To attempt to have a weekly shopping budget of £50?

[LittlePickleHead]

In the last few months of saving for a wedding and a lot of expensive things coming up, so for the next few months I'd like to try and stick to a £50 a week budget for me, DP and 2yo DD.

I know this has been done before, but really looking for tips on how to do this, or whether I am being completely unrealistic!

I'm having to give up my beloved Ocado for a while and switch to Tesco (not really a fan TBH), but I've just used mySupermarket and managed to get a shop for just under budget, although haven't had to buy washing powder this week (though this does include nappies).

Anyone else manage on this small amount? I usually spend around £80 at Ocado, not including any alcohol...

Just come back from a trial shop at Aldi about 10 miles from my house. Wow! I got a variety of things to try and the stuff filled about 6 normal sized shopping bags and it came to about £55.

Our new budget is £200 per month on food shopping. One big Ocado shop at beginning of month (mostly meat, few brands, free delivery sat 9-10pm, £90?) then supplemented by Sainsburys. I also budget for two takeaways on top of this. Will keep you posted - we have a lot in our cupboards (previous budget was £300). there are two adults - dh eats a lot - and two small children who don't eat much. And baby who gets through nappies.

before i had kids i managed on £50 a week
But as soon as i had 1 child i struggled and then with 2 kids it was impossible what with nappies n baby milk n wipes etc

I love these threads and still don't know how you all do it. I did a little Sainsbury's shop on Friday for the long weekend (and tea for Mon-Thurs) and knock of 20 for booze it came to 119 but didn't include any cleaning/toiletry stuff. A thai chicken curry + veg last night, Salmon en croute for tonight, roast pork (reduced to 3.47) for tomorrow and chops and salad for Monday. Add some juice, bread, smoothies, veg and fruit, ice cream, cereal, etc., and that's about it. In no doubt that I will top it up by Tuesday. The caveat is that although DH is away Mon-Fri, I have two teenagers who can clear a fridge within 24 hours but even when we only had DS as a toddler - he's 16 now - I was always hard pressed to keep it under 65 and have always coooked from scratch.

Actually, as an aside - all of you who keep the supermarket shop really low, how much do you spend on eating out, takeaways and trips to the pub or wine bars? I sometimes wonder if that's the difference because on that we spend little more than nothing.

Before we had kids, our weekly food bill was often well over £100 - with extras too

Neither of us drink alcohol anymore. That makes a MASSIVE difference.

Ha, cross-posted! We budget for a takeaway every other week, and a Sainsburys curry/extras with a ready jar on the other week. We have had a few more than that (in defense, we have a newborn...)

It can be done.

Our shopping bill is on average around £48 a week from Aldi. In that, I have fresh mince, chicken and diced beef - fresh fruit and veg (though to be honest the fruit is pretty manky in my Aldi) and frozen stuff.

I really do love it there, it's not brand names and not fancy which doesn't bother me at all.

Good for you, I'm trying to feed 3 on £20 a week.

Oncemai, on your shop I can see several things that can be knocked off.

Smoothies - v v expensive ready made, buying the fruit and making your own is alot cheaper
Chops - v expensive versus a joint with more meat on it that you could do 2 meals from.
4 "meat" meals (ok so one is fish!) if you did just one or two veggie meals a week you would easily save a tenner in meat and possibly more depending on what quality you get, if its free range or organic etc.
Ice cream- obvious!

My total budget for 7 of us is £90 a week and I manage that easily. We dont have takeaways or eat out unless it is for a special occasion. And we dont buy booze very often, especially since I have been pg. But when we did it was a couple of bottles of wine and a couple of packs of beer (4 packs) so say £20 max.

We often do £50 for 5 of us. But basically by doing big meals & freezing & using/freezing left overs. So basically I couldn't do it without the freezer!

I go to the local market for fruit and veg - much cheaper than supermarket.

Just bought 2 punnets of strawberries and 12 bananas for £2 for example.

Take your points bogey but this is a bh weekend and the DH is here and I'm not doing stuff he doesn't like. I'm quite sure I could get the weekly bill down to 90 if I was very careful but I don't see how I could get it lower and still have stuff we like eating in the fridge. I'm sure we could live on egg and chips and pasta and tomato sauce and cottage pie paddes with veg but would get very bored. Also it gives me a great deal of satisfaction to know the fridge is full and the food is worth coming home to.

We're trying to cut back and for us, the two key things are

1. shopping around. We use Tesco for a fortnightly shop but also use Lidl and our local ethnic supermarket.
2. trying not to pop into Tesco. We have a 24 hr one near us and it's so easy to go in for milk, and end up with craft bits for DS, things that are on offer etc. You've got to shop around. The supermarkets want you to use them as a one-stop shop but it's really not the way to save money.

The local ethnic place is brilliant for spices, dried pulses, rice and fruit and veg. Lidl is also good for fruit and veg (though I do find the quality a bit hit and miss).

I use Wilkinsons for all household things, including toiletries. I bought a roll on deodorant for less than 60p in there and it's fine.

Also, try down-grading your shopping (i.e. if you usually buy branded items, try supermarket own, if you usually buy supermarket own, try value ranges) I've switched to a number of value things and no one's noticed!

Look at your shopping and see what the most expensive items are and if you can reduce them. We were buying a frozen pizza for £3.50 each fortnight and it was one of the most expensive things on the list so I've started making pizza dough. It's really easy and far tastiers, healthier and cheaper.

Our budget was £300 a month for me DP and 3 year old DS, including alcohol and nighttime pull ups for DS but I'd like to get this down to £250 max.

I'm not sure if you are implying that we live on egg and chips & that our food isnt worth coming home to but I can assure that that isnt the case. I just resent spending money on stuff that frankly isnt worth it.

And we dont eat boring meals, eating well and cheaply is very doable with a little thought and creativity. Cooking everything from scratch and shopping around means that it is easily done.

I shop in Asda, I buy the cheapest stuff in tins, the veg thats in the clearance section, rice, own brand nappies and frozen fish/meat, Iceland is good for frozen meat/fish only fresh meat I buy is mince because it's cheap.

Eggs how ever I buy very infrequently and when I do they are organic free range ones from the health food shop £2 for 6, I'd rather buy them every so often then tasteless little supermarket trashy eggs.

That wasn't what I meant bogey and no offence meant. Sorry, badly worded.

Shopping around is great in principle but I work out that as we both work full time the extra time spent wouldn't be economical because it would cost more in time than in money saved.

Lidl fruit and veg are amazing, cheeper than local markets and their baby plum tomatoes are amazing, my kids eat them like grapes, i can shop and feed five on fifty quid but that excludes meat as i shop for that on a monthly basis and freeze it, my advice find yourself a local sunday market that sells meat from a chilled van, you know the type with a pa, we just brought a small amount to try, went back the following week to fill the freezer, we got 15 rump steaks, 10pork chops and a bonesless pork joint and two beef joints for thirty pounds, prime quality too, i am a bargin hunting queen, and we eat wellxx

I have near enough halved our weekly shopping bill by not allowing myself to go in the big supermarkets and sticking to local shops and Aldi/Lidl. have also largely cut meat out of our diet, it is very much an occasional thing - usually a free-range cheap chicken from Aldi made into at least 3 meals - roast, pie and then stirfry or similar and often a bit left over for swiches.

Today's Guardian Money has an article about this: www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/apr/30/family-four-fed-50-week

I was very happy last week in my local (largish but not huge) Co-op. I went in in the last hour and bought (several) half dozens of large, organic, free-range eggs for 60p (bought on the sell-by date, with 7 days to BB and eggs are usually good for at least a week after that).

Another day, I spent a total of 76p on a load of short-dated stuff that turned out also to be on multisave deals:
4 x Muller light yoghurts (they paid me a penny each to take away)
8 x Ski yoghurts (ended up as 1.5p each)
5 x individual sponge puddings (marked as 40p down from £1.69!!!)
1 x garlic bread

The yoghurts are now 7 days past the date but they are fine (I had one for breakfast) and I put the puddings in the freezer.

The checkout staff hate it though - my basketfull always has yellow stickies over the barcodes.

My top tip for saving money is to use your eyes and nose rather than the dates to work out if stuff is OK to eat. [And even if it smells it is not necessarily a problem - we use milk that has gone off for pancakes and scones.]

I've done my first approvedfoods shop this week. Bought loads and loads of stuff for the grand total of £28! Yet to be delivered but will keep you posted as to how good it is.