Supermarket budget

[Mepop]

Hi all, I’m looking to reduce our weekly supermarket expense and needs tips. I shop in Tesco as it’s nearest. I get food, cat litter and food, toiletries, cleaning things, loo roll, alcohol etc from there and am spending £130 a week (on a week when I do not get vouchers to reduce the cost). We are a family of 2 adults working from home, a teenager an almost teenager and a cat. We rarely eat out so this covers all meals and I do not pop out and get any extra mid week. I already try to buy own brand as much as possible but when I have looked online there are suggestions that I should be able to spend a lot less weekly. How do people do this? So any tips would be appreciated. Thanks.

Do you meal plan? Can you get a food delivery instead of buying in store? Do you buy own brand or brand names? How much alcohol are you buying?

TBH £130 a week for a family of 4 isn't horrific if it includes everything but if you want to cut back, I'd recommend meal planning and shopping online so you aren't tempted by stuff you don't need as you go round.

I use Sainsbury's online and have cut my weekly bill from £80-£90 at Aldi to £65-£75 at Sainsbury's with the added bonus of not having to go shopping. I use a Nectar card so collect points, buy through Top Cashback so get money back too and they often give me money off vouchers of up to £9 which makes a big difference.

Look at your receipts and work out if there is anything that can be cut or dropped down a level.
Is anything cheaper in the homeward stores (toiletries, cleaning stuff, cat litter) like Home Bargains or B&M or online.

Look at where you can reduce the cost of what you buy.

For cleaning products, non perishable food etc, always buy on offer rather than as and when you need it or look for multipacks that work out cheaper. It's silly to buy one tin of beans every week for a pound if you could get a four pack every month for £2.50 (for example).

If you buy lots of snacks, yogurts, soft drinks, that sort of thing, buy less and again, get whatever's on offer.

If you eat a lot of meat or fresh fish, swap some for vegetarian meals, or frozen fish.

If you buy expensive types of fruit and veg, swap to cheaper ones - eg sprouting brocolli is about five times the price of standard brocolli, berries are far more expensive than bananas, etc etc.

Chicken thighs or whole chicken is cheaper than chicken breasts.

Tesco is nearest but if there's an Aldi, Lidl or Asda not much further away, it could be worth going there once a month and stocking up on non perishables and frozen food.

One area that is easy to cut back on is cleaning products. You can make do with one all purpose cleaner for almost everything. Or even washing up liquid. No need for polish/kitchen/bathroom products/air freshener etc. Similarly toiletries. Shampoo, soap, deodorant, maybe a face wash. Job done.

It sounds about right to me.

I’ve stopped buying fabric softeners, you don’t need them. And I’m using Tesco’s own non bio powder.

Hi OP,

We've just switched to Morissons online delivery even though it's not our nearest supermarket. The delivery fee is offset by the cheaper food. Would something like that work?

Also do you have a freezer? It makes keeping leftovers and buying cheaper frozen veg much easier if you've got space.

Meal planning is key, as is not buying expensive processed "treat" foods.

Use own brand products, and cheaper forms of them- e.g its much cheaper per wash to use washing powder than it is to use liquitabs, much cheaper to put chunks of cheddar in a lunchbox than to buy Babybels, it's cheaper to buy Kg (or bigger) bags of rice than to buy micro-rice or boil in the bag rice etc.

Use seasonal fruit and veg, which will be cheaper and tastier than imported fruit and veg.

Reduce the amount of meat per person in a serving, and there are plenty of delicious vegetarian meals that are cheap to make.

£130 all in is not bad for your size of family, but I reckon you could easily get it sub £100 with a bit of planning and a few swaps.

I don't think that's bad. We are now spending about the same, not much that I can cut back on. Tow adults, two tweens eating pretty much adult sized portions.

£130 seems a reasonable amount for the number of people and pets.

With Tesco, I find it's easier to control the budget by shopping online with Click & Collect, even accounting for the extra charge (75p). There's lots of offers every week, and it's clearer to see where there could be savings this way with swaps. Plus the substitutions at the same price if items unavailable.

A few other ideas -
Stock up on regular shopping items when they are on offer, if they have a long shelf life. The offers often follow on a regular cycle pattern, and once you spot it you can then judge how many to buy until the next round of offers. It will produce larger savings in the medium term (rather than weekly), and a significant portion of your shopping is always bought at discount.
Connected to this - note offers at other stores and make a once a quarter trip there to stock up on bulk buys.

In every 5 week month, hold off shopping and use up what's still in the cupboards.
Similarly, have a no spend month (or very limited) - I usually do this in January to use up post-Christmas food.
Keep a well stocked cupboard of tinned goods to supplement the fresh.

Choose an allocated day each week to use up leftovers or make cheaper meals.
I usually do this by making a thick soup with leftover Sunday roast and baking some soda bread. Also, allocate one shelf (or half-shelf) in your fridge for storing leftovers so they're easy to see and use up.

Meal planning has been mentioned, but if you can't be bothered with the hassle, do it retrospectively. Make a note of the meals you have each day for a month or 2 months, then use this as a basis for your meal plans and shop for offers around those meals.

I don't know if trying lidl/aldi is an option for you, but we get much more for our money if we shop in lidl.

Cut down on meat.
Have a few very cheap meals a week like jacket potatoes and baked beans, fried eggs and chips, lentil dhal, soup bread and hard boiled eggs etc.

Meal plan based on what food you already have in prioritising whatever needs used up first. Make sure nothing is going to waste, today's leftovers can be the basis of tomorrow's meal and any veggies on their way out can be made into soups.

Can you cut back on alcohol or go for a cheaper alternative?

I also think £130 is pretty good, you could probably get it down a little, but I don't know how people do it for under £100 with today's prices. I can just about get our family of 7 fed in tesco for around £130 but we have chickens as pets and eat a lot of eggs. Lidl is cheaper.

We thought we'd give Aldi a go because we finally got one in our town, but we're not saving money over our Sainsbury shops due to the aisle in the middle which is impossible to ignore. Last week I came out with a camping mat and a lawn sprinkler which can be operated by a dog. But we save a lot on wine there - currently into the Bin 50 Shiraz, which is £5.99 and is nicer than our usual Sainsbury's ones at £8.

Thanks for the suggestions. I already meal plan and I’m usually quite good at sticking to the list. I think whoever suggested cleaning things as a way to reduce costs might be onto something. I need to try and stop buying brands I recognise. Buying bulk frozen or batch cooking is difficult as we don’t have much freezer space, we have a small fridge freezer. But I do need to remember to bulk buy cupboard staples. I tend to be put off as I know it will make that weeks shopping more expensive!

I wonder if the online things you're looking at are out of date. Food costs have increased a lot recently.

@BertieBotts I was wondering this too. A year or two ago my shop was much cheaper.

Yes you could be correct about the online comparisons as prices have gone up. Also these comparisons probably are not like for like. They tend to be for weekly food shop and of course I buy more than just food. Plus comparisons for families of 4 might be for different ages, my 14 year old eats a lot more than a 3 year old for example!

For cleaning products I like the Tesco own brand limescale remover for the bathrooms - it is only £1.50 and works as well as the big brands. I also use Tesco own brand anti bac spray and toilet cleaner (again the limescale one because our water is hard). And Tesco washing powder. I do buy branded dishwasher tablets because I genuinely think they make a difference.
In terms of food, I buy standard biscuits for 40p ish instead of packaged snacks and out a couple in a little pot to take for lunches - cheaper and greener! Ditto for yoghurt - the big pots of Yeo Valley flavoured yoghurts are £1 when they are on offer, compared to £2 for a pack of 4 of their little ones. Crumpets are much cheaper than bagels. Whole lettuces are cheaper than bags of salad. Tesco creamfields (formerly Value) brand is fine for cream cheese and cheddar for grating (I do buy more expensive cheddar for eating). Dry lentils and beans are cheaper but require more cooking and pre-planning so I don't buy them, but I do buy tinned over sachets (again saving money and plastic). Coconut milk from the Caribbean section is much cheaper than from the Asian section. Spices are cheaper in the Asian section than the spice section.

Has anyone suggested cutting out any weekly treats you buy?
I never bought crisps, biscuits or fizzy drinks for my children, they were occasional treats.
Hungry teenagers...toast, cereal or a big bowl of pasta later on in the evening.
As for cereals it was always porridge, weetabix or cornflakes nothing fancy.

My tip might seem a bit strange but I have started saving money by shopping in Waitrose and using their £20 off £100 codes.

I'm buying quite a bit of their own brand Essentials range and finding it quite reasonable along with the discount code and shopping online is helpful as less distracted by treats

I'm getting a weekly shop with £3 delivery (which I split with a neighbour) for around £80 for two adults and two teens. Apart from milk / bread which I topup during the week

We are mainly veggie though (eat fish) which might help. Sometimes I just have a protein smoothie for dinner instead of a meal so that saves a bit I guess.

Wow £80 a week sounds good, do you spend much topping up? I just assumed Waitrose would be very expensive compared to other supermarkets. I’ve never heard of the £20 off for £100 codes. Off to Google it.

I'm finding that recently it isnt much different from the other shops and some things actually seem cheaper. I notice the code starts MW which may stand for 'My Waitrose' so if it doesn't work first time then you might need to join (free) the My Waitrose card which sometimes gives other discounts.

Yes if you google there is a link I think it is, oddly, the NME, (magazine) with the code on there or I can find it if it's not there...it is for this month (May) I'm hoping to find another for next month.

Iceland are also doing monthly £10 off codes but to be honest I found their stuff more expensive at my last shop. Not the same own range stuff, mainly branded, and less fresh (not surprising really as they are a freezer shop really)

I just tend to buy milk/bread topping up...or anything we have forgotten from the main shop but trying to limit that to the big shop.

I think menu planning is OK, better than random expensive shopping, but it can lead to unnecessary expense if you rigidly buy what is on the list not what is cheap in the shop. We use a flexible menu plan - so we would put 'curry' on the list and put in it whatever is cheap.

It is impossible to advise fully without some more information such as:

• How often do you eat meat, what type, how much per sitting? Meat is a major area where people can make cavings


• How many non-meal items do you buy - such as cakes, biscuits, crisps etc?


• How much do you spend on drinks - coffee, tea, juice, squash?


• Do you buy the veg you like or the cheapest, seasonal veg when you get to the store?


• How much do you spend on e.g. dried fruit, nuts, more luxury ingredients? How much on processed foods like ham, fish fingers, cereal?


• How much are you cooking from scratch? Cakes, biscuits, bread?

If you are serious about saving money you may be able to reduce it by a lot - it depends on your personal priority of choice vs. price.

I had a period of being very skint, there is no point giving prices because times have moved on, but the principles remain the same:

• Tinned or frozen fruit or veg can be cheaper than fresh


• Bulk buying staples


• Vegetarian is cheaper than meat-based


• Eggs can be expensive so limit to what is needed for health


• Tinned fish provides good nutrition at lower prices, frozen fish is cheaper than fresh


• Supermarkets are often not the cheapest place to get fresh produce


• Seasonality matters


• Making your own for all sorts of thing can work out cheaper

If you give more detail of what you buy, it will be possible to advise where savings can be made.

Depending on how much time you have, and how rigidly you stick to a meal plan, I find going round the local co-op / tesco express / mini Sainsbury’s of an evening to find the yellow sticker bargains can really really help. However this is depressing when you finish work late, only have a few pence to get SOMETHING and there’s nothing there 😬. On the flip side, last week I found 50p buried on the beach, and used it for 5 satsumas (reduced to 48p. Thank you very much!)

i guess this is not really feasible with a family (while I’m fine with a couple of satsumas to keep me going for a bit, I wouldn’t be fine feeding that to my child for ‘dinner’)

Way back when, when I was renting with my bestie, we’d make an actual evening out of finding bargains - and talk to the staff in store too: eg. On a monday was when the local budgens reduced their meat, so monday night was yellow sticker heaven.

Iceland can be expensive, but they’ve got a 3 for £10 on frozen fish: salmon fillets / basa / cod etc. I felt like I got a decent amount of protein for the £10 I spent and eek these out into other meals eg use one salmon fillet in an otherwise (cheap!) veggie risotto (eg. peas, any veg on offer that week) that will do for 2-3 meals. Buying potatoes and making wedges (genuinely v easy!) rather than buying frozen skinny chips.

Reduced eggs (from anywhere) are also fab if you can find them, as they generally have 6-7 days until their best before, despite needing to be sold ‘that day’ so you get them half price, and still have a whole week to use them.

keeping veg in the fridge in water (eg. Take the carrots out of their plastic bag, rinse and in fresh cold water in a takeaway tub - I read this tip on mumsnet, and left one carrot of the bag loose in the fridge, as my control - it’s mouldy but the ones in water are fine! Thanks mumsnet :))

cheaper breakfasts (eg. A huuuge bag of plain rolled oats, rather than the teeny packs of quakers. Cheap toast n jam / peanut butter / eggs on the weekend over branded cereals)

never buy cleaning products or like.. kitchen roll / loo roll / foil and cling film / tampax! / shampoo / body wash / (vitamins sometimes, but check dates!) / laundry powder unless they’re on offer: this takes planning ahead, i try to have one ‘on the go’ and then one in the cupboard. Once my ‘cupboard’ one disappears, I’m on the hunt for a deal to replace it (so at the moment, cling film is the next mission!)

The MAIN thing that I find helps me is to make it into a mental game, rather than a ‘omg how am i going to afford x.’ Again, I appreciate that this IS NOT FEASIBLE when you have little little ones to consider, their nutritional needs are not a game :/ and also, no matter how much of a ‘game’ you make it, there’s only so far pennies will stretch.

absolute essay there, but that’s how I afford to live / eat on a single income. Hopefully some of the above helps someone in some way :)

eggs are expensive I find them a good cheap source of protein. £1 for 6 Essentials free range eggs in Waitrose.