To think that DH is being totally unrealistic about the weekly food bill!

[goingeversoslowlymad]

Am getting a bit stressed out about my DH and the grocery shop. Our weekly bill is usually between £80 to £100, we would do a top-up shop of about £20 midweek, so max £120 all in for a family of 4. We do not use nappies, this includes everything including toiletries and cleaning products.

Money is pretty tight at the moment and I can appreciate he wants to try to cut down a bit but I seriously can't seem to get it much lower than this, there are no luxuries in this either i.e wine, magazines etc. Everyone I talk to in our situation seems to spend a similar amount but DH seems to think it excessive.

I'm going to give a veg box and meat pack delivery a try. Also going to order online to avoid being seduced by the offers instore. I don't see it being much cheaper but hopefully he'll stop moaning if I prove he's being unrealistic! What does everyone else spend?

I suppose, Dh has reminded me I've been 'luxuriated' as there were the years when our food shop was milk, rice, Tabasco, sweetcorn, bread and bananas. So yes I imagine it's just what you get used to. I'm still at people feeding 4, with proper dinners on £50.

I probably should go over what we spend, don't think I can bare any more faff in the supermarket though.

I went tonight and did try to keep it down but alas 87 pounds again. Thats was plenty of food for the week though and for 3 packed lunches every day lots of fruit and veg and some meat.I honestly cant imagine doing it for less but am going to try morrisons next time as i do fear asda maybe a bit expensive for some things.
I like Aldi but would need to go to another shop for other stuff and i just dont have the time.

Our income dropped by 50% through no fault of ours 2 months before Xmas and when I was pg with number 6 (for anyone saying I shouldnt have kids i couldnt afford to feed!) and while it wasnt £50 a week, it wasnt much more that I had for food.

I did get down about it but then it became a bit of a challenge. And now, even though things are back on an even keel, I still refuse to spend more than I need to on food, but we eat well.

By trying different things and making compromises I found that you can eat incredibly well on the minimum of money. I think the problem is that we expect good things and forget that a) the human body doesnt actually need alot of the things available to buy and b) we dont need the amount we buy.

There was an interesting interview on the radio today that said that we are getting heavier and if everyone on earth was the same average weight as an American then it would be equal to an extra 1 billion people on the planet. It said that the world obesity problem is getting so bad that there may not be enough food to support it, which is disgusting when you think that obesity is the first world problem and there are millions upon millions of people starving to death every day.

That wasnt meant to be a guilt trip btw! Just that perhaps we dont realise how little we actually need to eat to be healthy.

ledkr would what you would spend in Aldi save you significantly more to cover the delivery cost from (say) Asda for the things you cant get in Aldi?

Right, in the interests of science - I am going to investigate Lidl and Aldi wine!

Thanks for the top tips, folks.

To be fair, there is a chance that what I was drinking was actually balsalmic vinegar - it's easy to get muddled. Speshully if shopping whilst sober. Bad idea.

Just so you know mybaby, posting "isssss reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellly niccce :o:o:o:o:o:o:o" will be counted as a scientific conclusion.

Hi bogey, not sure to be honest. Possibly but I'm not sure. It will last us two meals (when i manage to make it right) and only costs the price of some whole milk and some lemon. When we buy a pack of paneer from the spermarket it'll cost about £3ish (if I'm remembering correctly). Plus it tastes nicer! I partly make it because I enjoy cooking anyway which definitely makes spending less on food a much easier task. Despite our low food budget we do manage luxuries though which I guess, to me, homemade paneer is and we also went to the fishmonger last week and got some lovely salmon.

As a family of four my bill is never higher than £80 on most weeks.
The answer is planning, cook as much from scratch as possible and shop online.

Ok so what do you need from tesco that you can't get in aldi?

I buy yeast, special flours, spices, calpol.

I would probably buy more in Aldi if they didn't have nuts in everything - I use Tesco because their labelling is so clear

No way could I do a whole shop in Aldi's either> because I love the Tesco club card points

Aldi's used to be much much cheaper than Tesco but now I think they are pretty much level pegging but with certain things the quality of Aldi is much better imo.

I plan cook from scratch buy on line hardly any alcohol/treats no fags no bread as bought daily from bakers etc £160 -£180 for 4 two adults two locusts teenage boys two dogs and one cat.

I think that it is really all about expectations. In here, I worked really hard at the beginning to manage the children's expectations and to just lay it on the line for them. To begin with, it was a bit of a bummer,tbh, lots of complaints, especially from the younger ones, who wanted things that we couldn't afford any more. Now they just accept things and are glad to be fed three decent meals a day.

They would rather eat than be hungry and as long as I don't serve the same thing 5 days in a row, they will happily eat all manner of budget meals. I don't even hide lentils in things, I just replace the meat with them entirely and no-one complains now. In fact, they expect it and think that it's pretty awesome when they get sheperds pie/spag bol or whatever with mince in.

Who's is the savoury bread pudding recipe that's upthread?

I've just made it, with stupid wholemeal wraps that no-one liked and leftover bits of chicken...blooming yum!

Easy, tasty, cheap.

These are the things I like in my cooking. Inn fact, that's pretty much what I like in everything.

I am really impressed with some of the budgeting on here, I am still trying to cut down for 6 of us bu I'm quite useless really.
Did want to defend LIDL tho, because I hated it the first 3 or 4 times for the reasons others have stated. The staff seem really unfriendly to start with, I found the minimal look of it gloomy and just didn't trust it really. But I persevered because it's so bloody cheap! And week on week I've found more things I like. I'm so addicted to the multigrain bread I won't eat bread from anywhere else. The fruit & veg are great quality and so is the meat. Plus the staff get friendlier the more you go so honestly give it a go!