Shopping once a month instead of weekly to save money?

[Travelfairy]

Does anyone do this for stuff like cleaning products/toiletries/loo roll etc
Determined to rein in our grocery spend! Thinking of doing it this way might reduce the constant back and forth to the supermarket and the inevitable extra spends that go along with it!

If you do this, do you go to discount shops like B&M or order on amazon?

We do our shop monthly, a combination of Aldi, B and M, Farm Foods and Costco.
I'll do little shops in between for fresh veg and fruit etc, but the main shop is monthly.
I find it's more cost effective doing it that way.

I do this for the kids snacks, packed lunch stuff wrapped things, cleaning, laundry and dog food things. It definitely saves money for us compared to doing it with weekly shop or back and forward when we need something cos we inevitably buy other stuff whilst grabbing what we went in for.

I don't think it's the frequency that's the defining factor as to whether you save money as long as it doesn't cost to go to the shops, eg because it's in walking distance or you go on the way home from work.

After all, if you shop often, even several times a week, you could pick up lots of reduced bargains or be able to stock up on special offers. The 'extra spends' are only going to end up costing extra if you're buying luxury versions that are not in the budget, or don't use the item, because otherwise it will just keep until you do need it, and reduce spending later on.

Buying the same things once a week from the same supermarket is probably the most expensive way to shop unless you're going to Aldi or Lidl where prices are generally lower and consistent, so it's definitely worth avoiding that norm if you're able to.

Otherwise to save money, you want to be buying special offers, usually getting larger packs, eg a 4 pack of beans once a month instead of a single can once a week will work out cheaper. Also rotating round supermarkets and cherry picking offers as some things are cheaper in some supermarkets, also a lot of items are always on offer somewhere so if you keep a stock in, you never have to pay full price and save quite a lot over time.

But getting toiletries, cleaning products etc is often cheaper in Home Bargains, B&M etc so worth stocking up every so often. I don't find these items to be cheaper from Amazon usually, because they cost a disproportionate amount to transport, so is factored into the cost.

The other way to reduce cost would be to look at what you're spending the most on and swap for cheaper items. Eg swap sprouting broccoli for normal broccoli reduces the cost/kg by about 70-80%, eat less meat, frozen fish and berries instead of fresh, etc etc.

That's exactly the part I'm trying to avoid. Picking up random bits and pieces!

I find shopping online is a good solution for that too. We meal plan and get what we need for the week, and there is less temptation online to add random stuff to the basket.

I think if you plan well then it doesn't make much difference how often you shop, unless you are bulk buying which is obviously cheaper (but depends on the luxury of space to store things).

We buy loo rolls , bleach , etc in bulk from Costco once a month / 6 weeks plus getting other bits . I don’t think that is the answer to lower bills though as I shop locally at least 2/3 times a week and my bills are pretty low I think the answer is meal planning and only buying what you’ve gone for and not being distracted. We have very little food waste here

What I've been trying to do is be very good about shopping for the week only and if something runs out, that is it and we have to do without until the next week's shop.

So we ran out of orange juice yesterday and usually I'd have just popped into Sainsbury's Local on the way back from the school run, picked some up and no doubt a couple of other bits.

We don't really have the storage space for a full month's worth of everything like loo roll. I agree that planning properly is the key and it doesn't much matter whether that is weekly or monthly.

Our shopping loosely follows this pattern
Week 1 top up cleaning supplies
Week 2 just for the week
Week 3 just for the week
Week 4 top up cupboard essentials - large bags pasta and rice etc. As well as tins
Week 5 just for the week
Week 6 bare essentials running the fridge to empty making use of cupboard and freezer where necessary

Can u ask why you do it over 6 weeks? Is that how you are paid??

Yes thank you and you are right meal planning is key! I need to get better at this too!

We buy loo rolls from who gives a crap about every 8 months. Buy toiletries and cleaning items from Home Bargains probably about every 2 or 3 months.

We buy things like baked beans, tinned tomatoes, chickpeas, lentils in bulk and replace when stock is low.

We often buy bread when reduced and freeze it

We do a biggish shop every 4 to 6 weeks and shop weekly for fruit and veg.

Definitely think we save money shopping this way

No that's just loosely how often we run out of things its a rough routine based on needs.
Running the fridge down often comes the week after socialising or having people to stay for the weekend. My in-laws try to come every 6 weeks or so.

We get who gives a crap loo roll so that comes every 4 months and we have oat milk on subscription so we get 30l of that every 3 weeks. Every other order we also get some hair products for myself and my daughter and multivitamins as required too.

We are in the fortunate position where our outgoings are more than covered by our earnings so we don't have that count down to pay day although we are now down to one wage after I was made redundant earlier this year so we are trying to make sure that our money is spent carefully

I’ve done this a couple of times when I felt super organised and it did save me money. I keep wanting to go back to it.
Basically, I did a big shop of things like pasta, rice, noodles, tinned stuff, herbs and spices, oil, flour, sugar, toiletries and cleaning products. Everything that keeps and that I would use in the month.
Then I budgeted for weekly fresh food.
It does work and the best thing was that it saved me so much time and food headspace.

The way I watched the pennies in the early days when every penny had to be counted was:

• menu planning (including requirements for pack lunches)
• create a list from the menu
• monthly check on non perishables (cleaning, laundry, toiletries etc)
• add anything with less than a month’s supply to the list
• repeat monthly check for non perishable foods (herbs, spices, vinegars etc)
• tweak menu to make use of large packs, seasonal veg etc and remove waste
• non perishables only go on the first list of the month
• perishables go on the weekly list
• don’t buy anything that isn’t on the list

Once you get into a routine of menu planning around seasonal food and checking non perishables once a month it becomes habit quite quickly.

You can save an astonishing amount of waste by menu planning and not buying anything which isn’t on the list.

Yes we do a monthly 'big shop' and then I top up weekly for milk, bread, butter and other little things we need. If I had more room in the fridge I'd buy milk and butter monthly too.

We shop for meat every three months or so and have a dedicated freezer for that.

Saves so much time and effort and is also cost effective because it cuts out a lot of impulse purchases.

Superscientist and C8H10N4O2 that's impressive.
I tend to do a big shop monthly in lidl. I try to coincide this with a 10% discount on the lidl app for spending more that £250 in a month, therefore I can get a discount on my most expensive shop.
I try to buy as many non perishables as I can monthly.
I think the cleaning products in lidl are fine so are the toiletries, especially specially the sun screen which I find excellent. I do use some specific brands for my face and hair which I try to buy on offer when i can from other retailers.
I do top up shops throughout the month in lidl, also in local ethnic grocers and Sainsbury's to add variety.

Yes I do all things like toiletries, cleaning products, cat food online. I only do a few orders a year.

I do other food shops for basic staples that store like flour, sugar every few months. Mainly as i find it easier to then not have to buy those in weekly shop.
In winter we can get snowed in and have to go on foot only to shop, so I don’t want to have to carry basics that store.
Also no online shopping here. It’s easier unloading a big shop occasionally and then just a basket load of fresh weekly.

Im not sure if it saves much v weekly as I’m not really an impulse shopper and stick to a list. But we definitely save in that I only really buy ingredients and make things like cake/ biscuits/ bread products at home

When I was in my 40s I had a phase of deciding which basics were the best value for money, so
X Brand of pasta,
Y brand of coffee
Z brand of biscuits.
Now they’re set in stone (reduces mental load) and I stock up on them when there’s a special offer. Panten shampoo has priced itself out of that category and now we flit between brands.

Baking supplies are all own brand as are tinned food, paper goods and dried pulses. I buy large amounts of good bread and freeze it on the day. I usually go to Lidl monthly to stock up, but some of their own-brand products cost more than branded on offer!

I’m fussy about fruit and veg so they’re bought in season twice a week on foot from our nearest supermarket or the green grocer.
We’re 70% vegetarian (DD is 100%) so I often get fancier yellow label cuts on the day and make a big deal of them. Or I go to the butcher for a 3kg MN chicken. I have a freezer delivery every 2 weeks (fish, greens, pizza and beige foods). I also meal plan to reduce the mental load!

€175 per week for 3 adults. The freezer delivery sometimes pushes me over. It went up from 150 in January due to COL. At one point olive oil was so expensive I switched to rapeseed but it’s got better recently. I use loyalty vouchers etc.

We also do enough pasta/rice/ried beans and legumes for a year at a time so I never have to think about that.

Tins at quarterly intervals.

Fruit and veg in weekly box delivery (and some topped up in weekly shop).

Appreciate not everyone can do this but if you can it's so much easier and means I hardly have to think about it.

We also make sure we have a drawers of frozen veg, fruit and fish which can readily be turned into quick meals

We do our large shops online with Sainsbury's as my partner gets between 3 and 7% off if we buy gift cards through his work. The online shop also comes from 1 of 3 large stores 20-40 minute drives from us which gives us more options compared to the smaller local stores. The biggest difference is in packaging size, we can get 3kg pasta and 15kg of rice in an online order but restricted to 500g or 1kg bags in the local shop. Same with oil we get 3 or 5l online or 500-750ml in store, it brings the price down as well as reducing the mental load of replacement as they last longer.

The smaller shops come from a mix of Tesco and Aldi. My daughter has a lot of allergies and we struggle to get everything from one store so by varying what we get over the course of the month reduces the burden of going to multiple shops each week

My mum lived in food poverty when she had my elder sister and she taught us all to keep a well stocked non perishable cupboard and it's put us in a good position. When the pandemic hit we were able to go 4 weeks without a shop riding out some of the hysteria and then only shopped every 2 weeks. We would get a mix of veg that needed using the first week and plenty of root veg that would see us through the second week topped up with some frozen veg.

I’d love to claim origination but I learned from my parents.

Like @Superscientist we also kept frozen veg on hand and I also grew up poor. My parents had to watch every penny like all the other families around us. Menu/shopping planning with a rigid focus on seasonality (due to prices) was the norm. My Mum, like many, kept a shopping “diary” for the weekly accounting of costs. They didn’t have luxuries like freezers or much space for storage but end of day at the market was the equivalent of yellow stickers in their day.

Over the recent decades British supermarkets have flattened a lot of seasonal prices to keep eg a lettuce at broadly the same price in Winter and Summer. This effectively keeps food costs up and variety down in large shops. Seasonal eating also has a lot less food miles so its a win-win on cost and “green” eating.

I wish supermarkets would return to proper seasonal pricing and ranges which never left most European supermarkets. I can walk into a Summer supermarket in France or Spain or Italy and see a huge variety of Summer produce on display with relatively little Winter produce whereas the British counterpart will have the same two varieties of loose lettuce alongside all the Winter produce. Over the year it leads to much less varied and less seasonal eating as well as higher costs.

I agree it's sad how the supermarkets in the uk sell the same stuff all year. I don't want strawberries shipped from south America in December.

Loads of people do this and say it helps cut down on spending. Doing one big shop for things like loo roll, toothpaste, and cleaning bits means you're not always nipping to the shop and ending up with snacks and random stuff you didn’t plan to buy. Places like B&M, Aldi, or even Amazon are great for getting it all in one go, and usually cheaper too. It might take a bit of planning to get started, but once you know what you need each month, it makes life easier and saves money in the long run.