Has your weekly bill gone stratospheric ?

[ladybirdsarelovely33]

We are a family of four - 2 adults and 2 DC. Last week we paid £260
This does include household cleaning stuff but still....
Just shopping at Sainsbury's and a top up at the Co op.....

I never understand what people mean by 'cleaning stuff' for the house.

I buy cif and one spray which does for the kitchen and the bathroom.

No bleach or speclialised cleaners.

I'm shopping differently as most people are- previously I would have popped into lidl a few times a week and then topped up on things i can't get with a Sainsbury's or Tesco trip once every fortnight or so. I'm now doing one big shop - logistics and risk mean it is Sainsbury's but it is much expensive than Lidl across the board - you really notice it particullary on fruit, veg and meat.
Tesco CEO has said as a nation we are back to shopping how we did 10 years ago - which was before the rise of the aldi, lidl and shopping around. They must be happy!

The plus side is I'm spending a lot less of my week shopping so I might try and shop less going forward.

There aren't as many special offers 2 for £x, bogof etc in Tesco (the only supermarket we go to because as far as we're concerned they have got things down to a fine art, with single file queue first thing, one way system, pleasant staff giving people guidance etc).

I think it's to stop people doing too much browsing. I expect the conspiracy theorists will say it's them ripping us all off, but I don't think the prices have gone up massively.

@Blueblackrose same as us, we don't do any interim top up shops now, just 1 shop to last all week or sometimes even stretch it to 8 days. It's £200 every shop but then that's our lot. So we've found it quite a money saver. Might even try to keep it up when lockdown ends, as it also saves a lot of time!

The other thing I'm terrible for is impulse purchases, DH says I'm the marketeers dream. Try anything, me!

None of that now, it's just the basics not frills shopping. Saving the planet, what's not to like

There are 3 of us - one DC almost adult. I’ve gone from producing

6 evening meals (takeaway once a week) x 3 portions =18
2 weekend lunches X 3 portions = 6
5 weekday lunches x 1 portion (just for me) = 5

So, 29 portions a week. Plus 2 packets of biscuits. A loaf of bread and maybe bagels. A monthly purchase of tea and coffee.

Now, it’s gone up to
Breakfast x 21 portions
Lunch x 21 portions
Evening meals x 21 portions

63 portions!

Plus endless snacking, fruit eating, and fridge grazing (Grrr) and tea and coffee drinking.

I'm spending about £180 or so,more per week. Normal shop for just me is about £120, I now have my mother,sister and 3 others staying with me ,Ocado aren't doing offer so it's all a bit more.
We are all foodies so alot of cooking is happening here currently and we are occupying our time by eating,snacking and then eating some more!

Yes, we've gone from £350ish a month to almost £550 And there's only two adults and one toddler in the house! And animals but we buy their food separately.

We have switched to things like a milkman, meat from local butchers and some stuff from local farm shop, which has cost a lot more but we are really enjoying the food we are eating so I think we will definitely stick with at least the milkman and butcher once this is over.

We aren't spending anything on petrol or meals out so it's kind of balancing out I suppose.

I think the stratospheric rise is also that we're all at home the whole time, so the CV toilet roll stock is taking a hammering. Plus it's BLD 7d

@FortunesFave I'm guessing that also includes laundry pods, washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets, etc.

Ours has give mine up because we can’t get delivery slots and don’t have a car. Feeding 8 people from a corner shop is very expensive! We are slowly finding places to order from (local butcher who will deliver etc) but we are finding the costs higher.

Food prices in general seem to have gone up. My food bills have certainly increased.
Just the two of us at home furloughed, so we are making more meals [ usually both eat at work, so that is an extra cost ], so that adds up.

Yep I'm definitely buying more food. 5 of us here.

I buy my meat from our local butcher in big "bulk buy" packs once a month and freeze it and that's stayed the same, about £100. Usually my weekly shop at Aldi for everything else is about £70. Last night I spent £120 but I did get a bit of meat just for a change because I seem to be making the same meals all the time.

In our case I think it's just because we're in the house more so eating more. Typically we would eat out once a week or get a take away and the kids would get lunch at school/nursery.

I have definitely noticed less offers when I've been to Asda, I wondered if that's to stop people over buying or stock piling

I'm not sure.....I used to spend about £100 a week at Ocado but on top of that there would be about £40 on basket shops plus lunches that DH and I bought at work, school dinners did DC on some days and a few £ to childminder / ASC specifically for food.

Now I'm spending £220 a week at Ocado but that's it. That also includes things I might not have bought there previously such as printer paper.

Overall I think I'm spending about the same even though the weekly bill has more than doubled. It would be less if I reflected the fact we always used to eat out once a week.

Yes, I buy the same things every week (online and top up in supermarkets). As an example, I buy Asda’s own version of Ready Brek. It has been £1.26 for ages. Suddenly went up to £1.52 a few weeks ago. Lots of things have risen sharply in price.

Although our weekly bill seems very high I’m not so sure that we are at spending more . I’m only shopping once a week now for 3 adults and the shop is everything, including booze and food bank donations.

Normally we would do a weekly shop , plus numerous extras during the week between us for treats , snacks , bottles of wine , coffees and cakes when out ( me ) , picking up bits in the garage etc ...

When I’m utterly bored 😐 I might analyse the bank statement and do a comparison with this time last year ......

I’m in Aust and definitely some stuff has gone up in the grocery bill, but some definitely hasn’t. One thing though because we’re all home is the usual home made salad that we’d take to work/school for lunch is kind of unappealing ... now someone has to cook hamburgers for lunch ... and then make brownies ... or scones ... let’s not get started on alcohol which seemed to have turned into a need not a want. So spending more on groceries but nothing really on takeaway, so swings and roundabouts and not a huge difference in the end.

We ow have adult dd with us for lockdown and what a difference that's made to food bill! We are probably spending £200 a week...one big shop and 2 small top ups. That includes alcohol and toiletries.
We would normally eat out twice a week so it all balances out I suppose.
We are eating really well....we are veggie and I'm making one new dish a week to make it more exciting.

DH has noticed I used to pay, in the olden days before CV, with my credit card for all shopping and paid off in full each month

Due to the way our bank accounts are set up, he doesn't want us to use the CCard anymore (unless it's for online stuff) so we're using the joint debit card.
That means he knows to the penny how much we've spent.
It's actually about 15% less
BUT there's no clothing, no "Ooh, that's a pretty mug" type purchases as he's fucking tethered to me and sees everything that I buy. Nothing nice can fall into the trolley. It's food and essentials only.
If this goes on for a few more months, I think there may be a patio in need of some maintenance.

Yours has gone up but we are all eating at home for every meal, we are buying more snacks and alcohol as we aren't going out and I am buying more cleaning products as cleaners would have used their own. But I've also noticed there are less offers In the shops and prices are increasing. We've never been a family that can shop for less than £130 a week (on a good week) but I am saving loads due to reduced petrol usage no cleaners no dog walkers etc i am expecting my electricity bill to rocket though

Same here. Normally £ 80/90 per week for 2 adults plus dog, now our daughter is back living with us and we're spending c. £180 per week. To be fair, in normal times we would often eat out once per week for dinner, once for lunch on a Saturday and then brunch on Sunday, so it probably (hopefully) balances out.

Whether it matters is down to how Covid has impacted you financially. If you’re still employed and haven’t taken a financial hit, then you can’t spend money on eating out or takeaway coffees etc, so even if you are spending more, you’re probably saving overall.

You need to factor in what your saving not eating out or takeaways.

Overall it's less as I spend almost £50 a week on school dinners. Lunch at home costs nothing near that, even for 3 hungry teens
We are eating more but snacking less. Bigger meals, less in between