 a month, including nappies for 2 children and formula for one. However, 4 of my kids have school meals during the week, so that's a lot of lunches I don't have to make.

Family of 4, 2 teen boys, weekly shop is £350+
Yes, that’s a lot and yes I could cut back, but teen boys can eat 800g steak each, 2 -3 chicken breast each meal and for snacks will eat 4 scones each in 5 mins!

@Shudahaddogs I also work in retail and concur theft in shops has been really bad for quite a few years. Why are you blaming shop thefts on labour?

You sound like me. We could save money by buying low welfare animal products but I can’t condone that. We also eat a lot of Middle Eastern, Japanese and Chinese food so prob spend a fair whack on ingredients and condiments. But even a cheap week - like last week I was away for work and DH works long wfh hours so it was things like pasta pesto, home made pizzas, lasagne out of the freezer etc still came to £175 for the 3 of them (this is all meals as we wfh normally and the teenagers take in their packed lunches) we never buy branded stuff and usually cook everything from scratch and meal plan!

I do need to cook down the freezer ready for Christmas though.

i think we spend at least £20/week just on fruit

What on earth do you eat?

Following

£892 this month for 4-5 adults. That includes food (most meals at home), alcohol (cheap plonk), and cat food. But excludes loo rolls (who gives a crap), tea (I'm a tea fanatic), posher coffee (biodegradable pods) and cleaning stuff (eco stuff), toothpaste tabs and deodorant (refillable eco stuff) that are all on subscription, which adds maybe £20. So we are near the OP level. Shop mainly at lidl but occasionally top ups of milk /bread at bakery /waitrose.

We fresh cook every day and eat healthily. It would be much cheaper if the rest of my family were veggie like me 😂. Takeaways are a 2-3 times a year rarity.

Food is so expensive!

We have a food account with a virtual card for all of our food spends that we put 1k a month in (and usually spend ). That includes all supermarket shops and top ups, veg boxes, cleaning products and toiletries, food for three cats and a dog, takeaways, meals out, lunches out (usually takes packed lunch but sometimes). No alcohol but higher welfare meat bought from butchers etc. 2 adults, 2 teenagers. It is a lot, but my partner is into cooking and we all like eating! I realise we are very lucky to be able to afford this. If things are tight, we put less in and halt takeaways and eating out for a while.

The bill does shrink and then they come back 😂

😁 I'm hoping my lot have recalibrated to a student food budget by the time they boomerang home. Too optimistic?

@ByMerryKoala yes, definitely. You can try though 😬😬😬 . The other option is to get ine if them to take a job at a local supermarket so they get a discount and yellow sticker items 😂

Oh, a yellow sticker mole, I like your thinking.

Yep of course someone has to make an interesting chatty thread political… Now sure how a goverment that has been in a couple of months are responsible for years worth of shop thefts though.

My family is a family of 5, 2 adults 3 kids, one of my children has complex needs , and will only eat certain foods which is an additional cost to our budget as he has his own snacks and additional things like he is double incontinent, and will not wear the NHS supplies so I buy them instead of getting his prescription (he is 7 but very small for his age) so he still fits in nappy pants size 7/8 comfortably. (NHS ones do from 3 to upto 15 years and it’s one size fits that whole age group.. they have no in-between sizes so they are massive on him. And make his very uncomfortable and upset) so still on the equivalent to a toddler on nappy pants and wipes for the long hall.

With his needs and the rest of our family’s (kids are 7,10,12) we spend around £200 a week, due to the cost of living, pre covid we were £115 a week for the same shopping. But that includes everything, snacks, real food, plenty of fruit and veg, we don’t drink so zero on alcohol, toiletries, cleaning stuff usually a monthly purchase (home bargains cheep as chips for cleaning stuff) if things need restocked can be higher at the end of the month or every second month, like I buy in bulk toilet roll, have the space to store it so buy from Amazon saves me like £30 a time. I get 72 rolls for £32 of andrex. Same with dish washing/laundry tabs and fabric conditioner so I only buy them every 2/3 months but in bulk. I like going to the butchers west end of Glasgow as the meat is fantastic quality and cheaper than supermarket for things like sausages

What are you feeding them? Caviar 😁

You’re implying that since labour came into government shoplifting has increased so much that it is responsible for higher prices? You’ve very ignorant. Food prices have risen steadily since 2020 for a variety of reasons. Not just in the last 4 months due to a new government.

A very odd and naive post that shows you have little understanding of all of the factors that have led to food prices increasing over the past 4 years. Maybe do some reading / research so that you’re better educated about these things.

Shoplifting genuinely is through the roof at the moment, and costing supermarkets and customers a lot of money. But that predates the Labour government by at least a year - it's probably down to police and court under funding as much as anything, because it's recognised by criminal gangs to be a lucrative and essentially consequence-free crime.

Labour didn't come straight in and sack all the cops and break the criminal justice system.

I completely agree that shoplifting is a significant problem and is down to years of eroding of socioeconomic security for people. It was just that the PP seemed to be suggesting that it had only been a problem for 4 months since Labour came in rather that acknowledging the many factors that have led to food price rises!

Pretty harsh reply to @Shudahaddogs , @Tristar15 .

It’s not harsh at all, that poster has implied that a government that’s been in power for 4 months is responsible for years of rising prices! They’re clearly ignorant, naive, uneducated and like portraying falsehoods!

We know a couple, they had one child. In the garage they kept a large sack of rice and a similar amount of pasta. They ate a lot of both, she couldn't cook much but her husband made excellent curries and she could throw together a pasta dish. I daresay she saved money this way.
Buying in bulk really does work .

"BULK RICE (5KG, 10KG, 20KG) | Buy Online at the Asian Cookshop" https://www.theasiancookshop.co.uk/bulk-rice-5kg-10kg-20kg-243-c.asp

How do you manage that?

We spend £600+ and we only have one child.

I spend £450 for a family of 3 including all lunches for two adults (Dd has a hot lunch at school), toiletries and wine/ beers/soft drinks. We very rarely have anything outside the home or ready made food. I'm a master at bargain hunting and at making the most of what I have.
we eat really well and I don't think anyone would realise how little I do it on.