AIBU to ask how much you spend a month on groceries?

[dreamingaboutcheese]

I'm trying to budget for an incoming mat leave/new baby and don't know if I'm budgeting too much for groceries. I currently spend around £500 a month (in London) on 2 adults, 1 toddler and 2 cats. Is that about normal or do you think I could do it much cheaper? Would love to know how much everyone else spends on groceries for context...

We spent about £700 a month for 2 adults and 2 teen boys.
That includes all washing, cleaning and toliteries too.
We eat fresh fish a couple of times a week, free range meat and lots of fresh fruit and veg. Everyone has a packed lunch.

giddyaunt we shop at Aldi and asda and home bargains for toilet roll / dishwasher tabs. We can't buy everything at Aldi because they don't sell free from foods and we have wheat and dairy allergy in the house. We buy very few brands. We do eat a lot of fresh fruit and a lot of chicken / meat and dairy free milk which is expensive. I think the only brands we buy are flora spread, Hellmans mayo, warburtons bread and cadburys chocolate.

We're probably among the bigger spenders as there's only 2 of us plus the dogs. Neither of us is overweight, I'm a size 6-8. We don't waste too much either. The reason we spend so much is because we try to buy most things organic. We have meat maybe 2-3 times a week but only buy organic, free range chicken or beef from the farm shop (a medium chicken is about £15) or venison or pheasant from the game dealer. We eat quite a lot of fresh fish and go through tons of organic raspberries and blueberries and stuff like mango etc. which are all quite expensive. I don't drink milk but DP is lactose intolerant so has to have almond milk which is £1.80 a carton etc. We buy a mix of brands and Waitrose own stuff, but I do like Kerrygold butter, Heinz tomato ketchup and Green&Blacks or Lindt chocolate

I could spend a LOT less, but I always feel a need to have a few "fast and simple" meals available in the fridge as we are out such long days, and we do spend on higher welfare meat etc, and there's always a lot of fruit and veg in our trolley. And a bit of wine and beer too.

At the moment though, our freezer is quite full and I intend emptying that out a good bit over the coming weeks. Reducing cupboard stocks. And clearing older food from the fridge. And getting back into better cooking habits (we'd gone a bit stodgy recently).

We don't actually waste a lot of food, we eat almost everything we buy, but I have overstocked a bit and need to reduce that and find the "new normal" balance again.

It must be the organic stuff then. I do buy some organic veg in Aldi not . We eat much less meat than we used to but when we do we buy free range chicken if it's available (not always in Aldi apart from their whole chickens) and free range eggs. I have one vegetarian DC. Aldi has just started a range of free from foods by the way. Things like porridge or eggs for breakfast and lentil bolognaise, frozen fish stew and brown rice, veggie bean chilli etc are very cheap to make and fill everyone up healthily. Have managed to get my DC to prefer natural Greek yoghurt with berries or a spoon of honey over flavoured sugary stuff, which is much cheaper

I am one of those overspenders and overweight. My DH is into expensive clean eating food on his work lunches. He's slim. I eat nice lunch too, then make trip to cafe for odd croissant or piece of cake.

We wasted about £10 worth of food weekly - we know because my DH checked. Used to be worse, now I'm learning to get better.

We spend a fair amount. I mean from above someone mentioned bolgnese as a meal in their £40 a week budget. We would eat that, but would cost £8-10 to make as we buy organic meat from butcher. We eat veggie a lot too, but a meal with good variety vegetables, organic cheeses and pulses, nuts and seeds etc will still cost a fair amount.
Someone on here gets 15 eggs for £1. We would spend around £2.50 for 6 eggs. So soon adds up if you buy a certain type of food

Trying to budget, but I think it's around £1000/month. All in.

We eat low carb, so basically high-quality meat, fish (mostly salmon, shrimp, marinara mix), veggies with every meal (and a lot), nuts sometimes, free-range eggs, etc. No rice, rare bread (and when we do, it's low-carb specialty bread), potatoes - basically no fillers almost.

We spend about £300 a month. That's for me, dp, my ds who is here 50% of the time and dps 3 dc who are with us eow and one day in the week. We also have a cat. They pays for very little luxuries and we don't have much fresh meat or fish.

£120 a month x2 adults

OP We are the same size family as you, including 2 cats and spend the same as you - but I do fritter money in Sainsbury's on clothes, cards, food for cat and dog shelter - at least £30- £40 a week. I could reduce our bills quite a lot.