What's the least you've spent on food shopping for the week?

[DramasticChanges]

I've managed to get ours down to £80 for two adults two kids. I need more inspiration! Help me get it lower.
We already yellow sticker but there always seem to be the same things reduced (Richmond sausages, carrot batons, doughnuts.) It's not always terribly healthy.
I get the £1.50 veg box from Lidl.
We eat meat free most nights.
Kids get free meals, I eat toast which is free at work and bring fruit, dp doesn't eat ( I think he does but doesn't tell me as I'll nag him to make sandwiches.)
Feeding others is pricey. Fed friend on Friday and in laws came over for dinner today so four extra adults.

@ivykaty44 any particular reason you do it in February?

(Just being nosy).

As I sometimes do that myself towards the end of long months if I need to but I’m not too sure I keep enough packets of anything for a whole month

It’s the shortest month

Ah I see, February is a breath of fresh air month I find - far shorter than January, and no council tax

You can feed a family for £20 to £30 a week healthily. But when I did it I was going to the weekly fruit and veg Market (20 oranges for £1, 3 punnets grapes £1 etc), cooked everything from scratch, hit local supermarkets at reduction time for meat and veg. Everywhere was walking distance so no fuel costs. It took time and effort. We both work full time now so we don't need to thankfully as there is no way I could do it with working although I did get a few packs of mince reduced when I dropped kids off at club tonight 😂

These threads always annoy me because people never compare like with like. Everyone is super impressed at OP's frugality (which is impressive) However it's not quite as impressive as might seem on first glance. Having read the thread it's clear

• OP relies almost entirely on supermarkets that sell cheaply in bulk and heavily reduced items. Not everyone has access to these sorts of shops and/or reduced items are a lottery. Or she is actually spending a lot on transport driving around.

• She's not including weekday lunches

• She gets Sunday lunch at someone else's house

• The fact her family gets 6 meals out of the house helps with the variety of food as well as keeping the cost down. Plus potentially they can eat more on their "free" lunches thereby spending less at home.

• she clearly has young children. My teenagers would not consider cucumber and crackers to be an acceptable after school snack.

• she's only including actual food in her list (which is fair enough, but other people are also thinking about toiletries, cleaning products that they also buy at the supermarket when they are comparing)

I think if you included lunches (sandwich and fruit or something simple), full price items at somewhere like Lidl, and had to shake the menu up a bit to reflect the lack of variety due to all meals at home the cost would be more like £50 a week. Which would put it back in the realms of the more normal for this kind of diet.

Still, kudos to OP for extreme bargain shopping. But it's just not possible for everyone to emulate it.

I used to spend £15-20 a week when I was a student living on a bursary, but I used to get free lunches in the canteen at uni or cheap lunches on placement.

It was very boring though, I lived on jacket potatoes, beans, pasta, mixed veg, cheese, eggs and orange juice and apples.

oh and lots of toast!

£80 a month for 2 adults and 2 (growing) kids isn't enough -except perhaps as an emergency measure in a short month. Its not sustainable for good health, as you've already said. I lived on £12 a week for one adult for a long stretch & that was occasionally desperate. You don't need to cut the cost any further - you need better nutrition for the same money. Look for broccoli (in season), kg bags of budget (whole) carrots, ditto onions. Reduced price cheese is still good, and packs of cooking bacon - chicken & bacon casserole is my new fave meal.

£80 per month is insanely low. We’re a bit tight this month and have £80 per week for food for the next two weeks (we also already have some chicken, bolognese, 1lb of minced beef and pizzas in the freezer, lots of store cupboard items including a couple of treat items) and the kids school lunches are taken care of and I’m a bit stressed!