Cost of food/weekly shop

[Lauram]

I have found that our weekly shop has got more and more expensive recently. I have two children, and we all eat a lot of fresh fruit and veg, but my weekly bill seems to have gone from £80 to £150 and I'm not sure why. Has anyone else found this, and does anyone have some good money saving tips. e.g. only using one Persil tablet not two when you do the washing!!

My shopping is getting more expensive. I am now going to the local friut and veg shop and the smaller supermarket. Our local Asda hypermarket seems to be the cheapest. It does seem though, that the more health food you buy the dearer it is.

laura, non-food items are usually MUCH cheaper at shops like consumers choice. i get a £5.99 box of finish dishwasher tablets (40 i think) there for £2.99...in fact most soapy/shampooey/washy things are almost as cheap as in the 2-for-1 offers.

having said that, tesco is v good for "feminine protection" - eg 32 lillets, which are over £4 in boots, are about £2.80 at tesco.

kwiksave/somerfield and asda tend to be cheaper all round.

where do you shop mostly?

We have found that since we switched to getting all our veg delivered by a local organic farmer who runs a box scheme that our food bill has gone down. His mixed box (including the most amazing free range eggs) provides veg for 2 adults plus baby for a week and costs less than the equivalent regular (ie non organic) veg at our local supermarkets. I guess it's because there are no on-costs and we get the benefit of veg picked the day before and it travels maybe 10 miles max. Couldn't ask for better - worth investigating if you live near farming areas. We are now looking at getting our meat delivered but it does seem to be a lot more expensive.

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Bloss, your shopping sounds very much like mine, except that I buy all the cheap cuts of meat. They are eminently suited to the sort of Mediterranean cooking that we usually do, and I wouldn't call them lower quality! Sainsbury's is very expensive though, especially for vegetables and fruit. Asda are far cheaper all round, and Tesco are cheaper on most items. Isn't there an Asda on the Cowley side of Oxford? I seem to remember a big Tesco down the Cowley Road, but overall, Oxford's not very well served for supermarkets is it?
Like everyone else, I am finding our grocery bills spiralling upwards. Going out to work doesn't help of course. But a few weeks ago, I was behind a couple in the supermarket queue, they were obviously doing a weekly shop for a family of 5, and their bill was £90. It wasn't expensive or excessively pre-prepared stuff either, just basics and a few luxuries like big bottles of Coke.

This is an interesting thread. Only last month my partner and I sat down to work out why our shopping bill had soared to at least £100 every week. There are four of us.

We are veggie and we do not buy prepacked food. We get an organic veg&fruit box delivered (with eggs)and some produce from our garden. We buy nature boy & girl nappies @ approx. £6 per pack. Like you Bloss I may buy 2 jars of baby food a week. We waste almost nothing and any kitchen waste does go straight on the compost!

I have always bought organic products for environmental as well as health reasons. The increase in our shopping bill we concluded was simply down to the fact that everything in our basket without exception was now organic now that there is so much more available!

It has been a hard decision to make but we decided that we simply had to compromise. We have kept the organic box, and the organic dairy products, we have kept Traidcraft coffee and tea, and Ecover cleaning products but everything else has had to be a compromise.

I have finally pulled the terry nappies out of the cupboard that I'd bought with such good intentions whilst pregnant (and wish I had before)and, it is hard to believe but we are saving between £30-£35 a week!!!

On the subject of fresh food being more expensive I have to tell you that a sibling with partner and four year old spend around £150 each week on convienience food from yorkshire puddings to jacket potatoes... on top of this they eat meals of take aways several times a week! Which makes me conclude that the fresh food option is still the cheaper...

The cost of take aways never ceases to amaze me!. I find things like home made salmon fish cakes a real winner. Salmon is relatively cheap and a little goes a long long way. Has anybody shopped at Costco? I hear amazing stories about the value to be had there.

Lucky Harrysmum. We have an excellent local organic butcher but rely on supermarkets for our organic veg - the delivery services we investigated still prefer to send 6kg of turnips and one mushroom (or so it seemed).
We are spending about £100 a week too for three, and like others here spend up on organic/fresh stuff rather than prepacked and convenience foods. I have found we have saved a bit by not buying yogurts etc aimed specially at toddlers (Yeo Valley ones are lovely but gram per gram more expensive than their grown-up ones).
I will be printing out this thread to reassure my husband. He keeps groaning about our grocery bill then slipping in the odd bottle of Spitfire Ale to cheer himself up.

We only buy organic... and we go to the farms. The organic meat is expensive but I know exactly where it is coming from and the taste is SERIOUSLY better (you can't always say that for other organic foods). But I eat less meat than before so I don't mind paying more. Having said that organic meat is still cheaper at the farm by at least 30 to 50% to organic meat at Sainsbury's.
I think we spend at least 100 GBP a week for 2 + 1 baby (I am pregnant so I eat a bit more;-))... but 99% of what we buy is organic.... having said that hubby and I are in fabulous health and I am proud to know what I am eating (most of the time) and to focus on a good balanced diet.
Also we don't drink alcohol (we use to and that has seriously helped our bills!)

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Shopping bargain tips, I've noticed that all the hair dye is half price at Tesco until 10th July.

Some M & S stores now do a reduced food counter. Quite handy for filling up the freezer if you do buy convenience food.

A lady at school sells free range organic eggs at £1 for 6 is that good value?

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Rhiannon, yes that is good value. I would definitely investigate.

We spend about 110-130 pounds per week for our family of 2+4. We have very little choice of supermarket - 13 miles to Tesco, 17 miles to Asda and a small Somerfield 4 miles away. We use washable nappies, which has reduced our bill significantly but since our 7 year old boy already eats more than his father (and is still as skinny as a rake!) I dread to think what it is going to do when he is a teenager!

How about buying a keeper (see the thread on Toxic Shock Syndrome). I've saved a fortune on sanitary pads and tampons over the years.

The washing stones sound strange. Are they actually stones/pebbles? Maybe a few from Brighton beach would do the same thing. :-) Is this the modern day equivalent of beating your clothing on the rocks at the side of a river?

The theory behing washing stones/balls is that they increase the amount of surface area for clothes to rub against, yes, beating against the rocks. Persil tablets any any premeasured cleaning product is a complete con. It's just a way of making you buy more, on top of which, using so much soap powder is environmentally unfriendly. You are better off with liquid or powdered soaps and adjusting the amount according to your wash's needs. DH - a scientist - tells me that the recommended dosage has more to do with achieving a satisfactory smell and suds level than with actual cleaning power. I've never used the recommended amount and always have perfectly clean clothes.

Have you got a market in your local shopping centre? I wait till they are doing their "Two scoops for a paaarrrrnnnd" bit. Tesco's "Reduced to Clear" section - after 3pm - is the source of most of our food treats.

We have just had a Sainsbury's open 5 minutes walk from our house at it has been great. I used to shop in Safeways but haven't noticed S/b being any more expensive for all the basic things that we buy. S/b seem to do great reductions on meat on the buy-by date and that's how we manage to make what we eat meat-wise basically free-range; and definitely stock up if there is a lot on offer and freeze. I am also a bit of a sucker for their reward system. The main theory behind the (slightly) reduced shopping bill since switching is that S/b is full of so many exciting, interesting, tempting things that instead of buying them I look at them, feel good that they are there for the having if I want them, but in actual fact shudder so much at the add-on cost that I end up being really frugal on the trip round. We also have a general no crisps/biscuit/cake policy which must help save. On the rare occasions that they are in the house they have been homemade which also cuts down cost. And I get to feel like a domestic goddess ... even if it's only for a little while.

Sanyo have just unveiled a washing machine which doesn't need detergent. Apparently it cleans clothes by "ultrasonic waves" or something. Apparently going to retail for £700.

You sound very virtuous, Harrysmum. Do you not spend money on anything sinful? Nibbly things before supper and chocolate after are my greatest downfall - tell me how to resist them!

These notes have made me feel much better. Husband and I were just talking at the weekend about how we manage to spend about £120 per week on food etc. I thought it was probably down to the fact that although we buy lots of fresh fruit and veg we also rely heavily on things like M&S convenience foods when we're both working. From reading this though it seems that even if I did miraculously turn into a domestic goddess we'd still end up spending about the same.

I am ashamed to say that I spend at least £250 a week on food, I don't buy biscuits, cakes, crisps, sweets or puddings. I do buy everything fresh, never use frozen except for peas, the only thing we have in our freezer is about 20 tubs of Ben and Jerry's. I'm going to get rid of the extra freezer as I have bought a large American double door fridge as so many thing need to be kept chilled these days cos of no preservatives. I'd rather it was that way though. I shop 2/3 times a week,there are 6 of us, 15,14, my two (and minded children 7 and 3, but stay overnight frequently),it comes of having a 14 yr old son who eats like a horse, all of us eat loads of fresh veg everyday, I always cook at least 3/4 veg,we do eat healthily, I am particular about my meat, and will buy from Real Meat producers,( not always Organic) or direct from the farm we eats lots of steak, sirloin is fantastic value at the moment and it is aberdeen angus so the flavour is really good, as it is quick and easy.Lots of salad, I adore rocket with olive oil and fresh parmesan, but the price of a packet of rocket is like it's name - Rocket high! Duck breast are another favourite.We never have pudding but eat a lot of cheese, I do find cheese very expensive, especially if my husband comes shopping, the cheese always comes to about £15! We also eat out every Friday as a family and Saturday night is take away night! I think my family eat toilet rolls as we get through 18 Andrex a week!I get through loads of washing tablets, the w/m is always on as I have the sheets changed twice a week. My ideal luxury would be to have them changed every day, that is my heaven! I don't think I'll mention the monthly wine bill, I'm enbarrassed reading this, but we feel that we might as well enjoy eating, we always eat as a family everyday at 7.30 as we think it is very important, we have a "what was you high/low today" discussion, it's good fun.Last night we talked a lot about drugs, as it is a subject that worries me a lot, my children are far more informed than me I found out and I am a school governor and responsible for the drug policy! Got to go to Sainbury's now!

goodness, Alibubbles, your shopping sounds like my ideal shopping! This thread has made me feel a WHOLE lot better now that I know our expenditure is about average.

Same goes for me!