To think husband's spending is excessive!

[CornishDoll82]

We need to cut back on spending as I'm still on maternity leave and going back part time hence losing a chunk of salary. My husband does the food and grocery shopping for the week and I've realised he's spending around £220. I think this is massively excessive and we should be able to do it on about £120 therefore saving us £400 a month - but he's insisting this is normal and it would be hard to cut it. There are us two and a 11 month old baby.

Who's right? What do you spend?

As an interesting aside the daily food budget for prisoners is £2.02

The Most recent ONS survey calculates the average household to be made up from 2.4 adults. They spend £8.11 daily on food plus another £5.74 daily on average on takeaways and eating out. That's £97 a week.
www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-2774978/Can-feed-family-20-week-Mummy-blogger-Anneliese-out.html
Here we have a blogger feeding her family of four for £20 a week. I'm not advocating living on £1 a day if you don't need to but I do think it's very enlightening to try it out for a short period of time, and any regular food savings can be phenomenal over the course of a year. As has been said OP spends £11.5k per annum on food (plus probably eating out/takeaways presumably taking this figure even higher?) yet could choose to live on £1.1k, or on £2.2k like prisoners or on £5k like the ONS average family.

Wow! £220 is a lot. I spend around £75 - maybe a max of £90 a week on five of us. What on earth does he buy that costs that much?!

Why not just give your dd what you eat? She's 11 months and should be eating normal food, just save a portion for the next day. Pouches are a huge waste of money. Are you buying branded as you can save a fortune with this. Buy wine that's on offer. I only ever buy shampoo on offer too else it costs a lot.

You can learn to cook, start simple!

Ella's kitchen Apple puree = 90p for 70g
Biona organic apple puree = £1.49 for 350g

Both from ocado, yet x4 size for way more. 350g of Ella's would be £4.50 in comparison.

Thanks all for the tips they're really helpful

I use the Ella's pouches when out and about and they're the meal ones like Fish Pie. I only use about 1-2 a week though so it's not a major expense!

Jesus. There's one adult and three DC here and I spent £100 maximum a week. Usually £80, depends if it's a washing powder/toiletry week or not. Vegetarian but eat a lot of fresh fruit and veg, shop at morrisons because it's next door and I don't drive so can't be fannying about hopping from supermarket to supermarket.

But you spend over DOUBLE that for less people! Like, how... Even when I used to think I was posh and shop at ocado I spent £140 a week and that was when exH was here too. £220 is quite simply phenomenal.

Two adults and a two year old who eats family food and we spend about £100 a week but I don't scrimp on food - I buy whatever we like and never check prices. Could easily halve it if I needed to be thrifty.

OP do you and your husband meal plan? How much of what you buy is food and how much "cupboard" stock/toiletries? Anything dried or toiletries can be bought (online) in bulk from wherever has the offers on. Similarly frozen stuff.

Then do a weekly fresh food shop from Ocado if you must it's bloody pricey!

Also, does everything you use need to be branded? Lots and lots of own brand (not even the basic range) items are cheaper and of equal quality.

Me, DH, DS 3 and baby DD. We spend about £150 pw.

I always meal plan. I never throw anything out. I make my own sauces. We spend £10 on booze.

This includes nappies. Everyone's lunches.

I tried making own purées but ended up more expensive to buy organic pears and purée. But the HIPP pots are often £5 for 10 and have more than an Ella's so cheaper.

I think we spend more than average because we eat a lot organic, whole foods, low carb and high fat and protein.

So I don't think yours is crazy.

Can't believe I read all 10 pages!

The BIG thing that has not been mentioned, but shines through from lots of replies is that it would be a lot more work for you, OP, if you took this on, started shopping around, started cooking ftom scratch...

Yes it is expensive, but you are buying TIME.

I went from Waitrose to Lidl when we lost 3/4 of our income 2 years ago.

We still eat just as well, maybe better. But I do a heck of a lot of vegetable peeling and chopping, chicken deboning, breading my own chicken nuggets, making stews, soups, everything from scratch. Then washing up pans chopping boards bowls etc. Home made lasagne is lkvely but a lot of effort.

I spend a lot less, eat lots of nice food, but it takes a heck of a lot of time compared to buying salad bags and ready meals.

I don't even get to feel smug. Just feel a mug sometimes, as all this hard work falls to me!

So it is a choice. And the real question is: can you afford it? If yes, then why change?

My budget for three adults and 4 kids is £120 a week and we manage very well. Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat meals 5 out of 7 days.....but the key is being able to cook.

If I couldnt cook a basic shepherds pie then the equivalent ready meal for all of us would cost 5 times as much.

Easy things are making a curry from a jar of sauce and a bag of frozen chicken breasts (defrost them first!) and boiled rice.

Bolognaise sauce.

Shepherds pie

Roast chicken with vegetables and mashed potatoes.

your on ML why cant you go to the supermarket while DH is at work ??

Are you eating huge portions? Are either of you overweight? I eat a lot less now I am budgeting.

I'm guessing because op already does enough other stuff; plus she's in London and doesn't want to haul ten bags home by tube.
Thinking about the 'paying to save time': it costs no more time to drink less.

Cornish, if the Ella stuff really isn't regular you really need to look carefully at where the money goes. It's a huge amount. It being Ocado doesn't account for all that cost.

Sorry I should have said
I used ocado and ready meals during a spell of severe illness but even without cooking, you can save a lot. I even had cheer up treats on it but can't fathom this cost.

SeasideSally how would that help? I am back at work soon and we shop online as lugging a baby around a supermarket is rather stressful and I think would make for less planning and more panicking!

Parrisont you've hit the nail on the head, we're 32 stone each.....no we're not, we're normal weight

Lancelottie but a lot less fun!

There's no right or wrong on this, depends what he's getting. If you want to cut back, maybe do an online shop together?

Do you actually WANT or need to cut back

Just me and 2yo DD here. I just did the weekly shop at Tesco and spent £44 which included more nappies than she'll need and a bottle of wine for me. There's plenty in for all 3 meals, lots of fruit and veg and some stuff for puddings though we don't waste much.

A shop with the ex used to be around £150 between Aldi and Tesco. He was very much the type who picked up everything he fancied. The amount that got wasted was eye watering.

Yes I want to cut back. We're not badly off but still spending close to £1k a month on groceries is ridiculous

I imagine you aren't meal planning and dh is just going into a lovely Waitrosey trance and just picking up lovely things as he sees them.

We shop at Waitrose (buy all meat, fruit and veg from there) with a top up shop in Aldi (buy washing tablets, dishwasher tablets, wine etc. there). For 2 adults and 2 children (5 & 2) we rarely spend more than £100 per week and usually quite a lot less. Saying that I cook everything from scratch which will always be much cheaper. £220 is a massive amount for a weekly shop.

I am an Ocado shopper and keep it to around £80 / week for a family of four. When DH does it, he will just hit buy on the first washing powder / chicken breasts / tinned tomates to come up at the top of the list, and will spend double what I normally do - shop through the offers if you're not brand fussy (one week the Ocado mince is half price, the next week it's the waitrose, Ariel will be on offer when Persil isn't etc etc). I thought he was the first person in the history of Ocado shopping to buy dishwasher tabs at full price but it seems that he may not be alone. It's p*ssing money away quite unnecessarily otherwise - nothing to do with buying time as person upthread said - it wouldn't take any longer to shop Ocado adn get the same items for substantially less.

(buy all the nappies / wipes / baby stuff somewhere else. Even getting a Boots delivery once in a while would be cheaper)