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??

Exactly what I was thinking! Dogs must cost masses!

two adults here and 1 cat and spend around £650 per month and eat extremely well on that

Yeah it's all relative. You're chosing to spend (waste) a lot of money weekly that you could be putting into other things, like a bigger house, holidays, fun things. But you are making the choice that's right for you which is spending it in the supermarkets and not caring about what you've spent it on. There's no right and wrong, it's all choices.

It's only wasted if it's being thrown out.

@TargetPractice11 it was my mother in law turning up for dinner uninvited. I don't make her dinner anymore just say I don't have enough.. took a while for her to get the hint too. 🙈

I understand why you don't but clearly if you pay by card you COULD if you wanted to.

If you didn't want to add everything up just use one bank card solely for supermarket buys for a month, then you just need to take away the amount you have left from what you started with.
Or lots of bank accounts make it even simpler for you by summarising exactly where you've spent your money.

So yeah yabu not to know if you want to know. If you'd prefer carrying on in ignorance then fair enough!

It's not smugness from me, I just can't afford it
I wish I could walk into a supermarket and pick up the fruit and meat I wanted and not look at prices and get the branded stuff but I'm paying for everything alone on min wage

We mainly shop at Tesco because of location, so pay for the Clubcard Plus, £8, which means that twice a month we get 10% off the total bill.

With that in mind I save a lot of purchases for the CPlus weeks so anything that's non-perishable like toiletries, cleaning stuff, larder essentials are only bought then.

We do eat very well and I feel lucky that we can afford to do so. I can remember shopping with my mum as a child and watching her trying to add the cost up as she went round the shop because money was tight.
Perhaps because of that I don't want to waste money if I can help it.

Nail on the head. We could afford not to care about food costs, but why should we help line the pockets of supermarket bosses? They play games, so we play the same games. We do a rotation of Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury and shop three times every 2 weeks on a rotation. We also meal plan and make shopping lists. Our wastage is virtually zero, just a couple of slices of bread and maybe an inch of the milk carton, certainly nothing else. We buy branded stuff only when it's on offer which is nearly always in one of the three supermarkets, so we buy when we see it's on offer. We never run out of stuff so no need for expensive "top ups" in small local convenience stores nor garages. Our average weekly cost is £100 for 2 adults and that includes cleaning/household products, chocolate, etc., and that's mostly branded goods, not "own label" for washing powders, chocolate, crisps, tins and packets etc., and typically includes "finest" range rather than "budget" range for fresh meat and ready meals etc. Planning so that you have no waste is a massive saving!

I don't know exactly but I do know we spend £1K+ a month in supermarkets etc. A fair amount of that will be on wine/lager/toiletries/cleaning stuff etc. No sure exactly how much we spend on food specifically. I would guess at £800/month.

I do the same with Clubcard plus.
Two big full trolley shops a month and two weeks of either a smaller shop or just picking up the bits we really need (usually fruit, bread and milk)

Planning so that you have no waste is a massive saving!

I agree… we’re not as organised as you but since we started planning and being careful we can afford to eat far better quality food than when we were just shoving any old stuff in the trolley. We now get meat and veg from the farm shop, eat the brands that we enjoy etc and still spend less than we used to.

Yabu not to know ( and lucky to be able to not have to watch the pennies)
Food and groceries is one area of the household budget that can have a huge effect on the ovetall family budget.

Family of 4 here. Two adults and two older teens. I record my shopping on a spreadsheet. My spending this year so far averages out at £90 per week. I cook from scratch and that covers all meals. Teens take a packed lunch. Dh and I eat lunch at home.

Wheres the best places for deals on branded stuff, eg mayo, toilet roll, hot chocolate. ? Toothpaste .
As PP Tesco and Sainsbury's have changed their nectar/ club card ways to make you think it's cheaper. But I'm not sure Compared to other places.

No I don’t think many people do, must be nice to have the kind of life you don’t need to worry and brag about it. My 7 yr old DD had to put something back the other day as we couldn’t afford it in the weekly shop budget ( more expensive yoghurts) I felt awful.

Do you put some meat in the freezer?

I can tell if I look at my Monzo app. It is really useful for things like this. Apparently we’ve spent £258.11 so far this month.

Sometimes, not always. I tend to buy what we need for the week on a Saturday morning from the farm shop (I pop in while the kids are at swimming lessons). I only tend to freeze it if plans have changed and we eat out instead of having what we bought, for example.

Don't you look at how much you're paying at the till/ online basket ?

I wondered that. Seems strange not to check the receipt to make sure you've not been overcharged. I've many times had to point out offers/discounts that havn't been applied, or where the till price has differed from the pack/shelf marked price.

Sometimes of course. I was saying I frequent shops so often, that I blink and miss the amount sometimes, on self checkouts esp. Its auto pilot mode.

Hmm no it’s coming across less that she’s rich and more that she is revelling in being a bit dim. Perhaps that’s the look she’s going for but it’s not how an adult would normally operate.

I agree, it’s all coming across a bit dim.

Many people find it hard to keep track. Not dim, I just didn't care and now need to change habits.

@LaCouleurDeMonCiel where I know excatly what my household bills are / too much lol

But why won’t you add up? What’s stopping you from sitting down with banking app open and jotting down a month or twos worth of shops on a bit of paper. Will take less time than responding here?

Habits aren’t necessarily people being smug or tight. For me I want fun and frivolity so have no choice but to meal plan and shop around. We live near lots of little versions of the main shops, but no way would I live out of them as they’re overpriced. I get masses of tins/dried/toilet rolls etc from asda about once every month or two. Weekly Ocado as the minimum spend is low for me. The same day ocado comes I go to the market for fruit and veg. Ocado I get meat on multi buy offers and freeze. If towards the end of the week I need top ups of fruit and herbs I go to the little Waitrose if I can’t get to the market. That’s it. It’s not massively complicated and when people say they can’t be bothered, I wonder how they can be bothered to constantly go to the shop?

Meal planning doesn’t have to be that big of a deal especially if you freeze meat, have a microwave, and have a good stock of herbs and sauces etc. I also always have emergency micro rice and mash in the freezer etc. today I’ve got sausages out the freezer this morning, which I’ve put in with an onion cut side down in the oven, mash out the freezer is going in the microwave, and peas and Bisto. I’m not running to the shop and dawdling looking and thinking.

Yesterday we had vegetable fried rice with lots of eggs and a Thai salad on the side, used the coriander left from the day before chili con carne, and the leftover rice. I have all the condiments and cooking sauces for it.