Not enough money for groceries ?

[Cupcakejamlover]

Since having a baby i’m a stay at home mum so we are only relying on my husbands income which is getting a bit tough. (I dont even receive maternity pay). Because of our situation, Dh has set a monthly budget of £300 for groceries. This includes all food, drinks, desert, cleaning equipment, sanitary items, baby wipes etc. To give a little back story: its just me, my husband and 6 month old baby at home who is breastfed so only needs nappies and the odd item from the grocery store and minimal food as we are introducing solids now.
We have implemented this budget a few months ago however i fail to stick to it every single month… i always end up going £30-£40 above, and thats TRYING not to.. now i’m wondering is this an unreasonable amount for a couple with baby? Or am i just not planning/ budgeting correctly? Does anyone have any tips as to how to budget? We live near a large sainsburys so tend to do all our shopping there except meat/chicken.
How much do you spend if you are in similar circumstances?

Also the advised meat portion is of 70g of cooked meat. Your current portion sizes (according to your example) are of 62.5g of uncooked meat.
What a WILD difference! We’re not in communist Europe taking our scales out with us to ensure we’re not being portion diddled.

Don’t bother with all this sieving and faffing to make baby food, btw, who’s got that kind of time? Maybe the same people with the heaving cupboards of varied cleaning stuff.

Sainsburys is one of the most expensive supermarkets I've found. We easily spend £120 on a food shop that would be £80 or less elsewhere.

I second Aldi/Lidl/ASDA or doing an online shop with a strict meal plan. What are you binning?

We found we were toss so much veg it was untrue. Also can you get rid of any brands? Shopped exclusively Pampers nappies at the beginning, changed to own brand, halved the price and noticed no change in quality.

@junglejane66 read my post instead of just quoting it 🤷🏻‍♀️

[quote Cocomarine]@junglejane66 read my post instead of just quoting it 🤷🏻‍♀️[/quote]
Its a big leap though from 'here is our monthly budget' to financial abuse

I also think £300 a week for two adults, a household and nappies is very comfortable. You just need to understand costings and budget properly.

That's £75 and the average for two adults is £57 a week. That's £18 a week for nappies.

Right, expect that I didn’t say it was financial abuse @junglejane66 🙄

That was exactly my point - that there’s “big leap” as you put it from needing a budget to being financially abused - and my point is that we don’t know where the OP’s situation lies.

In my opinion, people in healthy relationships where the budget has simply been set too tight (it’s easy to add up what you spend on food and initially forget to allow for cleaning products) can resolve that within their relationship without posting on line.

And I’m not the only one who thought it aaa worth probing the wording of the husband setting the budget.

Read my post properly.

I would tell him to do the shopping 🤷🏻‍♀️

Theres a couple of faceboom groups- "feeding a family for a £1 a day" and "slow cooker recipes UK". Both have ideas for cheap meals that might help. Also try a couple of meat free days. Eg Lentil dahl or omlette and chips. And as pp said move to asda, aldi or lidl.

@Squiz81

Everyone is saying Sainsbury’s is expensive but I find the nectar points stack up very quickly - which you can use as money off your weekly shop. That offsets any saving I could get doing my shop at Asda.

really? @Squiz81 i have had my card for about 5 years, its also connected to ebay purchases and at most amounts to about £5 off my shopping bill, ok im not a heavy user of sainburies but as its the only supermarket in our high street it does get used regularly, i just dont think its worth it and besides that i understood that they had stopped doing the nectar points now

This recent thread might help:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food_and_recipes/4375746-What-would-you-do-with-40-for-a-2-week-shop
There’s also a link in it to another thread on what do you eat when you’re broke.
If you do get to week four and only have five pounds and a tin of sardines, you could post again and someone might do a meal plan for you.
I don’t know how reasonable it is because I don’t know how much goes on nappies and baby food.

Sainsburys is your problem for a start. On that budget you need to shop in Aldi.

I don't know how anyone affords Sainsburys and I say that as M&S and Aldi are my regular supermarkets I go to.

Is going back to work part time an option OP?

Sainsburys although good quality is not the cheapest supermarket. You would save more if you switched to Asda or Morrisons. And also bought cleaning stuff when its on offer. I think it should be enough with careful shopping.

Aldi nappies and wipes are great OP. I have had little Angels from Asda too.

It’s totally doable, you couldn’t go mad on it though

Maybe my standards are low but I spend hardly anything on cleaning products a month

We are a family of six and I could spend between 40-75 a week on my shopping. I dont think I clean enough maybe? I do wipe down more with micro fibre cloths with a dab of washing up liquid. I shop mainly at Lidl or Tesco.

But we do spend around 250 every few months at Costco for washing powder loo rolls and the like.

I think if you use branded washing power and posher loo roll then there is money to be saved in Costco. In fact I buy things like dettol and bleach there too. Lidl and Aldi all the way for nappies unless hou use biodegradable ones which unfortunately right now is a limited market.

It’s definitely doable.
We are a family of 5 (2 adults, 6yo, 5yo & 2yo), and I budget £85 a week. The only times I go over is if we have my parents over for dinner or I’m buying a lot of cleaning products in one go.
Key to it for me is weekly meal planning, writing my list according to the meal planner and don’t deviate from the list!!!

I'm single but I find that Morrisons is quite good value.

Sainsbury's is quite expensive. Could you perhaps shop at Lidl or Aldi? Even Asda is cheaper than Sainsbury's - I get all our shopping (2 adults, a cat, all our cleaning/laundry stuff, drinks, all for about £70 a week.

Possible but painful and absolutely essential you go to Aldi not sainsbos.

You will magically make back 25£per week if you go- cheapest option only (ie, nappies, rice, etc). Buy enough for the whole week (ie, if you think you get through 12 pints of milk don’t only buy 10 and try to make it last- you will just end up doing an expensive in-between shop- false economy). Absolutely only ever give baby bits of what you are eating anyway- no special weaning stuff required.

Sainsburys is a bit more expensive generally speaking not hugely so (it used to be) but yes still more expensive

Aldi and Lidl are the cheapest, Tesco and Asda in the middle

The other thing is that non food items tend to be more expensive in the supermarkets than they are in other shops. The supermarkets undercut other retailers on this when they 1st started selling them but then when they had pretty much put those other retailers out of business (the brands that were about then) they hiked the prices up

Wilko, home bargains, b&m and even semi Chem and similar are usually cheaper for non food items including food related items like foil. So it's good to shop around. Poundland and the other shops I mentioned are sometimes cheaper for food items too. Where I live there's also a green grocery stall near Tesco which is cheaper for basic fruit and veg like apples, carrots etc

I used to (health prevents just now) head into town on "shopping day" I knew the prices of these items in Tesco for comparison, and I'd start off in wilko etc and get what I needed and was available in those shops and then head to Tesco to complete my shop by getting the items that were cheaper there or that I'd been unable to get in the other shop

Always take a list!

Don't shop when hungry you buy up to 30% more than you do when you're not, depending which study you go by.

Are you buying items that your parents/grandparents would have considered "exotic/unusual" as these tend to be more expensive

Income wise how come you're getting no maternity payments of any kind are you sure you're not eligible? Are you claiming all you are eligible for AND associated help?

It's been a long time but when I had Dd there were milk tokens etc not sure what's available now

Have you and he sat and done an actual budget together? Do you know what your total household income is? What your other outgoings are?

Does he LET you know this stuff?

Must admit I'm getting a tad sceptical/annoyed by the number of threads posted by an op on a potentially controversial topic and then they never come back to the thread

@Cocomarine

I’m getting ⚠️ vibes from you saying that your husband set the budget. Why? It’s a joint budget. On what basis did he set it? What can you actually afford?

This could be:

• a low amount but all you can afford and yes, do-able
• a disgraceful example of financial abuse

Or quite a few things in between.

£300 is enough if it’s all you’ve got, it’s not enough if you can afford more.

yes i raised an eyebrow about "he has set" If you are genuinely finding it a problem then have you talked to him about where you are struggling and asked for his comments on where you might save?

Tell him you're struggling, give him a list of everything needed and get him to do it. If he can, then you can see how, and if he cant then he can see its not possible.

@Cocomarine

I’m getting ⚠️ vibes from you saying that your husband set the budget. Why? It’s a joint budget. On what basis did he set it? What can you actually afford?

This could be:

• a low amount but all you can afford and yes, do-able
• a disgraceful example of financial abuse

Or quite a few things in between.

£300 is enough if it’s all you’ve got, it’s not enough if you can afford more.

I'm totally with Cocomarine on this.

I think being a confident cook, or willing to cook makes a big difference.

E.g onion, garlic, basil, tinned tomatoes V's jar of pasta sauce.

Egg fried fried rice with left over chicken (or/and prawns) V's shop bought option - boiled rice is pence, an egg is pence, prawns not but a frozen bag is fairly good value and you use a few.

Vegetable fajitas with and avocado (mashed up), tomato salsa and sour cream Vs chicken fajita kit with bought dips and salsa.

Lentil moussaka - not lamb

potato and onion pie - just cheap and tasty

I can definitely eat well for less, but I've cooked for years.

I do this for a family of 4. Roughly £60 a week on food and then a little more in home bargains for cleaning/sanitary products etc. I meal plan so only buy what I need and go for cheapest brands. I don't find it a struggle really. It's what your used to I guess.