Do our food shopping bills seem reasonable?

mummysaver

What other people have done on here is post their menu for the week and their shopping lists, and then suggestions have been made as to how to cut down.

Good luck though, I find menu planning helps and taking a list when I shop!

SuziQ

I agree with everyone else,I feed and buy everthing including cleaning products,food for our 2 cat and cat litter for less than £180 per month.Your spending does seem excessive-fine when you could afford it but every saving you make on non essentials will make your overall budget stretch further. I have found that Wilkos is cheapest for cat litter and my cats like Tescos food which is £3.86 for 12 tins. If you are eating out lot perhps you could cut down,but if you reduce your budget at home then you may be able to enjoy more social outings-it's all about balnce. I started off by writing down absolutely everything I spent-even a stamp-and in this way I was able to identify where I could cut down.I reckon I have halved my spending since April.

narabanekeater

As a very proud owner of 2 kittens I really can see room to save quite a lot on your kitten budget
Aldi do great litter and really and value brand works.
Which food do you buy?
If your buying Whiskas and the like from Tescos stop
Its expensive and nothing nutricianlly like a good complete food
Someones already mentioned Jame Beloved theres loads to choose from
Even Iams which you can buy in Tescso would work out cheaper and be better for them.
Id say at the most its costs me £1 a day to feed mine but probabily a lot more
Wormers and flea treatments can be rough cheaper online that the vet will sell you them for
If you have room to store a giant bag of litter than buy one from a petstore like Pets and home and store it saving even more

tessie_bear

essex h .... what are veg boxes like ?? what sort of stuff do u get ? how much are they ?

kymbogs

Hi there

Well we spend about the same as you do on your groceries alone (by that I mean not including the extras for the kittens and the treats) to feed 2 adults a toddler and a baby on formula, 2 lots of nappies, wipes etc and two adult cats.

I recently posted on another ladys thread on the debt-free wannabe board who was spending £60 a month on her cats and said she'd have to have them rehomed as she couldn't afford them.

If you get Tesco Value cat litter (which trust me doesn't smell bad, I've got a very sensitive nose and we just started using it this month and it's fab) you'll save a fortune, it's £1.14 for 10 litres. About 5 bags has lasted us the month. My two do go outside but they come in to use the tray :rotfl:

Also last week I discovered a complete dry catfood in Wilkinsons called Ultima which is like Iams or Purina One but much cheaper. Each bag costs £1.09 and contains 20 meals, well it will have more in for a smaller cat. The lady I mentioned was going through 2 bags of litter a week and I got her costs down to about £17 a month.

I picked up a 1kg bag of Iams in Home Bargains yesterday for £1.49 so we're sorted for kittyfood for awhile

Hope this helps. And I agree, doing your grocery shopping online really saves you money as you see it adding up, can easily add and subtract items from your basket, use money-off coupons etc. But it can be scary too, I've just made a start on my monthly shop and all I've put in the basket so far are the nappies and wipes and formula and loo roll and laundry stuff and it's over £70 lol.

Best of luck to you

Kimberley

Burp_2

Francesanne wrote: »

What a sheltered life you've had!

Not sheltered - more controlled! Roasts were always a 'family occaision' at our house ... mum cooked and dad carved so we were never allowed in the kitchen ... then when I was a student I lived off pasta and toast! Couldn't afford meat! So a whole chicken to ourselves is novel!



Thanks for all your tips so far

This is what I've done so far:

1. Shown my OH the figures for our shopping and kittens
2. Made a list of everything in freezer/cupboards
3. Have made a meal plan for the next 10 days out of what we have in freezer/cupboard!
4. Borrowed my mums Morphy Richards Fastbake BM - now experimenting with this!
5. Looked on Tescos online for deals etc and made a list of what we need ready to do shopping
6. Looked for our pet food online cheaper - but can't find anywhere!

As for our Kitties - the boy was very poorly when we had him (touch and go) and even tho he is 6 months old now he is still the size of a 3 month kitten! He was a runt and rejected by his mum and our vet said he had an underdeveloped digestive system meaning he struggles to digest any food he is given so he has been on a special diet... the vet advised us to stick with whatever food his stomach was accepting - which so far has been whiskas kitten loaf and James Wellbeloved biscuits. The vet also said not to keep him on just a dry diet as this will effect how his stomach develops

Our aim for this months grocery/toilettries/household shop is £200 ... £100 less than it normally is - so fingers crossed!

And our target for kitty food and kitty litter is £35 ... £25 less than it normally is!

Fingers crossed!

Burp x

Chell

Good luck Burp! Sounds like you've made a good start.

naturally_2

I reckon you can get down quite a bit on the groceries without feeling hard done by. Join the challenge for september, but have a go at just reducing your spend by a little, say a maximum of £50 for the first month.

I am single and have just managed most of a month on £60. I had a major *ahem* loss of brain at the beginning of the month, and spent the rest of the £125 I normally budget per month over a weekend,:rolleyes: so had to be frugal - but I've eaten well for it. I find meat the most expensive thing, and don't tend to buy much of it as a result, so you should allow a bit more than us veggies or nearly veggies!:rotfl:

naturally_2

Oh, and kitty litter - stop buying it! Have you got a garden where you can get some soil from? Its the natural way and freeeee!

Alternatively if you don't have a garden do some research and find out if there is a vegetable processing place near you - we have a sugar beet factory nearby who give away bags of top soil (basically the stuff they wash off the beet) - perfect for moggies bums!

Sunnyday

naturally wrote: »

Oh, and kitty litter - stop buying it! Have you got a garden where you can get some soil from? Its the natural way and freeeee!

Alternatively if you don't have a garden do some research and find out if there is a vegetable processing place near you - we have a sugar beet factory nearby who give away bags of top soil (basically the stuff they wash off the beet) - perfect for moggies bums!

:rotfl: Great minds and all that, i tried this but my monster cat decided that she liked it a bit too much and liked to dig vigorously whether she wanted to use the litter or not - result one blacker than black little black cat and soil all over the kitchen even though she has an enclosed kitty loo:D i swear the black paw marks everywhere were twice the size of hers too:D

I even tried the sand and grit mix from the grit bin near our old house once when we ran out of litter and were snowed in, one very gritty cat and very hard toclean paw prints there lol
We now use the expensive stuff in the blue bag that clumps together (can`t remember the name) but as i get the bits out quickly a bag lasts months. She does go outside a lot now though.

Burp - it seems that you have made a huge effort and i wish you every sucess, keep on looking for the cat food offers as they will appear sooner or later, our cat eats whiskas (cans & pouches) and classic, every now and again i can sneak a tin of tuna mycat in there but mainly brands, she also has ocean fish Iams for her teeth, she won`t eat any other flavour of this or any other biscuits at all:o
SD