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.

Cross post!

I agree that sliced ham is ridiculously expensive, but a whole gammon is actually really, really cheap. You can cook it then slice and freeze it in batches and it will last absolutely ages. My ginormous gammon joint I bought at Christmas cost 22 quid and we are still eating it. You do need the freezer space though.

the cost would have sounded huge to me (4 kids, eldest 16) but given that today I went shopping and their ‘deals’ on both yoghurts and cereal, which teenagers seem to dart for more than anything, cost more than they’ve ever cost, and I stood at the chicken fillets for a good five minutes wondering whether to bother, I see what you mean op. Myself and dh had a row over it, his idea was that we all just eat porridge- corn flakes and Rice Krispies begone apparently!!! We already count so many things as luxuries now there’s no way I’m dropping cereals too!!!

Why would you have to cook two meals though? Why can't you eat the same things you cook for your sons?

Boys eat a lot at that age because they need the calories. It's not because they are being pigs! My DS used to go through mountains of food. It was quite unbelievable. Thin as a.rake though! Very very normal for teenage boys.

I can answer this one. If I ate the same as autistic Ds2, all my meals would be meat and chips. Autistic DS1 eats different foods to DS2 and if I emulated him I would be living on pizza and sandwiches.

Agree that OP should try batch cooking the acceptable foods, though, to take the pressure off, during the week.

We have 2 teenagers and a dog and we spend nowhere near that. However we are lucky in that they are all happy to eat the same thing and not too fussy.

The food I feed my dog is wheat free. cost about £55 for 12 kg which lasts us about 6 weeks. It's always recommended by breeders and people who work their dogs . Millie's Wolfheart we order straight from them

www.millieswolfheart.co.uk/dog-food/60-meat-fish-recipes/riverside-mix

A friend of mines DC is Neurodivergent and has ARFid and other sensory issues. They are able to claim PIP which really helps towards the cost of food and clothes. They can tell the difference if it's not the brand they will eat! Could you look into this? It's a lot of hard work to complete but been worth it.

Thank you for the suggestions!
if Im honest with myself I think part of the issue is Im just so incredibly tired and fed up of everything food related. My DH does not cook at all ( he does plenty of other useful tasks!). Ive tried buying daily and weekly and everything in between each method has its drawbacks!

I am completely with you on being tired and bored of cooking. And the planning and the actual shopping and putting away!! It’s very dull!
Do you follow The batch lady on Instagram? She has while menus for weeks and shopping lists in her book. I also follow other people on Instagram for inspiration. Can you try and get any of the family to help out? Mine are really not into cooking but will help out if I put my foot down!

Coz the OP is vegetarian, so won't eat meat if that's what her DC are having

On these threads (and there have been several) there are always so many people saying ‘it’s too much, you can do it much cheaper”. Yet several of us find we can’t if we want to eat the foodstuffs we like! Our supermarket bills are easily about £180 per week for two adults, part of the food for 2 cats and 3 dogs. We are vegetarian and don’t buy alcohol or cigarettes. We have made concessions to the ‘cost of (Tory) living crisis’. We used to buy organic veg and fruit. We don’t now, but do still buy organic dairy in the interest of animal welfare. Beyond that, we are not going to make concessions on the food we like. We cook from scratch and we do batch cook.

For those of you saying its to much money

Its basically 4 adults and 2 dogs

We are the same , son with autism and very picky , insists on picking his own god daily so alone on him it’s like £15 a day plus the other shopping so we normally end up just over £1100 a month

The rising costs of food is getting completely out of hand. Treats are a thing of the past. I wonder where it’s going to end.

Wow, that's a lot. I shop for me and a teenage boy, and spend about £275 a month. I know you've got two salaries coming in but even so!

The only thing I can suggest...during the summer i grow most of our salad in a green house and on a patio. Tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, lettuce, spring onions, radishes, rocket. Figs & raspberries.

For the price of a few growbags and some time spent watering, I cut my food bill by about 15%. It helps that I like doing it. 30 mins each evening watering plants with a glass of wine, does wonders for stress too.

Amazon lifelong dry dog food is grain free and 20kg is about £25 🙂

But op has admitted to buying ready meals and branded items. That’s where the cost is.

Op, batch cooking at the weekend is your friend. And getting your husband to cook even 1 meal per week would help. Him just ‘not doing any cooking’ isn’t acceptable, regardless of what else he does.

Re the lurpak, do your kids actually NEED butter? Tell them cheaper brand or no butter at all.

I understand there is ND but honestly, a good sit down talk about money and the cost of things may also help them to understand.

The boss of Tesco just got a 10M bonus. The supermarkets have record profits.
we are being exploited.

Tesco Lurpak version tastes exactly the same as actual Lurpak, it's a lot cheaper too.

If you buy a fair amount if brands I wonder if Tescos or somewhere else might actually be cheaper than Aldi? We dont buy many brands and still find Tesco cheaper for what we need.

Also, when you do the bolognaise for you son could you just do the same for yourself but in a different pan without the meat added? That way you don't really have to cook twice.

Do you have somewhere you can store big amounts of dog food? It might be worth trying to order that in bulk if so.

I'm convinced that the price of food has literally doubled. Sadly I know the price of the whole tesco value range and most things seem to have gone up by around 100%.

I'm also pig sick of anything cooking related, have an ASD son and am vegetarian. It's incredibly tiresome cooking different meals but i don't want meat and he does. I do make veg and non veg bolognese and chilli non/con carne at the same time which I find helps a bit.

I agree, I write 1500 into the budget for food and usually come in around 1200. I looked through old receipts the other day clearing out a drawer and the exact same food is significantly more expensive now.

I would never have two dogs. (I get they are precious).

I love these type of comments.

so the OP should let them out and they can run off and be fed by someone else. many people bought pets before the CoL when things were affordable.

that is astonishing. You’d think £1k in groceries would get you an amazing buffet but it sounds like you just spend it on everyday things? That must be disheartening

Easily 100% increase.

What I absolutely hate is having to jump through all the supermarket hoops to "save" 50p when the "lower price" is still 95% more expensive. Plus all the food manufacturers on top, with their shrinkflation which is now widespread. Most pack sizes have shrunk, and they take advantage of the fact that nobody has the time to compare prices and realise everything in the supermarket is smaller size and higher cost.

They take us for absolute mugs

Costco is good for lurpak and meat is good value. I'm vegetarian in a family of meat eaters and tend to batch cook a few things to eat over the weeks. It's very hard op.