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 live with my DP in his mother's house. Everyone still lives at home, so there are 4 brothers, mum & dad & me. £30 a day on food (because otherwise, everything gets eaten. no crisps or chocolate bought for anyone as dad is diabetic and the brothers are greedy griffs!)

YANBU. I suppose when me and DP can afford to move out, it will be the two of us, and if shopping for the week is more than £50, we're doing somethign wrong.

I can recommend Icelands at the moment. Most of their frozen veg is 89p/bag - thats things like spinach, peas, chopped peppers, etc. They also do frozen herbs such as coriander which probaboy work out quite economically.
Also a lot of Sainsburys basic range is very good.

I don't think £100 a week is stupid at all, OP. I quite often spend almost that on two people so I actually think you are doing quite well and should give yourself a big pat on the back. I buy too much wine

When I've really had to economise, I've found that Delia Frugal Food book quite good. It focuses a lot on the cheapest ingredients - things like lentils, potatoes, carrots, etc. Some of the spices in the curries etc. need to be adapted to modern tastes! I've also found that for some reason it seems to work out cheaper to cook one huge meal and use it for two days, e.g. shoving loads of cheap seasonal veg from Aldi in a pot and make a stew or curry with it. Not sure why that would be.

I know this sounds ridiculous, but have you thought about growing some of your own food? Things like salad are really easy to do, and save you a fortune on those plastic packets which are a huge ripoff. You can do salad in a cheap trough at home, even if you have no more space than a window box and it basically looks after itself.

Yes of course it depends where you are living. I don't live in a big city with transport links so online shopping works really well. I don't get many substitutions also. And expiry dates aren't that bad usually. Depends on your local store I guess.

I really struggle to cut the food bill, I cook everything from scratch except for a box of fish fingers in the freezer for emergencies. We have pretty much the same standard meals, not a lot wasted.

I am pretty much bound to online deliveries as I have a slight mobility issue exacerbated by pushing a trolley and have only Tesco close by. I just can't manage to shop around to the extent that seems to make the difference. We have a farm shop locally and I try to get fruit and veg from there when I can.

I meal plan, we rarely have treats except if I bake something, a roast does 2 dinners and possibly sandwiches. Don't buy much branded except nappies, washing powder and bath stuff - have found that when I change what we have skin conditions flare up so stick to what works for us.

I know I could cut out berries and avocados etc (although berries start to get cheaper now they are coming into season). I could also buy more frozen fish (I do actually get some of he aldi frozen tuna/prawns) but don't like some of the cheap frozen white fish. Also stuff like mackerel will be getting cheaper soon. It is hard though cutting back. I do try to source toiletries etc but it's not easy nipping round lots of shops with little ones and being in a rural area.

Significant difference between people whose children are eating school meals and/or adults are eating at work and people who have to cover 21 meals a day per person.

But yes, I'd agree with most other PPs that if you want a smaller grocery bill and don't have a Lidl/Aldi you have to look for specifically cheap food, eg broccoli, cabbage, carrots, onions, frozen fruit and veg (big fan of frozen berries here) tinned fish rather than cod fillets, smoked mackerel. Plan menus around cheap (but nutritious) ingredients and ring the changes with spices rather than thinking "I need the ingredients for Jamie's Pomegranate and Salmon Rocket salad, what's the cheapest that I can buy that for?".

I allow £150 a week for food, cleaning products, toiletries and petrol for 2 cars. I think that roughly every other shop is £100 alternating with about £80 so my cheap shop isn't much cheaper really.

Forgot to say that we're a family of 5 but dtds are only 3. No nappies. thinking about it I often pop wine or cider onto the order so could do it for less and currently cupboards are pretty full so I was thinking I should make a meal plan by looking through the cupboards. Money was tight a few months back but I have a new job so I've got lazy. Must start being better about saving more money - feeling inspired... But no I'm not getting a month's worth of meals out of a chicken!

We spend £80 to £90 a week.

2 adults plus two little ones (4 & 2 yrs) no pets. The children have a nanny who has her lunches with them so that's an extra adult then & they eat all their meals at home. DH eats at work, I take packed.

We live very rurally, it is 25 mins to any super market but we live behind a medium size co op. I pop on several times a week and most of our meat is reduced then goes in the freezer. I got packs of 5 chicken breast this morning for £2.25 each (half price) there is often milk there up to about 80% off and we use it so quickly the short shelf life isn't an issue.

I get most of our veg locally from a proper (not snooty) farm shop. 25kg potatoes (last us 4 months) for £5. Cauliflowers 40p etc. when stuff is is season it is very cheap.

I do but fresh herbs and freeze any remainders chopped up. I also only buy the children whole natural yoghurt and mash whole fruit into it- bananas, mango, strawberry or put canned fruit on top- clementines, peaches. Much cheaper and healthier. I buy almost no food marketed at chidren, I make my own and reduce the sugar quantity. They don't get crisps either.

Oh and I batch cook a lot but have the luxury of a massive freezer.

One last thing I do us heavy 'bulking' of meat based meals with veg to stretch them a bit further. So bolognaise always has carrots, mushrooms, onion, garlic in. I add courgette to almost everything, farm shops round here charge 5p a courgette in season. If I have any spare peppers throw them in too.

We are a family of 5 (one in nappies) and all meals come from home (either taken at home or packed). I cook everything from scratch, do the main shop at Lidl, only buy cheap cuts of meats, yet our weekly shop is rarely under €150.

About 1/10 of the bill is alcohol for DH (let's not even mention the cost of his cigarettes ).

The main reason why we spend so much is that we are a fussy family. DC1 won't touch pulses or eggs and doesn't really like pasta. DC2 won't eat anything with cheese in it. They will not eat a quiche or a savoury pie. So most of the cheapest meals are out.

I shop in asda. We spend approx £60 a week on average but it can be a lot one week and then considerably less for the rest of the month.

I bulk buy the massive bags of pasta and rice, it works out cheaper.

I buy asdas own brand washing powder as its only £5 and does as well as a £12 branded box. I buy asda toilet rolls and kitchen towel.

I don't buy masses of cleaning products, the multi purpose liquid is fine for everything.

I don't buy jars of sauces, cheap passata plus some fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic and herbs makes a much nicer and cheaper version.

I buy asda gold blend coffee, it's half the price of the brands.

I also buy very large joints of meat or big multipacks which are cut up or split down into food bags for the freezer. I buy the cheap packs of bacon which is as good as the expensive stuff and use that either for sandwiches or cut up to make a risotto.

There are four of us, two adults, a teen and a 9 year old. We also have two cats.

I'd suggest buying own brands, looking at what you are eating and seeing if there's a cheaper way of doing it by substituting an expensive ingredient for a cheaper one.

See this is the thing - the idea of looking at a recipe book and thinking I'll get what I need for it is not something I would ever do.

It's roast chicken. Risotto with left over chicken and frozen peas. Spag bol with one to freeze. Pasta with tomato and veg sauce. Macaroni cheese with more illustrious frozen peas. Lamb casserole with one to freeze. Something frozen from last week to round it off. Then repeat.

I think the killer for me is having enough in the fridge and fruit bowl for lunches and snacks for two children who can put away a fair amount of food. Standard fruit, plain yoghurt, veg for snacks as well as meals, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese.

Lidl is your friend. I spend about £85 a week for 5 of us including wine

I'm going to try asda online I think and see if there's a difference, I already do most of the things listed here. I think Tesco have got me by the balls with their clubcard points.

Can you afford it though? There's no rule to say you have to spend less than £100 a week if you don't have to.

I spend about £75 on a fortnightly shop for me and 7 year old DS. I'll do a couple of top up shops for extra fruit and veg, and also shop around for toiletries and cleaning products (LOVE Savers for these, or Wilkos), so I probably spend about £200 a month in total. Main food shopping is done from Tesco (online order as I don't drive) with top ups from Aldi.

We're mostly veggie too although have recently started eating fish. We have fish once or twice a week. I buy frozen salmon and cod fillets and fish fingers. I'll also eat tinned sardines and tuna too but DS is not so keen.

Typical meals for us are Quorn sausage and mash, bean chili, lentil bake, various curries (spinach and chickpea, and pea and paneer are our favourites!), pastas, risottos. I look out for fruit and veg on offer and base meals around that. I do lots of batch cooking. Things like berries and avocados are bought rarely, usually when on offer although we do eat a lot of strawberries in the summer when they are cheap. Fresh herbs are bought rarely and the excess frozen. I also buy frozen parsley and coriander as these are the herbs I use most and they are fine in curries and sauces and avoid waste. I don't buy a lot of snack food, although I do get things like Cheese Strings for DS's packed lunch but only when they are on offer.

When we lived in London I used to spend around £160-200 a week for a family of 4,and that doesn't include wine,or toiletries , its a lot but We only eat organic fruits, vegetables ,free range chicken , eggs, ,its costly, and i bake a lot too, But food is something I simply can't subside, i can bulk buy household items,when they are on offer, but with food it's not easy,and I don't like to freeze meals,
We spend a lot more than that now that we live in Germany,

I think it depends on what you're buying. The '9 a day' (or whatever it is now) message has led people to believe they need to purchase a whole variety of fruits and vegetables out of season, and although I think we all need to eat lots of fruit and veggies, someone could stick to the 'cheapo' apples, carrots, frozen peas, potatoes, parsnips type British produce and be just as healthy as someone who was buying pineapple, berries, avocado, aubergines etc.

Artandco I did think about reusables but wondered how much I would save as they are all in nappies at the same time? Also we already do five loads of washing a day.

I really really struggle with our weekly food shop, there are five of us I can never get below £160 a week.

My 9 year old loves peas. We get through so many it's ludicrous!

We eat mostly veggie, maybe 1 meat thing a week, sometimes 1 fish thing too. With 2 adults and 2 children (1 in nappies but not formula) our weekly shop is about £80 including cleaning products and nappies, plus £20 top up shop over the week. That's from Sainsburys or Waitrose. For lunch I tend to eat leftovers or sandwiches made at home (I wfh) and husband spends another £20 easily on lunches but obviously we could cut that. The children eat at nursery/school but have supper with us usually. Wine is bought annually by the case so not included.

I meal plan and plan seasonally. I cook almost everything from scratch. The Demuth's Four Seasons Cookbook is quite useful for that. If I am buying say tarragon one week I look for two recipes containing tarragon, or freeze the rest. I make a list of 6 main suppers, 2 weekend light lunches, (the 7th meal is a 'scraps' meal). 3 meals easy, 3 meals more tricky then can pick and choose in week depending on schedule/energy. Then I order online, adding things I fancy too. Then I check the amount and if it is over say £90 I go back through the list cutting out non-essentials. I don't have to, but I prefer to set a limit.

We have mostly own-brand except where we've tried both and there's a clear difference. Puddings are always yoghurt/fruit (usually in season), except 1-2 times a week, even then it is homemade tart, cake, compote.

Soon - you would save a fair bit. £100 would get you 20 little lamb pocket nappies. I'm not sure of children's ages, but that would allow for no more pull ups bought ever, and leave some for the others. So 6 worn every night by everyone, would mean washing every 2 days, so you have 6 always dry at one time. Just all 6 wearing at night would save you 40+ nappies a week. You can put in wash on rinse cycle, then open and add Towels/ Muslims/ tea towels etc to the wash also so you aren't doing extra washes

I'm amazed you wash 5 loads a day! How? That's 35 loads a week. Admittedly we are only a family half the size but we only do 3-4 loads a week! Which is far less than half the amount. We did a load of nappies every 3 days when x2 in full time

If you can afford it why worry? I wouldn't want to make myself miserable or spend hours more on planning and shopping if I didn't have to. Then again, why line the pockets of supermarket shareholders if you needn't? I'm assuming that, as veggies, you know all the local outlets for fresh, in season fruit and veg such as farm shops, markets etc. I also like Lidl for those things and find the quality and variety often better than the bigger supermarkets. I buy household goods in Lidl and lots of other stuff but often get tempted by extras such as chocolate. But then again, life's for living isn't it? Am I sounding confused? I guess so. I will add that frozen soft fruit in a sugar free jelly makes a wonderful slimming pud and tastes just like the expensive version from M&S.