Cost of weekly shop?

[flowwithit]

How much is yours?
We are family of 4 dc 11 and 13yrs and ours is £150 ! I think that's too much so I must be going wrong somewhere.

I think the person who pointed out that there are lots of variables including time to shop around for good deals makes a good point. We don't have that time so we do all our shopping online. I do buy deals and some bulk buying but I can't always wait until the massively reduced things are available because those tend to be in store, often in the evenings when it's getting close to the useby date.

We spend about £115 per week. That's for me, DH and DS. It includes almost all meals for DH and DS as they're at home all day. It also includes cleaning products and basic toiletries, DS's formula (which easily hits about £13 a week by itself). We also cheat and let DS eat quite a few fruit and veg pouches for convenience which are probably a bit more expensive than giving him regular fruit and vegetables.

I could easily spend more but we do things like eat eggs for a meal at least once a week as that's super cheap, and I buy cheap cuts of meat that I put in the slow cooker and then freeze portions of for us to eat later. And on nights when DH is at the gym we quite often eat something really simple like fish fingers and boiled vegetables as I prepare them together but cook mine while he's out and then he cooks his when he gets back. It actually works out very reasonably priced, even with the "posh" fish fingers we buy from Waitrose.

I also tend to forward buy for things - eg we're having a big bbq in May and I've been buying meat and freezing it ahead of that for the last couple of weeks and now will start buying drinks so that we don't have the shock of buying it all at once the week of the party.

My average spend varies quite a lot depending on what I have in, but my lowest spend is about £100 per month, highest about £200 per month. This is for myself, DH, DS1 (3.4), DS2 (12 months) & DCat (no special diet), for food, nappies, cleaning products, cat food etc. DH takes a packed lunch to work every day, DS1 has all 3 meals at nursery 2 days per week. We don's smoke & have a bottle of wine probably about once a fortnight (just got out of the habit when I was pregnant/breastfeeding & found we don't particularly miss it).

I do tend to buy a lot of value brand goods & most are as good as store's own brand (particularly the Sainsbury's basics range), just not in such pretty packaging! I rarely buy branded products (with the exception of dishwasher tabs!) as they scare me at twice the price of store's own brand!

About once a month, I will head down to Tesco for a bargain meat shop, ie a yellow label reduced items shop! I can generally get enough meat/fish for the month for about £20-25, & we all eat meat or fish most days. I also usually buy fruit & veg & bread (and other bakery goods) reduced. I tend to plan my meals around what I find going cheap, rather than buy ingredients for a specific menu.

I would say we eat well. We eat anything from venison, to sausage & chips, to chicken curry - whatever there is! I like to make a casserole in the slow-cooker about once a week as it is so easy to make & serve at different times (boys eat around 5.30. DH & I once they are in bed), as well as being cheap to make!

We also take advantage of what we have locally & buy a 25kg sack of potatoes from our local farm shop for around £7, which lasts about 3 months. I have put my name down for a whole lamb for the freezer for £90 from a local farmer I met at mum & baby group, too - this appeals to me hugely as I can see where & how the lamb has lived & was born, know that it has travelled less than 2 miles to get to me & it works out hugely cheaper than buying cuts of lamb separately from the butcher/supermarket. We are lucky enough to live down the road from a park which has an orchard, so late summer/autumn will find me & DSes foraging for blackberries, apples, elderberries (have made wine from these!) & plums. DSes love doing this & I can make loads of puddings/jam/wine with the results!

I dont buy organic, I buy reduced meat & freeze it, I make all my own sauces in huge batches & freeze (curry, tomato etc), I buy morrisons veg & fruit deals (50p or 30p a bag) or whatever is on special (luckily my lot eat any veg). There is always frozen veg in my freezer. I have a very well stocked store cupboard. We dont have puddings unless its soup & pudding night. I can make a large chicken do 3 lovely meals. I buy cheaper cuts of meat & use the slow cooker to make them tasty. I grow my own herbs. £30 is purely for food, I did not include toiletries/cleaning/etc in that. No alcohol either.

For example, I went to the supermakrket at closing time, and got 15 different packs or fresh fish (squid, haddock, cod, salmon, prawns) for about 35p a pack. Also got a lamb shoulder for 79p, lamb mince for £1, pork chops at 35p each and a whole chicken for £1.79.

About £50 a week here but we don't eat much meat and only have alcohol at the weekends. That would include all cleaning stuff.

I always shop online so no distracting special offers that i don't need and no pester power from the kids. There's a small Tesco nearby where i can get milk, bread etc. if we run out.

I used to spend £150 in Sainsburys when I could afford it.
I now spend £75 a week (max) at Lidl and get a couple of extra bits from Tesco (£15)

TotemPole, it might have been me - I did a 'crisis diet' for people basically only feeding their kids and living on tea and toast themselves, to encourage them towards three square meals a day, and it works out about £30-£35 a week for a family of four. It does indeed use value sausages and mince, etc, but there's plenty of fruit and veg and dairy as well. There is a veg box version if people want to spend an extra fiver a week.

Personally speaking I spend £25 a week per person to include toiletries and cleaning things, and I think that gives a really ample amount of good quality fresh meat, fruit and veg, for people who are able to cook from scratch. I have menu plans for two months on my blog, and this is the first week's one.

Dinners for the Home Week 1. Linked shopping list is here. Shopping list Week 1. Note: The first week of the monthly plan is aimed at stocking up cupboards, so it will probably work out more than £25 a person, but it averages this over the four weeks.

Crisis diet Week 1 - when the cupboard is bare

Hello - I posted a similar question a couple of months ago as my husbands colleague said he, his wife and 2 kids only ever spent £30! My DH bollocked me for spending up to £110 some weeks. On a tight week, if we have a couple of bits/tins to get through I can spend £80. On average I would say £100pw (2 adults, toddler, large dog). This is with NO treats such as a bottle wine, sweets, biscuits, flowers etc. Nappies, wipes add up to £10 a week alone. Dog costs £7pw, washing liquid (ecover, as my DH gets eczema) costs approx £4. Fresh veg adds up as well if you are having your 5 a day, so unless you cut back on fresh veg and meat - how the hell do you do it for £30???

When i posted a while ago, I got some quite aggressive answers questioning what on earth I was spending it on. I felt quite hacked off having to justify myself! On my last post I got 'told off' by a woman who said a bean casserole is cheap and nutritious:)

There is no Lidl, or Asda near us - so the cost of fuel makes it a v expensive trip. The only nearby stores are Tesco and Sainsburys. I try not to shop at Tesco as I find the veg goes off really quick. We do not eat meat every day, some days we will have a jacket & salad. We have chickens, so never buy eggs (not that eggs are a great spend, but hey).

Like Facecrack, i have tried to get it down, but can't.

Is there a cost difference in different areas??

Oh, and just a final note, my DHs colleague has since admitted the £30 they spend is done on a monday, and his wife does another shop on Thursday to get them through weekend. They also have a takeaway at weekend. Sooo, not really £30 then.

BoffinMum, I've definitely visited your crisis diet before, the link is purple instead of blue.

The one I was thinking of had an option of picking the weekly budget(£26/£35/£40??) then it brought up the menus for that suggested plan. I'm fairly certain it didn't have the breakfast and lunch suggestions.

flowwithit, I wouldn't have thought to freeze cheese either. I'd grate and put on dishes before freezing but not freeze a whole block. This thread has been very useful.

Totem, are you thinking of the resourcefulcook website?

I reckon about 200 pw. We are family of 5 plus an au pair

Adivic, I will eat my hat if your DH's colleague's family live on 30 pounds/week. he sounds like an arse well out of touch. Maybe he means he goes shopping for food once a week and spends 30 pounds, and fails to take into the shopping that his DW does. It sets an impossible standard if your DH believes that.

I have an idea: tell your DH that since he thinks you are so spectacularly crap at managing the household budget, he can do all the household shopping for the next 6 weeks. Six weeks should give time for all the store cupboard essentials to run out and give him real time exposure to the cost of food.

And I don't believe you're getting through 4 quids' worth of washing liquid a week- that must be most of a bottle. (btw have you tried Method washing liquid- you only need 4 tiny squirts per load so a bottle lasts ages and it's eco friendly and washes really well. I haven't looked back since switching from Ecover)

Forgot to say: We are a family of 5 including teenagers and a 2 yo still in nappies plus 2 large dogs and some chickens. I'd estimate that in a good week we spend 85 pounds on household stuff, and in a heavy week up to 120-130.

We used to spend £100-£120 a week in Sainsbury's (only 2 adults), but including toiletries and household stuff.
We now spend £50-£60 a week in Lidl and about £10 in Sainsburys for the stuff we can't get/don't like in Lidl.

Sometimes i really enjoy myself gawping at the prices in Sainsburys which now seem ridiculous to me.I also find the big supermarkets marketing ploys, like marking something up massively for a day or so only to reduce it to half price (ie the real price) for a promotion crass and dishonest. We switched to Lidl as we were in dire financial straits at the time but I would never go back. Much prefer their honest approach. If you find you are worried about the cost of your weekly shop, perhaps it is worth a try.

BlackAffronted, that's the one, thanks. It is £26 for 7 dinners.

I've bookmarked it now and BoffinMum's site too.

About £15 a week. That's for me, DP and DS. We don't eat meat, dairy or actual food. We only drink water and have porridge for every meal.

I average about £70 a week, that's for everything (toiletries, cleaning products, petfood and food), and feeds dh and I, dd and the half a dozen mindees I have.

The rest goes on pre-cut fruit and catfood.

About £70 a week for me, dh and 4 year old. That includes everything.

Ive recently started shopping in Aldi, and I can get everything I need from there except Baby Milk, Giant Yorkshire Puddings and Romaine lettuce (do not like iceberg). This doesnt include cat food, loo roll or washing powder, which I buy in bulk from Costco. I would happily swap Costco for Aldi for the washing powder and the loo rolls but not the cat food, so seeing as I have to go to Costco for that, I may aswell get all three.

I do a shop in Aldi which covers me and DH for at the very least a week for £40. Sometimes it stretches further if I batch cook and freeze food. We also have a takeaway once a week.

I then pop to Asda for the three things I cant get from Aldi but somehow end up wandering round the clothes, magazines and baby stuff aisles and end up spending another £40.