Average food shopping spend?

bristol_pilot

Oh dear ! I reckon I spend about £70 pw and its just me! And that's with no alcohol and having lunch 5 days a week in a subsidised work canteen.

Lunar_Eclipse

Somewhere between £200-£450/month depending on how frugal I try to be, plus how much entertaining we do at home. 2A, 2C & a cat.

annamc75

2 adults, 3 cats and 10 fish - around £300 but this is way too high and I am working on bringing this down.

Already working on bringing lunches down -

OH was spending £5 a day on food at work - now we spend around £1 as he takes from home.

One big expense for us is fizzy juice - we are both trying to get this down as we can be as much as £70 per month which is just ridiculous. The hardest part of cutting back is the fussy cats. They wont take to lower priced food now - they are a pain.

Spark

Only me to account for, and I spend around £65 per week, inclusive of one £5 bottle of wine which I cound do without, but hey, I am working all hours of the week, I need a treat now and again:)

firesidemaid

annamc75 wrote: »

2 adults, 3 cats and 10 fish - around £300 but this is way too high and I am working on bringing this down.

Already working on bringing lunches down -

OH was spending £5 a day on food at work - now we spend around £1 as he takes from home.

One big expense for us is fizzy juice - we are both trying to get this down as we can be as much as £70 per month which is just ridiculous. The hardest part of cutting back is the fussy cats. They wont take to lower priced food now - they are a pain.

re. ?fizzy juice (what is that?) - could you mix high juice squash or value juice with value fizzy water (all bought when on offer).

re. cat food. i always get whiskas, but never pay more than £2 per box of 12 pouches and then i use money off coupons on top, so never more than £1.80. what brand do yours eat?

getmore4less

Cactus wrote: »

well we all have to experience money problems before getting it right

This is not true,

The trick is to understand priorities and value, have a probber budget that is tracked.

A budget is the plan for what you need/want to spend you money on everyone should have one not just those that are struggling

less on X means more for Y

We traded takeaways for an EXTRA holiday.

Too many people are "I can't afford this or that" but if they analysed/planned their spends there would be no problem.

Renovatio

purpleposting4 wrote: »

We do tend to buy a lot of value food now though

A lot of people have an aversion to the supermarket value ranges, however i can tell you for a fact that quite a few of them are made by the "top brand" manufacturers.

Look on the back of ASDA brand items and all it will tell you is that it is manufactured in the UK for ASDA stores Ltd; obviously, because company's such as Kingsmill do not want their premium brands associated with low value products.

getmore4less

Another point on the food budgets,

Many of us like stuff so we buy it, nothing wrong with that as long as it is part of a planned stratagy. I could not do the £10 a week budget that some manage I like other things far too much but they are recognised as wants rather than needs.

If you really want to analyse and cut back do a breakdown of your food/eating habits into two componants needs and wants.

Work out a reduced spend plan, all food sourced cheaply made from scratch, only the nutrition/calories you need, ballanced diet etc. this is your needs diet/budget.

Now set yourself a wants food budget, trade against all the other luxuries and wants that you have.

So now you have a basic food spend(you won't die) and a luxury food spend.

luxury could be, meal out, takeaway or a special/better meals at home

The meal out buys say 2-3 takeaways or a monster Sunday Lunch large piece of beef rib roast with all the trimming, a case of beer, a bottle of wine for the ladies.

You make up your own trade offs.

The point is there is nothing wrong with having an expensive food bill if it is stuff you like, just understand that it means you are spending/saving less elsewhere.

If you split your budget into basic food,luxury food, takeaways, eating out, you have a lot of flexability to make adjustments.

alison6692

I have been inspired by this thread - took my dinner in to work yesterday ( Fridays nights left over dinner) so had a NSD yesterday. Thanks for all the tips - I am going to really try and reduce my spends...

I think the biggest thing is planning our meals for the week.

Really interesting thread - I had no idea how extravagent we were being.

Alison x

PROLIANT

alison6692 wrote: »

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.

I allocate £15 per week for groceries and this includes the stuff for my sandwiches at work for the week, if I need toiletries I eat less for the week or at a push spend the extra, cant afford many luxuries at the moment, my take home salary is around £1200 per month although manage to get out for a pub lunch once or twice per month as a treat and at a push a meal at Est. or Chiquito’s restaurant.