Grocery Shopping budget thread

mama67

I have a basic budget of £1820 per year or £35 per week. I will have access to an extra £10 per week from Sept, so will use that if need be to help cover the increase in prices or to do a stock up so I can start 2010 with full cupboards and freezers.

This is for myself, Dh, DS1 (14) & DS2 (11) so usually 3 adult one large child portion.

DS1 has hollow leg syndrome and never stops eating; he is also very active and so needs this to fuel his activities.
DS2 is also very active and needs a fair amount for his activities as well.

I have an organic veg box delivered weekly, get eggs from the farm gate, have milk, butter, cream and fruit juice delivered by the milkman, I buy meat from either the butchers or farm shop.
The rest is bought at the supermarket usually fortnightly.

The boys both have £10 per week for school dinners (different budget) and when they are not in school this is used for any extras that are needed during the school holidays with they being at home or sometimes for a stock up.

I cook all our meals from scratch and make/bake all my bread and cakes. We only have a takeaway if Dh has done some overtime.

I save all my Clu8card and N3ctar points to use at Christmas, I also put £1 per week away into a piggy bank to use for the turkey etc for Christmas.

I always pay cash when shopping so can't go over; although I usually take an extra £5 in case of whoopsies.

ragz_2

My current budget (though hoping to get this down) is £400, that's for 2 Adults and 2 toddlers.
OH is a gardener so eats a lot as he works outdoors all day and has a big packed lunch which I make myself and that's included in the budget. Also OH reckons his hard work deserves a pint or 2 in the evenings so budget includes about £10 a week for his cider.
I eat big meals too (pregnant at the 'mo, when I go back to weightwatchers this will change lol) so we do spend rather a lot on meals and OH insists on meat at every meal.
I'm fussy about meat so will only buy free range chicken and pork (and eggs) but I just serve chicken once a fortnight instead of twice a week!
Budget also includes nappies for youngest and pull ups for eldest at bed time, though this should stop soon (until number 3 comes along!) and all cleaning products and toiletries.

Mands

Mands wrote: »

I try and pick up multipacks of cards when they are on sale. A couple of designs (one colourful and blank inside for birthdays, one set of black and white for sympathy cards) and most eventualities are covered.

Think I jinxed us ... just discovered a friend has died unexpectedly. Didn't expect to need one of those sympathy cards any time soon :-(

Mands

gailey_2

I have done grocery challange few times this year and failed mainly because amount i set was 2 low .

I wanted to spend £200 for 2adults hungry toddler no pets includes medicines, toilitries and household too.
Plus hubby takes packed lunch 5days a week, daughter 2 plus daughters a snacker and squash monster.

seem to lost our grip on tight controls used to think £250 was more realistic amount but we spending about £300+latly.

we had 2nd baby in september whos breastfed and in cloth so no costs there!
wont start weaning until march and even then I make my own baby food which cost a bit last time round as brought all organic fruit and veg when daughter was under 2.

so is £250-300 realistic for baby, 4yearold and 2adults?

I try to make stuff from scratch and batch cook freezing in small tubs for homemade readymeals.

we try to buy things on offer and shop the deals.

we buy some supermarket own brand and value products
reguarly rummage around reduced and freeze stuff.

we buy hardly any alchol

seems to be meat, ham and cheses costs the most.
we always running out of squash, crisps, cereal, bread and milk.

we seem to get through 4pints of milk a day on average.
1 loaf of bread every 2days.
toiliet roll dunno where that al goes we even buy value when skint.

Penelope_Penguin

gailey wrote: »

I have done grocery challange few times this year and failed mainly because amount i set was 2 low

so is £250-300 realistic for baby, 4yearold and 2adults?

You ask how to set a realistic budget. This is taken from the Grocery thread:

rosieben wrote: »

For the first month I took a guess at the budget but I really had no idea how much I was spending.

I found the best thing is to have a guess the first month but SAVE ALL OF YOUR RECEIPTS (and yes, that does include the ones from the local shop when you run out of milk ), then at the end of the month add them all up and have a look if you were on budget, if not, it doesn't matter because your budget was a guess. For the next month you can use the total of your receipts and take a bit off to get a realistic budget, just shave off as much as you think you can, it could be £1 a week or £20 a week.

If you are currently spending £200 a month don't suddenly drop it to £100 - you'll never do it but if you cut £20 a month off for a few months you'll get there eventually without feeling you're missing out on anything.

You might think you've done everything you can in the first month but someone always comes up with a new idea and, if you try it you often find you save a bit more (unless you are SarahSaver who is an expert at this and could only save more if she turned her back garden into a paddy field and lived on rice ) In the first month I thought, I'm planning meals, I couldn't possibly save any more, but then I started double cooking and freezing, and making soup instead of buying it in tins.

I've been doing this since Feb but only saved ALL of my receipts last month, it has given me a much better idea of where it is all going. Budget for next month is £80 for 2 of us, I'll start on 30/4. I could probably save more, by eating different foods but I can afford to live on £80, I have saved a lot of money since Feb. and I don't waste food or money any more. So I'm happy with my budget.

It's difficult to say how much your budget should be, but I'll add this later to the existing thread on grocery budgets so that you can see how much others spend

Penny. x

Norman_Bean

Hi Gailey

I'm just starting on the budget setting road and what I have done for November has been to set myself €300 for the month but try to spend as little as possible. I have written everything I've bought down, divided into 'Food' and 'other'.

I'm hoping that when I go through the figures this weekend I can see if it's realistic or needs tweaking. I'm sort of practicing for setting 'real' budget starting in January as I guess December is going to be a weird month.

For reference we are two adults, 3 year old and four year old. Food this month I have spent €130 which I'm pleased with but I have used a lot of stock from freezer and cupboards. Will do a restock on Tuesday (pay day! :j)

Here are my tips: Meal plan using stuff you have in cupboards, freezer.
Shop at cheap supermarkets.
Never refuse offers of free food.
Gradually reduce portions for you and H and ban seconds... I've started using smaller plates. Always giving a pud helps!
Use ALL scraps - you get some weird meals but it works - I don't throw anything, even leftover gravy. Freeze anything you won't use in the short term.
For the little snackers I make snacks such as muffins, bisuits or give them fruit or even a bit of bread and butter I make own yogs so they have that for snack too. Sometimes you gotta say No! Otherwise mine would snack all day. They just drink water.

Good luck x

Norman_Bean

Re milk, bread etc of course that's where my big spends were.

Milk I have said they can ony have one milk at night instead of the 3 or 4 they werehaving each. Has saved loads and stopped little one wetting bed so often! If you reduce it make sure they have yoghurt, cheese etc so they get enough dairy

Bread - H is now making a batch of 6 loaves on Saturdays and I freeze them and get one out when needed.

Ham - Mine were eating loads of ham - they love it, it was easy for me etc. but I was buying loads and not sure it's that great for them so this month I bought ham twice and when it was gone that was it.

Cheese - I'm just buying cheap emmantal at Lidl / Aldi

HTH

Norman x

purpleivy

I do with Juice what Norman does with ham in that I buy so much and then when it's gone it's gone. There is always good quality squash in the cupboard and water in the tap.

I think this is a good time of year to be considering this thread. From a personal point of view I need to decide if I want to reduce the budget this year.

2008 I decided to track what I was spending, then decided after a week or so there would be a it more point in it if i tried to stay within a certain amount each month, or annual total. It's all a bit arbitrary really, we could 'afford' to spend more, but I figure if we're eating very well at that level, then why should I? My hours have gone down at work since last October, so that seemed like a really good reason to maintain the budget.

For 2009 I decided to maintain the same budget (of £200 per month - no alcohol, meals out, no household/cleaning materials, just straight food. Spending on the items just mentioned is a bit variable any way).

There are 3 or 4 of us. Last year I used to add a bit if we had visitors for more than a day. DD has been on gap year this year. It seems to work out the same whether there are three or four of us, because when she's here we eat more vegetarian food, when she isn't, consumption of meat is higher.

Casual staff have just been 'regraded' so in addition to losing hours last year I'm having my hourly rate cut by almost 46%. This is another good reason to consider what we are eating. My husband is away 3/4 nights a week as of fairly recently, so do I want to take that into consideration. I still provide part of his lunches out of the shopping. I don't want things to get complicated, but I do think I need to consider the changing composition of the family.

What about working it out based on how many are home for dinner at night?

Final comment - would quite like the family not to notice there has been any change!

gailey_2

Thanks guys, im not a huge eater but got a sweet tooth.
its hubby and daughter who are big snackers.
I always try buy cheese on offer.
ham we get real stuff not reformed but try go for offers and multibuys, not sure id deli counter works out cheaper.
daughters gone off yogurts latly so fed up f buying tjem, she loves her cereal, she dont drink much milk its hubby who likes a a couple of glasses a day we get through3-6 bowls of cereal a day plus milk in coffee.
daughter wont drink water so get through lots of squash, we buy the extra strong concentrsted as lasts us longer.

I did make some bread from packet mixes but hubby used to whinge but i could start baking more, majority of bread, ham and cheese is for lunches.

we tried shopping at aldis for fruit and veg as try to encoursge healthy snacks.
tried asda last month but was nitemare, dont find tesco overly cheap fave is sainsburys but we do try shop around.

do try to meal plan and utiluse whats in cupboards and huge chest freezer.

weirdest meal i tried was about a year ago got recipie from here paxo and lentil burgers! They were interesting.

twinks hobnobs were a hit!
blackberry muffins not so!

Norman_Bean

gailey wrote: »

ham we get real stuff not reformed but try go for offers and multibuys, not sure id deli counter works out cheaper.

It's cheaper on the deli here in France .... guess it must be same in UK?

Remember you can use scraps for lunches the next day x

If it's not your daughter drinking the milk could you try watering it down to make it last abit longer?

x