To ask what your weekly or monthly groceries cost?

[judemom]

I'm wondering if I'm spending more than necessary during the lockdown.

Anyone care to share what your grocery bills are weekly during the lockdown?

About £55/week for two adults including toiletries,cleaning products etc. We don't have takeaways so this is all 3 meals and snacks etc. It's doable if you cook in bulk and freeze meals.

@shoppinglistgoals are those shopping lists everything for a whole week? That would do about three days in my house 🙈 There are six of us though.

Not including wine or toiletries it was £100 a week and is now £150 +. 2 adults and two primary DCs.

No more than normal, in fact probably less as I'm batch cooking and have days in a row of eating from the freezer. It is just myself and older teen and I usually spend between £40-60 per week depending. I don't drink an awful lot either.

It’s gone up from about £100-120 to £150-160 here. Two adults, two primary kids and toddler still in nappies. We are all eating lunch at home though which we’d never normally do.

@YodaEveryday yes they are but I do a stock take and a meal plan first and buy according to that. I will more than likely top up with milk too! There's 4 of us.

@judemom
For the two of us we get:
2 cereals (one own brand, one not) 4
1 litre of plant milk 1.8
4 tinned tomatoes 1.40
1 bag of rice (every 2 weeks) 1.10
1 pasta or spaghetti 55p
1 pasta sauce 60p
1 pack chicken drumstick .190
1 pack chicken thigh 1.90
1 pack mince 1.5
1 pack of 3/4 peppers 1.50
1 pack mixed veg (per 3 weeks) 1
1 pack sweetcorn/carrots 1.50
3 packs of ramen 1.20
1 bread (sometimes wraps/pitta too) 1
cordial (1 per 3 weeks) 3
sweets 2
oreos 1.5
bananas 1
oranges 1.5
eggs 1
oats 1
cheese 1.7
popcorn 1
ice cream 4
1 pack potatoes/mash 2
herbs/spices etc 1
Cleaning goods 2

All of this is less than £45 and i've slightly inflated it by adding things we only purchase every few weeks. Apart from more snacks, alcohol and other long term replenishables, I wonder how on earth I could get this to above 60/70 a week?

We just had an Ocado shop which was £365. We also spent £140 at the farm shop earlier this week. This is for 4 adults and 1 teenager and only £40 of it was wine.

Pre-lockdown about £50 to £55 a week for myself which included all toiletries like moisturiser and shampoo etc. It also included food for packed lunches and I very rarely ate out or had takeaways.

During lockdown I have spent LOTS more on snacks etc. I'm now aiming for pre-lockdown amounts

£80 a week for 2 adults and 3 cats pre lockdown.

Now shopping only once a fortnight and it's at around £250. How's that work then??

For a family of two adults, toddler and teen half the week we have a budget of about £65 a week at Aldi which we stick to. I'm unable to stick to this budget if I shop elsewhere as I just don't get enough food to last us for our money.

I've been ordering online from Sainsburys/Asda a few times since lockdown and spending more like £90 a week! Managing at the moment as we're not spending as much otherwise.

None of those figures include cat food for 4 bloody cats.

About £220 per week at the moment. 2 adults and 4 kids. Some of that is much needed alcohol for the adults though.

We were spending about £80 a week on our weekly shop - 2 adults and 2 DC

Now spending about £200- £250 every 10 days... So equivalent to £140 or more a week. Twice as much!

There's three reasons I can think of:

• I'm making sure we get a really balanced, healthy diet so probably buying more and varied fruit and veg and the highest quality protein sources.

• We are now buying 20+ more meals a week than we used to in our weekly shop.

• We're drinking more booze, drinking more coffee at home, and snacking more.

This thread has been helpful for me honestly, if we do into a depression after the lockdown is over.

Thank you all for the list of food items. Though I don't be changing anything right now, it will be a resource I look at if something happens and we do need to scale back.

We don't do a lot of cereals or rice or simple carbohydrates. That's probably why I spend quite a bit.

Also. We do purchase many non essential products from premium coffee roasters and artisan chocolate shops.

@strivingtosucceed
All of this is less than £45 and i've slightly inflated it by adding things we only purchase every few weeks. Apart from more snacks, alcohol and other long term replenishables, I wonder how on earth I could get this to above 60/70 a week?

We eat a lot more fruit and veg than you per week, which pushes the price up, a lot. We also try to eat as many different types and colours.

So in a typical week we might buy:

bananas
oranges
Easy peelers
Grapefruit (tinned)
Mixed fruit (tinned)
Melon
Raspberries (frozen)
Blueberries (frozen)
Apples x 2/3 packs
Kale
Beetroot
Sweet potatoes
Broccoli
Red cabbage
Green cabbage
Tomatoes
Cucumber
Peppers
Butternut squash
Carrots
Parsnips
Courgettes
Potatoes
Onions
Red onions
Garlic
Herbs
Sweetcorn
Peas

Plus

Almonds
Brazil nuts

It sounds like a lot, but we might have raspberries and apple for breakfast, cucumber, tomatoes, pepper and beetroot for lunch and then sweet potato, kale and peas for dinner, plus another piece of fruit for a snack. If you look at portion sizes of veg, they're pretty big.

Obviously if we were on a tight budget we'd rein it in! But just showing how it's easy to spend a lot.

I am so reassured to read so many of you are finding increases as I was feeling a bit guilty. Normally it is only me and I tend to pop into M & S for reductions daily and Tesco on the way to work. Now everything is being got in one fell swoop. Plus my adult DS (aka eating machine) is home for lockdown and drinks wine and naice coffee which I don't. I spent £77 in Asda 2 weeks ago and have a delivery from Tesco tomorrow for £90 and another £60 from Asda next week which is mostly wine. I was feeling dreadful about it but we are having nicer meals to cheer us, eg having lovely side salads and nice bread and puddings that we don't usually. I am saving on my fares to work on the plus side!

We are also having nicer meals to cheer ourselves up - figure there are worse things we could do!

@nanbread

Same here. We eat a lot of organic vegetables and fruits, on top of premium wild fish, poultry, and beef.

We also do buy organic almonds, walnuts, and the best milk for DD.

We don't really fill up on simple carbs like rice or bread much.

That's probably why our grocery bill is on average £400 a week.

Though my DH complains a lot about the amount spent, he eats for 2 people, and obsessed with health and gut health, so he actually won't eat beans and rice on a regular basis.

He expects organic chicken, fresh wild salmon, chocolate from France , organic artisan coffee beans , and mostly organic veggies and fruits to eat.

His favorite line is "Health is wealth" , yet complains the food bill is too high? Again, always staying we can scale back on other things , but never food?

We don't work out how much we spend on food as it comes from all over but it's definitely less that £400 a week for 4 of us and I'd say we eat very well.
Typical week:
Butcher delivers meat for the week about £60 including 4 fillet steaks and a large joint for Sunday (extended family pre corona)
Local Farm Shop for fruit and veg about £40 including a large bag of potatoes
Milkman eggs and milk about £10
Bakers for bread a couple of mornings- less than £10
M&S cooking and baking ingredients, wine, juices, extra fruit and veg, cheese, fish, treats £100

I buy all my washing powder in bulk at Costco or Amazon and go to a B&M once every few months for sprays etc so very rarely buy it at the supermarket.

£400 a week is £20k a year OP. if you can afford it I'd not worry but it is a lot. Our biggest expense is DD2s blueberry habit.

@nanbread thats an astronomical amount of veg if you buy that every week. I reckon I'd be not be able to eat all of that in one week even if I had nothing else . We're two women, so probably don't eat as much as a grown man/growing teens.

@judemom if you don't eat bread/rice/beans what do you accompany your protein with in a normal meal?

@strivingtosucceed

Yes we can definitely afford it. At the same time, I am starting to wonder if I'm spending a lot more than the average family? And needlessly so?

It's always good to save money, in my opinion. But the things we buy are always eaten and enjoyed.

@strivingtosucceed

We only eat mostly veggies such as organic summer squash, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, spinach, red cabbage, peppers, fresh tomatoes, etc