Weekly food shop - latest amounts your spen

[Randomamsi]

A friend shops at Aldi and Farm Foods for family of 4 and tells me she does food shop for £60 -£75 a week.

She batch cooks a lot, uses frozen fruit and veg and not too much meat so maybe its true but it just seems so incredibly low!!

Some of my food bills have been nearer £200 in recent months so I've been feeling like I'm doing something wrong after speaking to her.

What are you spending each week?

What are you buying??

2 adults, a teen and a tween —£120 weekly, mainly Tesco

It’s not the main shop for me but the small top-ups that suddenly seem to add up.

4 adults -£300 per week.

We shop in the full range of supermarkets from Lidl to Waitrose, no meal planning, we just buy a loaf of stuff and make it into meals.

2 adults, and 2 children (1 and 6)

We don't have a set spend each week but roughly over the month we do 2 Aldi shops of ~£70, 1 week where it's a mix of Aldi and Tesco both £30-50 and 1 week where we get a Sainsbury's delivery which is £80-120. We also get a subscribe and save once a month for oat milk, shampoos and vitamins which is probably another £60.

Once every 4-6 weeks I do a using up the fridge/freezer week where I try to avoid shopping except for specific things and these weeks it's usually £25-35 and every 2 months a topping up the stables and it's more like £150

Two adults and one child between 80-120 per week depending on when we need toiletries. I have my own herb garden and grow a few veg. I batch cook quite a lot. I could get the cost down more but my son has aifid so we need to get his safe foods which are mostly branded.

It's likely that you're eating very different meals, also shopping at more expensive supermarkets and possibly buying more extras outside actual meals, eg snacks, drinks, non food items.

If you eat an unprocessed mostly vegetarian diet made with seasonal veg, pulses, grains, eggs and Asian branded spices, and not much meat you can eat for very little with batch cooking. It's the prime protein, branded cleaning products, exotic fruit etc that adds to the cost.

If those numbers are true, she probably spends a lot less than average and you probably spend a lot more than average, so if you want to spend less, you need to look at what you spend most on and make cheaper choices. Or go to a cheaper supermarket.

Eg bone in chicken legs are much cheaper than chicken breasts.
normal broccoli is about a quarter the price per kilo of sprouting
Asian branded spices are much cheaper than Schwartz jars or premade mixes
all supermarkets do mixed free range eggs for about £1.40 so less than half the price of branded large eggs
Own brand Greek yogurt is half the price of Fage.
buy multipacks and special offers where the price per kilo is cheaper.

etc etc.

I think you could do it for £60 as well.

If you need 3 meals a a day for 4 people, 2 of which are kids, and they eat like sparrows
Just a quick easy way to get it cheaper.

Having porridge for breakfast, sandwiches, fruit and yoghurt for lunch

Pasta/rice, cheap protein, veggies for dinner

Tea/coffee/squash to drink

Fruit for snacks
So

Breakfast
1kg of porridge for breakfast - 85p
12 pints of milk - £5

Lunch
2 loaves of bread - £1.10
Tub of spread - £1.25
Cheese - £2.59
Jam - 50p
Peanut butter - £1

Dinners
1kg rice - 95p
1kg pasta - 75p
2 tin tuna - £1.50
Chicken drumsticks - £2.15
4 x Tins of tomato - £1.30
Bag carrots - 50p
Onions - £1
Frozen sweetcorn, peas, mixed veg - £4.50
Mince - £3
Lentils - 90p
Frozen fish - £4

Fruit for snacks and porridge etc
Bananas x 2 bags £1.60
Apples x 12 - £2
Satsumas - £2

That's £40

So is still have £20 for even more. Could get a dozen eggs, toiletries, some crisps, some curry/pasta sauce mixes, more veg and fruit, tea/coffee, more pasta and rice, some yoghurt etc

It can be done, if you choose cheaper options. No one's living off £60 p/w eating avocado and poached eggs on organic sourdough toast with grass fed butter etc

Maybe £140 including top up shops. For 2A 1C. Pet food, laundry subscription and wine ordered separately so not included in that.

Where are people getting 12 pints of milk for £5????

.... Aldi?

6 pints is £2.40, 12 is £4.80....

https://www.aldi.co.uk/product/cowbelle-semi-skimmed-milk-1-7-fat-000000000000416713

Even the 4 pint bottles come to under £5 if you buy 3. They're £1.65. so would be £4.95.

Same price in Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's etc.... where are you shopping that you think that it's impossible to get 12piints for less than a fiver?

This, if you have time and ability then you can make things for very cheap. I made 40 granola bars yesterday for about £5. My sourdough bread for 50p a loaf. Cakes and muffins for pennies. I can make 30 falafels for pennies from dried herbs and chickpeas you just have to soak them.

Use cheaper cuts of meat like chicken drumstick (£1.20 for 6) and it’s easy to cut back. We eat very well, but it is labour and time insensible. That’s what I have more of right now.

Same price in Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's etc.... where are you shopping that you think that it's impossible to get 12 pints for less than a fiver?

I’m in Europe where the lowest I can find is €1.05 a litre for UHT.

i popped in and suddenly there was another meal i was planning
£35 to add to what i had already spent the day before!

I spend about £70pw, just me. Not much cleaning stuff, no toiletries, no pets, no alcohol. All three meals, though we probably eat out twice a week.

Dp is here sometimes so I factor him in and if the food isn't used it goes in the freezer. I buy those huge trays of chicken breasts because it's cheaper overall, and put at least half in the freezer. Sometimes I cut them in half because some are stupidly big.

But this week I'll probably get away with £20-£30, because I've just got a pack of chicken breasts and a pack of smoked salmon out of the freezer and there's some tuna I'll use later this week.

So it does go up and down a bit.

food is insane now, every shopping trip I am gobsmacked at how fast prices are rising. We budget £300 a week for food shop, top ups and meals out/snacks out and about for two adults and two children, 9 and 6. I cook from scratch (whatever that means!) and that includes lunches as DH works from home and both children have packed lunches. Son could have free meals but only likes one of the choices every fortnight or so which is frustrating. I’m not massively fussy but my daughter is autistic and has certain preferences for brands which we can’t deviate from (cereal is the killer as a box can be £4 but she won’t eat the supermarket £1 version) we make our own bread as just prefer the taste and have fussy cats. We do a weekly Ocado shop and I do a top up in Tesco in the week for fruit and sandwich meat as both get demolished! I try to buy best quality meat I can and children eat a lot of fancy fruit.

Three hundred pounds? 😲

What are you buying for that? Seems crazy expensive.

I find it a bit difficult to track as I shop twice a week and have my eldest with me all the time but my younger two go to their dads every other weekend. Three teens and two are boys so eat everything in sight. I think it’s in the region of 90 per week or maybe slightly less. My banking app says £300 per month but I think that’s probably missing a few small
top up shops etc.

includes wine, cleaning stuff, washing powder etc but no pet food. One coeliac, all vegetarian.

It includes meals out too. If me, dp and dd go out for tea it's at least £120, more if we go somewhere a bit nicer. That would take my spend to nearly £300 too.

It includes a meal out each week plus snacks after sports and a coffee after a walk in the woods/treat at the zoo (members so go a lot) etc. we try to eat at harvester type places but even that’s £70 easily for basic meal out for four!

170EUR - 1 adult, 2 teen boys. I don't restrict what I buy - so that's including a bottle of wine for me, meat for multiple meals (including steaks), cat food/treats.

This week I did't have to buy much, but I ended up getting some bits in the middle aisle, so it was still 150EUR (and I'll buy milk/bread again later in the week and inevitably something else which takes it up to 20EUR)

Thanks for doing this - it reaffirms what I was trying to say.

Plus if you shop around / use all various discounts that are available, you can get it all for much less again.

And in farmfoods the equivalent of 12 pints is £4 (correct me if I'm wrong but 3 x 2L is £3.50). Plus you can then use the money-off coupons and discounted gift cards on top.

Use the Trolley app to find which supermarket has the best deal on your cereal brand (for example) and stock up.

@Randomamsi yeah she’s full of shit hasn’t been possible to shop that cheap in at least 15 years!