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.

Monday is our shopping day. Going to try and skip a week this week as our freezer is pretty full and could use running down.
We use uht milk mainly and have 4 loaves of frozen yellow sticker bread in the freezer.
Also have some previously batch cooked meals in the freezer.

Going to start with fresh meals with joghurts and fruit for pudding before last week's fruit and veg goes off and move to frozen later on in the week with jelly and ice lollies for desert if we need to.

Let's see if we can make what we have last another week.

You use toileteries daily, so they should be accounted for in the shop.

You say you spend 300 a month on everything for one person, so this is more than what the OP spends, unless I am mistaken.

Someone else said they spend £300 per person, I think. I doubt I spend that much.

Soooooo glad I was not your child 🤣
Thing is I actually really love my children and want to provide them with food they find acceptable/ palatable just like I provide for myself and my Husband.
what you’re describing sounds abusive.

Ok just update the thread I’ve trawled through my last few months receipts and have worked out that I am spending appox £7.20 per day on actual food per person. This covers three meals plus a few snacks including a stocked fruit bowl. To be honest this does not feel excessive or extravagant to me and I have decided to let go of the angst I was feeling about the grocery bill. I would rather not be spending. 12k a year on food but if we have to we can.

Get rid of the dogs - they cost of fortune in food and vet fees or vet insurance or eat the dogs and cut down on food costs

Wow, just wow what an awful person . Do you think good people just “ get rid “ of pets , they are part of the family .

What are you wasting you money on.£1000 pm is a lot. Avoid takeaways and ready meals, do batch cooking and freeze stuff.

People come before pets . it’s like people who smoke and spend a fortune and say “It’s my only pleasure “ !!

I think you're right OP, it just does cost that to eat good quality food and enough of it 🤷‍♀️. You weren't unreasonable to feel annoyed about the cost, but as you say there's nothing you can do but move past it, unless you want to storm Downing Street.

I'm glad you haven't opted to starve your children or euthanize your pets! 😂😶

Make enough chili, bolognese, and chicken to last at least two days. That way you don't have to cook every day, and the ND teen eats what he prefers.

Stop buying fresh fruit apart from apples and bananas. Buy frozen fruit that can be made into smoothies.

Stop buying fruit juice. It is expensive and all it supplies is sugar. Coca-Cola would be cheaper and not much worse.

Buy large containers of yogurt. They can help themselves to yogurt in a bowl. Yogurt can also go into smoothies.

Stop buying ready meals. They're expensive.

Buy more eggs, tinned tuna, tinned sardines, tinned salmon. You can make fish cakes, tuna salad, eggs various ways, sardines with toast or pasta, etc.

Serve more beans and lentils.

Buy cheese, porridge oats, milk, and cut back on bought desserts and sweet snack items.

This might not be a welcome view, but it costs more to be vegetarian, and if you're tired and completely over the chore of cooking, maybe having a rethink of the vegetarian choice would be sensible?

If meat really isn't an option, there are plenty of bean, vegetable, soups, rice/ bean/ tofu/ vegetable, and hearty salad options - but you'll also need to get over your aversion to freezer food.

Fwiw, I think £7.20 pp / day is a lot. That's £28ish per day.

If your priority is lowering your £1000/month grocery bill, then it's batch cooking.

Download the Olio app to get free food that you collect within your local area, batch bake and freeze when you have time, ideal for chilli, lasagne, curry etc, have a couple of meat free meals every week, add lentils, chick peas etc to 'bulk out' meals, use Eco balls for your laundry, bulk buy toilet rolls, kitchen rolls and any other products that you use regularly. Plan your meals, always write a shopping list and never take the kids food shopping with you. Good luck.

Hi OP,
We spend about the same and only three of us and a cat but my husband generally only eats meat, and a lot of it. My daughter will eat what I eat or a small different meal if I’m having something spicy.

We managed a month of only spending £700 by me batch cooking spag bol and chilli at the start of the month (I’m also ND and have to have certain ingredients for taste and texture) and froze them, defrosting one of each once a week. It made it cheaper and saved time twice a week for a month! my husband isn’t fussy and will bulk order meat using voucher codes online from Muscle Foods or Iceland, also helps save money. ASDA has their rewards system that has star buys, Lurpak is often on this so each month we wait until it’s on offer or we get money back to feeding to the next month’s budget and this really does work.

Somebody else said that it’s something for you and your other half to figure out together - what worked for me is writing down all the meals we like as a family, then the week before we pick from the list and I shop around for deals based on the ingredients - this also fed in to saving that £300 last month.

But ultimately, sounds like you’re a busy, hungry family and it’s hard to save money and focus on everything else! I hope you’ve found some useful advice on this thread and you’re not alone.

Thank you! And exactly right. Some of the responses on this thread have been scary- just glad my kids and animals have me for a Mum, no ones getting served the same meal for weeks until they ‘break’ or put to sleep!!

I think it sounds like a lot OP. What do you have on the other 4 days that blow the budget? Is it the snacks that are pushing the amount up? Is the fruit being eaten every week?

Some very ignorant people on here telling you how ND kids won't starve themselves!

I have use Olio. As long as you don't have a massive issue with eating food a couple of days past best or have freezer space then it is a great tool. The primary role of olio is not feeding the poor - it is stopping food waste.

I have loaves of bread in the freezer from olio (I then take out 6 slices at a time as it won't last as long when unfrozen)
We had chocolate croissants for breakfast this morning which I picked up on thur
Yesterday we had a bbq and the burger buns and hotdog rolls were a previous olio find which had been frozen. The guinea pigs this morning finished the brocoli and salad bag I picked up thur.

On our local one it is mainly bread type products and the tesco pastry section. I tend to have a look on a Monday and thur to see what is on there as you have to have freezer space as you are picking up things which are on there last day for best before.

According to my app in the 2 months I have been doing it I have saved £185 of food waste.

But the cost savings in this thread are aimed at the OP, who has said that she can afford to spend £1k a month on food if she has to. They’re not aimed at people living in poverty.

My point was that I spend less than half what the OP does and I don’t even do these cost saving things. There’s a middle ground between chest freezers and growing your own and spending a grand a month. Her budget is totally baffling.

Also, your bit about ND doesn’t even make sense.