How much money do you spend on food?

[carlyb]

I know that this is a personal question . . . but . ..
Have been thinking a lot lately about the amount of money we spend on food (I find we also chuck a lot away - which is annoying).

How much do you spend on food in a month? (or week?)
thanks

We chucked loads out and started a system of spending only £5 a day which is easy for me as I can shop every other day and buy all the bargains.We have stuck to this for 3 weeks now and cant believe how much weve saved,we eat every last scrap and shopping is actually quite fun!We used to spend 80 a week so weve halved it

50 a week and then 50 a month at the butchers so 250 a month wow that sounds like a lot dont it,

Noddy - do you shop at the supermarket - or the local shops (butcher, grocer)?

I could shop during the day (sahm) so this could work for me. At the moment I supermarket shop. I actually came home with a DVD player from shopping last week! My super market sells so much I impulse buy!

shireensmom - when I worked out my shopping bill I nearly fainted. I know what you mean!

both!it is time consuming but we eat better as not so many readt to go things and I never go over my limit.Eat loads of rice and veg and buy all the fancy stuff at knockdown price any meat is from the reduced and frozen.Sainsburys sells all the sunday roast joints v cheap on mondays so we had prime beef last week for 2 quid.We arent actually skint we just like doing this!

noddy - what a good idea! Never thought about it but I bet they have an excess of meat on a monday.
I know what you mean - we are skint, I just hate the waste. I filled up two carry bags full of out of date food to be thrown away today (alot of which was fresh veggies). It annoys me - I just forget they are there and buy more and more.
I think I might scale it down a bit.

that was meant to read we arent skint!!

there was another thread like this recently, it might help

I usealy spendaround 100 a mnth with about thirty a week on top but that has stoped ow we do a big shop for around a hundred and i just pick up odds and ends during the week like if we run out of milk or eggs i have found we saved alot of money by buying the large blocks of prepacked cheese leaving it until were going to use it (not all of it) then grate the lot down at once and put it in a air tight container where cheese useally lasts just over a week it now last over two weeks so were saving money by buying bulk and storing it apposed to when we used to buy the small block and end up paying twice the price and throwing it away because it had gone of before we got to use it also to save money we dont buy fresh veg we buy frozen and only buy fresh fruit on the days were going to use it then only the amount we need

I find that I spend far more if I actually go to the supermarket - impulse buying is my forte! I now do most of my grocery shopping online. That way I can keep track of exactly how much I am spending and, if it looks like I'm spending too much, I just delete items we don't actually need. By shopping online, I save myself anywhere between £20-50 a week.

Have you seen today's Mumsnet fact of the day? :-

"The typical cost of a nursery place for a child under two in 2004 is £134 a week (up from £128 a week in 2003), a rise of nearly 5%. This compares to an average household income of £562 a week and average weekly expenditure on housing and food combined of £82 a week. (Daycare Trust)"

Now the nursery fees I don't know anything about but it's the bit at the end - "average weekly expenditure on housing and food combined of £82 a week". I would love to be able to manage the weekly shop on £82 (which is our budget but find it very difficult to stick to) nevermind housing. I'm sure our mortgage must work out at more than £82.

Great Cheese tip Mummy2james....I'll be doing just that..