What's your average family grocery spend in Ireland?

[AgesAndAges]

I'm always interested in these threads but I find it's hard to equate UK spends to Irish as the prices vary.

We are a family of 2 adults and 3 small kids. I normally shop in Tesco though I've found they have gotten very expensive recently. Our shop was always €90-€120 before, but these days I'm finding it difficult to keep below €140. That covers all meals, school lunches, dh's lunch most days, toiletries and earning products. Oh and nappies wipes for the youngest.

Am I realistic to think I could do it for less? I cook from scratch most days and have a small repertoire of very cheap meals that I mix in with dearer ones. I'd like to be more frugal without scrimping.

I used to shop in Lidl but found it wasn't
too much cheaper than Tesco and I couldn't order online or do click and collect so switched to tesco for convenience. I sometimes shop in SV and find them the most expensive, but their produce is aways fantastic and they are the only company who deliver to our address so it's a toss up.

How much do other Irish families spend?

I an in area with new online grocery shopping from Dunnes and its great. Spend way less as nothing to tempt me! I find Tesco very expensive, a main shop is eaily €100 more than Aldi and €70 more than Dunnes.
But I also live near thr NI border and will go to Sainsbury for wine and cat food. Cat food seems way cheaper in the North!

Ahh cat food.. mine are fussy feckers so I spend a fortune on premium stuff from pet shop! You'll be getting more for your euro now with the way the pound is after going too... my Prime sub was under €9 this week!

@TheKeatingFive

Crazy price for butter, I was moaning at £1.99 in Lidl (was £1.20 pretty recently)

How much is the cat food up North ? 😀
Is it worth my while going to Newry?
The 2kg Whiskas stuff that my fussy fecker ™insists on, was €9.60 this week in Dunnes. And, he gets the remains of the MN chicken so it's not as if he is hard done by.

On a serious note, I hate the thought of people travelling to NI again to do their Christmas shop...but I wouldn't judge anyone for doing so.
I have a small business and would be wiped out, if everyone went North with their custom.

@HilarysMantelpiece it's £5.60 for 2kg of Whiskers dry food on the website. And no minimum alcohol price. I go every now and again for a change of scenery and pick up things I fancy in M&S or Next which are more expensive in euro.

BOI new insights on their app tell me I spend €650 a month on average in Tesco, which of course excludes a fair few trips to Lidl or supervalu too. 2 adults, 2 kids.

We also have a milkman, that's another 70 a month

@HilarysMantelpiece hopefully for you the price of petrol and diesel ( and electricity for electric cars ) will deter people travelling from afar to go to NI for cheaper shopping. But people do forget to factor that in.

Hah! turkeyboots that's some difference isn't it? Is that in Tesco?

On occasion, I have need to be in Monaghan/ Armagh/Antrim for work; and I love to stop in Newry on the way back. I have a ridiculous, illogical love of getting stuff in Sainsburys (particularly the Tayto flavours that I cant get down here).

Swimming I dont have that feature on my BoI app... that would be freaky, no? But, helpful to see that you're in for about €200/week on groceries.
No wonder the supermarkets chase us and want to give €10 off €50

LadyEloise I dunno. I fully expect to see RTE interviewing people in supermarket carparks having travelled from Dublin, to do their Christmas or Santa shop. As I said, I really dont blame them. It could be well worth the petrol, to go and fill the car with stuff.
If you're in Louth, or Monaghan or Donegal, it's a no-brainer. Why would you add 25% or more, to the price of an outfit from Marks, when you can drive 20km the other way and get it for less?
It's the ones travelling from Cork, or Limerick or Waterford that kinda makes me think...
Cruises Street in Limerick is not pleasant anymore.
Waterford city centre is a bit morose.

Anyway, we're getting away from the topic of the thread.

@HilarysMantelpiece I've spent way too much time poring over the info they're giving me! I think they literally rolled it out the other day so you might have it already, down the bottom of the page :)

€800 would be about right overall, if not more. I don't really know where I could cut back, the only branded items I buy are:cheerios, cushelle toilet paper, detergent, fish fingers (only on offer), tuc crackers and I cook all meals from scratch. Wine is probably adding e100 a month to it - two-ish bottles of wine a week.

Ah there you go Swimming, you and your wine notions 😁
My downfall is Friday evenings, when I'm tired of all the meal planning for breakfasts, and school lunches, and dinners all week. Making sure that dinner is ready for 7pm between one coming in from training and the other going out to Scouts etc etc. Repeat x infinity.
Delivery pizzas are too easy now- order on the app, pay on the app, at the door 30minutes later.
That blows the food budget 😟
I really have to get better about that.
The mortgage increase would be nearly covered if we got frozen pizzas instead [my mum would have a conniption ...Friday = fish, potatoes & veg, growing up}.

@Belladonnamama Is it Lunch Bag app? That's the one our school seems to be going with.

@SwimmingOnEggshells there's a few things that I go branded on or it's a false economy. Dishwasher tablets for example. The cheap lidl ones meant practically doing the dishes by hand then into the machine, or run the machine twice, or both, but I got the Finish ultimate for 15 quid and they come out spotless every time going straight in after scraping. If it cuts out time I spend at the sink I happily pay that!

I found Lidl's limescale remover utterly brilliant for everything in the bathroom except mirrors. We are in a hard water area so it builds up quickly. I decant it into a spray bottle and use it on sinks, taps, bath, showers, tiles, steeping the showerhead and often I spray the entire shower down, leave it and then rinse it when I hop in later. I spray the loo bowl and leave overnight. And it's great on the stainless steel sink in the kitchen as well. And it's very cheap for how far it goes.

I didn't even notice the 'insights' feature on the BOI app! I've just had a look and it's quite good. Well, not good because I can see where all my money is going but still, interesting. I can totally relate to the Friday night 'aahhh' feeling and I too like to reward myself with a glass of wine (often a chinese takeaway too!!) But look it, we both work full time and are rushing about non stop so I am not going to begrudge myself the odd treat. I used to shop a lot more in Lidl than anywhere else but am finding huge gaps on their shelves this past few months so I end up having to buy more in Tesco than I'd like. I just don't have the time or the headspace for all this nonsense, I'd need to drive around to 3 or 4 different shops to get all the 'bargains' and then they're not bargains at all. I have a friend that lives near the border so the odd time I visit I take a trip to Sainsbury's and M&S but I wouldn't be travelling up North just to shop, I don't think it's really worth it.

Eeeek...I hadn't even factored in take-aways we probably get 1-2 a month but there was a while there where we were getting at least three a month and I really did notice it. Like you @LifeInAHamsterWheel we both work full time and we rarely have a night out. You need to live a little!

Next time I'm in lidl I'll keep an eye for that one @ItsaMetalBand but my cleaner only likes cillit bang - that's another brand I forgot that I buy. And of course I have a cleaner too 😯 she only comes for two hours every two weeks but she gives the bathrooms a really deep clean each time.

On getting the best deals - I did a bit of an experiment a while ago. I did my full shop in Lidl and then went onto the Tesco online app to see what the difference was and they had priced matched on all own brand, veg, pasta, tinned tomatoes etc. What made my Tesco shop more expensive was buying things like jalepenos or tapenade, things that just aren't available in Lidl and I'd end up going to tesco for them anyway

@HilarysMantelpiece People living in or near the border counties I can understand travelling over the Border to shop but you'd really have to crunch the numbers if travelling from deepest Munster.

I too love popping in to Sainsburys Newry when visiting my sister.
Dunelm too and Lakeland off the Boucher Road in Belfast

"you'd really have to crunch the numbers if travelling from deepest Munster."

Yeah- you'd think it wouldn't be worthwhile. I'm not a native of the town I now live in, but I remember speaking to one of the schoolgate grandads who recounted a story about the local big factory laying on a bus (from deepest Munster) to go North for the Christmas shopping.

That would have been devastating for the local shops- all that discretionary spending leaving the town.

€95 in supervalu today, would have €108 approx but had vouchers and coupons. Couldn't get everything I wanted so will prob be another 10 at least during the week. Now to stick to the meal plan and keep it at that!

@HilarysMantelpiece I remember the buses going up to the north for Christmas shopping when I was a child. My mother went once and said never again it wasn't worth the hassle. They were hours on the coach. It was about four hours by road to Dublin at that stage never mind going up north.

oh same, my parents were always of the mind that their time was more valuable. a ten hour trip to save a few bob on washing tablets? not for them. it was all the rage at one point though. I think people enjoyed the trip!

I spent 120 on a Dunne's c+c Friday, got a decent enough shop and even managed to get ahead and order dishwasher tabs before I needed them (cos I needed to make up the 100 off 50).

Takeaways are absolutely our downfall too, though we really need to rein this in now as I'm not working any more. I find the price of takeaways (apart from pizza for some reason) has skyrocketed too. We were celebrating something yesterday so ordered a Chinese with 2 mains, 2 kids noodle meals, 4 starters and some prawn crackers yesterday and it was €69 😱 Which totally negated the fact that I did well with the groceries 🙈

I think I've entirely switched from Lidl to Tesco now. Because I live so far out rurally, weekly meal planning and a weekly shop is essential. I was finding that things like veg and fruit had a very short shelf life so while I was spending less, I was replacing it from the nearest Spar garage - so using up more time and money.
Doing a click and collect with Tesco now saves me hours on a weekend as I swing by going home from work and my veg and fruit lasts ages.

I remember a relative going with her friends from the ICA ( a Dublin branch ) up North.
She'd bring back Opal Fruits ( which you couldn't get in the Republic at the time ) and sweets called Spangles and miniature Dairy Milk that came in a wee box ( never available in the RoI ) for us.
Happy Days

Reviving this thread to see how everyone is getting on with the ever increasing grocery prices now.

I was shopping religiously online with Dunnes since last summer and the spend crept up to around €160-170 per shop for our 2 adults and 4 kids household. That was with the vouchers taken off. However, they started capping the 10 off 50 vouchers at 150 for online shops, so I said I'd switch to Aldi for a bit to see if I could whittle the price down.

I find Aldi better value, as in, I am getting more food, but still spending in and around the same- €150-170. I can't seem to stop the desire to impulse spend in store, but one of my nearby Aldis does c+c so I might give that a go to see if I can get the spend down.

I know one of my bigger problems is always having loads of food in the house, and buying a little bit more than I actually need for the week ahead.

How is everyone else doing? Has your spend continued to increase?

I've found a lot of products in my nearest Lidls to be priced the same as SV?

I've never tried click and collect but I bet it cuts down on impulse buying. Will male a point of comparing SV with Dunnes and Lidls soon and get back on here.

About 120 euro every week in lidl for 2 adults, one child and one on the way. Less wine now I'm pregnant 😂We do a top up shop too for about 30 during the week. We go to the maxizoo to get the 40 packet box of Catfood about every 2 - 3 weeks. My downfall is spending money on toiletries. Love nice shower gels and stuff like that.

I'm not sure if I'd posted on this thread since, but my first post in 2019 I said I'd increased from €700 to €750 to €800 in the previous year. I increased to €1,000 by early COVID lockdown and €1,200 by the start of last year.

TBH, because DH is funding teen DDs shopping (as she refuses to let me bring her), I am sticking to the €1,200 for the household items and food for DH and I. But it's not going as far as it used to and I am making deep inroads into the stock I had built up for covid and then inflation/war supply problems.

Teen did doesn't like what we like - all turkey, chicken and fish, no oil or red meat, lots of spice and lots of Monster and red bull interspersed with coffee and green tea.