Grocery Shopping budget thread

foxgloves

I find our budegt goes further by making sure we cook plenty on Sunday for a tradiational roast lunch, then as we generally buy a bigger joint or chicken than needed, there is enough to make more meals plus some soup & use odds & ends for sandwiches/packed lunches. If it's a joint of pork,beef,lamb, we make extra gravy & freeze leftover slices with the gravy as this makes a 'free' roast dinner later in the month. Leftover or extra cooked veggies go into soups. This gets us through to Weds (longer if I do say chicken soup & dumplings or similar). Admittedly there are only 2 of us (1 with HUGE appetite) but I think it's a budgeting basic that is useful to adapt to suit personal circumstances. It helps us, anyway x

Godiva500

Have a look at the dog food and bird food on www.approvedfoods.co.uk this week - Lots of offers.I always stock up on cat food from there when it is in.

System

I've been re-doing my finances recently and instead of everything going into one account, and then asking for more money when I run out (!) I thought it would be good to separate the household stuff from my own personal spending. I feel a bit silly asking this, but I have budgeted £175 per calendar month for food, household and groceries for two adults. Does this sound overly optimistic to you, or about right?

There's no pets, and no children or babies in the household. We live in a semi-rural area and the only shops nearby are a small co-op grocery store (where it's easy to spend at least £10 and come out with barely enough for one day's meals) and a really small Tescos. I thought about maybe getting a delivery in (as I don't drive) and then just topping up with fresh stuff through the month.

I have no idea how well this is going to work! I am not a great cook, to be honest, but I want to try and do more healthy nutritious meals, cooking from scratch. It's knowing where to start really! It just seems that whenever I go out to buy groceries it seems to cost so much. I don't know if it's due to living in a fairly expensive region, in the south of England, or just me not budgetting very well

Linda32

Various foods can be expensive, especially if you don't have a lot of choice on your doorstep as you don't.
I don't actually find Tesco's any more expensive than anywhere else. But the smaller ones are more expensive and less choice than the bigger ones.
So in this case I do think you would benifit from online shopping. You still get to check out the offers as well so you won't miss out there.

I think that budget sounds okay to me. We (just the two of us here) spend more than that, but it includes wine. If I just counted the food I think it would be somewhere near to that :T

As for where to start, you can get really bogged down with searching and looking at what other people do. So I would do an inventory of what you actually have in. This is what I do rather than plans which are set to fail. Its not always about spending more money (especially on this forum ) Like you say, you nip to the shops for cheese for cheese on toast and come out £10 lighter :eek:

Or buying a ton of stuff for receipes which never get made.

Hope some of those rambling help.

JackieRHE

I've really learned a lot from this site and am still practicing.

List what you usually eat/drink during the day for breakfast, lunches and snacks. Translate that to a list of ingredients/shopping list.

Write a list of main meals you like. Plan a week of main meals and add that to the list.

Take off what you have "in stock" and go to one of the supermarkets websites and order the items (don't check out).

It will give you an idea of your spending for a week. If you can do it for a month it will be more accurate. You can use the recipe collection here for ideas and the challenges to keep you motivated.

After a week/month, go through the meal plans and the receipts and see what worked.

It's a process so expect to have successes and failures.

Best of luck.

vanoonoo

hello

how much have you been spending until now?

we spend on average £50 per week for two adults, two cats, one dog not including one takeaway and one meal out per week for all groceries including laundry, cleaning, toiletries (and stocks for prepping but that's a whole other thread!). However that is pretty much cooking all meals from scratch and bulk buying and batch cooking and WE have been doing that for several years so have a good store cupboard and a good routine.

So I think your £175 is maybe a little bit optimistic as a starting point depending on what your current spend has been.

looking forward to hearing more and hearing of your achievements!

Popperwell

avogadro,
I don't think it's you. Generally essentials are increasing in price.
I'm single and I could spend more than I do if I was not keeping it simple by using lots of vegetables, less meat etc...often not buying some items I would like but consider to be too expensive, looking for reduced items, items on offer or own brands. Or as I often also do, have one meal daily.

Like many OS'ers I do what is called simple/comfort food. My budget is approz 50p-£2 daily. Often if I have a decent slightly more expensive meal one day, I try to economise the following day.

By the time I pay the "essentials" and with all the new costs being introduced, if I am not careful there would be no treats and life would be even more basic. And as things can change still further and without warning no one knows fully how much more we'll be hurting.

That goes for people who work and those who need help totally. Most are struggling. Where it will get harder is paying for the bills that suddenly catch you out such as when an item breaks and needs replacing. Or increases in bus fares and how often you can go out or trying to keep a car on the road.

Initially, you can spend more by buying daily/weekly but building up a food store of goods, filling cupboards and the fridge/freezer but then if you can work around what is like having your own food bank and stretching food over days/weeks your budget could start to come down still further.

Good luck...

sonastin

Might be worth joining the Grocery Challenge thread (sticky at/near the top of the front page). I found it really useful for getting a grip on my grocery budget, although it moves too fast for me to keep up these days. For 2 adults, no pets, no kids, semi-rural, no local SMs (but I do drive and pass several on nmy way home from work), I spent an average of about £240 per month last year, which included all stuff I'd buy from the SM on a grocery shop (cleaning stuff, the odd item of clothing or kitchenware, etc as well as food). I'm aiming to bring it down to £200 this year - I do a lot more cooking from scratch now and have a much better stock cupboard than I started last year with so hopefully it is achievable.

This forum is great for ideas and inspiration when it comes to saving money!

System

Up to now I've in theory been spending £40 a week on household and groceries, but more often than not I have been asking for more money before the week's out, so maybe more like £50-ish.

Sometimes it's silly things like buying fruit juices. I'll buy a litre carton for £1-ish and it'll all get drunk on one day (!) Well, I can't spend £1 a day (£30 a month) just on juice, it sounds like loads, so I think a bit of rationing is called for!

I like to eat ham, but it's about £3 for 3 slices round at the Co-op :eek: Fair enough I tend to go for quality, as I don't like the thought of cheap meat, but it all adds up. I think I could get it cheaper at the deli counter of a large supermarket.

As I say, I am not a great cook. I would like to get better at it. I can follow a recipe, but where I'm not so good is trying to make a tasty meal out of vegetables and so on that I happen to have in.

Breast_Cancer_Survivor

I don't understand it when people say that they can feed a family of 4 on £50 etc as i've spent £130 already this week (from Tuesday) yet will still need to buy more milk etc. It wasn't even a full shop as I didn't need to buy any toiletries or cleaning products.

There are 2 adults, 2 teenages (son16) (daughter 14) & 2 babies (4 months & 17 months) in our family so I usually withdraw £200 p/w for shopping that includes petrol, nappies, wipes, baby milk/food etc as well as food shopping, toiletries & cleaning products. I do give the kids £10 each a week pocket money out of that too.

I don't really buy anything expensive & try to buy the cheapest of everything or the brand that is on special offer but am obviously still doing something wrong.

How much do people spend on average per week & for how many people?

Can anyone give any examples of the kind of things they buy weekly so i can see where i'm going wrong?