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?

£150 a week for 2 adults 2 kids and 3 dogs

That includes everything. Food, cleaning products, laundry, alcohol and treats

We’re just 2 adults. We eat really good food and I’ve always meal planned. Always home cooked meals from scratch. We were spending about £70 a week on one weekly shop and now it’s about £120. That includes toiletries and cleaning products etc. But I think alcohol is the killer. We used to just pop to the shop for this and now I’m always adding it on to our weekly. And adding random things that I’m missing buying in the shops like a £4 candle 🙊

OP just also wanted to say, if you want something fun to do, you can make your own kombucha. I spent some time in Australia and it’s everywhere there, but came home to find it nowhere or really expensive. I’ve got a batch of 4 litres on the go with a litre ready to drink every week. It’s absolutely delicious!! You can buy the scoby to get it going online for about £12 or so, then all you have to do is add sweet tea. It’s so easy and you can choose all your own different flavours. 🤤

About the same as normal I think.
I'm doing Tesco fortnightly and paying about £170. I seem to be topping up weekly with green grocer deliveries at about £15 a week. The milkman is £30 a month. And I bought aldi wine at £70 which will last a month. Oh and takeaway once a fortnight, £30.
Maybe a bit cheaper than usual without all the extra spending.

To eat healthy and cheap you need to focus on pulses as basis for meals I think ( dried is better value for money) and the cheaper vegetables...root veg , cabbage etc, with frozen veg for variety. Limited fruit...veg is way cheaper, no booze, limited meat, fish and cheese, limit the snacks and treats. Don't buy "healthy" cereal, get simple whole grain no added sugar cheap and accidentally healthy cereals

So chickpea burgers. Warm lentil and feta salad, lentil and carrot soup, beans based chilli or curry

Spent about £100 a week over the last few weeks.

2 adults & 2 kids.

But with the weather being nice we have bought a lot more bbq stuff and my partner likes the more expensive burgers etc so that’s upped it

I spent £235 on Sunday but we hope it will last best part of two weeks (will need more bread and milk) plus I bought a few things for my daughters birthday next week (maybe £20 worth).

It’s not a claim that some of us spend £40 a week on food. It’s a reality.
We don’t have extra money. It’s not there. We make do. We eat cheap food, veggie based, no booze, fruit as snacks.

£250 a week. We are 6 adults as 4 dds home from university. We spend more if toiletries and cleaning products need to be purchased.

My dds love to cook from scratch and while we have had a fair few inedible disasters, most of it has been ok.

I budget £400 a month for 1 adult and two primary aged, never stop eating children. With us all being home it's at least another £100 a month currently.

I meal plan and there is very little waste. My budget does include cleaning and personal products, but I cannot get it less then £100 per week, I've tried. My mind is boggled at those that can feed a family of 4 on £50 and still eat, fresh and healthy

I am so glad it's not just me. 2 adults, 2 teens and I reckon we're spending about £150 a week. Although the shops should has done have been more expensive than the ones I have done. He is far more of a snarky person than me. I am now only shopping in Tesco, whereas I'd normally shop about. There is far less deals on the shelves and I'm having to buy brands as not everything available. Am also trying to only shop when we need to do am meal planning far better before and making sure kids are finishing things off before opening new things so I think we are wasting far less. If we run out of something we have to wait til the next shop to replace it. It will make me rethink when life returns to normal. The best bit about it is all the random things that we had in the freezer have now all been eaten. We've had a few nights of us all having different meals based on what was lurking!

This is my main meal plan for the week. We have cereal and frozen fruit for breakfast Sarnies/eg on toast/soup for lunch. Things like a bag of rice lasts ages, I buy a bag a fortnight. Same with pasta. Mondays is always a can’t be arsed to cook meal.

It's gone up to £170/week from £120/week for 2 adults and a toddler. It's quite high but we have allergies to cater for, and things we usually buy are out of stock (thoughtless gits buying all the free from stuff when they don't need it) so having to get more expensive alternatives.

£40 a week usually and probably £10 of extras. We’re not on a budget it’s just what it costs! Two adults and a 3yo. Probably spending an extra 10/20 a week in lockdown as husband is home and child wants all of the snacks.

@judemom
My shopping ish per week;
Subject to variation

3x 4 l milk
2 loaves
1 cheerios
1 weetabix
Muesli which lasts about 3 weeks as I buy the mega sack.
1 pack butchers sausages,
1 pack chicken breasts (4)
Pack pork loin chops
Butter spread every 2 weeks (divide cost)
Cheese every 2-3 weeks(divide cost)
Spaghetti hoops or peppa pigs 2 big and 2 small
tins
Baked beans 2 or 3tins
Approx 8 broccoli
W bags potatoes
2 cabbage
2kg carrots
9 ish courgettes
3 large bags of spinach
4 bags rocket
Bag mixed salad
Onions
Garlic pack
2 pack cherry tomatoes
3 spaghetti
3 penne
Apples
2 packs tangerines
2 mangoes
2 avocados
Passata maybe 2 not every week
2 or 3 packs green beans
2 melons
1 pineapple
Grapes
3 or 4 box mushrooms
3 tins mixed beans or chick peas
Cous cous every couple of weeks
Strawberries
Raspberries
Blueberries
Bananas
Red peppers sometimes

4 salmon fillets
Fish in atter from freezer
Frozen prawns
Oven chips
12 eggs
Sometimes pack of bacon.
Loo tolls every 2-3 weeks
Butternut squash
Laundry liquid (not weekly)
Cleaning products and bleach (not weekly)
Couple packs biscuits
Couple big bars of chocolate
Frozen pizza x3
2 bottles of lemonade

A few extra bits maybe but I buy almost nothing ready made, eat a lot of veg based meals and have large amounts of fruit and vey.
It's not that hard if you cook entirely from scratch. I feed 3 adults and a child. I dont buy the basic cheapest brands but that's what my shopping costs. We have big meals.
Dinners eg salmon rice broccoli and green beans
Pasta with courgette and mushroom
Spaghteei gamberoni with cherry tomatoes and rocket
Vegan carrot and bean pie impossiblr to explain!)
Fish and chips with veg
Chicken pasta
Sausage and mash with veg
Pizza
Carbonara
Risotto

It's easily done.
Beans on toast, salads, eggs for snacks. Cheese sandwiches if DH is home sometimes. Breakfast cereals or toast with fruit
Fruit snacks or biscuits.

Always large side salads

2 adults and a toddler. Used to be about £50 a week, now it's about £80. But before we would do top up shops and also eat out, buy random meal deals etc. So I think we're still spending less. I've decided to try and carry on like this after lockdown - no top up shops. If we run out we run out and have to make do. As its usually these shops where I pick up 100 unnecessary snacks!

@TriangleBingoBongo @riotlady
Thank you for your suggestions, I’ll try them both!

We use shop basics for pasta and rice, always weight it out before using. Surprising how much longer a bag lasts when you portion control.

We bulk cook from scratch so 2 portions on the day and 2 for a later day. Meal planning cuts the amount you buy and the amount you waste.

Everyone eats the same dinner, I don't do different meals for different people. Lunches are generally bread or egg based, we don't buy fizzy juice crisps or biscuits (we can't be trusted with these in the house). We tend not to buy booze during the supermarket shop but this has crept in.

Laundry and toiletries I buy biggest possible from home bargains, this saves a fortune. Soap bars are more economical than gel soap. Reusable kitchen roll saves £3 per week.

Small changes can make a difference, if your happy with your food shop and cam afford it go for it, it's not a badge of honour spending hardly anything on food.

@judemom it's very easily done.
I shop at lidl
I don't buy juices, alcohol, sweets, chocolates etc
I meal plan
I portion plan

We eat very well, I don't need to buy the same stuff every week, my variables change. Etc
See examples of my shopping list below...family of 4...two dc age 4 and 7

I have a budget of 65 but I sometimes spend less

I also budget for lunches as my dc have no school lunches here in Ireland

And Ireland is more expensive than the uk

Now I am spending about 80ish as I buying more "treats" due to the fact we are stuck at home.

2 adults and a tween. We're eating very well for 2 weeks on about £100 on groceries and £30 at the butchers.

It helps that I've been meal planning and cooking from scratch for a few years, so have a well stocked cupboard full of herbs, spices, rice, couscous etc. And I had a good stock of dishwasher tabs, washing powder, loo roll, etc.

I'm saving so much money by not popping into cafe Nero every weekday!

I’ve just looked. I knew we’d were spending a lot more but we are saving overall through not eating out, no work travel costs etc.

Usually grocery costs for 2 adults 1 DS(6) about £300 a month including non-food items. In the last month we’ve spent £650 but I’ve gone from keeping only buying what we need for a week, to much fuller cupboards and freezer in case we need to isolate.

We never usually drink alcohol at home but have bought a couple of cases of beer and a bottle of gin and some tonic in that extra too. We don’t usually buy much in the way of grown up snacks and treats but in Ben and Jerry’s alone so far I’ve spent £27!

DH and I usually take lunches to work 4/5 days a week. DS usually eats school dinners which are free in KS1. We do (most weeks) have a takeaway or a meal out at the weekend so anywhere from £20-£70pw saved there at the moment.

As I say we have probably spent less on food in total, and definitely less overall though.

Much too much

I was doing really well before this, spending up to £100 a week...which was down from the £200 we were spending

Now i dont even know!!! And it doesn’t help that dh keeps going to the wholesaler and panic buying alcohol

Hard to say because i've done online shops which have lasted more than a week, some included household stuff (like £10 on dishwasher tablets) and i put about a tenners worth of stuff for the food bank in one shop. I'd say about £50-60 a week for just me which seems more than normal even though I don't usually buy food out during the week. I've been shopping online so no Aldi and there's definitely a lack of supermarket cheaper brands and offers available e.g. the non-dairy milk is £1 supermarket own brand but Alpro is £1.60 so things like that are all adding up.

Used to be £50-60 a week for 2 adults, it's usually more like £80 now as buying more snacks etc. Also they've removed the special offers on things I usually buy

£150 for the month for me alone. That's not including booze (which I buy a fair bit of) or toiletries/cleaning stuff etc. It's also not including chocolate and ice lollies or twice monthly takeaways. They're in the general spend budget.

I eat really well on that. Used to mainly shop at Aldi but now using Tesco which is dearer as it's closer. Used to spend £400 a month on socialising so that's gone and I'm spending around half that on booze and takeaways now and again.

5 billion pounds.