Twice a week online shop?

[BigRenoLittleBudget]

On a mission to reduce our food spend. We are a family of 5 with a 6, 4 and 1 yo including one gluten allergy which can make shopping more pricey.

I've set ourselves a monthly budget of £525 for all household goods including food, cleaning products, bin bags etc as well as nappies and wipes. Sounds ok but it equates to just under £120 per week once I've included online delivery pass which is essential for us due to work/kids/etc and we have certainly been spending more than that recently.

Previously we were doing an online shop roughly once a week but it would vary which day I managed to get organised enough to book it for. I would usually spend £90-120 ish. However invariably the food wouldn't last us a full 7 days so then I'd either end up doing our next big online shop 5-6 days later or we'd end up doing several top up shops for bits and pieces. My DH is particularly bad for this as he will then always pick up treats as well like those bags of donuts or cookies or a pastry. Either way, we have been averaging out at around £650-700 per month which is more than I'd like to be spending.

So my new plan is to use the delivery pass to the max and have twice weekly deliveries. The minimum order value is £40, so I'm thinking of trying a new system where I have a Friday delivery with a budget of around £70-80 and a Tuesday top up delivery with a budget of £40-50. Does anyone else do this? Any tips for meal planning? We'd probably spend more at weekends anyway as everyone is home, although our shop does include lunches for all but one child who gets free dinners in infant school. Thanks :-)

Interesting replies. I’m hoping it will work for us but I did our first “bigger” shop today and I really struggled to stay in budget. There are some things we usually buy every week and that basic shop normally comes to around £50 - usually milk, bread, fruit, veg, cheese, lunch and breakfast stuff. So I suppose I will have to make sure I only buy stuff we definitely need as I can’t buy all that twice a week and then still buy dinners on top and have change from £120!

oh also as a pp said we have a tiny under counter fridge too!

What do you run out of ? And top up ?
I shop once a week and If run out of something (rare) it’s tough till I go next shopping

bread and milk last the week

fruit usually do with apples being left last

Read the thread, @Blondeshavemorefun 🙄 OP has a family of 5 with a small under counter fridge. She already said she has to top up milk, bread, fruit, veg, cheese, lunch and breakfast stuff.

I did

Why not freeze an extra load of bread - buy 2 cheeses /yogs etx

Dates last a week

Because, as OP posted and I repeated for you, OP only has a tiny under counter fridge 🙄 There is nowhere to store the extra cheese and yoghurts and everything else you are suggesting she buys! If she only has room for an under counter fridge, I doubt she has a separate freezer to freeze bread.

This sounds like a great idea, my deliveries are from Waitrose and they don't do a delivery pass otherwise I'd consider it.

The things you buy every week which come to about £50 - maybe try to stagger them, so half in each shop? You are really trying to buy for the next 3/4 days only, but I guess this is hard when eg cheese is cheaper in a big block. Perhaps it will be slightly more expensive for the first 1-2 weeks while you get in a rhythm.

Yes this is right, small fridge and even smaller freezer unfortunately until we can eventually get our kitchen redone! I also personally have never found cheese to freeze well, it gets a funny texture.

We also top up fruit and other fresh bits and sometimes our plans change so I will have done a meal plan and then end up having to switch things round for whatever reason and then we don’t always use stuff up.

I’m gonna try to do this but I’m finding it a bit tricky. I have a stock order of stuff like apples, pears, bananas etc so maybe I will split these but then I will end up with one child moaning that we’ve run out of X or Y etc. Also I always find bread a bit funny, we seem to use a loaf in about 5 days so maybe I will end up buying it in 2 out of every 3 shops. I think really the ideal for us would be 3 shops a fortnight but I can’t deal with things happening on different days in different weeks! So will really try to make this new system work!

I suppose though my overall monthly budget is set to be £525 but it doesn’t necessarily have to be £80 + £40 every week. It could be more like
£100
£50
£40
£110
£60
£40
£50
£60
£40

or whatever

I do this. We either seem to go through loads of bananas. Bread/ milk. or it barely gets touched. Also some foods are better fresher so I get a delivery with salmon for tea that day.

Just this week started doing this too! For the same reason!

I do two weekly online deliveries, one on Sunday morning so Sunday roast meat is fresh, and the cupboards are full for kids lunch boxes, next one Wednesday morning and we get a takeaway on Saturday. Works really well. I plan the whole week, make one shopping list and then split it in two so both the minimum spends are met, and book both deliveries in one go and I can always tweak the second one or add other random things in instead of popping to the shops. Only but what I need for the three days, means I'm not physically going into the supermarket so I'm spending much less. My budget is £175 a week for everything food shopping, nappies, petrol, takeaway it's working really well

Personally, I think it depends how many people you're feeding, or rather I suppose how much you're spending.

I have a delivery pass, so yes, additional deliveries are the issue from that point of view, but the minimum basket is £50 and as I live alone, I don't need to be spending £100 a week every week and I object to paying a fee or not spending £50.

I also only have so much storage and requirements for non-perishables... but yes two deliveries per week is a much better way of getting your shopping and having things fresh. It's your normal weekly spend is over two times the minimum basket requirement of your supermarket.

We are also moving to this model OP - I think we used to do it pre-covid and then moved to weekly due to the restrictions. I think it will reduce wastage and additional external spending when you run out of things.

The other option if you have Amazon prime is use Amazon fresh for the top up shop- sometimes cheaper for some items than Ocado.

One delivery, same day and time each week. Makes it easier to meal plan
We spend around £150 a week for 3 adults and a dog, which includes toiletries,loo roll, laundry powder etc. No top ups in the week except the odd loaf of bread.

Sounds like a great idea.

I have a huge fridge and manage just fine spending £100 a week on ocado.

My delivery comes on Sunday, (£1.99 delivery cost) and I park in the co-op car park on a Tuesday to take my children to an activity, so I always nip in for an extra loaf of bread (and to recycle my soft plastic)
So I spend about £102 a week
I have a milkman so I dont ever run out of milk (and is not included in ocado)
I get loo rolls from WGAC and cleaning products from smol so these are not included either
About once a half term i go to aldi to buy breakfast cereal, and a few other tins which are significantly cheaper at aldi

I spend about £102 a week on deliverys.... i reckon adding milkman / smol / wgac i total about £500 / £525 / month

2 adults and 2 senior age children, who eat school dinners at school (but have another hot dinner at home too because they are hungry)

Both me and DH have an ocado account and we each get a free 3 month smart pass per year... so for 6m of the year i dont pay delivery charges, and i often get offers from morrissons or sainsburys, so sometimes i use them for a click and collect to get £12 off or something too, instead of ocado... so i reckon on average i spend no more than £50 on deliverys a year.