Have you updated your food budget?

tyllwyd

I can't seem to get my head round our food budget.

As a family of four, a couple of years ago our food budget was £400 per month, which worked quite well. We didn't budget properly for a while, then last autum we started again with our £400 budget - but by this summer, it is obvious that we aren't sticking to it, and we've upped it to £600.

This is a 'trying not to waste money' budget, not a bare essentials budget, and it is shopping in Sainsburys not Aldis, so I'm not asking for advice on meal planning etc. It's just that I've noticed a few SOAs that people have updated from last year, but nobody seems to have increased their food budget.

I wondered what everyone else is doing - with food inflation more like 11% than 2% according to all the papers, have you increased your monthly groceries budget, or not?

rayday2

Our family shop used to be around £55 a week, now it is anything up to £75 a week.

In saying that the last couple of weeks with no effort and still luxuries in the basket it has been around £55 - £60 again. I have also switched from Netto to Morrisons because I found Netto getting more expensive and also selling out so ended up at another supermarket and spending more.

Morrisons I am pleasantly suprised and have the joy of food shopping back so we are happy. Also Nettos milk and bread was going off quick and not having that problem either.

WifeofDJFLP

We are a family of 5 (2 proper adults, one 14 year old 5ft 8in pretend adult, one medium child, one small child, 3 cats, one dog, one rabbit and one hamster) and our monthly food budget is £320 (£80 per week) and to cope with the increase in food costs we've changed what we buy and kept the budget the same.

We eat much less meat and I can now make a small packet of mince go even further that the 2 meals it used to do previously!

We eat tinned fruit (not necessarily cheaper but never needs thrown out because it's been dropped on the floor/left in the fruit bowl)more often.

I buy own brand breakfast cereals, own brand teabags etc.

We eats lots of chickpeas!:rotfl:

Lots of little things really
HTH

WifeofDJFLP

sophie27

I have managed to reduce mine mainly by switching some items (milk, bread, crisps, choc, fruit, veg, sausages, cleaning stuff etc) to Aldi. I will normally spend around 25 in there and the remaining 30 in sainsburys.

I was determined not to up my food budget and OH dragged me into Aldi one day to which I was pleasantly surprised.

When you spend 600 a month, are you chucking anything anyway? Is it all eaten?

Yorkielass

Rather than increase the amount we spend on food we're trying our best to be even more savy, using things like meal planning, batch cooking, reduced stickers, taking pack ups into work more etc. For the last year we've done a monthly shop with Tesco for our non-perishables (sometimes online depends on codes and timing etc) then shop each week in Sainsburys or Waitrose (if I'm near one for work) for our fresh stuff.

All of this together means we haven't had to increase the amount we spend and would rather keep cutting back on things than increase the amount of money we spend if possible.

Horace

Admittedly I am on my own but do occasionally cater for a visitor and my budget has greatly reduced - I used to spend £150 a month on food and then realised that I chucked most of it away. Now my budget is lessened because I buy meat from my local butcher - eg. a pack of 8 large chicken thighs for £2.99 which are then split into bags of 4 - cook 4 eat 2 for main meal and have another 2 for lunch the next day. Same goes for chops. My freezer is full. I buy fresh veg from the local greengrocer, same as my eggs as they are only 50p for half a dozen (they have been known to go as low as 29p:j ).

I shop in Lidl - sometimes bulk buying things like toilet rolls so that I only need to buy them once a quarter, washing powder is bought once a year as I am miserly with it.

My shopping bill at Lidl yesterday was £21.20 and I even managed to buy some nice ice cream treats too. That's me done for the month - anything that I didnt get has gone on to next month's list:D .

immoral_angeluk

Ours is £50 a week and is staying that way regardless of food price increases. We just have to be smarter with what we spent it on.

LilacPixie

we were £200 a month but have increased it to £250. This is for 2 adults 1 toddler and an infant as well as 2 cats. This figure also includes formula and nappies for the infant . To be honest most of the £50 pm increase has been due to needing formula and nappies yet still I am finding we are getting less 'treat' items each week and the bill at checkout is not reducing.

NickWarren_2

Our budget is £30 a week for 2 adults and 2 dogs, i say budget, this is what i am to spend and get annoyed if i go over lol. we shop at aldi or lidl and find that the £30 goes a lot further than it did at tesco. also the fruit and veg is a lot cheaper and a lot fresher.

IWantToBeFree_2

I don't have a set budget, I like to keep it around £100 a month, which is half of what we used to spend. With prices rocketing, I find myself being far more savvy about what we buy, and making things go further, so my bill has reduced rather than increase... When I make meals like curry/chilli/lasagne, I make a huge batch and freeze the rest and it does for at least 2 more meals, I cook veg in huge batches & then freeze it as we used to throw loads out. Don't really buy luxuaries, aside from things like branded toothpaste/toiletries etc....

rubydoiwannabee

Hi, thanks for a good thread.
We have two adults, one teenager (13.5) and a five year old. In the past we got up to as much as £100 a week!!! eek:eek: Mainly from just throwing things in the trolley randomly and not thinking about whether it made up meals or not.

We seem to do ok now on anything between £60-£70 a week. Some week we need lots of household goods, washing powder etc and it may creep up, but on average I would say £60-65 per week.

We shop once a week only and very rarely go for a second visit, I buy enough milk and bread for the week and freeze it and I do meal plan, because I find this helps keep the shopping focussed.

So in a rather long winded answer to your question, NO, we have a budget and we stick to it now, it that means more pasta or soup and less treats then so be it.

x