Is this a silly amount of money for our food shop?

[lancsgirl85]

Sorry - I know there have been a few threads about food shop bills but I am just astounded by ours at the moment and wanted to see if we are overspending and where we could make savings. We already shop in the likes of Aldi, Tesco, and B&Ms. We are a family of 4 - 2 adults, a teen and a toddler - plus a cat. We are spending in the region of £130-150 per week (circa £600-700 per month). This doesn't include anything like eating out or luxuries/alcohol etc - just the essentials really.

Are we spending a lot? Or is this about average now costs have risen?

No real advice on reducing food bill, but in terms of toiletries and cleaning we have made some switches.

We now buy 6 bars of soap for showers at a time and they last us 6-7 weeks with two of us using them. We stopped using shower gels. We wash our hair less often too.

Roll on deodorants seem to last us longer than sprays.

We’ve reduced the different number of cleaning products down to a bottle of bleach, a method anti bacterial spray (you can buy large refill bottles) and washable cloths. We use Bold with added lenor washing powder and use a coffee scoop to measure it out (better for your clothes and machine and comes in cardboard box so more environmentally friendly)

This saves us quite a bit of money and space, instead of having plastic bottles everywhere for every different thing.

My shopping was creaping up and up for 2 adults 2 teens and 1 dog i have now started using gusto. 4 meals for 2 people £35 per week you can easily double up ingredients to make for 4 quite cheap. I spend around £45 per week in morrisons getting the extra ingredients and stuff for packed lunches. Sunday is always a roast dinner day and the teens usually eat at work weekends or with friends so me and DH will happily have a toastie or crusty cobs with meats and salads left from the packed lunch shop. Gusto has been amazing, i work full time so coming home and having everything ready to cook is fantastic. I'd highly recommend to anyone!!

I’ve just finalised my home shopping delivery for tomorrow.

no alcohol, hardly any meat -£126 for two adults and a teen.
it used to be £80-£90.

Look at b&m and Wilko for the hand wash, laundry stuff etc
You can order online from Wilko and I use fab finds too, and get cash back from Quidco
Here, £4 instead of £8 and if it's on offer and you use it, buy it and stock up. The stupid app won't let me post a link but lenor unstoppables Wilko on Google finds them for £4

https://www.wilko.com/unstoppables-scent-booster-fresh-264g/p/0488600?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxaWO-pjn9wIV1GDmCh3JqA9YEAQYAiABEgIQUDD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Ah ha here you go

Our weekly shopping bill seems to have gone up between 10 and 20% recently

There is no ‘right’ amount - it’s what you’re comfortable with and what you like to eat. If I feel I’m spending too much I try to be a bit more careful but I never compare with others - we all have different tastes and priorities.

It absolutely is. I’m on maternity leave at the moment and I’ve been very struck by how much easier it is to keep your budget down when you have plenty of time, as I do at the moment. Not just food, other things too. We spent so much more on virtually everything when I was working.

Convenience costs money I suppose!

Two easy savings here:
www.ethicalsuperstore.com/products/ecoegg/ecoegg-bamboo-reusable-kitchen-towels/

Instead of putting the used sheet of ‘kitchen roll’ in the bin, I put in in the washing machine and it goes through with the next load, and then into my tin, to be reused. It’s at least four years since I bought any kitchen roll.
Hard water area? Using soda crystals means I only need one cap of laundry liquid rather than two.

😂😂😂😂

Family of 6 - we spend about £100 a week, including formula but excluding nappies. But we buy supermarkets own for everything, only meat or fish on offer etc...

We also use our leftovers.

Mine came to £175 yesterday for 2 adults and 3 children. I did buy washing tablets and a big tub of vanish this week as they were on offer so that was £16 but every week it gets more and more expensive. I used to spend £80 a week pre covid now im lucky if its £120 and im not buying anything different just essentials, if anything im buying less meat and less treats.