£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?

I should add that I include in the luxuries and treats spends a lot of things that probably should be called 'non-essentials' such as school dinners. Packed lunch is the default but by the end of each week I'm tired, fed up, running low on food and end up paying for dinners which I would class as a luxury (treat for me). l have just bought popcorn, diet coke, chocolate etc for a film night with the kids. Those sorts of things don't go on the weekly shop.

We're the same just two of us. Lidl for run of the mill and M&S for meats and treats once or twice a month.

If I needed to economise I'd use local home bargains, B&M for laundry, cleaning stuff. Other wise I'm struggling. We'd have to go back to newly wed days and eat a lot of beans on toast, faggots, and sausages.

Doesn't sound crazy to me, we're similar when DS is home from uni, kids are 18,17 and 13.

We have a dog and three cats too but the dog food isn't included. We have a milkman and I also buy wine though a wine club so they're separate.

We're not particularly extravagant, but don't scrimp either, and do keep a well stocked house

My parents are in their 70s with no pets and spend over £100 a week so I thought we were doing okay!

I jsut don't think I could manage to get down to this amount - when you say you buy in bulk, how much bulk are we talking? Do you cook absolutely everything from scratch? (I do mostly but still buy e.g. rice pouches and pre-breaded food for convenience). What area of the country do you live in?? Maybe there's a bigger difference in food prices than we realise

When we shop in Sainsbury’s it’s absolutely that much. It’s near on impossible to spend £100 in Aldi.

same size family and we spend about 750, not budgeting and having good quality butcher meat etc. I cook nearly all meals from scratch (for health reasons) and batch cook (to save time) so that might help. We don’t use much alcohol. I tend to do a big staple shop at Aldi, meat at butcher, I fish at fishmonger, some fruit and veg at farmers market which is expensive and then the nicer supermarkets for nicer bits and pieces.

Do you buy branded stuff or own brand? It makes a considerable difference in price. My criteria are:
UK produce where possible (food miles, better environmental and welfare practices, want to support UK farming)
Higher welfare meat, and not much of it
Sustainable fish, and not much of that either
Free range eggs
Make use of special offers, e.g. bundle offers, 3 for 2, if it's stuff we might have bought anyway or got as a treat and it's a decent saving
Own brand by default unless it's one of the rare occasions where I have a good reason for buying the branded version
Always go for the lowest unit price unless it means buying an impractical size

I hate throwing food away. It does happen sometimes, but I try to minimise it. I'm very good indeed at using up leftovers. I'm not so good at resisting impulse buys of stuff that then goes into the cupboard and gets forgotten about. One thing that helps is occasionally to make a conscious effort to empty out the cupboards and freezer a bit. I'm in the throes of that now as I want to make space before Christmas.

Is Home Bargains really cheaper than Lidl for laundry and cleaning products?

We spend about £150 a week for 2

What is your food plan for this week? Maybe we could do some swaps?

Are you one of those Mumsnetters who will do 66 loads of washing a week, using super expensive washing powder, fabric conditioner, scent boosters and tumble dryer fragrance sheets?

Also if you are shopping online and having delivered you are paying full price and have no option of reduced to clear - I have not paid full price for meat or fish for months.

Absolute rubbish. I've seen prices in Aldi creep up solidly. I spend £150 a week & could spend more. Are you implying that it's all cheap food there? I buy free-range chicken/ Aberdeen Angus red meat, Scottish salmon, high % meat sausages,proper Greek yogurt, real butter, a variety of cheeses,fresh fruit & veg...I could go on.

We spend about £700 pcm with Ocado / M&S / Waitrose / Aldi for three adults and a dog (his meals are made from scratch!) and we spend even more when dd1 is home from uni, not helped by her special dietary requirements!
This includes most alcohol, cleaning and laundry stuff and one or two social occasions where we might host guests at the weekend. We rarely get takeaways (about twice a year) and probably only eat out once a month. We go out with friends but not every week, a lot of socialising takes place at each others’ houses, I seem to shop mainly on Vinted these days and our car / travel costs are pretty minimal day to day, so I do feel that I can square being indulgent with food!

OP we spend about the same, 2 adults, 2 teens (who are healthy weights but very active/ eat a lot!!) 3 dogs. No alcohol but absolutely all food toiletries and household goods. I only buy decent meat and veg and do about half my shopping at Aldi too. We eat very little freezer type food. The lowest I have got my spend is £800 which was a real struggle.

Don't know about other online retailers but on Ocado they always have flash sales which are considerably reduced. You're shown what's available just before checkout. I get quite a lot of meat and fish from that section, and sometimes something I wouldn't bother with at full price.

Yeah, we spend about that, family of 5 in which four have an adults appetite. I tried to get it down out of some sense of outrunning inflation but obviously it all involves more effort, shopping at different places, fewer conveniences, less spontaneity. In the end, for the amount we were saving, I was lucky enough to be able to decide that I couldn't be arsed with it.

I will probably get roasted on here but we spend about the same for just the 2 of us plus the grandchildren who come about a couple of times a week. This includes cleaning products, toiletries and about a bottle of wine a week. I do not buy steak or in fact much meat. We like food. I always like the grandchildren to have organic vegetables. I shop at Ocado but it would be the same elsewhere.
I only eat takeaways about twice a year and not out of choice. Only when family descend without notice.

We spend about that but we are a family of 7 (including 3 teenagers) with 1 child in nappies and 2 cats. We also run a church so around £30-40 a week goes on stuff for that.

We spend the same tbh for a family of 4 and 2 cats 🤷‍♀️

That is definitely a lot, I wouldn't even know what to buy that would come to that much! But I only buy a minimal amount of meat for one of us as I'm veggie, and no fish, and only occasional alcohol. I do buy lots of organic things and don't really price watch that much.

£150 per month??

We eat meat, drink wine and for 4 adults - no UPF all cooked from scratch we spend £700 a month approx - about £100 on alcohol the rest on food. We never get takeaways but eat out about 1x per week usually.

Try to avoid snacks. Tend to be unheathy and fattening, and add to the bill. However, we do eat peanuts, veggie sticks and dips when pals come round. Smoked salmon nibbles when wanting to push the boat out!

I 'budget' around £200 per week for our family of 4 - that's £900 a month so very similar to you. I know I could easily cut down though and have in the past when we've needed to tighten our belt, right now that's a comfortable level of spending for our family so I don't worry about.

Things I'd change instantly if needing to economise: brands - we prefer branded goods for many items but that's an easy win for saving money, drop down to a lower brand which doesn't even necessarily mean 'basics' brand depending on the item.

Cut down on expensive pre-prepared ingredients like micro rice and frozen sofrito. I cook from scratch but appreciate these time savers in our busy life - but I know that I pay for the convenience.

Switch one or two (or more if necessary) meals a week to value friendly meals. We eat a lot of meat, mainly whole cuts (pieces for chicken, pork chops, steak etc) so switching to mince, veggies and things like sausages is a lot cheaper. As is having jacket pots, omelette or soup for a main meal occasionally.