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?

bleary, why is it depressing? Hope it wasn't me! That tortilla bake sounds nice.

That's about our weekly spend but we are a family of 5 (no nappies).
Very little waste, no microwave meals, ingredients aswell as packed lunch for 1 of the DC.
I could get it down but I think it's fine as is.

Maternity leave? Is there something stopping you doing the shopping? If for no other reason than to give you a benchmark to go by

Crikey! I feel terrible if i spend £90 a week! Two adults, four cats, a 7 month old and 7 year old here. 220 a week is ridiculous! You need to check those receipts im afraid and start reigning him in a bit, you cant continue with this amount of money being spent.

i dont know, its a lot like but depends on your income. i can see how you'd spend it actually!

eg if you're jointly taking home 4-6K net after tax , that £220 a week is fine.

We spend about £130 a week at the supermarket but that's all cheaper wine, premium spirits (not smirnoff for example), nappies, cleaning products like method/ecover, make up and toiletries, some gluten free stuff, snacks and treats like ready made soup, pizzas, biscuit snack pack for treats when we are out and about, supermarket indian take aways.

at the moment, socialising is to go out for a literally a coffee and no cake or sandwich, that might be twice a month or a meal out once or twice a month but some where where a family of 4 would cost no more than £60-80.

Can't remember if it's been mentioned before, but would something Gousto or Hello Fresh be useful to you?

They deliver preprepared ingredients to you and you just have to cook them (some take more effort than others). With Gousto at least you just choose once a week on their website from a selection of about 10 meals.

If you're not big eaters, each 2person kit will probably be enough for both of you and the baby, maybe with a little padding on occasion (add a bit of bread or salad for example).

For most people, it's probably an expensive way to eat, but for you it could work out cheaper unless it's non food that you're spending a lot on.

Both companies do lots of introductory offers and vouchers, so its probably something else that it's easy to not have to pay full price for.

2 adults here. I spend roughly £15 a week on meat from the butchers and then anywhere between £35 - £50 at asda obviously closer to £50 if I've run out of things like washing detergent, shampoo kitchen rolls. I write a list before I go and as I always buy the same meat I can plan what ingredients I need to go with it. If I don't have a list I spend loads of money walking around putting anything in the trolly. If you can't cook well or don't have time buy a slow or pressure cooker. It's just a case of chopping stuff up with a few herbs, stock or tinned tomatoes and chucking it in. You can do joints of meat, pie fillings, chilli, soup, spag bol....loads really.

We spend just short of £100 usually.

There is DH and I and a 3 year old and a 10 week old baby who obviously doesn't eat.

This includes soap, laundry stuff, nappies etc.

Then about £30 on top up of milk/bread etc during the week.

I would absolutely LOVE to see one of your £220 shopping receipts. Do you live on caviar and champagne?

These posts can be very sensitive as we all have different budgets. Plus are we talking about just food shopping or all types of groceries, kitchen roll, bleach etc?
If I had the money I could easily spend £250pm on groceries. My two children love raspberries/ strawberries etc, and out of season they are easily £3 per pack, we could easily get through £12 per week on berries alone!
Genuinely how people spend £30pw I'll never know?

#£250 per week not per month...

My two children love raspberries/ strawberries etc, and out of season they are easily £3 per pack, we could easily get through £12 per week on berries alone!

if you can afford it, then fine.

I can't, so spending £12 a week on berries seems really wasteful to me. Mine are more than happy to eat apples, pears, and leave berries for the summer.

Curviest I imagine my shopping receipt just looks longer than some of the cheaper shoppers'!

Biggest Spends are on meat and fruit, and then there are all the packed lunch things.
I buy mango/pineapple and other fruits prepared already as it's quicker and easier, DC make themselves a fruit salad for school so can just choose what they want in it each day. Berries are expensive but we all like them and we also put them in yoghurt.

In fact, I buy lots of things in individual portions already when I could separate it into food bags/Tupperware pots, so in that case, I pay for the convenience.
And cheese. I think I probably spend £25 a week on cheese.

To give you an idea what, this week's £44 (to feed me and 2yo very well) included the following:

2 fresh chicken kievs.
4 fresh beef burgers.
2 fresh fishcakes.
7 rashers of smoked bacon.
8 Cumberland sausages.
6 eggs.
4 seeded buns.
A loaf of white bread.
A large pot of plain Greek yoghurt.
A tub of Lurpak.
2 tins of mackerel.
Coleslaw.
Camembert.
Potatoes.
Granola bars.
Nappies.
Red wine.
Southern fried chicken pieces.
Instant coffee.
A large container of fresh soup.

2x 2 packs of Rolo desserts.
A Guu dessert.
Apples.
Bananas.
Spinach.
Carrots.
Mushrooms.
Honey.
Tomatoes.
Milk.

It'll be supplemented by the frozen/tinned veg that's left (sweetcorn, cabbage, green beans, parsnips, peas, etc) and the rice, pasta, lentils, cereal, etc that I only have to buy once in a while. There are a good few offers on the list but there are treats there too that I'd cut out if money were really tight.

You want to save money? Shop at Morrisons. Simples. And take packed lunches. :)

We probably spend £12 a week on berries alone actually as some one suggested above. But it's all relative. I earn quite a lot and work full time. I have no debt of any kind. I never spend what I don't have.

Eustace - have you thought about growing your own berries? You could get amazing amounts of them for very little work and save yourself a fortune (they freeze really well). Lots of people willing to help out with advice about this in the Mumsnet Gardening forum if you are interested.

If you are going to grow berries to freeze, you might as well just buy frozen ones in the first place. Loads cheaper than fresh as you can just use them as you need them.

Unless you have loads of time and the expertise, it is rarely worth buying soil, plants, equipment, plant food, pest control etc. IME. But then I just see gardening as outdoor housework and I hate having to do either.

BarbaraofZeville. Fantastic phrase - outdoor housework. I'll remember that x

Raspberries are INCREDIBLY easy to grow in Britain! They need very little care to produce a heavy crop and a bunch of canes will last years. You really don't need to buy soil - an ordinary garden will do - and you don't need pest control either as they are relatively trouble free.

I can pretty much guarantee it's cheaper than buying frozen fruit - and way tastier too.

(I don't mean to suggest that this makes it A MORAL IMPERATIVE to grow them. Just that it's easy to do and a really good starting point if you do fancy dipping your toe into the 'grow your own' movement!)

Some weeks the two of us and baby might spend that much when we're ordering nappies, wipes and cleaning stuff, going to the farmers market, buying organic, stocking up on beer and mixers... I'm well aware that our shopping is excessive when the bills tot up to £220 though... And I like to think we can afford it once every few weeks for now.

Jesus the apple juice is only £2.99 and we buy a bottle a week. It was a joke

To all those calling my husband a child, and worse, that's very helpful thank you. We just haven't had to worry about spending for many years and so it's about getting back in the mindset now we've had a baby and earning less as going part time.

There isn't a Morrisons here and they don't deliver.

Credit crunch section is friendlier

So the £1 a day Is £1 per meal per person ???

So a family of 4 would be £84

£4 x 3 x 7

That seems quite doable