To think it's really hard to spend less than £100 per week on groceries

[Myplateiswhite]

I have a family of 4 (one in nappies). I have shopped around at all the major super markets and cannot ever bring our weekly grocery bill in under £100. We are all veggie although do eat fish and this cost covers 3 meals a day plus cleaning products, toiletries etc.
I don't think we eat anything particularly extravagant, maybe fish twice a week plus some prawns or salmon for lunch a couple of times a week. Rest of the time it's veggie meals mainly from scratch.

Genuinely don't know where I'm going wrong. I'm interested in what you spend and also what meals you make?

I found making a meal plan and switching to shopping online made a massive difference. Far less wastage and temptation to buy things you don't actually need. It has saved us literally £30-£40 a week.

How old is your other kid?

I have two huge eaters (9 and 12) and we spend about 150-160. I think if I had two very small ones, I could possibly do it for 100.

I buy all my cleaning/household stuff at Savers for the most part, but also Poundland and Wilco.

NoWitty do you use meal-planning software or just a spreadsheet or what?

Just any old piece of paper I find lying around! I also find using the app for my phone is great because you can add things to your "trolley" as and when you remember.

Going through cupboards/freezer to see what you actually have in helps as well.

We have a ridiculous amount of food ready to be made into a meal but never organise ourselves to use it up properly! Disgraceful really.

On an empty the freezer mission now

It's quite a lot. We do sainsburys on line and spend around £70 including meat and cleaning stuff. But not nappies / toiletries because we get them elsewhere. DH tends to get lunch out, but not every day. Probably spends £15 a week top. We rarely eat out (so rarely spend extra).

We plan our weekly meals. 2 adults and 2 kids. Its saves us money and we tend to eat healthier as well. I also freeze left overs to use when we cba cooking. We spend around £90 pw, but we do watch what we spend. I stock up on shampoos etc when there is a good offer on and save money that way.

We spend on average £60 a week, family of 4, one in nappies on a night. We don't buy anything that's not own branded, buy essentials (with the very occasional treat) and we have various allergies with ds on an elimination diet. We tend to have sandwiches/crackers/soup for lunches (only me and ds at home for lunch) then a cooked meal for tea. We do pies, roasts, pastas etc and have a fair few fruit and veg, any veg that's 'turning' have bad bits cut off and are stewed off or made into soup. My biggest tip is try not to waste anything, use peelings and chicken carcasses to make stock etc there's a fab group on fb called 'feed your family on about £20 a week' with some fab tips and recipes we tend to change some because of allergies but its really helpful

There must be a meal-planning app that interfaces into online supermarkets eg Ocado, right?

Oh god, is this going to be another MN thread about special £5 chickens that can feed the whole family for a week and magic meal plans that can make £50 worth of food stretch a month?

OP YANBU. Food and every day groceries are very expensive. £100 a week is easy to spend with a family of 4 + nappies and household cleaning products to buy.

I should add I've also shopped online and try to plan meals where possible. I do buy relatively expensive ingredients such as avocados, berries, fresh herbs (growth these summer) etc but I consider these part of a healthy balanced diet.
We eat stuff like homemade salads, veggie chillis, soups, cassaroles, salmon and veg.
What meals do you guys cook?

Infact I am making a pasta sauce right now. 2 tins of also tomatoes and any veg that looks like its on it was out. Will feed 4 tonight. And another 4 portions in the freezer.

we are a family of 5, 2 adults, 17,13 and 9. I spent £60-70 on food, laundry items, cleaning items and pet food at Aldi. Then another £50-£100 a month at Costco and a bigger supermarket for branded items such as the boys lynx deodrants, nivea shower gel. Costco I stock up on juice cartons for packed lunches, peanut butter, nutella etc. so probably £90 a week all in? that's really feeding 4 adults as the teenage boys eat more than I do and constantly snacking.

We grow quite a bit in the garden. So summer is cheaper. This year we have carrots, radishes, rocket leaves, herbs, peas and courgettes planted.

I find it easy for less with formular nappies a 7 year old DSD and OH but then he eats dinner at work 3-5 days a week and unlike him i do believe a meal can be without meat when i eat alone

Our household is two adults and one 4-year old. Our grocery shop (which includes cleaning products and toiletries) costs £70-80 but can often be £60 on a week when costly things like washing powder, fabric conditioner etc aren't needed.

We eat meat everyday so I would think that being pescetarian would be a lot cheaper for you OP. I shop online, which means I can see all the offers, compare price per kg in seconds and also select to show all items from "Low to high" in price. The only things I buy branded are teabags and bread. Everything else is supermarket own range. Some products I buy from the basics range such as chopped tomatoes, naan bread, kidney beans, to name a few, because I've found these to be just as good as own-brand. We don't buy crisps or chocolate or biscuits and I cook homemade food and meal plan.

I have 2 adults, a teenage boy and 2 dcs (one in nappies) at home. Until recently our weekly grocery bill was £140-170 at Asda/Tesco. After the dedicated on MN I switched to Aldi and now spend £50-70. I think it's because there's not so much choice so you really just get what you need. Toiletries are cheap, as is the fresh fruit and veg, especially compared to other supermarkets. I'm probably meal planning a bit better and have more 'store cupboard specials' where we use up the random shit hiding in the back of the larder. Also we're wasting far less food as I'm really only buying what we need. We're not veggie though so do a fabled chicken most weeks which lasts 3 meals

Yes, in my view YABU. We are a family of 5. Admittedly no nappies and I don't have to buy weekday lunches for the children in term time (the whole school has school lunches) but my grocery shop is £60-£70 per week. I don't think it's "hard" as you say to get it under £100, it just means putting some effort into thinking about choices, not wasting food, potentially going to a couple of shops to get their offers and in some ways re-educating yourself / H / family what is the norm. I know you say you don't eat meat but for example, we're eating less protein that we did 2 or 3 years ago - I'm not a slave to the 1 person = 1 portion rule. So last night I cooked chicken breasts - but I did 3 for the 5 of us and offered them sliced on a platter (i.e. in pieces). Everyone took as much as they wanted and in fact there were leftovers - whereas my H would automatically cook 5 because there are 5 of us.

I buy lots of fruit and veg, I might be lucky but the two nearest aldis all stock a wide Varity of fruit and veg and I use it too quickly for it to go off.

lots of soup, chilli, pasta, stir fry dishes here. stir frys always a good option as then can have whichever meat/fish they want with it. I don't eat a lot of meat but everyone else would moan if no meat or fish with a main meal. I don't buy many pre packed foods, the odd box of fishfingers, frozen pizza so a quick meal for eldest ds to have before he goes to work or when he gets in from work.

What sort of fish are you buying? That can be very expensive - frozen or less popular types can be much cheaper. I get mine from Aldi where 4 portions of tuna, salmon or white fish is usually 3-4 pounds. Their nappies and cleaning products are very good too.

Which supermarket are you going to? Obviously it will be much harder to shop cheaply at Waitrose than Aldi or Asda. Tesco is not cheap either.

It will be possible to spend less than 100 per week but you will need to think about what you are buying. it will also be easy to spend a lot more if your method of shopping is going round waitrose putting whatever looks nice in your trolley.

Well of course its going to be more difficult if you're buying berries, avacado and fresh herbs.

Things basically cost what they cost. You will be able to find items slightly cheaper by shopping around but there's no magic solution if you want to buy expensive foods every week.

Options are really, grow your own, change where you shop or buy different food (combined with meal planning).

We spend the same, I felt really shameful about it. Thank you for sharing. I feel much better now.

Sadly, there's no Aldi near me. It sounds amazing.

We need your shopping list!

not BU it can be hard to keep the cost down, online shopping dropped £25-£30 off our shopping cost each week, I also buy most of my cleaning stuff from Wilko, also agree with the meal planning :-) oh and I stock up if anything is on special