Top up shops

[IsThisIt2021]

How is everyone else getting on with the price of top up shops? I’m spending almost £35 a week just on milk and bread. That’s before I add in topping up packed lunch stuff, any fruit / veg we need etc!

Its becoming unsustainable for us.

That’s a lot of milk and bread! How many for?

We do one top up for fruit and 1 loaf bread usually, sometimes milk. We only use about 6 litres though max and buy the filtered milk which lasts all week. Our top up is usually only £10 max (2 adults and 1 DC that is fed at nursery most of the week).

It’s for 5. Eldest DC has packed lunch for school, the other 2 DC have school lunch. We’re using an average of 4 pints of milk a day and not far off a full loaf. I’m not sure how we’re getting through so much bread!

How often do you shop and where?
Weve found its more efficient for us to shop twice a week than once... fruit and veg is fresh, not using the expensive co op except occasionally, not wasting food.

Where are you shopping? Even with that (insane) amount of milk and bread, it shouldn't be costing more than about £20. You must have other things in your basket or buying very expensive milk/bread (as well as consuming a lot of it!)

We don’t eat bread every day so that probably helps. I don’t have milk at all unless cooking, DH only uses a bit in coffees and on cereal. I have yoghurt and muesli on weekdays usually.

DD has toast when she eats here and sandwiches and she drinks milk but between us it’s only 2ish loaves a week and about 4litres milk.

Bloody berries are what do for us-DD loves strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Roll on summer as we have a small orchard of fruit trees and attempt some berries too. Then it’s much cheaper!

Way too much… our weekly food shop (done online) is delivered on a Saturday morning. I work in a supermarket Wednesday-Saturday. This week is a little different as we have just come back off holiday so no delivery but put all the meat we would need on last weeks shop and in the freezer. I spent £26 in Sainsburys yesterday on fruit, veg, bread and ham and today I spent £75 in Asda but some of that was expensive protein stuff for ds’s birthday and a cake. Tomorrow I know I need mushrooms and steak for tea so this weeks spends are crazy.
on a regular week I probably spend anywhere between £10-£40 on top ups. I’m actually trying to cut down spending so will be trying from the weekend to only buy essentials, I’m terrible for buying sweets and chocolate each day after work but it really adds up over the month

I've actually stopped buying cereal because we were getting through so much milk. I was buying 4 times 6 pints and now I'm down to 3 cartons.

My kids drink milk so that's why we get through so much. I can fully believe it's £35 a week on top ups!

I'm trying not to do any top ups and just making do with what we have.

You're either buying expensive versions of bread and milk, buying a lot more than you say, or you're buying other things as well.

But then, what will you eat/drink if you don't have the bread? That could be more expensive. Although you could try and reduce the amount of milk you drink, use UHT some of the time, and maybe have pasta or cous cous salads instead of sandwiches some of the time?

Where are you buying these things? You may be surprised, but unless you are going to Aldi or Lidl, the cheapest place for top ups might actually be M&S - their normal bread and milk and some veg is probably the cheapest available, they often have good reductions, and the relative expense of other things means you probably won't buy things you don't need. Although some of their fruit is expensive, so it might not work if you need to buy fruit, but compare the price of the sorts of things you buy.

How much are you spending on a main shop? If not much, and bread and milk are the main part of your diets (eg, could be you're having toast and sandwiches everyday, whereas someone else would have cereal and sandwiches, leftovers, salad), then maybe ok to consume so much. Otherwise, as others have said you're consuming an awful lot of both. Admittedly only two of us and we haven't got DC who might want to drink milk, but 4pts milk and a loaf of bread lasts us all week - DC takes lunch to work and I see at home.

For fruit and veg, really good idea to keep your eyes open for end of aisle fruit and veg offers. Not sure what you put in lunchboxes, but a slice of cheese is cheaper than an individual small portion, carrot sticks are a fairly cheap veggie snack, an apple on offer cheaper than a pot of blueberries, only buy crisps/cereal bars on offer. Just think what the cheapest option is for each type of thing you want to include.