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 have "fat" and "lean" weeks.

I sometimes shop at Waitrose and spend 150 on a weekly shop, this includes wine and Dh's speciality beers and ales. I buy steak and a free range chicken, nice fruit and veg, fancy bread.

The week after I'd go to Lidl, and manage a weekly shop for 60 pounds, easily. Everything is about half the price it is at Waitrose.

So it averages out at around 110 a week.

we do not eat out though, or very rarely (less than once a month).

There is 4 of us, the boys are at the stage where they eat as much as an adult (age 7 and 9) plus LOADS of snacks.

Often I feel grumpy about the cost of things, and I am quite good at making a meal out of very little. I make my own pizza ( sometimes just tomato and cheese, half a slice of ham and 3 olives that were left in the fridge), or a lentil soup (with some onion and half a chorizo) or a potato omelette, or a very simple pasta with tomato and roast garlic.

Then I crave a luxury meal, and go back to waitrose...

But I know it is decadent, and I think I could stop this Waitrose habit if I needed to!

stir fries are brilliant for cheap meals as well. Do that loads.

We spend under £50per week on food, toiletries and household stuff (I did the weekly shop this morning and it came to £43.54). That's for 2 adults and 1 four year old child. Before going shopping, I take out only £50 and never pay by card so I am limited by how much cash I have on me. I've found it encourages me to budget and to think about what I am buying.

Once every 2 months, we'll do a massive online Sainsbury's shop for food, toiletries and household stuff. It'll come to £70-£100 but for the next few weeks, we'll only spend about £10-£20 per week on fresh fruit, vegetables, bread, milk etc.

We rarely drink alcohol and eating out/getting takeaways is a treat (perhaps 1-2 times a month). I meal plan and leftovers will be used in another meal (eg we had roast chicken on Sunday and we used the leftovers for sandwiches and for a stirfry)

Last week I threw out a courgette, a celeriac root that was well past its best, and a quarter of a camembert, as well as abour four slices of moudly bread. We don't throw much away here.

I have:

• a cupboard for baking-related things
• a cupboard for oils, vinegars, spices and other cooking-type things,
• a cupboard for tins, pasta and rice, a cupboard for bread and baked goods on the top two shelves and long life cartons on the bottom shelf,
• a cupboard for breakfast goods and hot drinks stuff, and
• a medium sized fridge.

There is overflow storage in the garage if I need it, and two small freezers there as well as another fridge (all donated).

I do Approved Food orders about every 2-3 weeks and my cupboards are stuffed with long life food and dry goods.

Remember in most kitchen cupboards you can add an extra middle shelf, increasing your storage by 30% in most cases.

There is practically nothing thrown away in here. I HATE food waste and always try to use things up - squashy fruit goes into cakes, limp veg into soup, stale bread into toast/bread and butter pudding/breadcrumbs, leftover meaty things get made into new dishes for another meal - sausage risotto, hedgehogs, pasties and the like, rice gets made into rice balls, salad etc, yoghurt into cake...

I think that when so many people in the world are going hungry, it's immoral to waste food. Last week I had to throw away a couple of tangerines and I was not very pleased about it.

I can feed us all on £10 a week per person quite easily, tbh. We eat quite simple but good, nutritious food.I try to make as many meals as possible cost about 50p a portion, sometimes less but almost never more than £1. Meals we have eaten in the last week include:

pasta with chick peas, garlic and olive oil
spicy sweet potato pasties with veg
potato, lentil and spinach curry
bulgur wheat and green lentil pilaf
cheesy bread and butter pudding with carrots and peas
homemade potato soup with crusty bread
creamy bean crumble with mixed veg.

Lunches were things like chick pea and pasta soup, scrambled egg rice, spiced tomato rice tacos, pasta with caramelised onions and parmesan, wraps with peanut butter and apple. Breakfasts are cereal, toast or something like pancakes/crumpets. A couple of times a week, I bake a couple of loaf cakes (yoghurt/banana/ applesauce and fruit/teabread). I use approved food for biscuits and snacks and also any dried goods like beans or lentils that they might have. I only but what I would call basic fruit, apples, bananas, tangerines, sometimes pears or kiwis.

I think that you cut your cloth according to your means, really. I only have a small amount of money for food shopping so I have had to learn how to manage with that and my family has had to learn to adjust their expectations accordingly. When I speak to my friends about things like this, they all complain about being skint and about spending too much money on food but then say that they make 3 or 4 different meals every night and that the kind of meals that I make just wouldn't be accepted by their families. In here there is no choice, I cook one meal and if they don't eat it, they are hungry.

Ours is huge! I blame DH. Once we have been to the supermarket (and I need to keep a rein on him there) he insists on going to the 'really nice food store' and usually ends up spending almost the same again. We dont but ready made, but generally its organic, coffee (we like 'proper' stuff - the ony thing that gets us moving in the mornings!), loads of fruit, meat/fish and usually a bottle of nice wine. It is so easy to rack up a big spend.

I try to get things that are on special - cleaning stuff, or things I can freeze (meat or fish).

I need to try harder to get the cost down!

I shop daily and spend anything between £15 and £30. The upside of daily shopping is that stuff is fresh and we don't tend to waste anything. There are 4 of us that eat grown up portions (and 2 that take packed lunches to school).

I spend around £280 to £380 a month atm. I am trying to keep it at the lower end. That is 2 adults and 3 gannets. Two of whom have Coeliacs. It includes food, cleaning stuff and toiletries.

Use Lidl/Aldi/Tesco/markets/local fruit and veg shop/Costco/poundshops. Also use Approved Food and Rosspa. I also use the Old Style Board and several other boards on MSE.

I meal plan each week and we have some veggie meals each week. I also use my slow cooker a lot. I also make sure that I don't give too much meat each meal, all you need is a childs/adults fist size portion.

For example

Breakfasts are cereal for the kids (weetabix and GF cereal (usually £2.50 a box but Approved Food had 2 for £1 recently so I stocked up)) DH has homemade Nigella's breakfast bars, I have a shake (£4 or on offer from Wilkos but AF have recently had a good offer on another make so I stocked up)

Lunch is packed lunch for the kids DC1 has homemade bread with cheese/ham/jam/chocolate spread etc. (look out for offers on AF and Rosspa), DC2 has Genius bread sandwich (on perscription) with the same fillings, DC3 prefers rice cakes with the same toppings. I then put things like cherry toms, cucumber, carrots, cellery (cut up and in a little pot). A piece of fruit ( bannans, apples, oranges etc.) Dried fruit (buy the big bags and put in little pots). HM cake or somthing similar. I always check AF to see if they have any lunch box type stuff on offer. DH has leftovers from the night before or HM soup (my greengrocers do big bags of near date f&v for 50p which I buy and make soup from that using HM stock from when I do chicken.) I have 2 slices of toast or some crackers.

Main meals are usually cooked from scratch. For example

2.2kg Chicken in the Slow Cooker (yellow stickered £3) served with roast carrot. butternut squash, sweet potatoes and potatoes.

Chicken curry in the SC servedwith rice and HM flat breads ( I stripped the meat left over from the day before and it made enough for us for that meal and enough to be put in the freezer so we could have it again another day. So 10 portions using LO chicken. I make stock from the bones and juice.

Spaghetti Bolognaise. I use 500g of mince fried off with a couple of chopped onions. Add a couple od grated carrots and a handful of lentils. A couple of cloves of garlic, a tablsp of mixed herbs, a tblesp of tomato puree, 2 cans tomatoes, salt and pepper and a beef stock cube. Serve with with spaghetti. Usually have enough left for a portion or two for the freezer.

Chhilli con Carne in the SC with 500g of mince, a couple of chopped onions, 2 tins kidney beans,2 tins chopped tomatos, a couple cloves of garlic, 1tsp of chilli powder, 1 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp flaked chillis, 2 tblsp tomato puree, and 200ml of beef stock. Served with rice and sour cream. (usually have enough left for a portion or to to go in the freezer.)

Bacon and veg. risotto. Melt butter in the pan and add any left over, bendy veg ie leeks, onions, bn squash, peas etc. Add bacon (used to use Tesco cooking bacon 99p for 500g and use 250g but they no longer do it. Apparantly Aldi do a a good cooking bacon.) Add a packet of risooto rice and stir until coated, Add more butter if necesary. Put in SC and add 1ltr of veg stock (HM or cube) Put n the SC and cook for an hour or so until the liquid is absorbed. Usually have enough left for a portion for the freezer.

Cauliflower and brocolli with bacon and a cheese sauce. Cook florets of cauli and brocolli for 5mins or so. Fry off the other 250g of bacon. Make a cheese sauce, I use a strong cheese so you don't need as much to get the taste (there is usually some on offer somewhare. Also add a splodge of mustard to enhance the flavour) Put veg in a pyrex bowl with bacon, cover in cheese sauce. Bung a couple of slices of bread in a food processor with a lump of parmesean to make a cheesy topping and sprinkle over the top. Put in a hot oven for for 20 mins.

Omlettes with what ever LO veg or meat there is in the fridge.

Puddings are HM cake or tinned fruit, angel delight etc. What ever is cheap in AF. At the moment I am breaking Easter Egss up and they are haveing that for pud.

Snacks are fruit, popcorn or whatever I have got cheap from AF.

Yes I keep a spreadsheet of our spending as well Jajas so I know exactly what gets spent on what each month. Actually I keep a couple of spending spreadsheets as both my DH and I are self-employed and need to keep track of receipts, etc.

@jajas yes, it's almost th eonly way. or just reviewing your bank transactions on a weekly basis.

I also think a lot of the people who said they spend £40 a week on food shipped their kids off a lot to other family members or had an allotment. An allotment must cost £10 a week for the first year surely?

Well i had a treats day today and spent £33.75 in Sainsburys and i will back tomorrow. £9.90 of that went on one chicken. I simply cannot believe that you can eat good quality meat at least once a day seven days a week and only spend £40 a week on food for the "average" family.

@jajas I also notice it on here when people add to the cheap menus thread and say things like, stock cube and seasonings - 1p.

A box of 12 stock cubes is a lot lot more than 12p. So there is no bloody way their seasoning only cost 1p.

Plus people refer to stock cupboard ingredients as free. which is balls.

I am very grateful for the tip on Rossco. I had not heard of them. I've just managed to get most of the food we need for next week for £50 including delivery. I am going to be very interested to see what quality it is when it arrives.

This has been great for ideas. Thanks everyone! I like chandon 's fat and lean weeks. I've just done my sainsburys delivery order and I will try doing Aldi next wk so I only have to go there 2 times per month and see if that works for us. I really don't enjoy supermarket shopping!

ethelb, the value/basic cubes are about 10-20p a pack, though, I haven't used them. I'm reluctant to use value items that are more processed.

I agree the cost of store cupboard items needs to be realistic. Even if you use just a tablespoon of oil each time, once it's gone it needs replacing. Herbs and spices tend to run out a few at a time for me, so that's another few quid.

Value stock cubes are not nice at all. imo. I tend to bulk buy stock cubes from approved foods so that I get things like 16 packs of chicken cubes for £1, so they actually are less than 1p each. Recently they had the big packs of 20 knorr veg stock cubes at 5 packs for £1, so 1p each again.

If you buy herbs and spices in big packs from places like Redmoor.net it does only cost pennies to season your food. 500gms of smoked paprika costs less than a fiver, same size of cinnamon is about £3.

Boffinmum, I buy stuff from Rosspa. It's perfectly fine. Today, I took delivery of 10kg of carrots for £2, a melon for 39p, 4kg of onions for 75p, cabbages for 29p each amongst other stuff. The delivery is a bit expensive but you still save money, especially as I don't drive and so have to pay for either delivery or a taxi home from the shops, anyway. It all comes very securely packaged and inside chiller boxes to keep it fresh. I've even bought a large tray of duck eggs which arrived completely intact.

Coconutty, you say it was cheap but how much did it cost you vet bills, medicines, collars and leads etc along the way? Not to mention beds and ferry tickets. You can't discount all those hidden costs.

Coconutty, you are a mere amateur. We eat roadkill dogs in this house. The DCs gather them after school on a daily basis as a hobby instead of having a computer.

£60 here at aldi.....I LOVE that shop...bliss. I can wander about and do a big shop inless than 30 mons even with Ds2 in tow and no complicated mathematics due to the limited choice. Love lovelove it! I don't buy ready meals and we get though a huge amount of fruit/dairy here thanks to my smoothie habit and DS2's milk obsession. This also includes a bottle or 2 of wine. Aldi rocks

And their dark chocolate with mint creme centre is divine