AIBU to ask for help to get groceries down?!

[Chihuahuacat]

I keep reading on here how people spend about £300 a month on groceries for a family of four.

There’s just 2 of us and 2 cats and this month we’ve spent £460!! I don’t know where I’m going wrong...

meals have been (these are split between me and DH):

Today -
Bottle of red wine
Chicken and roasted veg / potatoes
Avocado and egg on ryvita
Baby bell
Snack a Jack
1 Aldi moser Roth chocolate (I’ve had one of these each day to save me listing it out).

Saturday:
Fish finger brioche sandwich (Aldi brioche, fish fingers from the freezer so no spend in the £460)
Half a pizza express margarita pizza
Bistro bagged salad
Sun dried tomatoes
Parmesan (from the fridge)
Bottle of Prosecco (Aldi £7).

Friday:
Turkey burgers (homemade) in the Aldi brioche buns, Sweet potatoe wedges
Lunch was leftovers from Thursday night.

Thursday:
Lunch: homemade chicken pie and veg (leftover)
Dinner: chicken breast with quinoa, broccoli (Nando’s flavour bag).

Weds:
Lunch: leftovers (the salmon as below).
Dinner: chicken pie as above.

Tuesday:
Lunch: leftovers (sausage and mash)
Dinner: tinned salmon, lettuce, eggs, green beans.

Monday:
Lunch: cream cheese bagel
Dinner: sausage and mash

I don’t really eat breakfast (maybe have a baby bel), husband has cereal. We bulk buy cat food / litter and buy about 8 bottles of wine a month (from Aldi, probably under £50). No alcohol in the week. Share a bottle sat / sun.

Laundry detergent etc is bulk bought so it’s not that. No real waste as we always have leftovers for lunch the next day.

We do buy nice instant coffee from not being in the office, but that’s about £3.

Will buy things like Diet Coke, mini eggs but not much at all, maybe once a week. A packet of snack a jacks.

Am I going horribly wrong or is this just what it costs? We obviously try and eat fairly healthy but nothing excessive I don’t think?

Any tips? We can afford it but I’d love to get it down, it feels like such a waste. We probably get takeaway a couple of times a month on top of this as well!!

I’ve attached a pic of my spending!

It depends if you can afford it or not but in perspective it's around £2.50 per person per meal.

I dread to think what our shopping bill is if I added everything but I like to buy good quality food, and I also shop for convenience which I'm prepared to buy a premium for.

As for the bloody chicken, we had a chicken last night - 2 adults 2 kids and there was nothing left apart from the wings.

@Chihuahuacat I think price has definitely increased since first lockdown but also my kids have grown as have their appetites 🤣🤣🤣 Agree you could save money by planning ahead and buying what’s on offer if you are able to freeze/store it. We do one large shop a week and only top up for bread/milk if needed. But really I’m here to ask @VeganVeal to explain how a small chicken can feed you both for almost a week!🙄 We had a roast between five yesterday and have enough left for a couple of sarnies and to make stock from the carcass

It depends if you can afford it or not but in perspective it's around £2.50 per person per meal

I'm not sure I understand the value of breaking it down like this. Some healthy meals will be far cheaper than this. I made some dhal yesterday that would have cost pennies per portion. Even the batch of chicken and spinach pilaf that I also made would have been under a pound a portion.

Egg on toast, beans on toast, vegetable and bean chilli, omelettes with basic salad, vegetable soup, all very very cheap and often either quick to make, or good to make in batches for the freezer, so you can eat without having to cook.

It's easy to spend a lot of money on food. It's also perfectly possible to spend a lot less, without having to spend hours in the kitchen or live on cheap rubbish. An average of £2.50 per person per meal sounds like quite a lot to me, with lots of room to cut down if you want or need to.

I agree an average per meal is not very helpful if you do it over 3 meals, it will seem artificially low given breakfast is usually very cheap foods like toast, cereal or porridge for most people.

You spend too much on alcohol and convenience food like microwave rice in individual pouches. You don’t need to be buying brands like Coca Cola.
There’s nothing wrong with 20p spaghetti. Ignore snobs who think they have a superior palette.
Most importantly, make a weekly meal plan and write a shopping list.

I spend around £80 per week for two adults, three cats and a dog. About £15 of that goes on the animals (food and cat litter) so about £65 for two adults.

My first question would be - what do your cupboards and freezer look like? Could you spend a week or so eating out of both? I try and do this occasionally - we always have things like frozen vegetables, mince, baked beans and tinned tomatoes in - as well as pasta, rice and couscous. All easy to make quick, cheap meals out of.

You also don't need meat everyday. What about quick meals like veggie stir-fry, pasta bakes, jacket potatoes with cheese/beans, homemade fried rice, soup etc. All perfectly filling, healthy and cheap.

Try a week where you only buy fresh necessities - so milk, bread, fruit and veg - and live out of your cupboards for everything else. If you spend the amount you say you spend, I don't doubt that you've got plenty of basics in stock.

Definitely watch some of Eat Well For Less on BBC. Not so much for the recipes but because the blind taste tests are eye opening.

We accidentally had a comparison the other day with wotsits and an Aldi off brand version.

I had a pack of each one straight after the other (I’m breastfeeding and absolutely starving at the moment hence the greed) and the branded ones were a bit nicer but not twice as nice (the price difference) and I’m not such a wotsit guru that I won’t compromise, especially when the Aldi ones were the only ones in the house! I quite happily stuffed my face with them!

Find some things that you’re prepared to compromise on. For us we realised that ketchup, baked beans, tinned veg were all fine to be own brand.

Some things we don’t like to compromise on... PG Tips is a non negotiable for me

Also other posters have commented on the amount of meat. Have you considered how much you’re using e.g in a chicken pie use 1 breast rather than two (or half of however much the recipe has) and bulk it out with veg (much cheaper) then you’ve got the “saved” breast to use in a stir fry or pasta dish or whatever the next day.

I also try to bulk buy non perishable stuff as much as possible. £5 will get you 5 portions of pre made rice but probably about 40 portions if you cook it yourself. If you want the convenience of pre made stuff you have to pay a premium.

Definitely try the “downshift” challenge.

One brand down from what you currently buy.

There a couple of things I won’t compromise on (coffee, nice wine 😂) but happy to buy basics for most things.

I am vegetarian though which helps.

£17 for 3 bottles of wine
Lots of meat
Flowers
Branded basics
Chocolate eggs

That is why you are spending so much on so little.

When buying meat don't just buy the first thing you see. I save so much by buying chicken thighs (about £1.80 for a kilo in sainsburys) as opposed to skinned chicken breast which is more like £3-4 for less!!!

Also, I bulk buy staples like rice (10kg at a time).

I make sauces rather than buy them pre-made

If you buy green beans/broccoli etc, just put them in sandwich bags in portions and put in the freezer, then you wont need to keep popping out to buy fresh.

So, based on the above for example an evening meal of glazed chicken thighs (soy sauce, honeya nd garlic for example...or use your spice rack. no fancy pre-made Nandos sauces which drive up the price.), rice and some greens like broccoli (which I also buy in bulk, portion out and then freeze) is healthy, yummy, filling and less than £1 per portion

I switched to an online shop once a week and actually saved loads as I wasn't tempted everytime I popped out and could spend time looking for the cheapest option. Some ideas:

Bulk out your meat dishes with veg. Potatos are your friend.
Buy a big pack of meat and freeze some.
Try meat free options.
Get out the habit of having alcohol at the weekends. It's nice once in a while but you can save loads over a year if it's kept for special meals.
Look for supermarket own brand versions always - try using them and see if you like them. If you already use their own brand try their value range.
Coffee - it takes a while and is hard but is possible to wean off the posh stuff and onto the supermarket cheap stuff handy if you drink lots.
Have one treat day a week and stick to it. It is too easy to pick up little treats here and there.

I don't think you spend a ridiculous amount but hope these ideas might help.

Also looking at your list there's lots of 'extras' that are nice but are not exactly contributing toward a meal...just a snack.

Nothing wrong with that, but try and envisage what you will make with each item as you put it in yoru basket and if you find yourself saying 'well that's just a drink/snack' more than thinking of actual cooked meals or cannot think of multiple options for it, more than otherwise, you maybe need to cut down on those items.

Ah and frozen broccoli is cheaper and doesn't go off so fast

I always laugh at the MN 'magic chicken', but it is true that a chicken can make/contribute towards perhaps four meals for two. So, roast chicken day one (maybe get through one breast, one leg and the wings?). Chicken pasta or risotto the next day, using the rest of the meat (with perhaps a few scraps left for a chicken sarnie). Then make enough stock for two lots of soupy noodles, with just dried noodles and some cheap veg and flavourings bunged in. I agree with others, that at the moment you're buying a separate meat or fish item for nearly every meal - that really adds up.

Ok list made! Plan for week:

Today: had soup for lunch (already had this in the fridge).
Dinner: leftovers from yesterday. Cost £0.

Tomorrow:
Leftover chicken from Sunday and curried chickpeas (already have £0).
Leftover Chicken and rice stir fry. Will make the rice properly.

Weds:
Lunch: leftover stir fry
Dinner: mushroom risotto (already have the rice).

Thursday:
Lunch: leftover risotto
Dinner: the Jamie Oliver veggie chili someone posted with yoghurt and guacamole.

Friday:
Lunch: chili
Dinner: sea bass gnocchi.

So the Aldi list is:
Stir fry veg and sauce
Bananas
Red onion
Gnocchi
Red pepper
Onion
Spinach
Garlic
Avocado
Kidney beans
Greek yoghurt
Sweet potatoes
Mushrooms
Milk
Sea bass

Will report back on what it costs - need to stay away from chocolate eggs and Prosecco!!

Let single serve rice things be a thing of the past!

Life-changing tip: I lived in Korea for a while and my apartment, like pretty much every household in East/SE Asia came with an electric counter-top rice cooker.

I thought they were ridiculous gadgets, but I WAS SO WRONG.

One of the first things I did on returning to the UK was buy a simple rice cooker (about £35 online).

We eat rice quite a lot (old habits die hard), so I buy rice in bulk from an Asian supermarket and cook portions in the rice cooker. No mess, no faff, and portions of perfectly-cooked rice for literally pennies per person.

It sounds like effectively you're cooking dinner for 4 and it then makes dinner for 2 and leftover lunch for 2. That means you're having "expensive" meals for both lunch and dinner.

Rather than doing this, why not freeze half the meal for a dinner another night, and then eat something cheaper for lunch e.g. beans on toast, soup etc?

I don’t think you’re shopping bill is bad really, but one things that does stick out is that you have expensive lunches. I tend to have something like a sandwich, jacket potato, eggs on toast etc. The leftovers you eat for lunch could be frozen and used as tea another day.

Meal planning is good but can I also suggest being prepared to be a bit flexible once you get there and see what's on offer? Eg when carrots are on the cheap end bit in Aldi, have a think about what you could put them in and if it might work buy them instead of something more expensive (like a single pepper, which costs more than a kilo of carrots). You would be surprised at how well very thinly sliced carrots work in a stir fry.

This winter we have been eating a lot of random shite soupy stews, which feature random veg, some sort of tinned bean for protein, some sort of carb (rice, pearl barley, that scotch broth mix with lentils in) and occasionally dumplings on top (veggie suet and self raising flour). The main aim was to reduce trips to the supermarket since I've been working from home, but I think we've saved loads just by being flexible. Less to put in the dishwasher too.

I thought that this was going to be a thread about not being able to reach groceries on a high shelf and someone making you feel bad for asking for help.
As for your actual question, don't do what I've done and quit carbs. It doesn't help the budget at all.

I used to do what you're doing and eat "leftovers" (deliberately made double) for lunch the next day but i realised it was making the food bill more expensive as I was eating 2 full dinners a day and buying much more fish and meat than I really needed. I still do it some days for speed and convenience but I'm trying to add more soup, sandwich, eggs / beans on toast type things for lunch then either use the "leftovers" for dinner, freeze them, or cook less to start with!

I tend to shop fortnightly... the 2nd week is eating mainly meals we batch cooked and stored in freezer, I stored bread in freezer for 2nd week as well as buy tortilla wraps with longer dates, I also buy 'harder veg such as celeriac, butternut squash, swede to use during the 2nd week. I find these last longer and keep long enough.

Good luck with budgeting and making changes..

@Love51 I thought the same! Glad I’m not the only one who struggles 😅 Went to Lidl for the first time in ages recently and only got 1 pint of milk in the end because I couldn’t reach the 2 pints at the back of the top shelf and there was no one around to ask for help!

Planning to have leftovers is actually quite an expensive way of eating. Why not just cook what you need and have something else for lunch?

Soup, jacket potatoes, pasta bakes, beans/egg/cheese on toast, pasta with tomato sauce, fried rice etc. are all good options for a quick, cheap and filling lunch.

@Love51 I’m actually pretty short so also have that problem!

Thanks everyone - the point about the expensive lunches makes sense as well. Will try that next week and stock up on ‘lunch items’ like things on toast, soup etc.

The habit started when I was in the office as I have access to a microwave which is great for leftovers, but no toaster or option to do like a jacket potato. I don’t really like the processed meat for sandwiches either.

Again I’m going to sound like a right idiot, but in terms of freezing leftovers, do you have any tips? I find anything we freeze just goes in there to die and never gets used. How do you label stuff? And do you let it defrost the day before or microwave it?