Weekly shop cost...

[Jaimx86]

Just been reading Daily Mail comments (my guilty pleasure) on an article where a women halved her family shop by buying out of date food. The commenters mainly stated they their all their family on less than £100 a week.

My DP and I spend a fortune and I don't know how. Granted, we don't actively try to bargain hunt by shopping around - we do regular Tesco plus an occasional pop to Lidl for the mussels and baked Camembert we get from there. Does anyone else have a sub £100 weekly shop without actively trying to be thrifty?

I spend about £35/ week. Three of us, including food for me to take to work. I don't buy anything processed so think that shaves a fair bit off.

Wish I could.... Ours averages around £120-150/wk (me, DH and 2 DC) which includes delivered milkman milk, toiletries, household stuff etc. Tend to do big shop every week/10 days or so and bits in between.

I spend £60 - £70 each week on online groceries and then probably another £30 or so on bits and bobs through the week (or wine for weekend!). That's for me, dh and our 11 & 13yr olds.

But doesn't it depend on family size? I don't know how you average over £100 tbh! I am around £90 with ocado for 2 adults and 2 young children. I don't top up from else where mid week as I get two deliveries of just over £40 from ocado each week. It includes all food, cleaning products and also packed lunch for the adults. No takeaway either. And I'm not thrifty at all.

I average £120 a week for two adults and three children, two in nappies. I wish I could get it lower.

I live alone and have usually been spending about £50 a week in Tesco which I think is excessive, but it does include nice thing like salmon fillets, steak, etc. I also have three greedy cats to feed.
Last week I went to Aldi and spent £30 including a bottle of gin! I haven't even eaten half of what I bought yet because I've had more things like slow cooker casseroles/chillies which last two meals. I'm really, really impressed with the quality of Aldi meats and will be doing my shop there every week from now on.

God I sound like a crazy cat spinster - gin and cat food!

itshappenedagain I've stopped buying processed stuff too and it's definitely a change for the better. My diet is pretty much now cut back to meat, fish, fruit, veg, bread, yoghurt, salad. It's the bloody junk food at work that knackers my healthy eating!!

Sounds like a fine recipe to me Draenor

We are 2 adults, 2 teenagers and 1 child and spend around £90 a week from Asda

Op

Why not try an online food order?

Or go to your local butchers for a meat pack?

I've also noticed my food bill cropping up and have been trying to get it to below £100: it's only 2 adults and a (good eating) toddler here so more than £100 a week is obscene. We do online shopping from Sainsbury's.

The last two weeks I've managed to get it to £70-80 by being really, really strict about what we need, so before I would do the shop and stock up - now I really strictly buy only what I know we will need for the week. It does mean we have fuck all food in the house the day before the shopping arrives, but it's brought the bill down and it means I'm not throwing any food away ever.

I mean stuff like I will only buy one tin of toms rather than a four pack. Yes buying four is cheaper overall but it meant that making choices like that every week meant a higher shop every week. I've stripped it right back to basics.

I do buy organic fruit and veg though and that hikes the price up hideously.

I spend about £90 for me, DH and 2 kids aged 6 and 8. We spend more if we include alcohol, but since I've been doing the shopping online we have spent less, we used to go round asda and spend at least 120 as DH could not resist the wine offers.

We spend £150
There are 6 of us
I don't top up. 3 adults ( DH, DD20 & me) DS 17 DS 15 DS 11

one delivery a week, with all toiletries, pet food etc.
I could easily spend more, but try not to.

What sort of meals are you eating?

I get two deliveries a week of 40-50 pounds from Tesco. For a family of 6, includes nappies/ pull ups and cleaning stuff. I do an occaisional splurgy shop when they have good deals on, the odd meal deal from Markies. Honey and sausages I buy locally.

Trick is order the stuff that you always buy first Milk/ bread/ bananas/ spinach/ peanut butter/ nappies type stuff. Then move into the special offers section half price first and so forth. Joints of meat generally a fiver a kilo. Cheddar cheese five to six pounds. Crisps/ biscuits/ treat type stuff is always on half price. Napolini pasta a quid a kilo; stock up on stuff you use. I do an online shop in fifteen minutes or less. I do have storage and a big freezer though.

Generally I only buy branded stuff when half price; cheerios, hp, hellmans, fairy powder. Wine comes with meal deal. Rest is value/ own brand

We spend about £75 in aldi, £10-20 in tesco or asda depending on what pet supplies we need that week and if we need baby milk. Try not to top up shop because I end up popping to asda for milk and spending £30. Since I've been dieting I can pop into asda for just what we need so that's another £10 plus the market for fruit and veg is about £6. So all in all £111 a week approximately for 4 of us including a baby, a cat and rabbits.

£60-70 each week, usually Assa or Tesco. £40-50 if we go to Lidl, which is quite often, although they don't stock everything we buy. 2 adults, 3yo DD (who eats like a horse) and 2 elderly dogs with sensitive tummies.

The biggest money saver is meal planning. Work out what you're eating and base your shop around that. We only ever need milk top ups, and occasional bread.

Meal plan. This is the best thing you can do if trying to shop on a budget. Write a list and stick to it. Stock up on special offers only if it's something you will eat. I've saved a fortune over the past year by doing this.

Ooh Honey, snap!

We spend 70-80 most weeks. I food plan every week, and only buy food for that plan. That keeps costs down and makes sure we have almost zero wastage.

I also never buy processed convenience foods. Everything is cooked from scratch here, mostly because we were using all processed food and we gained a considerable amount of weight, so as part of losing that weight we needed to home cook the recipes, now I wouldn't think of using jars of sauce etc.

I also use a good mix of the own label and branded products. Someone once said to be try everything as an own brand, then if you prefer or accept the own brand great you have saved some money, if not switch back to your usual brand and you have lost nothing. So I use own brand tomatoes and baked beans etc, but prefer ribinsons squash for example.

There is still plenty I can shave off our food bill I think, which I will be looking to do over the next few weeks as our monthly income has reduced recently.

We spend 60-70 per week 2 adults 2 teenage DDs. Mostly Aldi, local butcher and greengrocer.

Menu planning is the way forward we don't really budget but have found by menu planning are spends have got lower.

Our worst thing is 'top up' shopping. It is very easy to pop in for one thing and end up spending £20.

originalmavis I think it's our top up that makes it so expensive too DP.

We eat more or less the same stuff every week (Fri/Sat being the exception) so it's not the case that we buy too much and throw it away. The only thing we end up chucking is carrots because there are so many in a bag for two of us, and at 49p we just get a fresh bag as soon as they aren't at their best.

If we take out kitchen towel etc it's still approx £80.

We spend about 50 a week, 2 adults 2 kids, thats a weekly shop at aldi plus top ups in the week, including nappies for 1 child. We stick to simple non processed foods and always buy the yellow sticker stuff in abundance. In addition dh goes to the butchers most weeks so that prob takes us up to 60 per week.

I get a huge meat delivery once a month from themeatman.com which saves us a lot of money.
I then buy the rest of our groceries from Aldi where I spend £35 maximum.
Then I spend about £20 in Morrisons or Tesco on the branded stuff that I won't compromise on (Heinz beans, Yorkshire tea etc)

I do a big online shop at the beginning of the month for all the big heavy things I can't be bothered to lug about - big bags of dog food, drinks, cleaning stuff and toiletries as well as cans (beans, toms, soup etc) for the store cupboard. That's about £100 as I try to use voucher codes.
Then each week is about £40-£60 on fresh veg, lunchbox makings, fruit, bread, milk, meat and fish etc.
That's for 2 adults and 1 teen vegetarian Dd.