How much is your weekly food shop?

[jogym]

We are a family of 4 (mum, dad, DD1(8) DD2(21 months). We are spending anything up to £80 a week on food. This seems a lot. What else does everyone else spend on food and how can I save money.

I know a lot if people that buy there essentials and cupboard ingredients once a month on line and stock up and then just get a veg and meat box delivered (either weekly or fornightly) and they swear that saved loads of money. Obviously you would still need to get bread, milk etc on top of that!

about £100 a week, give or take

includes booze, treats, cleaner stuff etc etc

just spend what you want/can spend, it is not a competition to see who spends the least/most

these threads always have Wow How Much/Little comments and then people are moaned at for either buying cheap meat "I would rather eat lentils [sniff]" or buying organic "what a rip off, I get my chicken from the market for 20p, you are a mug etc"

Twniset - are you buying colcanon/mash swede/potato for £7? And who needs roast potatoes and potato and mashed swede? I do one type of potato. One type of green veg. Maybe parsnips too and/or caulflower cheese. And yorkshires, which only take 2 eggs. Your sunday roast is more like a christmas dinner!

I spend about £75 in tesco for 5 of us, but don';t buy wine (dh buys it in crates, twice a year) and I don't feed dh for lunch. We eat meat 2-3 times a week, I grow a lot of veg (which the dc don't touch) - but most of the bill is stuff for the dc, biscuits/fish fingers/crisps and lunchbox stuff. It's cheaper when they are on holidays, as they cn have a bowl of cereal for lunch instead of sausage rolls etc.

What can I say we love our potatoes. We use the left overs for a bubble and squeak type supper. Unless I have a lot on I make it all from scratch.

I agree olive oil there will be lots of people who spend more than me and lots win spend less. Sunday dinner is very special here and we often have guests. We make but backs elsewhere to afford it.

There are two adults and two children aged 4 anad 6 in our house (plus a dog and a rabbit)

We spend each week:

£15-£20 with Riverford on fruit, veg, milk and yoghurt
£10-£15 in the butchers (roast chicken or joint, cooked meat, mince and chicken portions/pork/lamb chops)
£5-£10 on fish and frozen stuff
£10 on store cupboard stuff (pasta, baked beans, bread etc plus a couple of pounds in the oatcake shop)
Once a month I buy dog and rabbit food from the pet shop

So for food only it is about £40-£60 per week.

Toiletries and cleaning stuff probably works out at about £10 per week (the most expensive week is the week I buy washing powder.

Dd vice is fruit. One week I said to her go and pick your own fruit for the week. She came back with raspberries , blackberries, blueberries, mangoes and passion fruit! Cost a flippin fortune. Now we give her five pound a week to buy whatever fruit she wants from the farmers market.

we are 3
did a shop this morning and it came to £59.60
there will be top ups during the week ammounting to about £25
dh pays for his lunch on top of this

I did the Tescos yesterday , spent £66 for 5. Only bought 1 peice of meat tho, - I'm away this weekend and dh asked if I could get a chicken for him to roast on sunday. No chickens at all, so bought a 'chicken-joint' frozen £6. There'll be leftovers tho, esp. if he does the roast pots and stuffing. It might be beyond him to do yorkshires-and-gravy tho.

2 adults 2 kids, 4 packed lunches a day etc.
£60 a week. I cook from scratch.

I think our weekly shop is somewhere over £100 - far too much considering its only me, Dh and DD who is 2 next month. I'm struggling to bring it down though (and believe me I really need to bring it down as we are having money problems at the moment). We're on a low-carb diet, which means we cant substitute lentils/beans for meat. We basically need meat 7 nights a week at the moment. We shop in Asda mostly, but have access to Morrissons, small Tesco, Aldi and Lidl.

A brief breakdown of what we buy per week -

Meat - Minced beef, Chicken thighs and legs (non free range I'm ashamed to say). Very occasionally some steak, rarely fish.

Veg - Cauliflower, white cabbage, broccolli, spinach, potatoes for DD, onions, garlic etc etc.

Fruit - bananas for DD, satsumas, apples/pears. Sometimes a coconut or 2.

Eggs - brace yourselves! At least 3 boxes of 18 eggs PER WEEK. Always free range. Dh and I have scrambled egg every morning for breakfast. DD has porridge.

Dairy - Full fat milk for DD, double cream for Dh and I (in coffees & scrambled egg).
Cheddar cheese.

I think thats about it.

No rice, no pasta (but have some in cupboard for DD), no bread (make own for DD), no wine or alcohol, no biscuits, no cakes, no crisps. I'm struggling to find where to cut back.

This diet may be working wonders for our waistlines but not our pockets! (Dh has lost 2 stone in 3months )

We eat well and there are 6 of us, but I struggle to spend less than about £90-100 a week.

The one thing which has helped me save money is doing a big shop fortnightly. I plan all meals and have salady things at the beginning. Then make something to put half in the freezer and also freeze things like pizzas, sausages (make into a casserole) to have at the end of the fortnight. In the middle I do a roast chicken to have leftovers in a stir fry and stock for a risotto another night.

Planning definitely the key

Mumooms - are you doing either Atkins or South Beach? I've done that diet before - very good, but it is expensive.

I have no idea haw to cut down on ours, but it is getting out of hand. We spend about £100 a week and often eat out at weekends (we had takeaway Saturday and brunch out on Sunday) - hence the need to diet

normally spend £75 - £80 a week today actually thought about meals so here goes this weeks menu
Monday - Shepherds pie
Tuesday - Adults - Chicken enchiladas kids fish & pasta with sauce
Wednesday - Chicken Fajitas
Thursday - Spaghetti meatballs & sauce
Friday - Chicken in peppercorn sauce for adults faggots,potatoes & gravy for kids
Saturday - Homemade fish pie
Sunday - Chicken curry and rice with naan bread & poppadoms

spent £24 in asda getting all ingredients, bread, wetwipes etc for week will need milk again once or twice other than that done for week

£50
and £10 in my purse for extras
ie milk, wine, icecreams in the park

We're actually doing the Men's Health TNT Diet but it is similar I imagine to Atkins. It's basically meat, cheese, eggs and all veg except those high in carbs ie sweetcorn, carrots, parsnip etc. It's amazing to be losing weight and not feel deprived in the process. I definately think it was too many carbs rather than fat which made us overweight (thinking biscuits in particular!)

yep - sounds very like Atkins - but it does really work. Good luck - keep up the good work

I try to keep my food bill to £50 a week for 1 adult, 3 children and 1 cat, but recently it has risen to nearer £60.

I'd love to be able to do a food shop where I actually brought what we al fancied rather than what we can afford, but I do try and make sure we get a treat occasionally.

You're all shaming me into thinking I can make a lot of savings on my food bill. What are your money saving tips? We spend about £100 on a week's shop including all booze (beer for partner, a couple of bottles of wine for me, occasionally a bottle of gin for a treat) and all cleaning and washing stuff for two adults and one nearly two year old. From what you all say, that's too much. I would love to save some money on food as we are noticing that we're spending a lot more than we used to.

Give me some advice!

I've recently knocked a good £20 - £30 off the food bill by buying everything I can from the sainsbury's basic range. I'm a bit of a convert - the ingredients are usually fine, eg the baked beans have the same salt content and fewer calories than the sainsburys own reduced sugar & salt ones & no artificial swetetners. I managed a child-free shop yesterday so was able to take my time comparing prices and nutritional information .

I add beans to everything I can like casseroles etc to bulk them out. I reckon once we've eaten a critical mass of beans I could use the methane produced to replce our gas supply .

We spend about £180 Every two weeks