How much do you spend on groceries?

[confusedlots]

I’ve been spending a lot of time since the start of the year trying to really get to grips with our finances. Analysing exactly where our money is going, knowing what it is my pension pot, making a savings plan etc.

I never really used to pay a lot of attention to our grocery spend each month as in my head it’s all essentials, and I thought I just bought the essentials with maybe a few little treats here and there. We are spending around £600 a month on groceries for a family of 4 (kids are under 10) and I can’t seem to get it down and still feed us all. Help! Do I have to accept this is what it costs or does anyone manage to get it much cheaper than this?

Just me and husband but I do buy extras for grandchild who is coeliac to help out with her parents food bill ..so about £100 a week. GF food is bloody expensive!!

@Boudy you’re 4 adults, I’m referring to the 2 ppl spending £150pw, or family of 4 claiming ‘gosh we’re £300pw’

Ah ok...misread!

Well…. We are? It’s a thread asking what we spend on groceries and that’s what we spend?

Im single and spend about £50 a week but that includes a few bits for a relative. I dont buy any extras on top of that as there are no shops and I am mobility impaired and dont drive. I have a weekly Tesco delivery.

I dont drink or smoke so I am not going to cut down on the things I like such as fruit and yogerts. I am always conscious of the extent to which we singles are subsidising families.

It must be all of ten days since we last had one of these threads! I spend around £200 per week on food, cleaning products, toiletries etc for two adults and a cat. We don’t drink alcohol. It’s risen quite a lot over the last year.

But its very likely that amount will include a lot of higher cost items that are unnecessary for someone struggling with money.

Fine if you can afford it but easy to cut down if you need to.

Ask ChatGPT. I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now and it really helps with cost and getting some variety into our diets instead of relying all the time on spag bol or stir fry. I use the prompt:

Create a weekly dinner menu. It should be healthy and cost effective. Don’t mind using ingredients more than once. Avoid lamb and gammon based dishes.

I bulk the recipes out with veg and take the leftovers to work for lunch. The food itself comes in at about £45-£50 and then there’s the staples like bread, milk, toilet roll, etc. on top. All in all it’s about £70-£80 for the three of us and we eat well. Last night, for example, was chicken and bacon pasta with peppers and peas. All the plates were cleared and there’s a portion already packed and in the fridge for my lunch today.

I tracked all our spend for January to baseline all my bills as my water bill and the electricity had gone up so much. We spent £1000 on food in January - that’s for one dog, 5 adults and 2 teenagers and also included 2 trips to M and S for ‘nice’ bits (rest was Sainsbury’s and Lidl)

I spend the first week of the month cooking, I make quadruple for dinner each evening and freeze the other 3 portions. I cook different meals each month, this month we’ve had chicken bhuna, goulash, chilli on carne, kebabs on sticks and flat bread, home made pizza and next months meal plan includes ramen, tarragon chicken, cottage pie

i make the flat breads, pitta breads in bulk, 2 or 3 loaves and slice and freeze. I make halal rice and freeze flat, mash potato etc

everything is then ready for the next 3 weeks to eat out of the freezer

i I make soaked oats or slow cooker oats recipes for breakfast and egg bites etc for breakfast and wraps jacket potato for lunch.

i also make cookie dough, sweet treats and keep a bag of frozen croissants in the freezer for weekend breakfast

I use oat milk and cows milk

i buy everything and put it in a supermarket shopping basket to know the cost - then order or go and shop

its coming in at around £150 for 2 people for the main shop and £10 a week for extras. If there is 4 of us, and I do host 2 students at times so for three months there sometimes is, the cost doesn’t double.

it comes in at around £300

ive found it really good that I don’t cook for 3 weeks and don’t have to do a weekly shop. But doing the top up shop is quick pop in and strict only get the items I need. Plus I can’t buy extras as we have so much food to use up first.

There are a few other AI meal planning budget tools around that do different things

We are approaching an average weekly spend of £200. 2 adults and 2 under 6. Our cost is driven up by the need for allergy friendly foods. No alcohol generally. We consume a lot of meat, fish and eggs.

I expect costs to rise...we probably will net out at around 250 as we try to get better at doing packed lunches.

We’re £2-250 a week for 2 adults, sometimes with a top up shop too. We eat lots of meat (free range, or from the butchers), eggs (free range), cheese, dairy products, fresh fruit / veg etc and it’s expensive. No alcohol in the shop (we don’t drink at home) and we buy pet food separately. It’s expensive! I think my food shop that I’ve ordered for this week is £220, and about £90 of that is the meat for the week. If DH is away lots that week I can get it to £150 maybe depending on what I’m getting.

Its definitely more expensive than it used to be! We budget for it because we like eating this way.

I spend 600 a month on a similar family OP, that's having a Tesco delivery every 3 or 5 days.
The only way I could get it down, and did when I was on mat leave, is by going to different shops, stocking up at the Asian supermarket, Aldi etc, but the hours involved just stopped being worth it when I went back to work.
It depends how much time and effort you're willing to throw at it?

Two adults, my husband a pescatarian, we spend £200 to £250 a week, no alcohol. We love nice cheese, and organic fruit and veg. We’ve cut back tho to stay in this bracket, dumped items such as Pellegrino water which is ludicrously expensive now. Everything has rocketed in cost, my tub of almond butter is £7.80 now, used to be £4.50ish. Even oat bran has doubled. I am so sad for the struggle some must be going through, cost of living is brutal.

For a family of 4 with some cleaning products, toiletries and the odd snack I think £130 a week is generally just what it costs.
The only way you’re realistically going to be able to get it down if to change the way you eat, no berries or soft fruits, no packaged snacks, much more basic meals.
If you looked at the meals the family spending £65 a week it would look hugely different to you. Personally it’s not a meal plan lifestyle I would enjoy.

More than we did a year ago! About £100 a week for two adults. That's everything but dog food and that’s on subscription from Amazon.

I meal plan. But I make a 250g pack of mince stretch between us all and then leftovers for the next day, anything like that is bulked out with veggies, beans, lentils.
Luckily we have no allergies or picky eating. We don’t buy any branded items.
I have a healthy supply of ingredients, so if I was making stir fry it would just be the meat and veg, I can make the sauce from what I have in the cupboards and those things tend to last for ages. Same for curries, never buy a jar as I’ll make my own (unauthentic) sauce.
Our shopping budget it low, because it has to be. Because that is all the money there is. there isn’t the option of buying more or more expensive items 🤷‍♀️

I thinks that’s the equivalent of £70 a week for 2 or around 140 to 180 for 2 adults 2 smaller kids ( assuming teens have an adult or greater need for food ) which is much lower than some here are managing - yous is horrific as you are feeding so many!

I ignored the dog

600 a month is 150 a week which looking at the replies here isn’t bad with the amount of meat dinners you have

you can get lower - the trick there is to do so without sacrificing food quality as was seen on a previous thread and that’s the hard bit. Frozen veg , less meat, seasonal food

id rather spend on decent food because it’s so important . I suspect £100 a week would be very hard to achieve with healthy diet

I suspect £100 a week would be very hard to achieve with healthy diet

Depends on what you eat. A largely unprocessed, mostly vegetarian diet is relatively cheap and very healthy. You don't have to eat large portions of organic protein and unlimited blueberries to be healthy.

While the OPs title is 'how much do you spend on groceries' it's clear from her post that she wants/needs to spend less, so it's not helpful when the 'we prioritise good food which is expensive and anyone who doesn't spend as much as we do must be living on junk' crowd weigh in with how it can't possibly be done without spending £200+ per week.

Some people have to manage on less and that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't eating healthily, although it does usually mean that you need to be able to cook and you have to accept an element of 'like it or lump it'.

I spend approximately £50/w (for everything including household items except toilet roll and animal food which are on subscription) in Sainsburys for two adults.

When the "children" are back from Uni and it's 4 adults, that goes up to around £80-90 ish per week.

I meal plan and cook mostly from scratch. We eat very well indeed, with minimal waste.

I budget £250 per month and am usually under that.
We are one adult and 2 children, 8 and 5.
I batch cooking and we use a lot of lentils and beans as a meal base. The eldest eats meat, but me and the youngest don't so our meals at home are broadly veggie.
I bake after work when I can for things like biscuits and cakes. I use a bread maker for bread - set it before work and leave it, along with the slow cooker.

Around £250 per week for between 3-4 adults depending on who’s home and often with an extra guest for dinner (who stays overnight and for breakfast!).
Weekly food shop from ocado is around £150 and then dh spends £100ish at the butchers.
Could definitely get it down firstly by eating less meat but we don’t want to and don’t need to reduce our food budget. We don’t really meal plan so there is often several mid week trips to the supermarket on top of that to get what we need to go with dinner.
Strict meal planning could definitely help with budgets.

We're at about £650 a month for two adults and a teenager and while we aren't struggling I'd love to get it down and free up money for something else.
We don't eat huge amounts of meat, and cook 80% ISH from scratch. I buy one 6 pack of Pepsi a week, I don't drink soft drinks so it's enough. No alcohol that comes from our fun money, but we don't drink much anyway.

I think our main issues are threefold - I hate running low on food so seem to constantly be topping up rather than managing without. So if I see there's one tin of chopped tomatoes I'll grab a couple more 'just in case' I don't know why I have this habit and need to get out of it.
Secondly, dairy - we get through crazy amounts of milk, yoghurt and cheese. My teenager eats loads and is seemingly never full.
Thirdly, we all love food. That sounds daft I know but I'm a sucker for a new recipe with a bunch of new ingredients to buy. I really want to try to do a few weeks with more simple meals and see how we go, but whenever I meal plan for a baked potato I end up skipping it and doing something else. We did enjoy our simple meal of soup and toasties a few weeks ago, but I didn't find it much cheaper as we use good bread, cheese etc.