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?

To be fair to op, my local Aldi in London was mad. No violence but it was always busy! It was an Aldi Express type store and at first they had a stupid queuing system but they've since sorted that.

I guess I was lucky where lived in London. We were within driving distance of a Waitrose, Tesco, Lidl and three Sainsburys all with parking (zone 2). We also had a further sainsbury But could only park there on a Sunday, as well as three Tesco Express stores, all near by!

Lidl is horrid to look at compared to Waitrose, its true.

but actually I've changed my mindset and now I appreciate the fact that they are doing all they can to keep prices low by not gusseying up the decor.

My local Waitrose is awful anyway, the staff chat to each other loudly and always act as though they are doing you a massive favour serviing you, its full of very old men in red trousers walking very slowly and staring with dislike at women who move in front of them to take things off the shelf. And it is ABSURDLY expensive.

Well its a bit high but if its including expensive ready meals I can see why. There me, DH, adult DS, teenage DS and younger DS, 2 rabbits, a turtle and fish...we are probably about £180 ish a week for all food, groceries, alcohol, cleaning products, toiletries etc.

Well, if you get desperate, Laguna, I'd say your pets could feed you for a week come the apocalypse.

Lancelottie

Thankfully DH and DS3 have asthma otherwise there would be cats to!

We used to shop at Ocado only, and spent £60 - £70 p/w for two of us, with one top-up shop of £10 or so.

My advice: Lidl/Aldi (again). It is genuinely not like the apocalypse unless you go at a peak weekend time or some hot new promotion has started. In your shoes, I'd do one shop a month there - go on a weekday or early on the weekend, do not take your DH or children, buy the basics and things to go in the freezer. We can do a week's food (with treats, but no wine) for £40.

Have porridge for breakfast. (I've no idea what you do have for breakfast, but making the assumption that you're spending money on cereals etc).

Continue with Ocado but look at substituting the ready meals for homemade alternatives. I am a pretty average cook but even I can do a bolognese, meatballs and a basic fish pie.

Make one cheap, tasty meal a week - veggie soup, lentil stew with chorizo, jacket potato and cheese.

Do you cook from scratch, or use jars, or just "ding dinners"?

If you can cook even a few things from scratch, you will save a lot.
So make a basic spag bol sauce - but do enough for 2 or 3 dinners. Eat 1 dinner, freeze a second to make a lasagna (could even freeze that already made up, to just bake when defrosted), and a 3rd could either be another night of spag bol from freezer or the base of a cottage pie with mashed potato on top (which could be leftover from the previous night's steak/lamb chops dinner - just peel an extra 3 potatoes or however many you need for the pie).

Lots of curries freeze really well, cook well in big batches, and work best if you make the sauce and leave it slowly simmering for a good while - so ideal while you are still on mat leave to start in the morning/at lunch, turn off after a couple of hours simmering and just reheat in the evening when DH gets in and cook rice fresh.

Do make sure you have plenty of vegetables in dinners, not just meat. In "saucy" dinners, I have lots of mixed veg added - both for nutrition and to stretch out the meat. And there are loads of lovely dinners that are veggie - we try to have either a veggie dinner or fish rather than meat at least once a week.

Check your brands too - some things do seem different but lots don't really matter. So I tend to use "better" brands for things like jars of sauces (for when I don't have time to cook from scratch) but then use value or basics easicook rice as I can't see any great difference.

Online shopping can help keep costs down by not grabbing things as you pass. But start with a list of what you plan to eat next week rather than "oh I fancy that". And check the cupboards before you start too (I have a habit of buying apples, or tinned sweetcorn - and having loads still to use at home!).

Maybe, if DH does the shopping but it is an online shop, you could do it together in the evening for a few weeks, or you can take over temporarily and get a chance to change the "usuals" that come up to things that better suit your current needs and circumstances.

In our house, we have DH and I both working FT, and a 10yr old with fussy tastes (ASD so there is a certain amount of pandering to it so she will eat - she is on the 4th centile for weight). So we have a reasonable amount of convenience foods, and some alcohol, lots of fresh fruit and veggies, lunches for at least 2 daily, all meat eaters, etc but we are gone beyond formula/nappies. For us, and we feel like we spend a lot, it is roughly €150/week (about £120) - you should be able to reduce your spending a LOT. And we have a mix of M&S and the local equivalent of Sainsbury's.

I spend 60 on my lonesome but then I buy a lot of fresh food always cook from scratch high protein low carb diet thought I am spending about right

YANBU that's loads! You could shave plenty off that just by being careful, not even having to have a mindset change to magic chickens, lentils in everything etc. £120 would still be quite generous and leave room for wine and steak.

No I am not a great cook. Both me and husband are more 'assemblers'. I guess I should look up some simple meals that don't involve too much work. When I am back at work we'll have very very little time in the evening between her bed/bath and dinner.

Also I don't want to spend precious weekend family time driving and negotiating Aldi/Lidl so definitely want to online shop

My husband is 'in charge of' shopping and washing mainly so a PP is correct I don't just want to take this all on myself as I do other chores such as cleaning.

CornishDoll -I'm not a great cook either and i don't enjoy it but even not cooking much or cooking the simplest things - e.g. shove piece of fish in oven - that bill is astounding.

I think you can online shop at Ocado and spend less than half of it. Way less than half of it. Are you sure he isn't picking up the most expensive of literally everything, from loo roll to yogurt to chicken etc

But surely now is the time to learn? You're not going to feed your child readymeals are you? If you both learned how to cook you will naturally save a fortune on your food shop.

the waitrose pasta ready meals aren't that pricey though - things like Charlie Bigham are crazy prices of course, but even if OP wants things like chicken kiev and prepared veg, it doesn't need to cost anything like this much, it's a truly eye watering figure.

I can't put the list up here as it would involve about 30 minutes of copying and pasting!!

Bigger costing items were

Coffee beans - £5.50
3 x bottles of wine, 1 bottle cider and 3 x mini bottles - £32
Ella's Pouches - £8 (stocking up)
Rechargable batteries - £13
2 x Steak - £16
Nail varnish - £6 (not usual!)
Ariel washing capsules - £10
Shampoo - £4

My husband batch cooks at the weekend for our little girl's dinners as he's far better than me. He wouldn't have time during the week though. I probably should learn to cook - but I am just so bad at it when I try!!

I guess we try and avoid the ready meals that are full of salt and sugar so end up going for the pricier ones - and things like the 'Cook' range which is more stuff to assemble rather than ready meals

everything on that list looks as if it was bought at the most expensive possible price - barring the Ella's pouches, I don't claim to know anything about baby food.

Rechargeable batteries - you won't buy those often

washing capsules are a total waste of money in any brand, but you could pick up own brand washing powder in a big box and it would last you ages.

tbh it sounds as if he needs to do a lot of online homework. £16 for 2 steaks is a weekly luxury for those who can afford it.

if that much is going on the bigger items, it's a safe bet that several smaller items are all much more pricey than they need to be.

the Cook range has things like salmon and sauce for example - so why not just buy the salmon and the sauce, all you need to do then is spoon some on before it goes in the oven.

But at 11 months your child should be eating the same as you. So if you are cooking fresh for her just cook the same for all of you

Before we moved out of Ocado delivery range sob we spent about £120 on our weekly shop. At that point DS3 was a baby so that was 2 adults and two under 6's. It's the ready meals which are adding up. They are eye wateringly expensive. You'll spend more wherever you shop if you buy a lot of ready prepared stuff. I totally agree that the Ocado stock system makes it vastly superior to any other online supermarket shopping system with endless bloody substitutions. We shop at Aldi now and there are never queues out the door or fights but I don't work now so have the time to go.

We eat the same thing at lunch as we eat together but she eats dinner hours before us so we tend to batch cook at weekend and heat something nice up. If we ate that too there would be nothing to freeze!

Sorry, I thought you would just be able to cut and paste it all in one go - apparently not. I have never used Ocado, so wouldn't know.

I wouldn't count rechargeable batteries as 'groceries' so that probably shouldn't be counted in the cost. They would almost certainly be available cheaper somewhere else than Ocado however.

£16 is probably a lot for the steak - when we're being really treaty and having fillet steak from the naice farm shop, they're about a fiver each.

I would expect £4 of shampoo and £10 of ariel capsules to last ages, so nowhere near every week. I have no idea how many washes are in the ariel capsules, but we get the Aldi liquid wash, which is £2.69 for 28 washes. Everything comes out clean.

I suppose you need to decide how much you need to do this and how much time you have to spend. If you really want the convenience of just getting everything from Ocado you have to accept that you are doing it the expensive way.

If you need to save money or want to spend it on something more interesting than overpriced groceries, a little effort can save literally hundreds of pounds a month of your current spend.

Don't buy branded washing power, dishwasher tablets, washing up liquid, fabric softener - that will save you a fair whack. Own brand stuff is way cheaper and just as good.

If you can't cook, start small. Look at Schwartz spice mixes - they're about 60p, add chopped onion, minced beef, a tin of toms and a tin of kidney beans and you have chilli con carne. Scale up and freeze some, and now you're talking! We use the mild one in light of the boy, then add jalapeno peppers to ours from a jar to serve.

We shop at Ocado and spend about £120 a week for 2 adults and 2 kids (3 and 6). It sounds like your DH is just buying exactly what he wants/needs when he wants/needs it rather than using the offers. For example, washing capsules are often on offer, so buy several when they are. I use the 'small and mighty' stuff instead now after all the horror stories about kids and capsules. Same with nappies, toiletries, Ella pouches and alcohol, buy them in bulk when they are on offer, it will save loads. I would also only buy Binghams and Cook stuff when it is on offer - Ocado had 2 Binghams for £10 for a few weeks so we had 2 a week then, but back off them again now! Things like filled fresh pasta and stir fry are very simple to make when you are in a hurry and don't cost as much. I think with a bit of thought you could cut your bill significantly and still have nice food from Ocado.

An Ella's pouch (eg strawberry and banana) contains approx 1 x strawberry and 1x slice of banana . Give her them whole. Hey, presto - 80p saved per tiny snack.

I've bought the Ariel 3-in-1 capsule things from somewhere this week for £5 - Tesco maybe? It was the larger tub that usually costs £10. Usually though, I buy laundry tablets or capsules from either Aldi or Lidl. Both are great, and are a fraction of the price of Ariel/Persil/Surf etc. etc.

We are a family of 5. Myself, DH, 18 & 15 year old DSs (eat loads) and 4 year old DD. Everyone apart from DD takes lunch from home & we spend around £80 to £100 per week.

We aren't scrimping on that either - we probably could eat for between £30 - £40 if we really had to (lots of pasta).