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!!

[Mrssplash]

What I can't work out is why I spend £300 per month on food but when I come home to pack the cupboards, they're still full of stuff I haven't used the month before. Sometimes I can't remember buying the things that are in there. I'm sure I didn't do it! Does anyone else find this happens. You go to the shops just to get the 'bread and milk' and come home with a trolley full!

Must be the pregnancy hormones still running round my brain!

[Janus]

I have been using one persil tablet for my wash for a year now and there's no difference from when I used 2. My Mum also cuts up her dishwasher tablets into 4 segments and uses a quarter for each load (she hates chemicals) and her dishes come out just as clean. I find dishwasher tabs expensive so might be a good idea and I'm just about to start giving it a go. I too spend 100+ a week for 2 adults and a toddler (organic fruit/veg/meat wherever I can) and keep wondering how I spend so much so feel better for reading this!

[Selja]

I've come late to this but thank God I read this one. My husband is always moaning about how much we spend on shopping (I tell him if he didn't eat so much .....!). I've found shopping online has saved me a lot of stress and money. It's £5 well spent. I don't have the hassle of moaning husband and kid (which one is worse?!) and I only get the things on my list as I can't be bothered to surf down all the items on the shelves. I'm still spending about £100 a week for two adults and one child and the majority of that is on fresh fruit and veg.

[Hmonty]

Having chatted about living expenses with a single friend I've discovered that she spends the same on groceries each week (for her and occassional visits by boyfriend) as I do for a family of 4....So I must be doing something right!

[Joe1]

I have managed to halve my food bill by just buying what I need for the week instead of what I think I need.

[Helenmc]

My bills are easily £150+ a week for the 5 of us. i get Amway washing powder (around £26 for a month's wash of 50 odd washes). eco friendly and washes clean!!! The fruit and veg never lasts more than a couple of days and have resorted to 9p tins of peaches (in juice not syrup). the number of toilet rolls we go thro would probaly be enough to go around the world. I also got ruthless last week and when the squash ran out , we drank water which I really should encourage. But let's face it the supermarkets are making millions out of the British, that's why the Americans ( Wal-mart) and the germans (Aldi and Lidl) are over here. Our market is a lot cheaper but isn't as fresh so you can't do a weekly shop there.
Yogurt is easy to make, just put a teaspoon of live yogurt culture in a pint of blood warm milk and leave in a thermos flask for a day. Then you can add your own fuit etc etc without all the sugar you get in the kids varieties. And again bulk buy for stuff you know you're going to use, not just because its a bargain. And don't take kids (where did those crips come from) and DH (where did that beer come from) shopping!!

[Suew]

Helenmc - for good value laundry detergent try Costco if you have one locally. At 7.50 + VAT for 128 Persil tablets (64 washes) it beats your quoted Amway price for value hands down. And is way, way cheaper than the same thing in the supermarket.

[IDismyname]

If any of you have oil central heating and have to fillup your tank every few months, pick out a list of oil suppliers from the yellow pages including your own, call them all up and ask for their price per litre. I can normally knock off several pence (+VAT) a litre every time I do it. When you have 2,000 litres a go, and you're filling up 2 or 3 times a year, it can save you a fair bit.