Grocery Shopping budget thread

Eenymeeny

Nice to know that I'm not the only one! I've spent about the same amount this week in Aldi, Lidl and Asda. My excuse is that we are trying to follow a low carb diet which includes lots of fruit, veg, cottage cheese and milk. (I'm making my own low cal yoghurt)
I do admit to feeling a bit overwhelmed with all of the fruit and veg which will have to be used in soups, casseroles etc for freezing but I've promised myself that I'm going to see how long I can last before shopping again!
The advantage is that we've cut out pasta, rice, potatoes, bread, cereals etc so really I should have everything in that we need...
Note: I think that my main economy would be to shop without OH, as he always finds something to buy in the non-food 'toy department' in Lidls and Aldi. I'm sure that it's marketed to appeal to men, sorry to be sexist! It was a shaver this week

trolleyrun

Maybe this thread could be used as a confession area

It's always good to know you're not the only one

Pink.

trolleyrun wrote: »

Maybe this thread could be used as a confession area

It's always good to know you're not the only one

We have one of those, it's hilarious and well worth a read:

Confessions of a very tired old styler. Please join in.

I'll add this thread to our main one on shopping budgets later.

Pink

Take_it_like_a_man,_sonny

You did what. How dare you come round this parish! Please, think of all the children!

Words defeat me. I would also add!

dottyanne

Hi, we are a family of 5, 2 adults and 3 near adults. 2 pets dog and a bird. I am looking at tips on budgeting for monthly expenses - how much would you budget per week for food, incidentals inc window cleaner etc based on the above? I have 3 lots of packed lunches a day to make to be included in the cost.

sistafromanothermista

:wave:
Well we're a family of 4 and with cleaning products i spend around £80 a week sometimes a bit more if i stock up on offers. I would imagine somewhere around the £90 for 5 wouldn't be considered excessive (although some may disagree )
We cook everything from scratch but with both of us working full time we don't do any baking (plus i'm a !!!! baker ) and with 2 teenage boys biscuits and choc are high on the list :rotfl:

HappyMJ

dottyanne wrote: »

Hi, we are a family of 5, 2 adults and 3 near adults. 2 pets dog and a bird. I am looking at tips on budgeting for monthly expenses - how much would you budget per week for food, incidentals inc window cleaner etc based on the above? I have 3 lots of packed lunches a day to make to be included in the cost.

I would exclude the dog and bird expenses from the household grocery budget. They eat what they eat and it's pretty easy to work out what that costs. It's a fairly fixed cost so put that under pet expenses on your SOA. Same with the window cleaner. It's a fixed monthly cost so you should put that as a seperate line on your SOA. As for your budget for food I say try £25 per person per week (or budget each meal to cost about £1 per meal ---I budget 50p for meat and 50p for the bread/rice/pasta and vegetables---and another £5 a week for a takeaway) then whatever it costs for cleaning materials and personal hygiene items. What really saves a lot of money is not buying expensive drinks...just stick with basic tea/coffee with a dash of milk and a teaspoon of sugar if desired or just drink more water with very cheap squash ...not ribena or any of it's equivalent and make sure that no one mixes a huge amount it should only be enough to flavour a drink.

sistafromanothermista

The Aldi squash is :heartpuls

susieh_2

And I would recommend the Aldi butter Norpack Spreadable & at £1.63 (Lurpack equivalent £2.97) love the price to

Lensman_2

Hi DottyAnne.

I am going to flag your post for moving to the old style board where there are many more experts on the subject of this thread than there are here - you should get lots of good advice there.

(TBH we are more used to dealing with questions about hairy arsed bailiffs trying to knock the door down and DCAs trying to get blood from a stone on this forum...)