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?

An important thing for us is that we don't waste anything and that makes a big difference. Lots of people throw away so much food, we use everything we buy.

About £150 a week here with no top ups inbetween. But that feeds me and DH and three teenagers. Oh, and two cats! And there's a lot of beer in there. Next time give him a list.

We are 2 adults and spend about £50 a week inc toiletries, cleaning stuff, everything. And we had rib of beef on Sunday.

Am struggling to see how he can spend that much even on posh convenience food - he is basically pouring money down the drain.

£220 a weeks is lots of money to be spending on grocery shopping. What on earth is he buying?

Does he top up the ocado shop? If not then it should be easier to cut down as it's just a list ...it maybe cheaper to shop at Aldi/lidl but can be more efficient to shop online....maybe split your list into non food and get that from Asda/tesco/Morrison whoever is cheaper delivers to you...and then get the stuff like meat/organic veg whatever from ocado ...

Readymade will bump that up quite a lot so could you batch cook stuff like chilli and freeze so you don't have to always cook?
I like cooking and we could spend your budget but mat leave forced a rethink then going back to work another one! So we have things like waitrose meatballs in slow cooker on a working day....we can do only 3meals from a waitrose chicken but one of those is frozen for another day...

Reducing our wine bill has had the biggest effect...

I shop at aldi and feed me, dh, ds9, dd12 and dss13 (one night/day a week) for approx £50 a week.
Meat every night, packed lunches for ds, includes wash powder/cleaning stuff/toiletries.
No alcohol though, usually top up milk and bread once or twice a week.

For quality and freshness can't beat a veg box , we use riverford and the quality and freshness is amazing ...

Whoa.. My family is just 2 adults and a BFing DD. Our food is usually £80 one week and then about £40 the next week. I'd be surprised if we top £300 a month! £220 a week is insane unless you're buying every named brand and serving fillet steak to the baby

We use Ocado and spend between £60-£100 every week. There are five of us.

I have a similar challenge with my DH ;-). We were spending £150 a week at Aldi which my DH considers an absolute 'minimum'. We are 2 adults and 2 children under 6. I have asked we cut it to £100 per week which he considers totally unreasonable. We are now averaging about £120 per week. He was buying about £50 of booze a week (we don't go out much and he can easily plough through a bottle of wine a night). I do resent the amount we spend.

We barely drink so our £50 a week doesn't include alcohol. We always have a nice joint of meat on a Sunday and there will be leftovers for either sandwiches or dinner the next day.

I used to do my shopping mostly in Waitrose and usually spent around £120 plus top-ups elsewhere, but 3 of us are vegetarian, which might have helped. These days it's more Aldi and Morrisons , and the main shop usually comes in between £60-£70, including things like toiletries. We're all pretty greedy. Very, very rarely go to Waitrose now, and when I do I have to leave DH in the car so that he doesn't persuade me to divert from my mission of staying within a tiny budget for specific treats.

Personally I do pine slightly for those balmy Waitrose days, but DH hasn't noticed any decline in the quality of the food he eats. So I'd say you can cut back fairly dramatically without making drastic changes.

To put it into perspective... Your annual food bill is almost 11.5k.

I'm going back park time (2days) after maternity leave and that it just about my entire salary!

We are a family of 8 and generally spend between £100-£150 per week.

Crumbs. I thought I'd overspent this week with an £84 Ocado shop. There is five of us.

That sounds pretty much like what I spend too (not including wine or alcohol), but yes you can cut that if you start being careful.

I don't buy any ready meals and we cook everything from scratch. You just have to be careful to buy cheaper fruits and vegs, they are really expensive in Waitrose. Nice yogurts, fresh fruit juice, good meat, it does add up.

I would never buy a ready meal from Aldi, but for basic fruits/ veg/ milk it is a lot cheaper. You can get the rest delivered from another big supermarket, Tesco sainsburys or Asda are as expensive as each other.

Shop online..... Then you only buy what you need and can get quite good deals too....I feed a family of 5 ( 22, 19,17 )for about £150/wk and that's Waitrose!

My question would be, who is doing the meal planning? If the answer is noone, then that is one obvious answer why your bills are so high. I'd encourage you to agree who is going to plan and then have them shop online for the things required.

We use Ocado, and find their system really, really easy. After the first couple of times,nit just seems to 'know' what you want. 'Ive heard Asda is good too, that they let you upload the receipt from a previous shop to get starting knowing what you 'like'. Maybe not so helpful in this case.

DH is often travelling and I ally notice the bills being much higher when he is home, but see that it's fair enough since he is away for a week at a time, so it (probably) balances over time. Mainly though, its because he has no idea about planning the meals and using leftovers. All the best.

I couldn't do Aldi. For a start we do all our shopping online and have no time (inclination) to go physically shopping. Secondly we went there to get nappies once and it was a hell hole. Queues out the door and people fighting and pushing!

We do buy a lot of non food stuff so will try to do this elsewhere

I guess its expends on what you buy? We don't drink alcohol and we rarely eat meat or poultry. I can do a weekly shop for 4 (2 adults, a 9yr old and a 2yr old) for circa £50 a week. 2yr old is mostly potty trained (and wears mainly cloth nappies), so no nappies. I bake and make most things from scratch, cook in bulk and freeze things into portions. That defo saves a lot!! :)

Take charge of the food shop as soon as you can op. Your Dh is spending way too much. 3 adults and a cat in this house and we spend about £100 a week and eat pretty well if I'm honest.

I meant depend, not expend!!

Learn to cook OP - you will be amazed at how much money it saves you and the amount of crap in convenience foods is phenomenal.

write a list of what you need. if necessary plan out a weeks meals so you only buy what you are going to eat. You are spending £10 per person per day which is pretty shocking tbh.

That seems an excess amount,i spend £40-£48 ounds a week at aldi for 2 adults 9 year old ds with a huge appitite and 1 cat ,ths includes all food i cook from scratch and wshing powder cat food etc

That's our monthly spend - and we are 3 adults! Not on a budget -but I do cook most days - no convenience foods.

He needs to rein it in!