£100 per week for weekly shop

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There are 3 of us in the family (DP, me and DS, 4). At the moment, we are spending hundred quid on weekly shop inc food, basic beauty stuff and household cleaners. It used to be around £75 but it's jumped up recently. We go to tesco and buy a range of value and branded products. Most nights, I cook from scratch, apart from Thursday when I get ready meals in for convenience as I stay behind at work.

I've always thought our shopping bill was a bit excessive but I seriously can't think of anything that we can do without (maybe apart from the ready meals but they are a life saver). We literally buy the bare minimum.

How do you keep your weekly shopping bills down?

£100+ a week for 3 adults and 2 children (9 and 6), mostly at Sainsburys. Includes food, cleaning products and bath toiletries.

onelittletoddling. Thanks for clarifying why you felt sorry for me as I was a bit !

My DP is not pressuring me to reduce the cost especially as he pays for it and anything left over, I keep. I just want to keep some! We live quite a frugal lifestyle (hard to imagine, I know) in many ways - we don't drink or smoke, don't get takeaways, go out once a month for a cheap meal, don't have sky, only buy clothes in the sales, have the best deals (for insurance etc) but the price of food shop is something that we struggle with.

Anyway, did my shopping on Sunday. Meals planned, went on a full stomach, did some of my shop (veg/spices/dried beans/lentils) at an Asian supermarket and also bought Tesco brand stuff for some things and some frozen fruit too. Still bought Shreddies, cheerios and fresh strawberries though. [Smile] Grand total was just under £76. That's a massive save. I'm very impressed with myself. I didn't buy ready meals, which saved me about a tenner. Instead, I decided that on Mondays, I will make a double batch of something and use it on Thursdays as well. So for tonight, I have made a veg packed sauce to eat with baked potato and cheese and salad and we will eat the sauce with pasta on Thursday. Vegetables etc from the Asian shop saved me a lot of money and not buying branded butter, bread, porridge, Special K, chocolate, yogurt all added up.

If I keep this up, and I have every intention of doing so, I will save about £96 a month, which will go in the holiday fund.

Thanks everyone

Sounds like yourdoing great!
I do batch cooking, today for example i used a big ham joint, parsnips, carrots and potatoes, chopped toms and frozen peppers ( plus store cupboard bits) and made 4 meals ready for the week.
Ham ready for ham, chips and peas, a pie, veg soup mix, and veg turnovers. Also did chocolate cake, welsh cakes and tomato and pepper soup for lunches.

So the ingredients cost probably £15 but i have lunches, dinners and desert for all 7 of us for the next 4 days.

I spend about £50-70 a week on ocado.

5dcs, are you sure about the £15? That looks at bit too low. I would have thought the large ham joint in itself would cost at least £10.

Well done!

Blueshoes i had this www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1354056287492 from sainsburys which is £4. I see the much bigger ones for £10 + i didnt mean that big i just meant not the slices or halves you get. I normally get the shop all at once online but my sister had seen these so i didnt order it with my shop and went to sain instead.

Thanks, 5dcs. Might grab one of those joints myself at Sainsbo as they are on offer!