Food Bills

[littlemousebigcheese]

after mortgage, our biggest cost is the food bill. We spend about £1200 a month on food for four of us and two cats. I keep reading on mumsnet that people spend less, sometimes even half that on similar sized families and I just don’t see how!? I’m not saying 1200 is reasonable and I know I could cut it by reducing certain things but I don’t see how I could still do three meals a day, fruit and veg, snacks etc on much much less!
typical week of meals include lasagne, chicken wraps, a pasta dish, home made pizzas, jacket potatoes etc. lunches are packed lunches for children (wraps or sandwiches, fruit, yoghurt, cheese thing maybe, snack) and I’ll make a salad or sandwiches for husband and I. We have pretty frugal breakfasts; porridge, cereal, eggs, toast. We do pancakes on a weekend, I like to buy good meat, I know I spend too much on branded stuff like Ribena, cheese dippers, specific sauce but my daughter is autistic and won’t eat other ones so that adds a bit of difficulty.
I recently saw someone say they spend £450 a month and I’m just scratching my head. I guess I’m asking how people do it cheaper? When you say batch cook, WHAT are you cooking? Mince is so expensive now, chicken is a lot and whilst I agree they should be as it’s an animal it really bumps up food bills!
often I wonder if people don’t include school meals or eating out or mid week top ups in their amount?

I found shopping at Aldi instead of Tesco was helpful

I aim for £50 a week for me and a small child who has lunch at school. Don't always achieve it but bloody hell you must be feasting.

Try going meat free for half your week.

I find it’s snacks and stuff eaten between meals that often bumps up the price. Little bags of stuff, nice drinks, desserts.
cooking from scratch and it sounds like you do, but not buying pre-made elements like sauces and breaded/ marinaded meat helps too.

write out your meal plan and compare it to your last receipt for the week. What was the most expensive bit?
have you included cleaning products/ houseware/clothes/ booze into that as supermarkets now sell everything

I spend about half that for 3 adults - me, dd1 and dd3, and 7 cats

i don’t batch cook and we don’t eat a lot of meat - it’s a lot of cheese, yogurt, fruit, veg and crap they eat 😂

cats - only 3 get wet food - Felix or whiskers depending on what’s on offer and a bag of whiskers dry food a week

Having low standards saves money!

I spend between £75-£90 a week on the weekly shop and top up at Aldi

We don’t eat out, rarely eat meat, buy no branded products and don’t really do much variety for certain things as that bumps up the costs having to buy an array of ingredients, breakfasts are toast or porridge, snacks are apples and cheese slices off a big block. You essentially cut your cloth accordingly, we cannot in any way afford 1200 on groceries, so you just make do.

There’s 4 of us plus a cat and we spend around £160 a week, and we eat well. The main habits we have that save money are not buying branded items, snacks are actual ingredients rather than kid things, so cheese slices and crackers instead of baby bells and whole fruit that I cut up. We don’t eat meat every day, and we have two very cheap meals a week that are things like tomato pasta (homemade pasta sauce), homemade mac and cheese or jacket potatoes with beans and cheese.

I think most people fib in here about their shopping costs as they forget to include things like kids get school dinners, adults buying lunch out whilst working, takeaways or they don't factor in washing, cleaning, toiletries etc.
There's 2 adults & a cat in our household and we spend anything from £400-500 per month on everything. So I don't think you are doing to bad.

Apart from a few things Aldi is crap as fruit & veg don't last 5mins compared to the other supermarkets. A lot of their food tastes awful or has weird textures e.g. the mature cheddar I had was rubbery not hard.
Although the Wensleydale with cranberries is lush but you can't live on that!

1200 for 4? Seems a huge amount

800 seems like a sensible target for all meals for 4 - it would be more than we spend but we are older so have lower calorie requirements than a couple of teens !

get your bills out and work out what your big spends or expensive meals are.

we don’t eat meat every day - more like every week

meat like mince can be padded out with vegetables or lentils - a dash of marmite or some celery helps the flavour then.

A decent large chicken should give 6 portions plus a carcas that can be cooked and stripped to make chicken soup or Caesar salad. Make sure that the expensive stuff is eaten in sensible quantities and use carbs and ( frozen) veggies to bulk things out and fill people up. And home made puddings.

Rotate in plenty of cheap dinners - like eggs chips and homemade coleslaw ( carrots cabbage and onions are cheap ) or home made bean burgers or halomi burgers , risotto ( with small amount of chicken or bacon) , macaroni cheese , even home made pizza is cheap and healthier than shop ones

if the branded stuff is costing you ( we do have food problems but still keep the bills overall down) work out what can be eaten less often

differentiate between weekday food and weekend. Nice berries for the weekend snacks , carrot sticks for the week days , cheap and cheerful weekday meals and special ones with fish ( frozen is cheapest ) or meat at the weekend . Makes life exciting to when you really look forward to the special dinners

go through your bills

DH halved his coffee habit following one such exercise.

don’t buy brands unless you absolutely have to - talk to the family.. run blind taste test events

What could you do with 400 a month extra ! The first £400 is given as a prize to the person who makes the best suggestions or biggest personal sacrifices and changes

A chunk of ours is easy to cut if needed; we eat out once a week as a treat and choose places like Nando’s or harvester but it’s still £60/70. The children do sport so a snack after that, plus if we go somewhere on the weekend like cinema or bowling we will inevitably spend money eating something there.

So £300 a week. Where do you shop? I have four of us including 2 teens. No pets. I could comfortably spend £150 which would have a fair amount of branded stuff. I usually see whats already in the cupboards and shop around that - that means some weeks I spend less. I probably spend between £150-£200 but that would be an Ocado shop, a small top up shop and maybe getting lunch out at the weekend (not restaurant food). And £200 would be top end and we would eat comfortably.

We are eating out around once a month ( life changes and we are taking advantage of good fortune !)

take snacks with us always

@TracyBeakerSoYeahyes, we do not get on with Aldi despite lots of attempts! My children hate their dupes of cereal bars, cheese dippers, animal biscuits etc so just given up as so much was wasted. Fruit lasts no time at all so another waste! I do like their candles though!

My cats are fussy and will only eat one type of wet pouch and then the PURINA biscuits. We do buy in bulk which helps a bit!!

You’re definitely right about snacks. I tend to buy lots of things so they have options but maybe better to just buy one or two things and that’s it. I make most things myself, lasagne sauces, pasta bake sauces, marinades etc but don’t think it’s actually cheaper. Supermarket bolognaise sauce can be 69p! I can’t make it for that!

I agree with poster further up - look at some of the branded things you buy. I refuse to buy expensive instant coffee now. I spend max £3 on whatever is on offer. I spent £1.15 this week on M&S basic instant - it is fine for the price. I used to buy Illy instant but it is like £7/£8 a tin now. We rarely eat red meat - we eat chicken/pork/fish. Eating out every week is also a purse killer - why not once a fortnight? Even going to fast food places is a lot now.

£300 a week really is a lot of money. We spend about £150 - £170 for 4 of us (Sainsbury’s) and I feel like we have plenty. Do you buy much alcohol? I always find that puts the price up. Some meat free nights help. But it’ll almost definitely be the snacks. The price of food is shocking now. I suppose the question is though, can you afford it? If you’re easily affording £1200 a month is it really a problem?

If you break your bill down to a per day spend
it’s £40

Using that as a starting position to work from it may help you see it differently
£40 a day ( not inc your cats ) is
£10/day each

That’s a lot

We don’t spend anything like that with 5 adults ( inc 3 boys in their early 20s, two cats and a dog )
but
we shop Lidl and Aldi
and if we / the boys go out ( cinema etc ) we eat before at home
We centre our meals around beans and pulses
No meat
One son and dh eat fish
We don’t buy pre made

I’m reading this with interest. We average £700-£950 a month for three adults and a small child.

Hi, OP

Would it be worth getting a loyalty card know lots of people hate them, but honestly l think you have nothing to lose.

That’s an insane amount of money tbh. I’m in Ireland and up until the last few months I was spending €500 a month for a family of 4. Now it’s €600
i don’t include eating out in that bill though. That’s a separate bill.
ae you including eating out and food shopping @littlemousebigcheese

I disagree about the fruit and veg, our Aldi is fine. We like all their fresh produce and the meats & deli are just as good as anywhere else. Our local Morrisons on the other hand - the quality of the fruit & veg in there is awful and often short-dated. Very expensive as well.

Mature cheddar from any supermarket isn't like mature cheddar used to be anyway, so we always get extra-mature now.