Grocery bill getting out of control

[Gardencentrevoucher]

I've just had a major row with DH over the credit card bill. Its his card that I don't see the statements for and he is really bad at letting me know what the bills will be. The money comes out of a joint account and this is the third month in a row the bill has been way higher than I expected. Apart from a one off big purchase the entire bill was food shopping and petrol. DH does a weekly online shop at Asda and also drops into Aldi most weeks after his football practice. I need to somehow get the next bill much much lower without another huge row!

I've worked out we are spending £20 per day on food on average, or £5/person per day.

We're a family of 4 (2 adults/2 kids at primary school) and I just can't believe we need to spend that much on food. We don't drink alcohol or eat out often. It seems like a crazy amount of money for just normal family grocieries.

What is a reasonable amount per person per day or per week to budget for spending on food? Ideally I'd like it to be £10-£12 max to get the credit card back under control

£5 per person per day seems very cheap if that includes three meals a day, snacks and household items. I'd be pretty impressed by anyone who could get it below that without seriously compromising the nutritional value of their food. You could maybe bring it down a little more with some absolutely committed meal planning, by cutting out meat etc.

Also a family of four, and this sounds about right to me following the crazy price hikes this past year.

Thanks everyone. It sounds like I'm not alone at least with the cost of food rocketing up so much. The main problem (and the row) is because DH does the shopping using a credit card where he is the primary account holder so I don't see what is on the bills until 6 weeks later when a payment is taken from our joint account. At the moment he's not working so I'm paying for everything in the joint account and money is tight. I have asked him to meal plan but his idea of that is different to mine and hence the row about the huge food bills which we can't afford. I suppose I will have to take grocery shopping back onto my todo list if I want to try saving more money. And then cooking too as he won't cook from scratch the way I would if I had time. Ugh why is life so expensive these days. There is no fun anymore.

To answer some other questions, it includes all household basics like washing powder, toothpaste, includes kids snacks, but doesn't includes kids lunches as they get lunch provided at school. Before anyone asks, we are in Scotland where all primary children up to Primary 5 get lunch provided. So over the course of 7 days it is breakfast and dinner for 4 people every day but lunch only for adults and actually I often get my lunch at work so now I'm thinking about it would be lunch for 1 adult plus 4 people at the weekends. Which makes it sound a bit worse than before.

Breakfast isn't much just porridge, milk, maybe some toast and honey or jam. Some fruit but not every day. Dinner is things like spag bol, chicken curry, chicken and chips, pizza. I cook from scratch when I have time at the weekends but DH is at home more than me as I only get in from work around 6 or later.during the week

We spend on average £30 - £40 per day, which includes wine and pet food. That's for 4 adults.

We shop every day so just get what need with no food waste, and checking what we already have beforehand.

I don't know how you can be expected to reduce the bill if he does all the shopping and doesn't let you see the receipts!

Per day is just one of the metrics you should be looking at. Not all months are evenly spaced!
For effectively 4 adults, all meals, 10 month average is £550 per month for us. 5 month average is £635 per month and this month will be more.
Includes 2 X Hello Fresh boxes per month, 2 X organic veg box & kitty subscription to Untamed.
I cook most meals from scratch and now being older would prioritise healthy/tasty versus cheap.
Make homemade soups, bread.
We eat fish. Last two meals cooked were tagine (with halloumi side for DH & I, chicken for the DCs). HF is for when I commute into office and I want to eat something not made up on the fly and also ready before 9.00pm!

Im around £150 each week, give or take. I do a big shop in Aldi and use Tesco for bits I cant get in Aldi and top ups. This does not include Wine (buy separately), milk and juice (gets delivered) or Toiletries (god forbid my DD had to use supermarket brand). I used Sainsburys last week when DH was away, nearly died at the difference i spent! Dog food not included either.

I take back my previous statement that it's a standard bill, if you've one adult at home not working then I think you could get it lower as there's much more time available for cooking from scratch and traipsing around the supermarkets to get better deals. I have a Tesco delivery twice a week, but if I had loads of time on my hands I glcould got to Aldi, the market etc.
I'd be stopping this credit card bollox straight away, can it not just come out of the joint account so you've oversight if you're managing the finances?
I'd be having a serious sit down to say if he isn't working then he needs to pull his finger out a bit with the budgeting and cooking.

We were spending £250 per week for a family of 7, 2 cats and Sunday lunch for 20. Then we were moved from tax credits to universal credit and we cut the food shop right down. It's about £140 now.

My Lidl shop came to £143 last week for 3 adults. I did a double take at the receipt as I didn't think I'd bought anything extravagant! But everything has gone up massively. In fact, I think some things creep up every week. I'm not one for memorising prices, but I do know that a 2l bottle of Lidl fizzy water was 17p pre covid and is now selling at 39p.

I think cooking from scratch makes a huge difference. It works out much cheaper for us. But my DC are grown so I have more time.

At the moment he's not working

he won't cook from scratch the way I would if I had time. Ugh why is life so expensive these days. There is no fun anymore.

Hmm … I suspect part of the reason things are no fun is that your DH isn’t making food fun. Tbh I think your grocery expenditure is pretty low, but what you’re eating is drab - and doesn’t seem to involve a huge amount of fruit or vegetables.

If he’s at home a lot why isn’t he buying dried beans, pulses, good cheaper cuts of meat (if you must eat meat) and bags of flour in bulk, and involving the children in bread making, cake baking, slow cooking, rolling pastry for pies, pasties, sausage rolls? He could be making home made pasta with them - any leftovers could be pasta filling. If you’re really serious about economising, half your week’s meals should be dahl, casseroles, etc. Not ‘cheapest possible packets from Asda’.

Do you have a garden or any space for growing? He (the one at home because not working outside home) should be getting them to plant seeds and harvest whatever grows. It won’t necessarily save you money if it’s just a few tomatoes - but it would make food far more enjoyable for everyone than just quarrelling over grocery bills.

You need a re-set. There’s more to food than mindless supermarket shopping and your DH maybe isn’t really giving this his full attention and energy.

Can you ask your DH to send you the statement when it generates? If it's always on the 16th, he can have a reminder on his phone to forward it to you each month on the 18th.

This doesn't resolve the cost issue, but the surprise bill aspect.

If you don’t mind what you eat then download the Too Good To Go app. You can get a whole bag of food from supermarkets such as Aldi and Morrisons that needs eating asap for less than £4. You can see examples of what people received on the Too Good To Go Facebook page. This will save you so much on your food shopping.

Family of 4 but all adults. I rigorously meal plan and grow some of our fruit and veg and still spend somewhere between £140 to £150 a week. Oh but that does include feeding 4 cats as well. I don't think your bills sound that out of the ordinary.

Family of 2 adults 2 teens, and I average around £100 a week at the moment, which generally includes a few bottles of wine too! We eat really, really well.

I'm a good meal planner, a competent cook and we have no dietary restrictions or fussy eaters, and I think that's as low as I can go for the level of food that we want to eat. Obviously, I could go a lot cheaper if I wanted to cut out the wine and eat more basic meals (pasta and sauce/egg and chips/sausage mash and baked beans etc would be super cheap, but those aren't really the foods we enjoy).

I use the Cherrypick app (formerly Lollipop) for meal planning, but often sub things out for lower price alternatives (e.g grilling cheese instead of halloumi, salad cheese instead of feta, big bulk pack of chicken breast rather than several packs of 2 breasts, normal dried rice rather than microwave bags, a bag of spuds rather than ready prepared mash etc).

People need to remember that food & drink has gone up by 25% since January 2022, I doubt if many people's income has risen by a quarter.

In the previous 10 years, food went up by only 9%

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/costoflivinginsights/food#:~:text=The%20overall%20price%20of%20food,the%20year%20to%20December%202023

Sounds fine to me. We (2 adults/ 2 primary-aged kids) spend about 100-150 a week depending on what needs to be stocked up on, inc all toiletries/cat food/cat litter/cleaning products etc. Although not too long ago it was closer to 80!!

Does the credit card have a paper bill or can you log in online and see the online bill? If the former get it changed to paperless and if it is the latter then get the account sign in details so you can see what he is spending. It is coming out of the family pot so as the person bringing in the wage I would want to see that bill as it is happening not 6 weeks later.

We spend all in £500 a month for a family of 3 including household and cleaning stuff.

Shit is just expensive now. We could cut back but honestly life is so fucking miserable I would rather we at least ate decent food.

It sounds pretty standard to me, food prices are ridiculous. I've managed to save a lot by meal planning and not taking a card to the shop, just cash so I can't go over. This week is my skint week and my meal plan this week is..
Bacon and broccoli pasta bake with soft cheese and garlic bread. (This will do a meal for 4 for £5 in Aldi, got the recipe from Tik Tok.
Jacket potato with beans and cheese
Tuna and cheese on a bagel (grilled) with home made chips.
Chilli con carne
Pizza and salad
Fajitas
Chicken casserole.
Add porridge, yogurts, fruit and lunch items
you should be able to do this for around £50 In Aldi.

Sorry but it sounds like you are not very healthy? You say fruit 'not every day', and your dinners are not healthy. Your DH really needs to step up and learn to make healthy and cheap meals, it's not hard, there's so many online recipes and books.

I think the OP meant that they don’t have fruit for breakfast every day, @Rosesanddaisies1

But yes, it really is the OP’s husband who needs to be responsible for improving their quality of life through food. Taking responsibility away from him would be the wrong route to go down, I feel.

Family of five, 2 young autistic children - shopping around £180 a week:((

A few things I've done to cut my bills down.

1. When buying a chicken, quarter it, freeze the different parts and use as needed, I get 2-3 dinners out of one chicken this way. Freeze the spine for stock.
2. Prepare large quantities of home-made pasta sauces and freeze, I get about 4 dinners worth per batch. Nigella's anchovie pasta sauce is my go-to.
3. Stop buying cheap processed food. Your bills and health will be better off.
4. Invest more time into food prep, using fresh vegetables and meat, make as many meals from scratch and freeze/reuse any leftovers if you can.
5. SOUP! When we have a lot of roast veggies leftover they all get thrown into a pot with stock and have soup in place of a heavy dinner some nights.
6. Make bread. Flour and buttermilk are cheap and soda bread takes 5 minutes to prepare, can be frozen, and contains no sugar compared to white loafs from the shop. 2-3 loaves per 1kg of flour and 1L of buttermilk.

These are just a couple of examples, but mainly you need to invest more time into your meals. If you want quick and cheap, you'll pay more for it.

Genuine question, does being autistic affect what they eat? Are they particular on textures etc?