To ask why surviving costs so much?

[splendidisolation]

What is your monthly supermarket spend? Per person if possible?

I just did a shop for the month and it cost me £200. I looked at the receipt and thought fucking hell. I've barely got anything really. Canned goods, pasta, rice, a few vegetables some meat, cat food, stuff like shampoo, loo roll, bin bags. The only non essential item I got was a bottle of wine and a bottle of pop.

WTF!!!!

I'm only shocked because before I used to do small shops every day, seeing it laid out like that makes me think we really get fuck all for our money!

Oh and btw it's not Waitrose-sourced artisanal handrolled tortellini, elderflower cordial from Penelopes Grove Ltd and farmers' market camembert I'm buying here if you get me.

I do a online shop at Tesco so I'm not tempted to pick up things we don't need

I say you could easily knock 15%-25% off your weekly bill if you went to Alid.

For example, their 50/50 bread, which is lovely, is only 45p a loaf.

Everything is going up. One item I buy a lot of was £1 last month. It's now £1.45. Lots of things going up 15-25p.

I spend a good £700+ a month on feeding two adults, three children, two cats and two guinea pigs. Dh buys the dog's food separately. The fish don't cost much. Poor things never feature on any kind of list.

I'm sure I could spend less by buying eveything Smart price or own brand and buying less food but my kids are 12-16 and I won't have them go hungry.

That does seem a lot in one shopping trip unless you're buying expensive stuff or bulk buying. We don't spend a lot in one go but are always buying extras which add up.

We spend £100 a week on groceries. We are a family of 7. 2 adults, 2 teens and 3 littles.

We used to spend £200 week before I started meal planning.

I spend £70 A week in Lidl.thats 2 adults/2 children and is all food, except lunch for youngest as he's on UFSM. It include a bottle of gin/tonic every couple of weeks and a bottle of wine the other weeks. Night time nappies, cat food, bin bags, washing powder etc.
I don't buy ready made food, We eat meat once a day, have bacon on the weekend, I bake something once a week. We only use fresh coffee and have tons of fruit and veg.
I feel like we have nice food and aren't just surviving.

I use mysupermarket.com - sometimes it's cheaper to do split shops, even with two delivery charges. It's definitely cheaper when doing an unusual shop (eg Xmas or birthday parties). It's got a really handy feature that allows you to sort by price per unit, so you can tell at a glance whether the special deal is actually any better than what you usually buy. I still spend about £100 a week for four of us (two primary aged kids) though, as we like coffee, beer and meat.

Ugh. Supermarket shops. Groceries. The bane of my life. I don't tally it up, but we roughly spend £60-75 for a fortnights shop for two adults and a 4 year old

With all due respect, if you're spending £30 a week on food for 3 - then you're definitley not tallying it up :) - £4 a day?

I agree chick I can live on £50 a week and still eat fresh, a chicken can make 2 meals, how much is a chicken £3-4? Veg is pretty cheap as is fruit if you buy in season. This time of year I can get apples, pear and plums for free which you can make crumble or apple cake with. I also buy for the out of date fridges if I'm passing a supermarket.

I looked at the receipt and thought fucking hell. This comment had me PMSL (because I feel your pain).

I had a similar thought just yesterday - was in Westfield E20. The far end of the lower hall starts with Waitrose, Hotel Chocolat and a number of over-priced artisan food shops, including cake shop selling 3 small and old-looking slices for £10, and a spice shop sellling tiny quantities in nice boxes at sky-high prices (bearing in mind that there is no shortage of ethnic supermarkets locally that are far more realistically priced, to serve the low-income population).

At which point it occurred to me that I could never be a "foodie" even if I particularly enjoyed eating - I simply couldn't contemplate spending so much on so little. We all have our passions, and I spend plenty on things that other people might consider a waste but I am glad that there is no mystical force within commanding me to buy this junk....

Pre-DD I would spend £8-15 pw at the supermarket, no more. But then pre-DD I also wasted a lot of my life at work functions.

Isn't it amazing all these people who live in countries that haven't voted brexit ( or indeed are nowhere near Europe) yet pay twice as much as britain. weird that rising food prices still seem to be the blame of brexit....

We spend about £200 per week. That includes absolutely everything though, from toiletries, wine, a couple of bottles of beer, fresh fruit and vegetables, nappies, wipes, lunch stuff etc. We buy organic fresh stuff where possible, some fish but not much meat.

That's it for the week - it covers everyone's lunches, snacks out etc. I've decided that as it breaks down at around a fiver per person per day, it's alright.

£200 a month?? How??

Couple with one toddler and one baby spend on average £500-£600 per month in the supermarket and that includes nappies, baby wipes, baby food and formula. (In the UK)

£80-100 a week depending if I'm buying nappies/toiletries/medicines that week for a family of 5. 2 adults and 3 DC-2 of whom are in nappies. I shop online at tesco using the my supermarket app. I don't drive and don't have aldi or Lidl near me

There's five of us and our budget is £350 per month. That's usually a 'big' shop of 120ish with the rest split throughout the month on perishable stuff bought weekly. I've noticed prices creeping up the past couple of months though so we might need to rethink the budget soon :(

I've been bringing our bill down by shopping once a week in Aldi and then topping up with fresh bits every couple of days.

Then I got a massive car bill and spent everything I'd saved and more.

Fuck. :(

Mysupermarket.co.uk is my friend - before i do my monthly shop i list everything on a spreadsheet with a column for each shop and then check that website and put a tick beside the cheapest shop for that item. I shop over several days when i am in the area for a particular shop.

The differences in price at each shopare amazing from month to month eg 30p difference on packet of cream crackers.
Money off vouchers are great as well - when you are not loyal to a particular shop they keep sending you vouchers!

I spend more if I go to the supermarket, even the cheap ones. I shop online so that if I get carried away I can see the high cost before I get to the till and edit down as necessary.

I'm not giving any opinion on the positives or negatives of Brexit itself. But isn't it an economic fact that a weaker pound and a stronger Euro raises the prices of foods that we import (which, I think, is quite a high % of the total food consumed)?? If £1 is worth 1 euro instead of 1.5 euros, it buys less in a Euro marketplace. Economists seems to agree that exchange rates are likely to be the main reason food prices have risen in the UK over the last few months, right? Or am I missing some big factor here?

Of course, when we think about national prices in a longer timeframe, they have to be seen as a complex thing, set by all sorts of other factors than merely the exchange rate, including things like wages (how much will the market bear - in wealthier countries prices can be higher), transport logistics, which powers food prices upwards in many sparsely populated Scandinavian countries, and policy (protectionism, tax regimes e.g. VAT).

it an economic fact that a weaker pound and a stronger Euro raises the prices of foods that we import (which, I think, is quite a high % of the total food consumed)?? If £1 is worth 1 euro instead of 1.5 euros, it buys less in a Euro marketplace

This may be true but I would suggest that a UK basket of groceries is far cheaper than anywhere else in the EU? Have you tried doing a weekly shop in Dublin? OMFG!

What you are really complaining about OP is that not more people are kept in absolute poverty to produce even cheaper food/commodities for you. Who are these people who you think should earn even less to produce the food you eat? How do you think they should feed their families exactly?

The reality is that food in the UK is very cheap. Try growing your own sometime and see how you do.

If £1 is worth 1 euro instead of 1.5 euros, it buys less in a Euro marketplace.

Its been a very long time since the exchange rate was anywhere near 1.5!!

Yes ypu have a point @BarbarianMum

Isn't it amazing all these people who live in countries that haven't voted brexit ( or indeed are nowhere near Europe) yet pay twice as much as britain. weird that rising food prices still seem to be the blame of brexit....

Some other EU countries charge VAT on food. There is also the cost of freight/transportation if you're wanting to buy "UK staples" abroad such as Heinz tins, Uk cleaning products, Crisps, etc as they are usually mass produced in UK factories so are cheap to transport to UK shops, but a lot more expensive to export into Europe. I've always found local foods to be cheap abroad particularly markets - it's the UK branded items that are an arm and a leg. I think supermarkets are the exception rather than the norm for locals in other EU countries and that it's mostly UK people who use them extensively rather than locals.

www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=France&country2=United+Kingdom

Groceries Prices in United Kingdom are 20.88% lower than in France

i don't have the inclination to shop at 3 different supermarkets - i don't want to wast my saturday going from shop to shop

You don't have to go to all three shops every week and do you really have to go on a Saturday?

Rotate the shops and pick the best offers each time and stock up, or go to Aldi or Lidl most of the time if you have them and then the odd shop somewhere else.

If you don't want to go to shops, shop online and rotate and then they send you discount vouchers if you haven't used them for a while.

Lots of ways to save with little effort, but doing all your shopping in one shop once a week is usually the most expensive way to do it, because you miss out on offers and what is cheaper at another shop.