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?

Youbroke even organic chicks are kept in poor conditions, so for me it's more important to buy free range. And free-range and organic for the times I win a tenner in the lottery!

poopoo before you post sarcastic responses like "Manchester. Of course your shopping is going to be lower if you convenient leave off wine! That's selectively missing stuff off to make it sound better!" you should read the OP properly. Goingeversoslowymad said that her £120 per week didn't include luxuries such as wine and magazines, so was talking about what we spend, without wine to make a comparison.

I followed the link above ^^ for the mysupermarket app - I've fished out last weeks shopping receipt from Aldis and am entering it all onto the site.

Half way down the list (which was £68 in total) and mysupermarket shows me that Asda is the cheapest at £63, and Ocado is the most expensive at £88, and I'm only half way!

Definitely sticking to Aldi's!

my advise would be to either meal plan or sign up to a meal plan website - hopefully you can get a free months trial.

Then stick to that for one month and keep a note of everything you spend on shopping and see how much it does cost.

Buy budget cleaning products and budget loo paper

Then hand over the purse to dh - and let him plan and spend and see if he can do better the second month.

After the two months are up you can sit down and score points for excellent food and points for who spent the least.

Two of us here, incl nappies etc we probably spend around £50 -£60 a week
Sainsburys are price matching with Asda and Tesco at the moment and I have really seen a difference.
I buy some bits (nappies being one of them) at Aldi which brings the cost down significantly.
When I shopped at Tesco for everything I was spending around £10 a week more.

I will shop around a bit more for meat then and give Aldi/Lidl a try for meat, if I can verify it's as humanely reared as Waitrose's (can it be? Does anyone know where I can find out without being confronted with all sorts of horrific facts and pictures, coward that I am ).

I spend min £150 pw inc toiletries, DW tablets and alcohol but we do have one of those chokka fridges, DH and I have always lived that way from as soon as we could afford it, and DDs now expect a range of things available at any point in time, lucky for them. I am very big on not wasting anything, old veg etc goes in stir fry or pasta sauce.

ivykaty That's a brilliant idea, will definately try that one. Thanks.

What started off as a bit of a rant to let off steam has actually turned into quite a useful thread with some brilliant ideas. Thanks everyone.

Sounds about right to me, tell him to do the shopping and see if he can get it lower.

Sorry, have we gone back in time? If he isn't happy about the cost of living that is his problem. I feel very sad reading on here how life is at the moment for normal people, you shouldn't have to justify paying for food and not having any luxuries at all, even a bottle of wine or own brand gin and tonic or whatever else you may like is not bloodywell fair. We had to leave the UK to be able to live and it was a huge sacrifice in many ways. Whilst I am not saying leave the bastard, I think he is being very unfair. Maybe he is feeling worried about money generally but life is short, too short to have to justify eating.

just been to aldi and weekly shop for 5 of us came in @£57.67. definitely worth the trek financially but some weeks I can't be arsed (don't have a car)and do sainsbo's online. I struggle to keep that under £80/90. aldi is amazing really- today's shop includes pull ups, wine, a week of meals, catfood and quite a few non essential treats like choc puds, cheese and pate that I would not buy in sainsbo's because I'd blow the budget.

Here it is about £80-90pw including nappies, laundry etc, on Tesco online for me, DH, 5yo and 2yo. We were using Asda but they made mistakes every bloody week

Meal planning (fortnightly rota) was definitely helping, and I started taking my own lunch to work instead of nipping out and spending more. But we are really struggling with other circumstances ATM and even stuff like cottage pie is just too much effort (DH injured, waiting for surgery) so I want to cut back to an even simpler one week plan with more stuff like jacket potato, beans on toast etc. It will be boring but we have to do it temporarily I think, we are so exhausted and not coping with anything.

So basically I want convenience but without extra cost and preferably without too much beige/stodge. Would appreciate any ideas!

OP- does that amount include things like school dinners or packed lunches? If not then you are adding another £10-£20 weekly. so that's £600 a month for food

I used to spend that roughly- DCs now left home recently. I have switched from Waitrose of Tesco online for bulk of items now, but tend to buy fresh fish and sometimes meat at WRose as I like to choose.

I have worked out that Tesco is roughly 10-15% cheaper overall than Wrose and even with the delivery charge I am saving. Over a year i reckon I could save £500 or more .

I cook from scratch 95% of he time and did with DCs due to food allergy etc.

OP IME it's items like biscuits, cakes, fizzy drinks or squash, and unnecessary items like that which push up the bill.

I rarely bought/buy those and make my own if we have any.

One other tip if you don't do it now is to buy own brand items like loo rolls, laundry liquid, washing up liquid etc.

I used to try to cook on the basis of no more than £5 for a main meal for 4, unless buying a free range chicken which would then make either home made broth or risotto next day.

As others have said you can prob save by including at least one pasta meal a week, and one veggie meal.

I'm in the same boat as you. We don't buy magazines or fags or alcohol or processed food or snacks like crisps. We do buy nappies. organic milk, organic apricots and wipes. 5 or 6 nights a week we will eat a home made meal and meals are daytime meals are wholesome too. We try to eat fish twice a week, chicken once a week, red meat once a week, lots of fruit and veg, plain yogurts for pud and fruit juice in the morning. I tend to buy the shops own brands and use a shopping list. We buy local meat - cheap but best quality. I often buy BOG OFF's and reduced items but only if I know they will be of use. Once or twice a week on rushed nights we will have a simple meal like soup or beans on toast or scrambled eggs. I don't feel we are extravagant but it still costs an arm and a leg to eat like this! Hubby, myself and three boys eat for about 90 each week.

I think I need - grow my own veg, cultivate my own yogurt, make simpler main meals.

What do you people cook?

We have spent 300 in the last month and that included 2 crates of beer, 8 alcopops, and a box of wine.Also 2 baby outfits and nappies, breast pads, hair dye and gillette razors.

we have eaten lasangne, spag bol,bolagnese pasta bake, fried rice, sausage mash or chicken quorn pieces made into some kind of dish.Also dh made a fried breakfast for us and our 2 friends.We do lunchboxes in the day to and have chocolate, ice cream, energy drinks, coffee and fruit in that amount to

We are a family of 4, me DS (15) and DD's (3&6) also a dog, and 3 cats. I do online shopping at tesco and pets at home (saves me the £20 petrol to get to the shops and back-rural tax). Our weekly grocery bill is usually £50-£60 including delivery charge, and the pets cost about £30 a month. However, I am on a low income so the kids get free school meals, and that saves a lot in the cost of packed lunches. Also never buy alcohol :-( don't smoke, cook everything from scratch, use a menu plan, eat veggie 3-4 times a week (much to DS's disgust) and massivly limit snacks, (DS occasionally buys packets of biscuits with his pocket money!). I buy a lot of fruit (and grow fruit and veg in the garden) and bake quite often instead. None of us have a weight problem (well the dog is getting a bit pudgy), and DS had his first (small) filling ever this year -braces are a bummer!

Well I switched to aldi from sains about 18 months ago and we havent noticed a difference.

I can still get free range eggs and chicken but if I wanted steak etc I'd go to my local butcher because he's cheaper.

I use sains smart price bio washing powder.

I use tescos daisy dishwasher powder, one dessert spoon every wash.

I use pound shop rinse aid (same active ingredients as Finish)

I go to the farm shop for potatoes, 60p for 2.5kg of wilja.

I use sainsburys smartprice tea. DH still hasnt noticed we dont have PG Tips anymore.

Homebargains do really good jars of sundried toms, grilled peppers and artichoke slices in sunflower oil, they only cost a £1 each. They also do dowe egberts filter coffee for £1 a bag too.

The poundshop do Lindt chocolate bars and also Duchy of Cornwall marmalades and jams.

I think you can always reduce the price of the weekly shop but you have to

1. Be willing to go into different shops to do so eg not do it all in one shop.

2. Be willing to try new things.

3. Not be hung up on brands.

4. Want/need to reduce your outgoings.

If someones very well off and they want to live off organic and brand name everything who am I to comment? if they moan about it though that pisses me off a little bit. MIL moans about the cost of her weekly shop but wont even go into Asda let alone aldi.

The look on her face when she said "this is nice tea fluffy" and I told her it is sains smartprice. Course, if she ever tells DH I am screwed.

These threads baffle and worry me in equal measure. What am I doing wrong?? And that is a genuine question.

Three of us (ds 22 months, big eater).

I spend £115 a week on ocado, and then probably £30 a week on top up. I do menu plan. That includes everything, including wine, nappies and mine and Ds lunches (DH buys at work). We never get take away and eat out very rarely I.e. never have lunch at pizza express or similar at the weekend, we often get a coffee and cake on sat afternoon though).

So that is it, hardly change from £150 a week. What am I doing wrong?! It doesn't feel like I am being excessive, I buy organic and we have meat or fish every night without fail. For one or two nights a week we have posh ready meals, but other than that I cook everything from scratch.

Well one or two nights a week of posh ready meals won't be cheap! Nor is organic meat or fish every night. That could, just possibly, be why your bill is so high!!!

How can you not see that this is where you are 'going wrong'?

bbface its because ypu eat organic which is very expensive and eat meat or fish everyday

sorry xpost

Agreed, to an extent.

The ready meals cost £3.99 each. Expensive, yes. Crippling, no. Compare to a take out, I think many families get a take out once a week. We never ever do.

I buy my fish and meat mostly on offer I.e. 4 salmon fillets for £6, but I do buy dh a steak every week and that is never on offer at £6.

We get through a lot of cereal (I am a fiend, wake up hungry but appetite dries up from then on). I am going to swop from Dorset cereal as never on offer and bloody expensive when it is a once a week purchase.

A bottle of wine, around £7 mark. Cleaning stuff, nappies, wipes, fruit squeezies, premium ice cream (dh works bloody hard and has a long commute, he loves a scoop of posh ice cream every night. Means at least a tub a week).

I am a fruit fiend too, and courage my ds to be too. I spend a lot of fresh fruit and veg.

However, as I said before, it really does not seem excessive. And yet when I compare with the majority of posters, it is shocking.

No one I know gets take out once a week.

Oh, most people I know do on sat.

bbface - you are not doing anything wrong.

There are three of us at the moment - that is two adults and one teen, the bill comes in at 80/90 for two weeks.

I don't drink wine, I don't buy organic and this bill doesn't include my milk or eggs which is organic and delivered, the latter being a friends eggs which get liad in her garden and I get to buy 6 for a pound.

I do shop at lidl one week and then the following week top up at sainsbury for the things like decaf coffee and falafels which i can't get at lidl - so the bill this week was 16 pounds, but last week was nearer 60.

I go to tesco to get my loo roll - as it is the cheapeast and best buy around for their own brand - but I don't buy anything else there if I can help it

We had roast chicken on Monday, followed by an onion tart I made on Tuesday with new potato and salad, then the left over chicken was made into a fruity curry on wednesday and we had with salad and rice, thursday was morocan burgers from the freezer with baked beans and friday was large bowls of home made tuscan bean soup (which is a staple food in this house) last night was homeade cheese and tomato pizza and tonight will be chilli con carne and the other half of the mince will make shephards pie for monday. I will make another onion tart for tuesday and wednesday will be spanish omelette with salad. Thursday will be the falafels I got in sainsbury with pitta bread and any left over tomato and cucumber.

I have to be careful as I just don't have the money to spend more than 100 pounds for two weeks shopping, so plan roughly and budget.

I enjoy cooking and I enjoy baking, so making food on my day off for the rest of the week is a pleasure and then rushed school night evenings are easy as the food is prepared in the fridge.