To ask what you spend on food each month?

[Dovetale]

We're spending on average £280 per month just on food, alcohol & non food groceries are budgeted for separately.

There are 3 of us me, my DH and my DD who is 19 months old.

I'm struggling to know what is a reasonable spend whilst trying to give my DD a healthy balanced diet.

I've tried asking my friends but non of them budget so they don't really know what they spend.

Our limitations are:

We have a tiny kitchen so only 2 wall cupboards for dried goods and an under counter fridge with icebox. This means we can't do a weekly shop at a big supermarket or a lot of bulk cooking but we do have a Tesco within walking distance and a Sainsbury's which I have a discount card for through my DH's work so works out about the same as Tesco. There is a farmers market once a week but it doesn't seem to be any cheaper.

Here's what I've been doing so far:
We always cook from fresh no jars or packet sauces etc.
Buying tinned & frozen fruit, plus cheaper fresh fruit such as bananas and apples.

Always check the price per unit and buy cheapest storage space allowing.

Take advantage of offers, storage space allowing.

Always check what we already have in the fridge/freezer before planning the evening meal to minimise waste.

Having regular vegetarian meals and only buying cheaper meat e.g. minced beef.

Always going with a list.

The only real luxuries I can see are that my husband likes nice bread so £1.40 a loaf (but he does take sandwiches to work instead of having a meal in the canteen) and I like chocolate and in an ideal world would want a treat every other day (sometimes more depending on how many toddler tantrums I have had to soothe!)

Any money saving tips or opinions on what we could be spending would be very helpful.

I would guess at about £200 possibly up to £250 a week for 5 of us and 2 pets including all cleaning and toiletries and stationery etc. Gluten free and dairy free to cater for and we all eat lots of fruit and veg. and have packed lunches most days.
We also have 2 very hungry guinea pigs who appear to eat their own bodyweight in food every day
I have a tiny kitchen but a tall 7 drawer freezer which I keep well stocked and fill up with bread when its on offer etc.
I don't cook from scratch totally - we do have some ready meal type things like crumbed fish and oven chips, sausages etc. But I do make all my own pasta sauces and stuff like lasagne/chilli/shepherd pie. We have a take away about once a fortnight. Don't drink much.

Far too much. And we need to cut back but I just can't seem to.

There's me dh dd aged 11 and ds 2.

We spend about £600 a month.. We don't even smoke or drink alcohol at all. So that's just food. We all love treats, cakes and chocolates and I suspect that's where a lot of it goes.

I try to stick to a budget but it just lasts a week or two and then it slowly slides as we all get fed up of not having snacks etc etc.

2 adults and a dog- we used to spend at least £400 a month but now we do it for around £170. That includes all food, we both usually have packed lunches, dog food, cleaning products and most general toiletries. We cook most things from scratch and eat a LOT of fruit and veg.

Do you have anywhere at all you could store some extra non perishables?

I used to shop in tesco and sainsburys, but now do most of my shopping in Asda. Tesco is still the closest so I do end up going there when I'm being lazy/very busy. I also go to Lidl every month or so and stock up. If I'm really trying to cut back in a month I'll get most of my fruit and veg etc from there, it's probably better stuff there but I just don't bother going to lidl every week.

There are still certain things I get from sainsburys, M&S etc. if seething is better somewhere I'll spend the money.

DH and I also changed the sort of things we cook- eg a big pot of chilli is cheap enough ingredients, it's healthy (depending how you make it obviously) and we can get a few meals out of it. We generally don't buy processed/prepared meals, eg I'll buy chicken and add a marinade myself rather than one already marinated. But as I said we are not frugally depriving ourselves.

We spend about £100 a week (for two adults and two growing boys of 9 and 7 who eat adult sized portions) but I am paranoid about having a store cupboard so every shop contains at least a few store cupboard items just in case we get snowed in or something and I buy a bottle or two of wine too. I don't buy cleaning products apart from washing powder since we have a cleaner who supplies those.

When we were budgeting hard I could do it for £60 a week.

My tip is to bulk buy when things are on offer. Some people on pinterest take this very seriously so that they are never paying full price for anything.

I would suggest that buying 240 cartons of orange juice when it is mispriced at 25 percent of the intended price is probably taking it too far though

About 400 for me, DP and 17mo DD, plus 2 dogs on fairly high-end food. I am seriously shit at budgeting but really need to get a handle on it.
I know I can feed us all for less and am going to get myself together to budget better next month.

Me (pregnant) husband (weight gaining weight lifter) son (4) other son (2) dog...£130-180 a month depending on what's on the menu and whether or not we need washing powder/dishwasher stuff etc. I do utilise vouchers, but I can't shop in Aldi...I can TASTE the difference and I can't manage a month's shop from such a tiny convenience store...I also then get cheaper petrol and vouchers for school uniform etc by shopping elsewhere. I also go to the "condemned meat aisle" (reduced section) and freeze lots of it as my husband is a big protein consumer...but we tend to buy family meal meat from the butcher when we can (and I can a) remember b) park within a mile of it!)

Meglet why don't you get bread etc on prescription?

I spend about £70 a week for everything including cleaning products etc, we are myself, dh, ds 23 and dd 13, although ds barely at home - maybe one meal a day at home.

I buy online from Asda and have it delivered, they now have slots for £1 Wednesday and Thursday evening I think. That way I can keep an eye on how much I am spending as I go along. That generally comes in at about £55 including everything - and we eat a lot of meat as we eat mostly low carb. Dd eats school meals, but I take salad to work every day and dh is currently out of work so eats at home every lunchtime.

On top of that I probably spend another £15 on top ups, mainly veg/fruit/milk/bread.

I have tried shopping at Aldi, it was a little cheaper, but I just don't have the time at the moment, so having it delivered at 8 pm suits me fine.

I definitely find buying veg and fruit at the market or local grocers is cheaper than the supermarkets, I bought strawberries today for £1 at the local grocers, at the supermarket they are £2.

I did used to spend more, but have managed to cut down costs recently - but I buy a lot of value products, never brand names. Have you tried doing what Martin Lewis money saving expert recommends and going down a level, so instead of brand names you buy own brand? If that's ok you can then try value products. Generally you find some things you don't like as value, but some are ok. A lot of things are more or less the same and often have less additives.

Also wanted to add, we don't drink much alcohol, maybe dh will have a bottle of beer at the weekend..

I could cut our spending more if dh didn't eat so much, but he is quite big and eats a lot. Also he often buys himself crisps and chocolate at the weekend which adds to the amount spent.

£400 for three of us and a dog. Problem is my dc's diet is quite restricted (both have ASD) so we can never all eat the same thing. We would be fine if I could accept what they will eat but I can't so the price stays high.

That's everything though, toiletries, cleaning products, washing liquid etc.

I'd say on average, a single person spends £125 per month, couple £200 per month (because there's less food waste and larger packs work out cheaper) and every additional child adds around £50 per month. That is a fairly basic 3 meals a day and snacks, no indulgent spends.

You sound about right.

We spend around £80 a week. It used to be around £100 when we shopped in Sainsbury's. We have moved to Lidl and the 99p shop. It makes such a difference!

I do an online shop costing around £35 a week including delivery.It's just me and DD though and we mainly eat veggie meals.

I do spend another £5 or so on milk and bread throughout the week. Don't have to buy many extra toiletries etc as my Nan has this habit of buying everyone stuff like soap and washing up sponges from the pound shop bless her

Probably about 500 euros a month.

All food is home made (including bread and biscuits). Alcohol not included. The majority goes to fresh fruit and vegetables (to ensure 5 a day at a minimum and target of 7 a day), we do eat meat daily as we try to eat several times a week vegetarian or fish. When I do buy meat I try to buy proper cuts (eg pieces of chicken, pork (not now, with latest Dutch food scare of a forbidden antibiotic found in Dutch pork and beef), lamb) as I do not trust Dutch processed food (inspections/food safety standards are quite lax from what I can judge).

I think that food prices have increased massively over the last two years.

The £80 includes snacks;
Walkers crisps
Muesli bars
Choc bars
DIY popcorn
Ice cream
Ice lollies

We do not buy sweets.

Meant to say, we don't eat meat daily.

Also includes cleaning products.

Wow thanks everyone. The grandparents have arrived (with food!) for the weekend, so I will have a good read through later on when everyone is in bed.

£130 a MONTH Contented??? for a family of four??? Stunned. Also other poster who feeds family of 2 adults and four children for £75.
We spend a minimum of £100 a week for 2 adults. Not including bulk buys of food for two DCats, washing tablets, dishwash tablets.
Can easily spend another £30-50 if I splurge on wine and some good meat...

have been noting down EVERYTHING we spend since January 2014 and to date we have spent £716 on food and other household supplies and £675 on alcohol, takeaways and eating out. This is for 2 of us over 7 months- it has been a very useful exercise to know how our money is spent and what income we actually need to live.

If you buy low level own brand everything then of course you can feed for less than those who use brands so I still don't really get the point of these threads.

Ruebarb where do you eat out? McDonalds?

Fish and chips once a week takeaway for 2 = £6
Usually have a carvery once a month = £7.50 each including dessert NOT Toby
Frankie & Bennys occasionally, harvester, occasionally Chinese also eat out once a month pub meal - just me with walking group = £15-£20
Alcohol - buy 99p bottles of bitter from Lidl - Shepherd Neame and red wine occasionally.
I am a voucher queen when it comes to eating out - always looking for special offers bogofs etc