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.

I wonder if OP could move slowly to cheaper brands and veggie meals for ther ND child.

Just a tiny change a month... let them get used to it and then the next one...
I understand routine is important but at the end of the day, if you cannot afford to buy certain foods anymore then even ND DC need to learn to accept that some items are off the menu or replaced with a cheaper brand.

I would also say, that often (not always) branded stuff has more water and sweetener added than non branded stuff. Flavoured yoghurt and little chocolate desserts are a good example!

I strongly suspect they fail to thrive early on and end up very undernourished as adults 😧

House of 3 here, no pets. DH is into sports, so need to keep the calories up. We spend between 60-100 a week. The week that it’s a hundred is where we would have a takeaway.

So many days of the week we have random dinners. I use up everything and don’t let it go to waste. I only have a ‘proper’ meals 3/4 nights a week, the other nights it’s leftovers from the night before with bits to be used up in the fridge/cupboard staples added.

One way I do it, is what I think is called girly picky dinners- which just means an assortment on the plate. This is a brilliant way to use up bits. It can be just as balanced as a proper meal- protein, veg, carbs.

Eggs are brilliant and cheap. Make omelettes for dinner with bits from the fridge.

When you stick to set meals, it can be really expensive to get all the ingredients in.

I feel you OP - but this is going to go the same way as all of the other CoL posts... you gonna be told to stop with your frivolous lifestyle, fill your family up on lentils and the infamous MN chicken, get your hessian suit on and live an austere life of misery... and to BE GRATEFUL!!

Back in the real world, I used to pay £6.50 for a kg of good quality (i.e. not the cheap supermarket brand) British chicken thigh fillets which I would do various mid week dishes with in the slow cooker - a real weekly staple. I went to order it today and it's £10.

Meanwhile, Tesco has announced bumper profits... just like the utility companies.

Same here - two fussy ND teens doing GCSEs and A levels, 2 spaniels, an occasional bottle of wine. Also only like lurpak 🤣 and our monthly shops come to around this too. I manage to cut back for a few weeks (cheaper biscuits etc) but find the food goes to waste and they stop eating… which triggers migraines etc.

I have started taking them on some of the shops recently, as I usually shop on line, so that they can see how much these things cost and make decisions as to which brands/how many items - esp treats - we buy. Both hoping to go to uni in the next year or 2, so I felt that they needed to understand that at some point they will have to be a little more flexible and, perhaps, start trying cheaper/more basic foods occasionally. My DH is just as bad/oblivious.

That said, we’ve not changed our shopping habits over all in recent years, and the same shop 5 years ago would have cost half as much.

I spent time in India a couple of decades back when the press were reporting on the death - due to malnutrition- of a girl in her early teens who had refused to eat/drink anything but cow's milk her whole life. Obviously I never met her and can not say she was neurodiverse, but it was certainly an example of what happens to someone in a third world country when they have extremely restricted eating.

"cheaper beans out of a Heinz tin."

I would definitely know with beans.

Why? So non vegetarians only eat meat?

I feel quite lucky in a way as ex has the dc half the week so I don’t have to feed them. No maintenance but saves a fortune. Food is just expensive these days. When you break it down though it’s a couple of quid per person per meal.

Aldi do a grain free dog food called langham’s. I don’t think it’s very cheap though. I winced at the cost of a 2 kilo bag.

What I find helps is going in for the yellow sticker bargains. Often get cheap chicken at 75% off. Stick em in the freezer. Roast and use for sliced meats and for the dogs. I stay away from the sliced meat section and tend to roast a rump of beef/ or pork and slice thinly. Much cheaper.

@Icannotbudget

I cook during the week, DP does weekends. I buy food daily on the way home - I find I waste less that way.
Things like spaghetti sauce, stew - I make too much and freeze.

Simple, quick, repetitive meals during the week - so pasta pesto, chicken with bought curry sauce, chicken fajitas, salmon just wrapped in foil plus in the oven.

Children do get meals at school.

Fancier meals at the weekend.

Also, I try to diet during the week/eat at the weekend. So I don’t really cook for myself but eat what the kids don’t eat. DP comes home late, so most of the time I cook for him - but he sometimes does his own quick meal.

I would think quick/cheap/healthy during the week - proper meals at weekend.

I think I spend approx £10 - £15 a day.

OK, here's what I'd look at doing:

• Get a chest freezer and go to a market/meat supplier for your meat.
• Batch cook and freeze meals in the chest freezer.
• Market (outdoor or indoor) also good for bargains on fruit, veg etc.
• Yellow ticket items in supermarkets - usually end of the day, can be good for bargains, I got a few bits yesterday from Sainsburys from there.
• As @rzb says there are lots of other healthy ways to swap to cheaper and more sustainable sources of protein.
• Definitely do try the Lidl or Aldi Lurpak substitute and others, there have been swaps from various supermarkets to these ones where I either haven't noticed the difference or they're better than usual supermarkets.
• If you do go to e.g. Tescos then make the most of their clubcard deals, I found I got more in vouchers but have spent less there when I compare to Sainsbos. But my local supermarket is Sainsbos so...
• Costco? I hear they're good to save money everywhere but you need their card and to be near one (or within drivable distance).

ND kids absolutely will tell the difference. presumably she was buying Lurpak (hardly the most expensive brand either) before the cost went up so much.

With ND kids if you disguise a product, now they don't trust you and reject the food entirely.

I'm not in the UK so can't be helpful with specific prices. The horrible thing is that UK prices are relatively low compared to some other countries (USA, Canada, Australia)

I am actually feeling really angry. Why are people so eager to suggest that the problem is a frivolous desire to eat well. I bet no one is telling Rishi Sunak to eat 'cheaply' on porridge and pulses.

What exactly do you expect the OP can do with the dogs, provided she already has them?

Casserole?

Do you buy absolutely everything in M&S, and absolutely nothing anywhere else?

Don't underestimate the difficulties in feeding picky eaters (for whatever reasons).

Why are people so eager to suggest that the problem is a frivolous desire to eat well.

I tend to feel guilty about not prioritising food more, we could afford to buy organic but the penny pinching side of me doesn't want to. Whilst CoL has pushed prices up rapidly in recent years, we were at a point when food was proportionally the lowest it had been in terms of a ratio to wider earnings.

We spend a lot less on food and tbh it’s a mix of: most meals are vegetarian, no alcohol, very little processed food and cooking from scratch. Over 80% of my trolley is fresh veg and tinned things like tomatoes and lentils 🤣 We buy cleaning products and laundry stuff from Aldi. Nothing branded except a very small group of things.

OP, the thing that made the biggest difference for us was investing in a big freezer in the garage and lots of identical microwave safe storage tubs. If you have the space, then this can be a game changer. We also bought a huge stock pot from Dunelm and use it to batch cook lots of vegetarian chilli, soups, curries, stews, etc and freeze them. We also have a rice cooker and a large food processor. It’s boring but we batch cook on Sunday and once things are on the hob you can just leave them for a bit. Then on weeknights you just pop them in the microwave and cook your pasta or rice to eat with them. I hope this helps. It’s really hard.

Can they eat vegetarian with add ons? Or do the same basic but veggie version eg quorn instead of chicken?

Are you meaning to put the dogs in a casserole?! A bit harsh even for MN standards!

For everyone complaining about the costs at the supermarkets, you understand because of the unique set up of British supermarkets (7 huge supermarkets that serve the whole country) that prices compared to other western countries are actually kept pretty low. We are a rainy, cloudy island and we have to import huge amounts food, because we can’t grow it here. If it wasn’t for the way the supermarkets run, prices would be much higher.

It isn’t the costs at the supermarket which is the problem for the OP. It’s the difficult circumstances she’s in.

• Having children that can only eat particular foods
• Not having the time cook from scratch so relying on expensive ready meals
• Two growing boys that will eat lots
• Having pets that can only eat a certain expensive dog food.

I hear you OP! ND household here, half the size of yours (two adults, one pet), just my income currently and the grocery spend is around £500 a month so can easily see why yours is £1k.

Some posters asked about ND outcomes in developing countries. If genuinely interested then there is information online but it’s a distressing read. In countries with a lack of access to diagnosis, lack of understanding and knowledge of ND, lack of welfare support, lack of resource generally, then the outcomes are not good. Please consider this a trigger warning before googling x

Two growing boys if it comes down to it can help with the cooking and food prep, ND or not. Why should it all be down to OP to cook and batch cook at that?

Making the evening meal vegetarian at home would be Ok wouldn't it? They could still have meat at school.
In any case, it won't work for this family as one child is extremely fussy.
It also wouldn't be fair on the family to only eat what the very fussy child eats.

No, they will take hours.

I wondered how the PP wanted to serve the Two Dog Problem.

Icannotbudget We spend around £120, and then top up shops, for two adults,2 teens so similar to you.I find whatever I buy gets used ,so find 2 shops goes further IFYSWIM. We tend to buy Sainsburys own products mostly.I also try and buy 2 of something on offer (2 Persil liquid this week, down to £5.00 from £9.00) on non perishables .My DD is also on the spectrum but understands food costs are high.