food shopping - so what is your actual list each week ?

[positivesteps]

Seen some people say they only spend £50- £80 a week on food and household stuff and have a few kids. What do you actually buy and from which shops ? Can you list your items for the week and costs. - I spend £100-120 a week. At tesco online. How do you have a healthy diet and spend less ?
Also sometimes we get papers and top ups at spar or supermarket.

Marking my place with interest.

Am exactly the same as you OP. Would love to know how to reduce weekly spend.

Way too boring to actually list what I buy each week BUT

MENU PLAN, MENU PLAN, MENU PLAN

Then you only buy the food you will actually eat

Take an inventory of what you have in cupboards and freezer and plan your meals around what you have - one week every month I only spend about half or less on this basis

If just cooking for 2 adults, make the whole recipe for 4 and freeze to make easy "ready meals" when you need them

Buy all freezable bogoffs eg sausages, salmon fillets, bread products and keep in freezer

Make soup cheaply and freeze - chuck in some cooked pasta and serve with bread and you have a very cheap meal

Baking is a lot cheaper than buying cakes and biscuits - use the freezer and do it in bulk

Eat less meat - we only have meat 2 days a week and the weekly shopping bill is below £100 rather than £120+ it used to be (2 adults 2 kids including ravenous teenage boy)

Go to Lidl or Aldi - it really does make a huge difference - and it isn't just for the downtrodden - you can't move in my local Lidl carpark for Porsches and Volvos

I write a menu plan for the week and get what ever i need for that. Plus cat food, fruit, yogurt, milk, juice, stuff for packed lunch & toiletries.
We spend £100-120 a week at sains though, so don't think I'm going to be much help to you!

I am also fascinated by the low weekly shopping costs.The problem is i get bored of food and like a constant variety of foods from different countrys, plus we are all real foodies and like to try new things.Consequently i go to Aldi and still end up spending loads of money trying new foods.I don't menu plan as i can't see what food we have [as all tins packets etc. are in boxes at the mo.] due to major house renovation.Once i have my organised larder cupboards and can see what i really have i can plan better hopefully.

We spend around £70-£80 a week on a family of 4 (DDs 3 & 5). I shop in Tesco.

Here's an example of what we might have:
Monday nights is always Pasta & Sauce with grated cheese cos it's swimming night.
Tues Roast Chicken (Tesco Value £6), onion rings, roasties & veg
Wed Leftover Chicken with Pasta, Sweetcorn in tin of Batchelors condensed Mushroom Soup
Thurs Fajitas (one of those kits) with the rest of the leftover chicken
Fri Fish & Chips (4 battered cod frzen £2)
Sat Bangers Bolognaise - Spagetti & Tomato Sauce with chopped sausages.
Sun Soup for lunch and Macaroni Cheese for tea

I often have meat balls, mince, breaded chicken (8 for £3), baked potatoes and chilli or beans.

I buy loads of value stuff, but not loo roll! I've just started using Tescos Non-Biological washing tablets £3.50 and they're fine. We all have sensitive skin and it hasn't made us itch.

Value Custard Creams, etc are all great. I also make cookies, or flapjack to supplement the lunch boxes instead of all the wrapped biscuits and cereal bars.

Bessie I love that blog. The recipes are quite simple aren't they? The summer risotto and spanish casserole look lovely. I will definitely try them.

bessie's blog is great. The Spanish casserole is lovely and so is the ginger tofu.
I am marking my place as I am a vegetarian so don't buy meat and meal plan but still spend £100 to £120 per week, despite checking the cupboards before I shop.

Carrots - this is our meat free menu for this week (this just for the grown ups - still working on the kids!)

Monday - leftover quiche from freezer and salad
Tuesday - Risotto Verde and Purple Sprouting broccoli
Weds - Quorn sausages, mash and veg
Thurs - Veg stir fry and Brown rice
Fri - Spinach and Goats cheese Frittata and veg
Sat - Spag bol made with Quorn Mince (kids eat this too!)
Sunday - Curry (chicken for kids, veg for us)

The children have had school lunches (till Weds when they broke up) and have had sausages and mash, chicken risotto, chicken pie and burgers in buns for tea, sandwiches for lunch. Puddings always fruity / yoghurty type things. Snacks mostly home baking as cheaper

This week my Ocado shop was about £75, £16 on a veg and fruit box and maybe another £10-£15 on milk, papers etc is typical. As the kids are off school the food bill is a bit higher than usual as in term time they get their main meal at school!

That sounds delicious willali.

I am feeding two dcs as well but they eat their main meal at night with us (one has a packed lunch and one a school dinner.)
My meal plans are here somewhere with the dcs eating with us.
I originally thought I could just rotate this but I have realised that with the warmer weather we don't need such hearty food so now I will have to investigate some lighter options.

Sorry, this is the menu plan

glad you like the blog! - I got fed up of searching through a folder of recipes I've cut out of magazines & URLs i'd bookmarked in odd places, so am trying to get them all into one place!

OP - we're not helping much are we?! me, carrots & mazzi all spend around the same as you!

will - my local Aldi is quite small & last time I went (admittedly a couple of years ago) it didn't have much food in - the centre of the shop seemed to be filled with car de-icer & oil! We do have a Lidl, but it's a 20min drive away - will have to give that a go too. I did goto Asda a couple of weeks ago, but I spent about £90 and still had to goto sains & spend £20 on the things I couldn't get... Perhaps the trick is to know what kind of things are cheaper in each store? Has anyone tried www.mysupermarket.co.uk/ ??

I could save a fortune if fruit had more calories in it and would do the job for ds's snack at school. What do the rest of you buy for snacks at school? Dd is healthier and has fruit with the odd cereal bar. Ds struggles to keep his weight up at an acceptable standard and tends to be given a heavier snack which is also more expensive. I baked muffins for a while but he grew bored with that.

I have just realised that not one of us has given you an actual list op. Do you really want me to list my whole shopping list?

Carrots - how about flapjack with raisins etc for a snack, or scones - cheese scones more calaorific? OUr schools only allow fruit so it is bananas every day as most filling!

I have a list here of previous shopping lists. (Un)surprisingly people haven't been falling over themselves to demonstrate exactly how they feed a family of four for £50 a week here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food/1147840-Weekly-shopping-lists-how-much-was-yours

i do most of ours in lidl then extra bits in tesco-things we cant get in lidl.theres 2 adults,3 dc in our family.i make a weekly menu plan,then its weekly things like cat food,bread,milk etc.plus packed lunch bits.were all veggie which makes things cheaper.i buy big box of washing powder,dishwasher tablets.i write whats in the cupboards,freezer/fridge and make my menu plan around that.
today i brought-
milk,bread,cheese,juice,biscuits,yoghurts,grapes,banas,apples,satsumas,bread sticks,potatoes,onions,sour cream,quiches,tomatoes,lettuse,cucumber,tomato sauce,veggie burgers,buns,cheese slices(dd's birthday dinner!),toothpaste,babybelles,breadsticks,spag bol sauce,tinned new potatoes,nappies,houmous,celery,eggs,croissants,pain au chocolat,jam,ummmmmmmmmm.theres more but i cant think.
anyway-came to £50 something.normally we spend between £70-£80 a week.

We made soupdragon's flapjacks willali and they were divine but ds found them a bit greasy - maybe it was the way I made them though. I could be brave and make another batch purely in the interests of science (and my ds's growth)
Cheese scones are a great idea as I can freeze them too - thank you!
How does the school enforce the fruit only rule? That is a great idea for most kids but would mean about 3 bananas for my ds!

Bessie I'm intrigued as to what you can't get in Asda so you have to go to Sainsburys??? You must have very specialist tastes

I think that if it really is an issue you have to arrange the meals around what you can find in the cheaper supermarket rather than the other way round IYSWIM

Carrots - there doesn't seem to be an issue about the fruit only snacks although to be fair "fruit" gets a wide interpretation so there is a lot of School bars etc!! Any baking is way cheaper and more nutritious than bought stuff so it's worth experimenting and finding something that will fit the bill for your skinny thing! Everything I bake excepting cookies goes in the freezer no problem so I always make double for the times I don't have time

I think home baking is the way forward willali - our freezer is tiny though so I will have to be selective. I totally love baking though so will revel in the excuse!

Carrots - Is home baking cheaper? I'm extremely curious. Maybe I've never made the effort because by past experience I am REALLY bad at it, but by the time you have bought all the ingredients is it not a similar cost? If tha's not the case then I am willing to poison my family give it a go.

I think it is depending what you bake Foofffy. Once you have built up a store cupboard of ingredients it is anyway. If you have to buy everything just to bake one thing then obviously it is not. Once you have baking powder though, it lasts for many bakes for example. The bag of flour lasts for many bakes too. Things like cereal bars cost upwards of £2 for 5 or 6 so if it is in comparison to them then yes, it is cheaper.
Really rich chocolately things are expensive to bake though.
The other advantage of home baking is you reduce the unnatural ingredients. My ds is in the process of being diagnosed with some sort of ADHD type of problem and an anxiety problem and the fewer unknowns I put in his diet the better.
The danger is you produce far more than 5 or 6 bakes so you need to store and ration them the same way you would cereal bars or a) you put on weight and b) it is no longer cheaper!

Btw - I let the dcs meal plan again this week and my shop was £96 and that included a £12 wok! Maybe I should get them to do it every week.
They chose: fresh spaghetti with quorn bolognaise, fresh pasta and pesto and salad, home made lentil soup, veggie burgers in rolls with salad and potato salad, fresh tortelloni and tomato and marscapone sauce and salad, veggie bangers and mash with onion gravy and lasagne with salad if we need it. Not desperately unhealthy really although high on carbs if you need to watch that sort of thing.

Fooffy - baking really is cheaper and I second what Carrots said. Minimum requirements for your baking store would be caster sugar, Plain and Self Raising Flour, Baking Powder and a big tub of Stork (find this better than butter in almost everything), eggs and maybe a couple of packets of choc chips.

Try this absolutely foolproof biscuit recipe:

2oz caster sugar
4oz Stork
6oz Plain Flour

blitz all in a food processor till a dough

OR

cream butter and sugar, add flour and work into a dough with your hands

Roll out and cut into cookies about 4-4mm thick

cook at 180 degrees for aout 15mins or until slightly coloured golden

You can add choc chips to this recipe, dip in melted choc when cooled, sandwich with jam / buttercream etc etc

willali - as far as I remember, it was mainly organic dairy stuff I had to get from sains - although they had organic milk, Asda didn't have any organic yogurts or cheese.

I'm veggie & try to make sure that any animal produce we do buy (like eggs, yogurts or meat for DH/DD) is organic &/or free range. That & buying recycled kitchen & loo roll is my only specialist taste!!

oh, and RE the baking - I only ever buy plain flour as you can easily turn it into self raising flour yourself - one less thing cluttering up the cupboard!