Monthly shopping bills

[purplebows]

DC2 is due very soon so I'm having a good look at the finances. This month I've started tracking what I'm spending and where and it got me wondering - what do other families spend per month? Inc groceries, toiletries, cleaning products etc?
Any top tips for surviving on low spends welcome!!

This is asked really, really regularly on MN.
It varies MASSIVELY due to:
income
tastes
numbers of children
pets
if dc in nappies
if you include alcohol
if you factor in that some people's dc have school dinners and others don't, that some adults take packed lunches and others don't, but then don't factor in their lunch bills
if you live near an Aldi
if you are vegetarian
if you are willing to eat non-organic / non-free range / non-freetrade / battery farmed goods
if you are willing to try non branded goods
if you 'couldn't possibly not have a full 3 course cooked meal every night
and probably several other things I've forgotten.

Then you'll get posters who can't believe someone can spend £180 on their weekly shop and others that refuse to believe another family can spend £40 on their weekly shop.

Maybe I'm on here too much!

If you scroll down a couple of pages of credit crunch you'll find loads of answers.

We are a family of 2 adults 1 child 1 dog and 1 cat. I do a weekly asda shop online for around £60 per week for everything inc pet food, toiletries etc. I probably spend another £10 per week picking up bread and milk etc.

We are a family of two adults who eat meat only 3 times a week. Two children, one is vegetarian, neither are in school dinners. The shop includes one bottle of wine and any cleaning products we need.

I do it online and it’s around £55 a week plus £7 for milkman.

Oh god, we’re one of the families spending £180 a week on food. Two adults three kids aged 6,4 and 6 months. Enormous amounts of fruit consumed by me and the eldest two kids.. accounts for about £30 a week. We shop at Waitrose. Luckily we can afford it

I have just increased my monthly budget by €50 to €750. For DH, DD(12) and I.

Includes all cleaning materials, food, alcohol, toiletries, and also money I spend on food for the office (M&S near work for apples, mandarins, milk and occasional lunch, and usually a few bits for home end up in the basket).

In our case, we eat a lot of fruit and veg and seafood and I'm fussy-ish about meat (so not the cheapest but organic or decent welfare standard).
DH and DD will only drink organic milk (they both drink a lot of it and DH has always been fussy about milk anyway) - but the Lidl or Tesco or Supervalu own brand versions are fine for them.

DD always wants hot food for school lunch (pasta, fish fingers, chicken goujons, sausage rolls etc) and she makes herself a snack when she gets in from work so I need to leave things she can work with (pot noodle type snacks, bagels and fillings, tuna pots and crackers, soup....).

But we try to cook from scratch as much as possible and I tend to bake a fair amount of our treat foods.
We also travel a good bit, so I want to take food with me that will travel and is reasonably healthy on work trips (DH not so much), and DD needs healthy but filling snacks for her trips (sports) and we all need stuff that will keep us going in the car on long journeys. So those types of convenience packs are more expensive (some things we can package up at home - but some things we do get the convenience way).

In summer, we can supplement veg from the garden into the kitchen as well which helps reduce costs.

I do think food has gone up though recently. A lot.

2 adjutant & a 10yr old. Spend between £110-130 a week at ALDI/Lidl so get lots of fresh food/meat/toiletries/cleaning products etc but no alcohol tho. We do over-indulge a bit as but lots of fruit

We are a family off 3 atm. Me, OH and DD1 (2 years old) we spend around £30-£60 a week on food shops, cleaning products and tolitries. I do an online shop at asda for collection so i can see exactly how much we are spending, i will remove items from trolly and replace with cheaper if i can or an alternitave. This includes fruit and things for OH and DD as i don't eat fruit. I will buy things when on offer to make another weeks shop cheaper. We do have a dog but we pay £6 every 2 to 3 months on dog food for a big bag from the feed warehouse. I try get the things we need as cheap as possible. We do sometimes have to top milk up through out the week though and may buy other bits x

There was an article recently about a young woman of 17 who had to take over the housekeeping while her mum was being treated for cancer and got the shopping bill for quite a big family down to under £20 a week

I couldn't work out how she'd managed it but then I realised she was 17 and had no preconceptions about where things should come from so was using muscle food for meat and the market for veg, Asian supermarkets for rice/noodles/spices. None of that is rocket science but most people go to one supermarket and get everything from there regardless of cost.

You could do the same. Work out what your staple starch is, where its cheapest & can you source it locally. Then meat, grocery items, cleaning supplies etc.

If you look on moneysaving expert they have loads of ideas. The biggest savings to be had are often on grocery items and cleaning supplies. Aldi cleaning products are all leaping bunny approved and good housekeeping institute approved. Most are under a pound compared to nearly £3 for branded stuff.

If you set up an account at mysupermarket they have a price watch facility, if your favourite brand is reduced they send you an email. I use it for dhs preferred mayo. Brands I can get away with swapping without him noticing like squash I decant & he is yet to notice.

Don't forget stores like poundstretcher, home bargains and b&m do grocery items too. I stock up on dolmio pasta sauces, always £1, and tilda rice. £1 a bag, its nearly £4 in the supermarkets.

I shop at Lidl, you can definitely save money by switching to their brands and eating whatever they sell and forgetting whatever they don’t sell. For 2 adults and 2 children we spend about £80 per week. I did have a stockpile of toiletries and cleaning materials but I’ve switched to Formil washing powders and liquids from Persil and not noticed any lesser quality. I didn’t like their dishwasher tablets but everything else has been very good, sometimes an improvement. Good luck

£140 per week on a family of 2 adults, 2 children & a cat that only eats Sheba!

I find that I spend around £130 the first shop after payday and then around £60 a week after that.

And then I pop into Sainsbury's/Waitrose for bread and milk and fruit during the week and leave £20 lighter