Average food shopping spend?

alison6692

Hello x

I have searched this as I am sure someone must of asked it before but I cannot seem to find it.

I am ashamed at our spreadsheet - as hubby and I are taking home a decent salary and we are still spending too much on EVERYTHING... Yikes. ( any advice welcome)

So I am starting at the beginning - and trying to sort us out.

Please cold you let me know your average shopping spend? ( It might be useful to know how many you shop for too).

Thanks x Alison x

My current shopping budget is £500 a month - that includes baby stuff / toiletries / stamps / bridge tokens, etc.

I think thats a lot but I am not sure.

PasturesNew

£10/week for food.
Toiletries probably £8/month.

It's just me, but I am at home 24/7.

alison6692

Hiya x You only spend £10 a week on shopping? On everything?

PasturesNew

alison6692 wrote: »

Hiya x You only spend £10 a week on shopping? On everything?

Yes. But I have simple eating habits.
I never buy alcohol.
I buy meat (mince) about once a month.
Make my own bread.

My basics are: spuds, onions, cheese, eggs, home made bread, cheapo noodles, cheapo veg.

alison6692

Wow thats amazing x I could never keep my spend that low - I spend that much a week on chocolate / wine and other luxuries x
Well Done You though... I think its incredible.

Thanks x Alison x

Any

No, I could never keep my spend that low - that is for sure. The meat makes a big difference in shopping cost, fortunately I have Cosco card so I go there once a month, spend like £50 on meat and then split it in 2 portion packets and freeze it.
All together my shopping is about £150 and it is for 2 of us. Also includes most of my lunches for work - I buy tinned soup or stuff for sandwiches, occasionaly ready made "meal for one" if they are on offer.
I shop at Tesco and also have a clubcard and collect points. Now I also have Tesco credit card to collect even more points. Then I spend all the points at Christmas because at Christmas the food bill is much higher - I think because we are at home all day and also have visitors all the time.

SmlSave

Morning.

I spend bout £200 a month on two of us. Am trying to reduce this thou!

ChasingButterflies

Hi,

You might like to have a look on the OldStyle Board, there is a sticky at the top for the "Grocery Challenge"

We are currently a household of 6 (3 adults/3 children) Since mum has come to stay grocery budget has gone up to around £350 pcm (only 'cos she is fussier than our 3 year old :rolleyes:) I tend to make all "meals" and "treats" from scratch (not quite got as far as HM bread etc all the time - I need more practice ) I also tend to buy branded stuff and decent quality meat (we tend to have veggie meals 3/4 nights a week - so it all evens out)

Meal planning, batch cooking/freezing and using .com for shopping all helped to regin in our grocery spending.

I use the clubcard vouchers (which "double in value" for buying wine) although with 3 kids we tend to drink once in a blue moon...

Toiletries - I stock up when Boots are doing 3for2/bonus points etc my cupboards are embarrasing If we were snowed in for 3 months I think we would be ok :rotfl:You might find the boots thread on grabbit interesting for deals on nappies etc... You could possibly add on £35pcm for toiletries to my grocery spend (Since my kids are all at school/nursery now I have the time to a) worry about what I look like and b) do something about it!

hth (hopefully )

firesidemaid

we spend £30-£40 a week (depends how much influence my OH has;)).

i do think that £10 per person a week is easily doable for 7 x cereal, 7 x sandwiches and 7 x dinners each.

for things like tolietries, cleaning products etc i get all brand names but at cheap prices. i know what is cheap for all these products and buy in bulk when they are on offer - using money-off coupons/vouchers/cashback credit card etc.

planning is the key to saving money. from batch cooking to not running out of stuff so that you have to pay full-price.

we all earn a certain amount of money. we have to have a budget for everything including food and stick to it.

getmore4less

Excluding booze, fags, takeaways.

Household, food with misc house stuff, cleaners toilet rolls, basic personals etc.

A good target spend is £100pppm so for 2 and a baby £300pm

Once you reach that and have an idea where the spends are you probably could knock £50 by reducing the big ticket items like meat.
There are also lots of smaller savings on the little items eg dishwasher tablets, when on offer they are 5p each normaly over 10p bulk buy when on offer and save(at 1 a day) £18 carefull shopping for these sort of items can probably net £100py saving.

The trick with a spends review is to itemize everthing and challange everything asking do I need it or can I get it cheaper.
eg:
Mobiles, cash back phones are free for a year so even if you don't need one you can have one free anyway.
Sat/Cable TV what do you actualy watch that is in the pay channels and are they worth it.

Work out the minimum spend foot print, by eliminating every non essential item, this tells you your minimum earnings and gives a good target for the disaster(loss of income) fund. Also longer term it is the minimum target for non earned income so you can retire and sets that savings goal.

Ballance a budget based on the minimum spend allocating the surplus to longer term goals, savings, paying of the mortgage, retirement(a good time to estimate how much you should be saving for this)

From these minimum spends start to add stuff back in with the trade offs being understood mainly that the long term goals take longer.

A way to measure/compare is equivilant value
eg : using takeaways as an example,
Two takeaways(£12.50each) is a weeks food for one(£25).
A £50 meal out a weeks food for two.
One takaway a week(£12.50*50) is a £625 towards a holiday or X months off the mortgage.

babar_2

Congrats on baby Daisy! I have a little girl called Daisy too - shes 2 going on 22!!

I spend far too much on food - probably £100-£120 a week (inc baby stuff, alcohol) - i find it pretty hard to cut down but I find meal planning really helps.