Dh and I did a month's food shopping today and spent ...

[Miaou]

£98.05

Beat that!!

Are the Miaous still around?

Would love to know what they are currently spending. Food I buy at Tesco's has gone up by up to 50% an item recently.. and their original thread was over 2 years ago...

only 2 heads of broccoli for a month?

Hello lunavix, I'm still here (albeit less frequently)

We now have two extra children to feed (there are six of us now) and we have moved house to a different area (though still fairly rural Scotland) where we can shop weekly rather than monthly. We are also much better off so don't have to scrimp as much as we did. So back on the menu is fruit juice, occasional biscuits and wine (!), the treat stuff we had to forego for so long. However even though we buy a lot more treats than we used to, our shopping bill comes in at under £100 a week, and we could easily halve that if we wanted to. Old habits die hard; we shop at Lidl, we still make a lot of meals from scratch (though we are eating more convenience stuff than we used to as I am not well so not up to cooking much). We buy Lidl's own washing powder, dishwasher tablets, washing up liquid, etc. Dh makes soup at the weekend which we freeze in appropriate portions then eat during the week. If we buy a joint (yipee, can afford this now!) then we will use the leftovers in a soup/casserole/curry etc. We still make pizzas from scratch - twice as much pizza for a quarter of the price of bought ones. Not baking bread just now.

Anything else you want to know, just ask

Oh, and sorry no the website is not working any more, it got deleted by mistake and we never resurrected it. However all the information on there was from this thread, more or less, so you haven't missed much

So instead of 100 a month its 100 a week lol

To be honest with six of you that's still very impressive

Just doing a search on budget meals since and thought I'd bump this very inspiring thread!

This is such a great thread, although have yet to get the recipe for lemon fork biscuits to work for me. Devastating.

Started making bread and yummy soup because of this thread though!

BUMP - doubt we can get 98 quid for a month's worth in 2010 as you could in 2004, what's the best you can do now?

reading through this really intresting,thanks for bumping

great thread

Just saw the date. Was at £2 kilo of mince....

I reckon I can come in pretty close to this for me (10 weeks PG & eating a lot!), DH (packed lunches) & DS, 20 months with v. good appetite. Oh, plus cat

I go to Tescos 4-5 times a month when I run out of something, but don't do a regular weekly monthly shop. When I do go I struggle to spen enough to use those coupons that give you 10% off if you spend £30! Co-op for any last minute bread/milk etc or deals. Buy things like nappies, toilet roll etc every couple of months when on offer & always using coupons!

This is great thread.

I spent £90 in Sainsburys yesterday which is for a month I hope other than I will buy extra milk, bread and fruit as needed from local shop. Also take off £12 for some baby clothes I bought.

Here is what I got:

Sainsbury's own Weatabix - £2.15 for massive pack, dh likes for breakfast

2 packs of warburtons teacakes - 75p each. This is a treat for me and I will freeze a pack

Basics banana x 8 - £1 (will probably last two weeks and will have to buy more)

2 packs of New York Bagels x5 - £1.20 each - these are for me to have for lunch when I am working from home and I freeze them and defrost in toaster as needed

Basic dishwasher tablets x 2 - £1.72 each. This is an experiment to see if they work as well as expensive ones but I bet they do

Basis bourbons x 2 - 45p each and taste like any branded ones

Basic Custard Creams x 2 - 35p each and same as bournbons

Persil non bio capsules x 2 - £5.85 each but
3 for £10, nevertheless the most expensive thing I have bought and I will look into getting cheaper ones

Cucumber - 70p

multipack 4 x chopped tomatos x 2 - £1.96 - for base of soups, pasta dishes and casseroles

basic butter x 3 - 98p each - for use on sandwiches and making cakes

olive oil - £3.98 but do not buy this every month

Chick peas x 2 - 79p, for use in casseroles

6 Eggs - 97p - to make cake and to make a tortilla for dinner one day

washing up liquid - £1

kidney beans x 2 - 70p each - to make chilli and casseroles

sugar stars - 72p - to decorate cake, will last for ages

mozarella x 3 - 98p each (for use in pasta dishes)

Mature cheddar - £.175 for dh to have in sandwiches sliced thinly, will last couple of weeks and have some left in fridge already

Oranges - £1.97 (probably have one every few days)

big milk - £1.53 - will last a week

thinly sliced ham x 2 - £1.75 each - also for sandwiches

Multipack 3 xHeinz beans - £1.49 for dh to have for breakfast on weekends

Pasta - £1 will be several meals for us

2 x aubergine - £1 each - for pasta and casseroles

basics garlic - 84p to add flabour to all casseroles etc

lean mince x 2 - £3.49 each to make a lasagne and a bolognaise for freezer

Puff pastry - £1.50 - will make a pie top for one of the casseroles and possible a light lunch with cheese and tomato on top plus salad

smoked mackeral - £1.74 - a treat for me for lunch for next few days

Spaghetti - 84p -used whole pack to cook dinner for five friends with a tomatoy sauce

pork sausages x 2 - £1 a pack for sausage/pasta type dishes

Plum punnet - £1 (a treat)

I bought tomatoes too but they are not on receipt - maybe they forgot to charge.

Also 2 x avocados at 89p each - expensive but I am pregnant and am craving these.

And there are things we have in house already for example custard powder so if we want a treat we can have banana and custard.

oh and I got sainsburys own special k equivalent too - which tastes just like the real thing

Riven - we are the same and there are only 3 of us!

Our shopping bill is vast though, £120+ a week and there is only me, DH and DS aged 2, and that doesn't include any wine. I'm determined to cut it down a bit, even £15/20 a week less would be a start. There are some really good soup recipes here which I'm going to try out.

I shop for the 5 of us and average out at £150.00 which I think is pretty horrific!!!

Am making an effort this month to do 4 shops each totalling £120.00 max. I get through about the same amount of fruit & veg as you Riven. I was shocked when I read the first post but then realised it was fron 2006 and food has gone up an awful lot......The only trouble is when you try and cut your bill down you seem to becomed obsessed with foor.........ie thinking about what to buy, how to save, what not to buy.....what cleaning products to cut down on blah blah blah...............