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?

500g does me 5 portions of chilli or cottage pie
But I add veg, black beans to the chilli, have extra veg with it, the potato on the cottage pie and cheese on top so it's less about the meat

Don't ask how but every time I batch cook I get 5 portions, no matter what it is. Some bizarre talent!

500g pack of mince
punnet of chestnut mushrooms
2 large pointed red peppers
leeks or red onions (sometimes)
jar of bolognese sauce.

Makes 10 individual portions, so 2 meals for 4-5 people, or 3 meals for 3. I freeze in various portion sizes for easy comfort food. Serve with wholewheat pasta, or chopped potatoes reheated in butter and rosemary. Optional cheese on top. I sometimes add lentils, red or green, to make larger quantity.

I often see these kind of threads and wonder what “cleaning products” people are throwing their money away on. I buy washing powder, dishwasher tablets, fairy liquid (yes fairy as it does work out more economical) and bleach.

I don’t have fancy worktop cleaners, bathroom cleaners etc. Fairy liquid covers it all.

Mrs bloody Hinch and her ilk have a lot to answer for, especially with younger people who think they need to buy all the “smells” these people are paid big money to promote. If they weren’t paid to promote these things, they wouldn’t use them!

Nothing much but I have
Bleach
Washing powder
Washing up liquid
Limescale remover
Stainless steel specialist stuff
Laundry sanitiser (needed for my gym stuff to get the sweat smell out!)
Daily shower spray (stops me having to clean it often and lasts ages)
Glass/window/mirror spray
Carpet cleaner (cat likes to be sick)
Toilet rolls
Kitchen roll for window cleaning

I have stuff I won't replace once it's run out but that's my general cleaning stuff

Wish 30 bags of crisp lasted a month in my house!

I'm a family of 4 - kids 5 and 8 and I can get it under £100 relatively easily. Kids eat at school so no school packed lunches. We do Simply Cook which to be fair adds £9.99 but the ingredients needed for the meals always tend to be cheaper cuts of meat (chicken thighs for example) , similar things in each recipe and meal planning means no excess. I rarely buy branded and rarely buy booze. We're not a big snacking family so can usually stick to main meals only with a bit of fruit, cereal/choc bars/crisps shoved in but all Aldi/Lidl own brands. I do have a cat so that would sometimes take it above as cat food isn't cheap.

@Heatherbell1978 it’s not too bad when you’re feeding children with child size appetites, but when they head towards their teens, especially boys, they’re like bottomless pits!
We’re not too bad financially amd on,y have 1 adult child left at home, but he’s a very regular gym goer with an appetite to match! He has 2 full evening meals on gym days, which is 5 or 6 out of 7,and it’s protein all the way!

Go to aldi!
Bulk out meals with extra veg / pulses
Freeze an extra portion for the freezer
I tend to pick up stuff reduced and pop it in the freezer and then meal plan from that

We all live in different settings, but I've recently done some social media research into my wider area. I found numerous places/shops (within v.easy reach) where I can purchase relatively cheaper shopping, often without a reduction in quality. For example, one of my recent finds was a batch cookers paradise; a 1.99 massive box of amazing cherry tomatoes that I was able to split three ways with family. We use a lot of tomatoes in our cooking, so this was a wise purchase! They also will have deals on branded food too (with a good 'best before' date for those wondering lol).

I'd never have known these places existed if it weren't for the lockdowns and trying to find reputable, non-supermarket, shops. Found that we also live close to a dairy farm (we are in a small 'undesirable' SE town outside of London, for reference).

So, my advice is to really look around for what's available beyond the supermarkets. Look on social media, Google, ask your neighbours, etc. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Genuinely not going for mumsnet.com chicken award but I get about 6 meals from 500g of lean beef mince. Usually half in a chilli and half bolognaise sauce. But a lot of vegetables added. Not sure if its any cheaper.
I think using curry powder rather than jars of sauce is cheaper,and healthier. So one butternut squash, with chickpeas etc makes for several cheap meals.