Food shop price

[Chickencuddle]

Im trying to keep food shop down. There's 5 of us. 3 kids age 13. 11 and 7. They eat alot. I cook 90% from scratch and dont buy alcohol or many snacks and I cannot get our food shop below around £120 a week. This does include cat food and bits like toothpaste etc. But still.
How can I get it cheaper and is this a nirmal amount? What am I doing wrong.

I think Sainsburys over-price some of their stuff in order to make their Nectar deals look better. There's little point in going to Sainsburys if you don't have a Nectar card, you'll end up paying too much for all sorts of items.

Agree £120 isn’t extortionate but you could maybe get it down.

We are 2 adults and a baby on solids and we spend about £45 per week including nappies, toiletries and cleaning products.

We shop at Lidl, only eat meat twice per week (tomorrow I will roast a chicken and that will do two days of meals). We use the different types of beans a lot as a protein base for a meal. Cheap salad cheese is another good protein base for a meal. Eggs too.

We buy a lot of vegetables and use them all. We do have treats but fewer. Every meal is planned. It’s Saturday today and I know what I’m having for breakfast, lunch and dinner next Friday.

Batch cook quite a lot, particularly for lunches.

The only real exception to that Lidl shop is I probably pop out once a week and get a bottle of wine and four cans of Guinness for us, but obviously we could cut that out.

I don't think that is unreasonable at all. With a couple of teens that's almost 4 adults.

I think that’s normal at the moment sadly… family of 4 here (two teenagers) and we spend a similar amount. We shop at Aldi which helps, I could probably get it cheaper by buying less fresh fruit, more basic bread etc but it’s nice having some little treats. It’s gone up so much - the same shop cost £80 not long ago. It’s scary how expensive everything is - I’m desperately trying to get a better paid job to keep up (am on a low wage) but totally failing so far.

3.5 adults here (one is away a lot with work). We spend about £500 / month and shop mainly in Sainsbury's and Waitrose plus bakery and veg box delivery so not exactly economising!
This is for three meals a day most days, for three of us. But we don't eat meat which saves a lot of money.

I think that is a reasonable price. You could perhaps lower it by having a couple of extra meals that are bean/lentil/mushroom based as that is usually cheaper than meat.

To be honest @Chickencuddle if you are feeding five people breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week (noting the school lunches for one person), I think you need to tell the thread how you manage it. Most people can't, at least not in a balanced or tasty way.

We could all live on porridge, potato bake, bean stew, cabbage, carrots and cheap pasta, with eggy toast and beans for lunch but it would get tedious. There's a difference between filling tummies for subsistence and eating.

People often suggest growing food but believe me you get sick pretty quickly of apples, rhubarb and tomatoes and almost all other veg, except potatoes, is labour intensive. Spuds and rhubarb are most worth it, tomatoes cost (plants, fertiliser, love) and I wouldn't bother with fruit trees unless they are there already.

That's probably below average for your family size, based on what they used to say on Eat Well for Less which hasn't been on for a few years so obviously prices have risen since then.

Do you need to reduce the amount or is it just 'I think groceries should cost less than this'?

Either way, have you reviewed your whole budget to see if you can cut costs elsewhere, some people are spending far more than they need to on mobiles, broadband or subscriptions.

What's your whole budget like? Can you cover what you want and need to spend or are you struggling or in debt?

£50-£60 pw and thats just for me! A

There are only two of us and two dogs and including dog food I struggle get ours below £120 a week. You're doing well for 5 of you.

It's difficult to eat fresh healthy food on a budget.

4 adults here! £250 a week average. So you are doing well really.i think unless you forego all treats, fruits and so on you will not get it down much more .we included washing powder. Conditioner and loo rolls .all cleaning products. Our local town has a community fridge and our village hall some downpriced or free bakery products. Maybe something like that nearby.also pad out mince with oats and veg .sausages also go further chopped up in a casserole or toad .

We rotate between the big supermarkets and only buy packets/tins/household goods when they're on offer. Most of the big brands are on offer on a kind of rotating carousel between the big supermarkets, so as long as you're not desperate to buy having run out of something, you can get things a lot cheaper just by shopping around and waiting for the offers to come around again. I.e. washing powder, canned drinks, crisps, tinned food, etc.

We also look at the yellow stickers areas and buy/freeze things like meat, cheese, ready meals etc to defrost at a later date.

If you set up online shopping accounts with the big names, you can browse their websites to see what they've got on offer to prepare yourself with a shopping list before you go in store.

It also goes without saying to get and use store loyalty cards, such as Tesco Clubcard, Nectar, Morrisons, Asda rewards etc to get the deals which bring prices down to what they should be in the first place, i.e. without the rampant over-charging!

The big supermarkets and big brands are rip off merchants with stupidly high over-charging for things that aren't on offer that particular week - they're not "normal" prices, they're "mug-pricing", i.e. over-charging in the hope of getting lots of "mugs" who don't care about what they pay or are disorganised and get caught out having to pay more for things they need at that moment.

Play them at their own game!

Cost of Living board has many longer threads on this topic.
Take heart that you are doing well and not alone.

I spend probably around £180-200 a week - that's a couple of large shops and bits in between like milk, more fruit etc. Also 3 kids and 2 adults.

Sorry to say it will probably get worse as your kids get older - my son is 16 and eats like a horse. Makes his lunch for school but still spends around £50 a month on his school account.

I don't get these threads. How can anyone advise without knowing what you buy? 😅

Surely it depends what you're buying?

If you're buying organic sirloin steak and expensive branded granolas and organic oat milk.... It's going to be more expensive than minced beef, cornflakes and milk

I think that sounds about normal to me, if anything a little on the low side for a family of 5. I think you are doing well.

We can’t manage that as a family of 3 + 1 hungry cat. £160 for us. Sometimes more sometimes a little less. We do big shop at Sainsburys and top ups at waitrose or m&s.

That's a huge amount for 3 people

I'm fortunate not to have to budget too hard, but I always shop in Aldi. Very occasionally I shop in Asda, Tesco or Sainsbury's for a change and am horrified by how much more expensive it is. If you're trying to keep costs down, I don't see why you wouldn't be shopping in one of the budget supermarkets.

You are doing well

Yeah sorry I agree that’s pretty good. We do Tesco 3 adults, 1 child usually 130-160 per week. 2 of us do 4 nights meat free. I do cook from scratch, bulk out with lentils. Save leftovers. We will have a night of omelette or jacket potato or soup. Very few treat foods. All supermarket brands. On top of that I nipped to shop couple times a week and spend another £30ish

That's really cheap for a family of 5, we are spending £130 on the "big shop" then top 1 or 2 top ups, so another £10-20. So around £150 all in a week(including toiletries and cleaning products). We are a family of 4 (2a, 2 kids: 13 and 9 yo). Cook everything from scratch, and don't really have takeaways or eat out.

I think your spend sounds good going to be honest! But I meal plan around common ingredients so I'm buying less and there's less waste. I double up on cooking and freeze portions or use for lunches too, and have a smaller protein portion with more veg as it suits my appetite.

I've also started doing things like cooking a chicken or ham joint on Sunday afternoon and slicing for sandwiches, pasta, salads etc for lunch through the week.

I don't buy processed food for the most part, and keep a well stocked cupboard of staples, so my week to week shopping isn't that much.

Decent pet food has gone up a lot. £20-30 of that could easily be the cat’s food, more if it has to have specialist food.