No idea how much spent on Food

[Aquarius1234]

AIBU to have no idea how much on average I spend on food per week/ month.

Eeeeek anyone else??

Yes maybe it's a mental thing with the regular shopping. Who knows.
Would like the wasted cash to be spent on nicer things! Or little savings

Just bloody add it up please OP. Put us all out of our misery!

What on earth are buying if you are really spending £700 on 2 adults and 3 dogs.

I spend roughly £750 a month on food/household a month for 3 adults, 16 and 15 year old. And we eat a wide variety of foods. This probably about 95% of all food, we may have a takeaway once a month and eldest child may buy a lunch if at Uni or work depending on timings.

Nope not like you. I have a rough budget and stick to it. Dh was like you and did lots of little shops. When I worked out how much he was spending he was shocked. From then on we talk about the next weeks meals with the kids and I write the list, he then does the online shop. Online its easy to see the total and he then decides if something is necessary or not. we are a family of 5.

Live your life however you want.

I'm no longer sure why you posted @Aquarius1234?
Was it essentially to find folk with exactly the same approach as you?

Obviously and to see if going less helps a lot! We all run out of stuff. And going without isn't an option I like.
Also everyone has stuff they enjoy , that of course they could halt.

I assume you still buy nice quality food, just look for deals more?
And avoid local shops and buying chocolate etc

You wanted people to tell you if going to the shops less frequently would save you money? That's common sense surely?

I'm guessing your DH doesn't miss the lots of little shops now?

If you want to make changes you are going to have to start doing what I already suggested above:
Get receipts, study receipts, work out if you can make changes, make changes, hopefully save money.
It might be overwhelming if you're not used to it so start small - commiting to getting receipts is the initial step. Maybe also having a long term goal for the saved money would motivate you too. Forgive yourself for blips if you're moving overall in the right direction. Can your partner get on board too?

I buy nice quality food, chocolate, if there's deals great but no I don't hunt them down. I just budget what I think is reasonable to feed us per week, and generally stay within that. If I was flippantly spending daily and not checking the price it wouldn't make financial sense to me, and I would probably be spending double what I do now just for the sake of it.

We have a strict food and household stuff (cleaning, laundry, loo roll etc) weekly budget limit of £180 per week, family of 4.

we do one main online supermarket shop, so we can see exactly what we’re spending and it lets you see clearly how much certain prices are going up for things and how much cheaper supermarket own brand products are etc.

plus we do a veg box delivery, so again it’s all easy to track the spending here.
then we might do one or two small top up shops during the week.

takeaways are an irregular treat and meals out just a few times per year.

but if we didn’t budget strictly and track all of our spending, then we wouldn’t have cash in the bank and we wouldn’t be going on nice holidays abroad every summer…

So have uou added up the last 2 months @Aquarius1234

I’m not sure OP, partly because I tend to do at least a couple of top up shops weekly too. Also I switch between Tesco & Asda, although it’s mainly Tesco. I know we waste a lot of food so I’m trying to change my buying habits to avoid that. I write a meals list for the next week on a Friday & that sometimes helps to stick to a budget.

3 adults (2 large men with physical jobs and who do weight training) plus a cat and we are about £170 a week. I'm also on a lowish carb diet for blood sugar control. All meals are taken from shopping e.g. Packed lunches etc.

I'm lucky to not have too strict a budget but I also prioritise decent food over entertainment/hobbies/holidays.

Also spend maybe on average another hundred a month on specific things bought online/costco.

Rary have takeaway and occasionally eat out.

I grew up in poverty with my parents worried about every penny and I'd love my mum to be alive and able to put things in her trolly without thinking about it which I mostly can do but in practice, I like a good bargain and I can cook so that helps money go further.

I think it’s unusual not to have any idea at all. I do the majority of shopping, two adults and 2 cats and 95% shop at Aldi. £70 is a typical week, anything over £90 an expensive week. Only go over £100 at Christmas etc. This included everything, we only ever go to another shop for Ariel and Sure deodorant.

Oh, I stopped looking, family of five (four adult sized) and I know the answer is a bloody huge amount and climbing.

But we need food, I get food, we have money in the account for food - and this admittedly rather soft focus lens on the figures is a comfortable ignorance I'm sticking with.

I think we're a bit like you OP - before COVID I would have done a main shop once a week and only occasionally had to top up, now I seem to be in a supermarket or Spar at least once a day (three times yesterday!!) and it does make it much more difficult to keep track of the overall spend.

For two adults and two older teens I'm guessing we spend at least £800 a month, maybe more, and although we can afford it month to month, I'm uncomfortably aware that we don't have much by way of savings for our age and stage. One difficulty is an ASD teen with food issues which means you can't easily substitute brands to take advantage of offers, and their OCD means that they drink a lot of individual bottled drinks because they can't cope with pouring from an already opened bottle or when it's really bad, even using a glass from the cupboard that other people have used. I cringe at the plastic in our recycling sometimes, but they can't help it, it's that or they stop drinking altogether.

This thread has given me a shunt to look at the credit card bill and see if I can get more of a handle on it though, university costs are looming so we could do with making some savings!

Even if you're wealthy why would you want to line Tesco's pockets unnecessarily, hasn't their top bod just been paid £10m?

It all sounds a bit, oh look at me I'm so free spirited, not like you bores with your meal plans and spreadsheets.

Nope, its probably in the hundreds per week. 90% food of a variety of ways/shops on bank statement last month.

Well if you don't do a big shop buy more small shops here and there plus takeaways , eating out then it's difficult to know. We do a big shop a week (around £130) a top up shop mid week (around £20) and very rarely a takeaway or drive thru, maybe once every couple of months so I have a really good idea of how much we spend.

If you want to reduce how much you spend then pay attention to what you're spending it's that simple. If you don't then yanbu to not pay attention

So true, imagine for example weekly takeaway and if going to a restaurant once a week or fortnight, it doubles.

That’s my view too! We have a high income and technically don’t need to budget, but I’d rather not spend a massive amount on groceries! We eat well, meat from a butcher, veg from a farm shop etc, but there are certainly better ways to use my spare cash than line the pockets of Tesco’s CEO. I prefer to keep a track of my spending, stick to a loose budget and then have more for savings and interesting stuff!

YANBU if you're lucky enough to be able to just go shopping and pick up what you want, that's brilliant. I used to be like that. Things are tougher now, so I know exactly how much I spend.