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.

The price of food is depressing me. We easily spend £80 - £100 a week and need more than that really, it's topped up at the beginning of the month. We are only a family of 3 too, but have number 4 on the week.

I want to get it cheaper but we cook from scratch and it always seems to cost more than oven stuff :( You'd think it would be the other way around, but maybe I', just very bad at meal planning/budgeting?

I spend a lot of money on food for two adults, three teenagers and one dog. But all three teenagers have coeliac disease, so a loaf of bread costs £3 and doesn't last long. I shop at Aldi at least once a week, but I can't get everything I need there - they don't sell gluten free bread or pasta for example, so I end up having to go to Sainsbury's or Tesco as well. I'd love to spend less, but until gluten free food comes down in price, it simply won't be possible.

I reckon my food bill is around £40 per week for me and two teens. However I have the good fortune to have lidl as my corner shop. Its around a 10 second walk. So I don't meal plan I just decide what we are having and buy just the ingredients for the day.
I am obviously lucky to be able to do that! Before I moved here I reckon it was around £70 per week.

I agree CherriesInTheSnow If you factor in the cost of electricity/gas in cooking from scratch, sometimes it's cheaper to wack a meal in the microwave.

Re Tromso and food prices. I did notice an ad in the local paper for a counter assistant in the Post Office - it was roughly £25,000 per year.

food shopping is so expensive and it depresses me every month how much we spend - I work full time so don't have time to go around 3+ different shops each time. We have a small Aldi and a B&M which I use and I try to do online shopping to save money but I still spend about £80 a week on food for 3 of us minimum. I am also following WW and healthy eating is so bloody expensive - I could feed the lot of us on shite and be massively overweight for half that price - it is so wrong that eating healthily is so expensive in this country

There’s just me and 11yo ds here. He has free school meals at the minute so that helps. I shop and Lidl and Aldi and usually spend £50ish in total including most household stuff. Toiletries I get from B&M so probably another £10 a month maximum. The dog costs about £3 a week to feed. 2-3 times a year, I do a Costco shop for meat etc which gets frozen and keeps us going for a while (probably spend £60 a time).

In total that works out about £55 a week on average.

"200 a month for one person op?"

I thought that's what it must be too?

Before DD1 left for uni we were spending around £160 per week for groceries for 5 people, plus dog and two guinea pigs (and fish). We shop online at Asda, no meat or fish as we're veggie, and mostly stuff from the UK. All own brand (apart from dog food now as the hound is getting fussy in his old age and has decided he prefers Butchers to Hero, but tbf it's only 50p more per 24 pack), and quite a bit of it Smartprice. That also includes beer 🍻 and wine, usually around three bottles of each. Groceries are definitely more expensive than a few months ago - my old food orders show SP butter as 99p, now it's £1.35.

We aim at about £30 a week for 3 of us. It's usually closer to £40.

We do about £70 a week for three of us.

Just FYI - £200 for two!

But I admit I am only placemarking because I like the "I find a family of eight and three dogs on £15 a month and one chicken" posts.

Actually I may start doing it fortnightly because now that ive unpacked I realise that I've bought some essentials that obviously we need, but could have waited another month to top up.

2 adults & 5 YO, we spent £30 a week in Lidl plus probably £15 once a month buying stuff from Tesco or Asda I can't get in lidl. Also buy chicken breasts in bulk for £10 from Iceland & freeze in portions.
I can make one small chicken from Lidl (£2.50 ish) last 2 meals, thank you slow cooker!

Soooo transparent Parsnip!

Parsnip

I'd say about £120 a month for two of us, on average. I shop at Aldi these days, because when I shopped at Morrisons or Asda I was spending an average of £50-£60 a week on the two of us and getting nothing much for it. Now I do one very big shop at £40 a month which includes any meat and staples such as pasta, rice, tins etc, and three smaller ones at about £20-£25 which includes fresh fruit and veg, sandwich fillers and dairy for the week.

We eat less meat these days, and bulk out one pot dinners like curry, stew or chilli with lots of beans, chickpeas or lentils so 'Freezer Surprise' is on the menu at the very least once a week.

I shop fortnightly OP, usually around £150-£180.
I've just realised how wrong my maths was in my other post That would make my monthly total around £300-360.

I forgot to say, we have a cat who is a fussy little shit, and will only eat one brand of expensive cat food. I buy it in 3L bags from amazon because it's about £8 cheaper, and one of those lasts her about 3 months. I also last week bought 30L of cat litter on offer from Aldi. Its normally £11 for 20L of this specific cat litter she will only deign to use from Amazon, but the offer in Aldi meant I got an extra 10L of the same stuff for only about .90p more. Those 3L will last her again about 2-3 months.

Last post, I've also found that meal planning is cutting down on waste food and means I can plan out better what i'm going to be buying that week so it works out cheaper because I only buy exactly what we need.

I spend around £120-140 a week for 2 adults and 2 toddlers, but that's for most meals as dp takes lunches and me and the kids generally eat from/at home. I generally shop at Aldi but do the occasional on line at morrissons or asda. I get some meat from the butcher, buy bread from the corner shop (because it's lovely)and buy local eggs- all of which could be bought cheaper elsewhere I suppose. I won't eat poor welfare meat so, for us a chicken costs £6 ish for a small one from Aldi. I wouldn't say we eat very extravagantly and I think we would have to compromise on quality or variety if we spent a lot less. I love cooking and cook everything from scratch.

My cat is a fussy cat as well when it comes to food and cat litter and it's obviously the expensive stuff.

Having been on numerous self catering holidays to France / Spain / Italy in the last few years I have found that food is far cheaper here.
On a recent holiday to Italy I was shopping in Lidl (as I often do at home) and the prices of local seasonal produce were higher - melon grown locally in Italy was more expensive there than in the uk? Meat was much more expensive than here.

Elendon I can't work out how she knows to only go for the expensive stuff. Drives me mad. I periodically get sent samples of different stuff from my cousin who is a vet, and she turns her nose up at all but the the most expensive stuff. She once refused to eat for two days until I caved in and fed her tuna, just to get her to shut up eat something.

I've just done a weeks shop at Morrisons this afternoon £107
It was a full big trolley - food for 7 days, 2 adults, 2 kids + a full bag of food for the harvest festival/ food bank + oven cleaner & Prosecco, to get over cleaning the oven!

I've noticed that prices have crept up recently and we used to spend less - it's only a few pennies on each thing but across a whole shop it's really adding up.

Weeks when I need to do easy meals as I'm working or we've got stuff on tend to be more expensive as I tend to meal plan and cook from scratch which keeps costs down and summer was cheaper as we grow a lot of fruit & veg but that's tailing off now (we only really have apples, artichokes & tomatoes left)

About £80 a week in Lidl, plus £11 veg box plus at least one pig, a lamb and a mutton each year (£300-350). Family of 5. No packed lunches for kids but lunches for DH and I.