Sick to death of grocery costs (1k/ month)

[Icannotbudget]

Our grocery bill has slowly increased and is now around 1k per month. This is for two adults, two very active teenage boys, and two dogs. This includes everything you would get from a supermarket eg personal care and laundry/ cleaning stuff.
Both kids are neurodivergent one in particular is very fussy and would rather go hungry than eat ‘cheap’ food. The older one just seems to need constant protein.
I am vege and pretty unfussy but don’t like freezer food. No alcohol and i shop at Aldi as much as poss but do use other supermarkets too.
DH works long hours and Ive just gone back full time and really struggling its impossible to cook from scratch every night.
Not sure if I want sympathy or strategies to be honest, its crippling me and im feeling really down.

It hasn't.

I do the shopping for a scout camp and spreadsheet everything I buy each year.

A lot of things have gone up in price since last year. But supermarkets HAVE genuinely held prices on a lot of basics too. Some items have gone DOWN in price too.

Its interesting to which items have gone up, gone down or stayed the same.

Tesco have 26% market share. Fag packet maths 67million people in the UK so approx 17m customers.

So the boss of Tesco earned a 59p bonus per customer per year ~ 5p per month. Not sure that’s exploitation.

It is mental. I have always done a full shop in Sainsbury’s without blinking an eye. In this last year it’s got so stupid. And having to whisper to a neighbouring customer to borrow their nectar card to get normal prices (when a pop in for milk escalates to a half shop) has made me decide enough enough.

We are seriously shopping around now. Investigating shops I probably would never have stepped in if I’m honest.

Today got a GIANT branded demestos bottle of bleach and 2 litres Robinson from home bargains for a £ each.

We now go to ethnic mini marts for quite a lot. The Indian one has incredible veg. So much better quality and cheap! We have a polish one which is quite fun as it’s literally in polish 🤣 That has amazing fruit, fresh bread and the works largest collection of jams, cheese and deli meats.

I buy plenty of fruits and yoghurts, fruit juice and bread, they will only accept lutpack butter! (Lurpack)?

I'm sorry but that is ridiculous.

You're allowing two teenagers to dictate which brand of butter you buy?

I do get how growing teens eat loads but it comes over as if they are controlling your choices a bit.

Fruit juice isn't especially healthy- it's been known for years that it's basically just sugar, as it's concentrated pulp mixed with water and bad for the teeth.

They'd be better off eating an orange.
And you'd save a lot of money.

Ditto if you are buying fruited yoghurts- buy plain and add your own fruit (frozen mixed berries are cheaper than fresh.)

Mine are about£500 + a month for 2 adults and 6 year old, can't get it down

LOOOOOL! I don't know OP's sons and their capabilities as not all ND experience is the same but I have an ND DH so I think I can comfortably say that it might not be as simple as the boys cooking for the family regardless of their age.

Cooking is one of their areas that DH really struggles with due to his ND. Intellectually he has no trouble reading etc but he can only just about manage to follow a very simple recipe and often misses steps or get's confused about terminology unless it's very, very literal.

DH cooks for us once or twice a month and to do this the kitchen has to be stripped of everything from the worktop that isn't required for the dish, he has to write a step by step list of everything he has to do in his own terms otherwise he can spend ages trying to work out the meanings of the terms in recipes, he has to prepare all the ingredients in advance i.e. no chopping veg whist frying off an onion, everything is done in a linear fashion, he has to have absolutely no distractions and it will take as long as it takes (normally at least double what the recipe says). This really isn't sustainable for busy weeknights which is why, when he lived alone, he lived off things like pizza that require no prep and don't have ambiguous instructions.

Ours went up and up and with family of 5 and two cats we noticed - and DD1 leaving of uni made little impact - but past few months it has stabilised

We have had to make changes and make more use of freezers - online shop more and avoid popping into Tesco metro - but I can't afford to spend 1K a month on food so have spent last 2 years finding ways to keep food and grocery budget within what we can afford.

I do agree I'm been the main and often sole male planner and cooker and last few years have been hard especially as unlike tough years with younger kids and limited money- they are much fussier and harder to cater for.

Blimey, what brand are you feeding them? Or are they Great Danes? 😄And are they on wet food? That's expensive compared to kibble.
I have three dogs (all medium/large breeds), 2 wheat intolerant, so I feed them all the same for ease. I used to buy Skinners kibble but when that shot up in price moved to Pets At Home own brand Step Up To Naturals kibble, very similar in composition to Skinners - they do two wheat/gluten free flavours and I can feed mine for about £30 a month. They do a canned option too.

It is when they have drastically increased food pricing citing increased costs and yet they have record profits:

You have to be joking? We're meat-eaters, and I buy organic and often from local sources like farm shops in and area of the country that is not cheap, and our whole family shop including laundry items etc. comes to less than this weekly.

Genuinely curious what you are buying for the cost to be this much for one person per week? Do you have a lot of food waste? Lots of ready meals? Takeaways?

In genuinely baffled by this!

Never understood why people buy Lurpak when it's much more expensive than regular butter and less good (as mixed with oil) but there we go!

And I really cannot understand letting your kids impose expensive choices on you. What next, they will only wear Prada shoes or go barefoot? You pay, you decide.

OP if you have children with special requirements when it comes to food it is so hard and I feel for you. But everyone else can eat veggie or at least mostly veggie and that will save you loads. Lentils and chickpeas are the base of so many tasty batch-able things and full of protein.

Are there any Indian supermarkets near you- they are amazing for oils, lentils, rice, herbs, spices etc at massively reduced costs vs the supermarkets.

Op we are a family of 6 2 adults and 4 children under 10 and 2 dogs....we spend the same 250 a week!!
This week was 307 pound I cannot get it down and my children take pack lunches to school and for 8 cheese strings it nearly 3 pound! So I send nearly 20pound a week just cheese strings 🙃

Coming from a long line of ND people who are crazy picky I would say two things about picky eaters:

1. Aversions to certain foods are totally real and should be respected
2. At the exact same time, picky eating can become a control thing, that a ND person uses to exert a bit of order on their world.

Distinguishing between the two situations can be really hard.

When I met my DH at 20 he was an incredibly picky eater - his diet was ridiculous. I eventually started making my own food because I couldn't bear having chips again and over time he asked to try things. Now he eats a very wide range of food, though there are some things he genuinely cannot abide and that's fine. It was when I met his mother that I realised why he was so picky - she is anal about food in a really annoying way and while he has genuine food aversions, he used pickiness as a way of managing her intrusive behaviour. My approach, i.e. eat what you want but I'm having this nice thing instead - encouraged him to let go of his control issues and start to enjoy food more. He still has the control issues to a certain extent but they don't dominate any more.

My DD (11) is also incredibly picky - didn't eat bread until she was about 5 and plain pasta is one of her main go-to meals. It's tough to strike a balance between catering for her real issues with food and not allowing her to go to town with the control element. One thing I've found works is handing over control completely - so, for example, yesterday she wrote the meal plan for the coming week. It includes separate dinners for her, but at least it forces her to think about what other people like and to find at least some dinners that everyone will eat.

At a certain point you have to say to a picky eater - 'I understand your issues but you have to help in dealing with them' because it's not fair to expect someone else to manage your needs all the time, especially when it costs so much money and is draining the life out of you.

Oh and if my kids said they'd only eat Lurpak I'd say 'oh well no butter for you then.'

@SmellyNelliey but surely you don't have to buy cheese strings, which are highly processed and where you're paying for the gimmick?? Cheese is great nutritionally for kids so just get a big block of mild cheddar and give them a rectangle of that...surely it would work out cheaper?!?!

Stop buying cheese strings! Get some ordinary cheese and cut into cubes.

Stop buying cheese strings then 😬

I’m a vegetarian and eat a lot of pulses but even I can’t eat them for every meal. I eat dairy so that adds in protein but it isn’t cheap either. Neither is stuff like peanut butter that other people are suggesting. A teenage boy can eat half a jar on a couple of slices of bread. Their appetites are voracious and OP says they are very active. I don’t think her shopping is excessive. Yes, you can cut out fruit juice and one or two other things but it isn’t going to substantially bring down the cost. I get the butter thing. I’m fussy about butter so I buy what I want but I’m not a family of four so it doesn’t have a massive impact. The problem here is the CoL. Sainsbury's has also posted record profits this week. I see some shops selling products for double the price than in others. If you are time poor, working full time and looking after a household of four adults, you don’t have the time to shop around. Even batch cooking is hard work at the weekends. I think OP is getting a lot of criticism and poor advice frankly. She also has a ND child. It’s not as simple as swapping out foods.

What on earth are you buying?

£200 a week for one person is insane, I spend a quarter of that!

They mostly eat what's put in front of them because they have no choice; it's largely in the west that folk medicalise every demand, insisting that youngsters will "starve themselves" and enabling this sort of control over what the family eat

Nobody doubts there are some with serious issues which affect their diet, but IMO a lot of it's down to parenting and the explosion in self diagnosis of alphabet soup conditions

@SmellyNelliey I'd suggest sharing your shopping on another thread. I bet you can very easily get your bill down to closer to half that, if you're spending £20 a week on cheese strings.

Or, more realistically, they don't eat and starve to death at a young age, so never reach their teenage years in the first place.

@isthewashingdryyet

And be ready for food to go up again this year, it’s too wet for farmers to plant and sow seeds, so there will be a shortage later on.

Oh crud - I hadn't thought of that! There's not been a day where I am where it's not been raining overnight with more promised during the day. So less homegrown stuff, more imported stuff - either way more ££ leaving my purse. Plus more planning/effort on my part.

Plus it's pretty chilly outside, and I'm unwell so heating's on more than I'd like... Hey ho!! 🌹

That seems like a crazy amount. Shop at Lidl for basics, cut out unnecessary processed crap and scan the bargain bins. You can buy good quality seeded bread for pennies at reduction time at out local coop and it's fine to use for days. If you have teengers it won't last long enough to go off.

Two adults and three teens. Cook meals from scratch. week before last I was really strict and got it to £180 but we ran out of food after 4 days. All fruit gone. This week I had to restock cupboard essentials and it was £280. I do buy organic meat but no alcohol.

I spend about £130 a week for 4 adults. We top up with about another £20 midweek. That includes lunches too. I thought that was about average. £1000 a month seems an awful lot.