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.

why are you eating this way? are you financially struggling?

Well it takes all different people to make the world go round, I couldn't do it and it sounds joyless but crack on, don't think you will get a shopping bill down lower than £20 a week.

I can spend £80 a week, just on myself as I look for convenience
A mango is still a treat for me as they’re expensive and not very eco friendly to buy.
Not to mention they’re sugary, as is most fruit, and if you’re looking for your 5 a day it should be coming from veg anyway

Think it’s a very middle classes privileged position to be making out it’s child abuse to not have daily exotic fruits.

I'm really not seeing the problem with a mango being an occasional treat, but then we've never eaten fruit every day anyway, more vegetable people.

A few quid, but that was when we were living on Marmite on toast because XH was spending all the money on stupid metal figures.

Shocked at how many posters paint a picture of OP's children as Dickensian waifs, hollow eyed and clutching their bowl of gruel!

I'm in my 60s and 'fresh' tropical fruit was not a main feature in my childhood diet (exception being bananas which may have been relatively cheap for decades?) Oh and oranges, but not daily. Daily fruit was British apples or pears in season. Same with strawberries in summer.

Canned tropical fruit, yes.

I did not develop scurvy through not having a mango.

I've had weeks where I've emptied my freezer and cupboards so all I've spent on food is perishables such as bread and milk. Think cheapest I've managed is £1.50 for 10 days worth as I emptied my freezer and only needed milk that week.

I would be concerned about your diet at that figure .Have you checked all benefits /food bank entitlement and so on? £20.00 per person is only about £3 .00 each per day !

Printable UK seasonal fruit and veg charts are available on the net.

I'm absolutely horrendous for just going into the supermarket and picking up what I feel like - because I take DP's card to pay for the shopping and he tells me not to worry.. so I don't. But when I think about how much I could save, and we probably should, I feel really guilty.

I could go to Farmfoods (this is what I did when we had very little money) and bought a load of veg, frozen meat pieces, pasta, rice etc .. and honestly, spending about £50 can last a good few weeks.

I too am not sure why Op is getting such a hard time.
But her lifestyle does sound miserable.

I am trying to cut down atm. But we spend a fortune, I'm ashamed to tell you all how much we spent in December. I spend in a week, what OP spends in a month, without even trying.

We spend a fortune at Aldi, Sainsbury's, Costco. I batch cook alot, and freeze Costco chicken breasts, 12 at a time. I make huge batches of spag bol, chilli, meatballs for spaghetti and meatballs, cooking 84 meatballs at a time. I make cauliflower, chickpea and sweet potato curry, using 4 tins of chickpeas. Not quite the same as Op's problems!!

In January, I always try a 'dry january', plus a 'eat everything in the freezer month', and plus a 'only spend £100 a week'. It goes ok.

But I would be miserable living as the Op does. Although I appreciate many people have to!!

Talking of mango, Costco does a jar of them!! God they are so sweet. Divine!

(Most of the ones I ever buy in the supermarket, either real ones or pre-packed, are hard, taste-less and vile!!)

I do think you are doing well but if you want to reduce it further then you can find free food. I taught my children how to forage. Nettles, dandilions, blackberries, elderflower, chestnuts, wild garlic and all sorts of other foods can be found in hedgerows in the spring, summer and autumn, not so easy in the winter. A day out in the countryside at the weekend is good exercise and can provide plenty of food to eat for the week. Please just make sure you know what you are doing - stick to the footpaths, National Trust or Common land and make sure you don't eat anything poisonous!

Thruppence ha'penny.

This is the current coop meal deal. Not as generous 8n quantity as some months but that's probably because it's fish, at the moment.
www.coop.co.uk/products/deals/freezer-fillers

I taught my children how to forage. Nettles, dandilions, blackberries, elderflower, chestnuts, wild garlic and all sorts of other foods can be found in hedgerows in the spring, summer and autumn, not so easy in the winter. A day out in the countryside at the weekend is good exercise and can provide plenty of food to eat for the week

I'm not being flippant but I read a book about North Korea and during the famine in the 1990s people used to go on days out to the countryside to do this. It was a really depressing read.

I'm impressed with the OP. I live near an Asian supermarket, potatoes are about £4 for a 25k sack. Herbs and spices are a fraction of the ordinary supermarkets. I cook from scratch and I enjoy it.
The snobbery about Aldi and lidl makes me laugh, I bought 2 apple trees, a pear tree, and a cherry tree from Aldi, they cost about £4 each. I had so much fruit last year I was giving it away to several people.

Formerbabe there is an area near me where there's lots of blackberries etc. One end of it is in a middle class area, the other is much poorer, in the middle class area I often see people foraging, in the poorer area hardly ever I'm not saying where the sloes are

and can provide plenty of food to eat for the week

Regardless of the social class of those foraging..nettles, dandelion, wild garlic and a few berries will not provide plenty of food for a week. I'm assuming these foragers don't have teenage sons!

Lol, there's nothing wrong or depressing about foraging. Millions of people do it around the world, and always have done. We have apple, cherry and plum trees growing wild around my town, plenty of people pick the fruit or pick up the windfall. Why let food go to waste?
There's nothing depressing about seeing a mango as an occassional treat, either. It's good to see some people are still brought up not to take everything for granted.

£30 to buy the staples such as eggs, bread, milk cheese, kids snacks, vegetables, fruit as well as porridge and nappies. We had done a £70 shop the week before so I had more than enough in to get through the week.

I'm going to look into foraging, thanks!

Lol, there's nothing wrong or depressing about foraging

Im sure if you're middle class with plenty of money, it's just a jolly day out and a trendy thing to do.

I'd imagine if you're too skint to buy food, trudging through the country looking for nettles or a few berries must be hellish.

I don't for one minute believe you can find plenty of food to make it worthwhile and to feed a family.

£80 a month is amazing

The lowest I can do for 2 adults and child is £60 a week.

I’d rather cut back elsewhere than on food that goes in my body.

This allows for one bottle of wine a week but other than that there are no ready meals, no convenience jars and although we aren’t vegetarian this is cutting back by half on meat too so that we don’t end up buying cheap frozen sausages or processed chicken foods

Finding 'plenty of food' is probably a bit of a stretch, but there's nothing wrong with foraging as a healthy free outdoor activity that can lead to finding some free berries that would otherwise be expensive. Also as a 'this is where food comes from' learning activity.