Has anyone moved to two online shops a week? Hoping to save costs..

[unlikelychump]

I am gulping with horror as my weekly shop creeps up to £150 a week with tesco. It is heading towards being most of our available weekly money. I have decided to trial 2 shops. One on a sunday like normal with school lunches etc and the other on a thursday so we ard ready for the weekend.
The thought process is that I will cut down on just in case shopping as I know it isnt long until the next comes.

Does anyone else do this? Any tips?

I tried this but was spending more money I now have 3 deliveries a fortnight (family of 5- 2 adults, 3 teens).

Doesn't the delivery cost more?

Delivery passes mean you dont pay any more.

Sometimes I cannot be bothered to think of a whole week so do about 5 days, then just get annoyed at having to put in another delivery in

I've taken to getting a delivery every 6 days. I don't seem to be spending any less on bloody food though. 😩

Do you have a pattern of set days for this?

Getting a delivery every 5-6 days works best for us because you don’t end up having to rejig things because of stuff going out of date or changing schedules - less waste and easier to manage. Other than that I’m not sure it’s any cheaper than getting everything at once but we are pretty good at meal planning and not getting “just in case” stuff.

We have a bit of complicated strategy, but it definitely helps keeps the food budget down.

We do an online weekly shop, if needed I’ll do a top up mid week (fresh fruit, milk, bread).

We alternate “pay day” shops to either a trip to Costco where we buy bulk items (tea, coffee, mince mea, chicken breast etc) or we go to Savers/Home Bargains and buy household essentials (Detergent, toilet rolls, personal hygiene)

I’m not supermarket loyal, I’ll alternate between Sainsbury’s/Ocado online as in my area they do the most sensible substitutions and Tesco/ASDA for the top up shop, I appreciate Aldi/Lidl would be cheaper but I find the produce doesn’t last.

I know some may read that and think WTF, but in life sometimes you have more money than time and convenience wins and other times you have no money so you have to make time 😂

I find it helps to have an overall food budget for the month then trying to keep to a weekly budget, we split the responsibility in our house, I do the online shop/weekly top up and DH does the monthly trip to Costco or Savers.

I do! Tuesdays and Fridays. I save approx £30 a week give or take.

I’m doing the opposite and going back to once a week. I grew up rural and Mum only did the big shop round trip once a week. We never went hungry but if we ran out of snacks that was it for the week.

Like last night I’d forgotten to buy wraps to go with our enchiladas. I’d normally pop out and buy them plus other things but I just made the filling to go over Nachos that we did have instead.

That was the plan but I am too disorganised to have set days! If I only do weekly deliveries I have to pop to the shops to top up.

Make a list of what you are buying in the top up shop and plan your weekly shop to include them. Plan meals with a week in mind eg days 1-3 are stir fry, fresh veg etc, day 7 is eggs, beans and sausages from the freezer.

I’ve done 2 shops a week for years and prefer it.

it allow me to meal plan more reactively, especially for adult dc who might be out some days and food doesn’t get eaten till a day or too later than planned.

also means I have fresher food during week - meat, bread, fruit/veg - especially soft fruits/salad.

we end up with less waste/things getting frozen (never to be eaten).

I do try to be mindful I am not buying treat food more frequently. So usually only buy on Thursday shop.

We do similar. So we use.our Tesco 10 percent off discount 2x per month (in person shop) for household cleaning, dog food, cleaning products, pull ups etc. Then 1 Ocado shop per month to get good quality meat, nice bits. Spend 450-500 per month for 6 people plus 2 dogs and 2 cats. Lots of cooking batch things for packed lunches. Not much meat!

I get an online shop on a Monday and Friday morning for largely the same logic you described. 2 different supermarkets so we can make the best of staples as they come up on offer and then items that are specific to that supermarket. It works well for us as fresh stuff doesn’t need to last for a full week. I have a smart pass for both and the minimum spend is quite low £40/£50. If I get toiletries and washing stuff from supermarkets I easily achieve the minimum spend so don’t think i spend more this way. I don’t really top up at all and I think that if I did 1 shop a week I’d be far more likely to top up and then buy a lot of unnecessary things while I was there.

@WarmHare I'm also trying something similar pay day monthly shop for stuff like foil /detergent / olive oils etc and weekly food shops.

It's just me and a small child who is with other parent some of the time.

Trying to keep our budget super low, but Tesco minimum is £50. I'd much rather do two shops of say £30 so things are always fresh.

(Ocado minimum is £40 except you get much less for your money. Ditched Asda as they just didn't bother sending stuff.)

We’ve got a tesco delivery pass but you still need to hit £50 per basket or they’ll charge extra. I do once a week, there’s no way I’d remember to do two shops a week!

I do this, I definitely think I save money as I don't have to buy extra bits locally. Plus things are fresher and nicer and if something is out of stock the first shop I can add it to the second shop.

I do the same as a couple of others in that I do one big monthly shop on payday for stuff for the freezer and dried goods/tins/cereal or cleaning stuff (i.e. stuff that will last). I budget max £100 for this. My weekly shop from Sainsbury's is then more like a top up shop with all the fresh stuff like milk. bread, fruit etc. If there's any gap between what we need that week, and the minimum shop amount (£50), I use that "spare money" to buy@ more non-perishable stuff to create a mini stockpile so we never run out the basics. Doing this we now spend max. £300 a month for 4 people, but this is getting lower as we "shop from home first". I reckon I could get it down to £250.

I used to do a weekly shop on the weekend and then top-up during week, and I was spending much more than I am now. If we run out of something we just have to survive without it until the next shop comes (unless it's milk, then we will pop to the little shop up the road).

I find the online shop a massive faff for some reason so would hate to have to do it twice!!

We do 2 online shops a week on Mon AM and Thursday PM. It’s a game changer. What we fancy eating Monday-Thursday is rarely what we want on the weekends.

it also means we have less worry about matching up short dated ingredients with meals intended for later in the week.

I did the opposite and extended to e very 10 days.
It started in lockdown when even though I had the disabled persons pass I couldn't get a weekly slot. So I just kept getting the next available slot until one day I realised well if I can juggle our food to last 10 days I may as well.
You have to be organised meal plan every meal. Freeze in rotation. I always have milk, bread, beans in etc. I spend £70-80 for me and two older teens (basically 3 adults). Its partly necessity (single parent on ill health pension) but its doable. We have a good variety of foods.
I cooked a large pork joint for easter as it was on offer (£4.75) and sliced and froze it (given us 4 weeks of roast dinner).
I bulk buy rice and pasta.
Buy when on offer.
You also have to check dates when they come and be prepared to swap meals around. Buy fruit that will last eg we may have grapes first few days and leave the apples till later. Also have tinned and frozen fruit and vegetables.
To save money I think however you do it you've got to work out a budget and stick to it. My budget is £8 a day. So I could alter that to fit the number of days I am shopping for.

I want to start this. Im thinking one big shop, one top up per week. We seem to spend a fortune on popping out to get things we have run out of so im hoping this helps. I think I just need to be more organised with it.

I save money on the shop by getting the bus to Aldi. A backpack and two large shopping totes carried back. I hate doing it but it’s half the price of a delivery from the more costly supermarkets.

I do, I dont currently do a top up shop. It is just so expensive though

@unlikelychump sorry I misinterpreted 'just in case' shopping as a top up shop.

In that case, make your just in case meals super cheap and simple. There's nothing wrong with eggs and beans on toast or tinned soup. These sort of meals are easy to scale up or down for one person or the whole family.