Shopping bills out of control

[Banana7]

Hi,

I can't seem to manage to bring my weekly shopping to under £100. There's 4 of us : 2 adults with reasonable appetites, a 7 years old and a 3 years old with little appetites but who like their snacks.

Just today, I bought (from Tesco) :
-mince beef
-2x tinned tomatoes
-2 x kidney beans
-soured cream
-2x bread loaves
-1 grapes punnet
-1x6 crisps pack
-1 pack of fruit juice lollies
-1 hummus pot
-1 breadsticks pack

That came to a total of £19!

I can't seem to pinpoint where I'm going awfully wrong because all of the above will be eaten, there won't be any food waste. I plan to do a chilli con carne with half the mince pack and freeze the rest for a bolognese next week.

I spend about that a day(either as a daily shop or combined as a bigger shop supposed to last us a few days) so that's almost £150 /week and that doesn't include cleaning stuff, alcohol, some of the kids treats, milk and toilet roll, that sort of things.

I don't understand how the average spend for a family of 4 per week is under £100.We don't even need nappies anymore!

Any enlightened thoughts?

You would be surprised how much you can save if you cut down on certain snacks and drinks. I try and only buy nutritional food out of the weekly food budget (so no crisps, chocolate, fizzy drinks etc). If those products are wanted they come out of disposable spending money.

Shopping will likely make you spend more money as you will impulse buy and have the mentality that you're always going back to replenish the cupboards. Shop 1-2 times a week and meal plan.

I also find shopping online helps as you can see how much you're spending when you place the order, and think about whether you really need the product. It's so easy to impulse buy when in the shop.

I also don't buy the same thing every week, I'll see what's on offer and switch accordingly.

Look at what you're buying and whether there are cheaper alternatives, whether that's own brand or changing to a slightly different product.

bulk buy - it's cheaper to buy bigger packs in the long run.

Frozen veg is cheaper than fresh and lasts longer too.

Look for coupons and any offers you can find. Hotukdeals is good

If you can, go to shops when they do their reductions and stock up on items that can be frozen.

Should say - shopping everyday will likely make you spend more money as you will impulse buy and have the mentality that you're always going back to replenish the cupboards. Shop 1-2 times a week and meal plan.

If you shop at Tesco you are paying more than you need to. Go to Aldi you may have to compromise on a few brands but you will definitely save money

We were out there too. $7-8 for a pack of chicken drumsticks that costs around £2 here.

A large proportion of your shop seems to be snacks. Can you look for cheaper alternatives?

I think unfortunately it is just inflation rearing it’s ugly head. Its absolute madness. Looking at my shopping bill and comparing it to a similar receipt from a year back some this have gone up by 60% in price

Look for offers. So don’t just pick up a pack of mince, look through the whole aisle. I shop online from sainsburys, and I skim the whole section before adding a product. So a different brand of mince was significantly cheaper, instead of a whole small chicken for £3.50, I bought the large chicken which was on offer for just £3.99. Cheaper than the medium chicken. But from that I will make a roast dinner, at least 4 chicken pies, hopefully will have some left for salad, and I will throw the carcas in the instant pot to make stock. You have a bigger family so a whole chicken may not go as far for you, although if you bulk out the roast dinner with a lot of veg etc then it might.

Look at non branded over branded. Sometimes it can be a false economy, but things like tinned tomatoes there is no need to buy branded as there is absolutely 0 difference.

Look at fresh vs frozen. Chicken breast fillets seem to have come up to the same price, but depending on what you’re using them for, a bag of just fillets is cheaper and if you’re going to cut them up anyway then it doesn’t matter they’re not whole breasts.

I actually looked at frozen carrots and there’s very little difference in the cost.

frozen fish is cheaper because you can buy it in bigger packs.

Similarly things like fish fingers, own brand is cheaper, and yesterday I did a comparison between sainsburys own and birds eye and not only were sainsburys own cheaper but they contained 62% fish vs 58% and only0.55g salt vs 0.98g.

Snacks are a killer. Buy them as a treat. By all means I would buy fruit, but e.g. cheese slices are expensive, buy a block of cheese and cut that up, don’t buy multi packs of crisps which aren’t going to last anyway.

Oh and buy a set of ice lolly molds on amazon and make your own lollies.

You still have to buy fruit juice to make them with, but if you’re buying that anyway then just use that.

We've started shopping at Lidl, which we never set foot in before out of laziness. So far, it's been good for things like mayo (79p), microwave rice packs (35p), olive spread (£1.09) and pesto (I think was 69p?) which add up more than you think.

Agree with others that M&S does have some good deals. Their salad tomato 6-pack is only 75p and always fresh. Lidl's was 79p and mushy.

We're doing a lot of partial downgrades on meals. So we'll still have the frozen quorn burgers but instead of using frozen chips for £1.30, we'll cut up two potatoes (45p for a 4 pack, obviously can get even cheaper if you shop around!), add garlic and rosemary and have our own chips.

I also have been limiting the fresh veg to maybe two or three items. Then we HAVE to use them, instead of buying enough for our own farmer's market and feeling guilty as it wastes away.

@Banana7 Broccoli, kale, dark leafy greens are all good sources of calcium. Also salmon.

My son can tolerate salmon, but really struggles with leafy greens. It's such a minefield trying to get him to eat a balanced diet. We're managing but it can be costly

We don't drink juice.

As I said in another post, I had to stop on my way back from work and the aisle for mince had been cleared. There was only one choice. I realise that's why it was more expensive, but sometimes you can't always go to the bigger shops and take your time to look at offers. I still think this shop should have been less expensive though.

The largest and most immediate savings are from cutting entire categories., with bonus health benefits too.

Soft drinks: no more fizzes or squashes or fruit juices, just drink plain tap water. Sssh! Let's not mention caffeine or alcohol. That's the next level.

Snacks: no one needs crisps or biscuits or chocolate or ice-cream, and definitively not on hand all day every day. Occasional treat only. Eat hearty meals, stop grazing in between.

Deli: fancy cheeses, charcuterie, olives, pates, dips, all the accompanying crackers, breadsticks, chutneys, relishes. Delicious, but a very expensive way to get nutrients. Just stop.

And so on, meat obviously, processed carbs, processed foods generally, caffeine, alcohol.

There are always reasons, a can't or won't, borne largely of habit and conditioning - but I suppose when the money is tight enough, the change will be forced anyway.

To me it seems better to cut a category entirely than to faff around switching to cheaper, inferior versions of things that are neither necessary nor beneficial for us anyway. Especially with the NHS unravelling. Safeguarding health so we're less likely to need medical intervention seems a wise choice these days.

@Banana7 Thought you'd be across it! Smoothies? I once had success with some really vile unlikely but nutritious combinations. Until the novelty wore off ...

We’re a one wage family of 5 (3 adults, 1 teen(ish) and one primary), my Asda shop for the next 8 days is £68.34. We buy bread, milk and fruit from Aldi which will be roughly £8.40 for 2 loafs, 2 litres of oat milk 6 kiwis, mango, bananas, Mayo and mini cucumbers which will do for the whole week (these items are bought over the week for freshness and are cheaper).

Total:£76.74

That’s for 3 meals a day, including packed lunches, and school snacks, we even got some “luxury” items of branded flapjack bars, juice pouches and sugar for baking this week.

Thats as much as I can afford so it’s not optional to spend more.

I do a meal plan by looking at everything we already have, this week it’s not much so I’ve topped up on more than I would usually, though this has balanced out by not needing any cleaning or toiletry products this week.

I then create a meal plan using what we have and ordering only the things we need to complete the recipe. I have bought 2x 600g bags of frozen beef mince with onions, I’ll half these and bulk with green lentils and they’ll do 4 dinners, this week with be shepherds pie, lasagne, chilli and spaghetti bolognese. I have frozen onions, 3 different veg to again bulk meals up. Just as an example.

@Banana7 Would your son have frozen yoghurt instead of the juice lollies? I buy the tube yoghurts and stick the whole lot in the freezer, it's almost like having a lolly/mini milk and I seem to have managed to con the kids into it being a treat

Bulk out the meals with the minced beef. Either finely chopped veg, red lentils, oats, breadcrumbs.

Red lentils cook down, oats needs extra water and veg just adds bulk. If you make chilli, fe, double the veg and beans and add a small amount of beef.

Any other meat options, chicken, sausages etc, chop them and mix into whatever you cook. That way everyone gets “lots” rather than “only” 1 sausage or “only” half a chicken breast/leg.

I just made a shredded taco chicken thing in the slow cooker. Chicken legs and shredded them and added double the beans and veg recommended. My slow cooker is full literally to the brim with it and it was only 4 chicken legs.

I'll freeze it portioned.

@Banana7
If your son will eat home made brownies, you can use a recipe that includes frozen chopped spinach.

We cook for what's cheap and available in Lidl. I think meal planning probably isn't enough any more.

I just feel like it is expensive to live right now. Absolutely everything has gone up. We’ve just given up booze for a while for health reasons but any money saved will be absorbed by the increase in everything else. Just ordered 1000l of heating oil and it was 941. Back in Feb it was half that

psy review Feb so bloody hoping get a cost of living increase but I very much doubt it!

It's the snacks though isn't it. I'm in my 50s we didn't have crisps, hummus etc. I know they are nice but unless they are a meal perhaps you could cut back on them?

Compared to years ago people just seem to snack all time and it all adds up (apart from not being told for you)

Completely agree! Prawns gone from £1.99 to £2.79 in a matter of moments!
Butter now £2 a pack instead of £1.42 so it's spread for us. If you buy say 30 items and the majority goes up by 50p it's insane!!

I think it's impossible to go lower than £100 for family of 4. In my house, food shopping for 2 is £70 and we don't drink and I don't include loo roll, washing powder etc. in it. Also we eat meat once a week, I don't really eat this much. It's really expensive.