How many in your household and what is your grocery budget?

themaccas

We have a family of 5 - 2 adults, 3 kids - 18, 10, 5. We spend about £90 a week when we are all home. OH is often away though, and the older ones are at boarding school (18 yo off to uni next week) so many weeks it is only myself and DS (5) who has school dinners. Those weeks my food budget goes down to £30 per week and those weeks I go to Waitrose for a treat which I don't think costs much more expensive than Tesco.

Horace

Only me in my household, my monthly bill is £21.20 on average. There are times when my OH comes to stay (he lives and works in London) and we shop together and he stocks up my supplies and he will give me some money to buy treats too. When he is around the shopping bill goes up to £100. I hardly ever eat ready meals and will cook all meals from scratch, I also buy things like loo rolls in bulk - a 24 roll pack (£9.49 in Lidl) lasts me 4 months:j

I also use my local butcher for meat, the market garden shop for eggs as they are only 59p for half a dozen which drops to 29p near Christmas, I go to another greengrocers at the opposite end of the high street which sells locally produced veg and will buy my main veg from them.

I don't have much money coming in and have managed to keep a roof over my head (thanks to a helping hand of HB which isnt enough to cover all of my rent), feed myself and pay all my bills.:D

Pollycat

sarriep
meal planning is a 'must' if you're trying to reduce your food budget.

As someone has already suggested, you'll find lots of fab tips and ideas on the MoneySaving Oldstyle board.

I do menus for a 3 week period (with a few tweaks if I find any reduced bargains) and NEVER throw any food away.
For eaxample, I'll buy a 'saver' bag of peppers that I'll use in chicken casserole, a risotto and in a pasta dish.

We spend around £200 per month for 2 people (both at home all day) and one cat.
This includes all cleaning/laundry stuff plus wine/beer.
We eat very well, with virtually all our food home-cooked from fresh.
You'd be surprised how much cheaper it is to do your own meals instead of buying ready meals/chill cook - and it tastes better and is good for you.

Good luck

view

£160 a month for two adults, no children or animals.

Best way we find is to do an £80ish shop on payday via online (and always use codes for money off) for all the frozen goods (large mince meat, chicken, sausages, pizzas), pantry (such as pasta, sauces etc..) and toiletries (including household cleaning items, toilet paper etc..).

Then get £80 out and buy fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, bread anything else that needs to be bought on the day/day before. When that is gone it is gone, works very well for us - we have a meal plan too.

another tip is to make your own pizzas! you only need flour, yeast, salt, inexpensive tomato paste and you can cheaply buy cheese if you look, just add some pepperoni (asda currently have this on a 2 4 1 sale) and that's you! very very filling for both of us and so so cheap to make, can take extra for lunch also. make lots of dough and freeze it.

Bayblue

Only me in my household and no pets and I spend about £80 per month, sometimes more but always less than £100. That includes cleaning stuff and drink (although TBH I drink very little these days). I try to use up everything up, I'm currently trying to empty out the freezer because it needs defrosting, and I don't throw food away.

Cooking from scratch is almost a must and I quite enjoy it however I find it difficult to do this every day as I work full time and long hours, so sometimes TBH it's case of opening a can or a cheap ready meal. I take lunch to work and I shop in Tescos, sometimes Sainsburys and Lidl.

I work near a vegetable market but thier prices aren't that cheap but if I have a day off and go to the regular market in town I'll get some stuff there. Also I find pound shops and places like Savers the chemists can be good for biscuits, sauces and tins of stuff. I'm always on the lookout for bargains. I won't compromise on nice coffee or bread but I'm happy to try cheaper alternatives on anything else.

I have been surprised how easily I've managed to eat well and stick to a budget. I always 'treat' myself to something nice to eat now and then as I find that that keeps my motivation going.

sarriep

Wow thanks for all the ideas! We will start meal planning I think. We have managed to reduce the amount of food we throw away (but it's still too much!) and DH cooks most meals from scratch.

Do you allow yourselves a price per meal?

Not sure about the school meal thing. I also have a choice of paying £1.25 per child per week for a school snack and drink which is quite good I think.

I like the pizza idea GoldenJill! All of mine love pizzas and I'm sure would enjoy making them too!

I think I may go with £500 per month on the DMP sheet for groceries with a view to saving £100 each month. Then if we struggle we won't be in too much trouble!

I just LOVE this board!

lucielle

Hi we are a family of 6, 2 adults 4 children (bottomless pits ) 1 dog and 1 cat. My monthly budget is £336 all in
L