Grocery Shopping budget thread

Catchymonkey

Yes our benefits will go up but our other outgoings, including debt repayments, leave us with £640 a month for food, clothes, running costs of car etc. I will draw up an SOA and post it over on the other board in case anyone can suggest anything. Thanks.

Loulou2010

theres only 3 in this house with a budget of £50 per week. we've only been spending a max of £32 a week so far and had left over food which has been frozen.

just a thought - would you be entitled to the healthy start vouchers if they still exist? that would help with the cost of food

Penelope_Penguin

Catchymonkey wrote: »

Yes our benefits will go up but our other outgoings, including debt repayments, leave us with £640 a month for food, clothes, running costs of car etc. I will draw up an SOA and post it over on the other board in case anyone can suggest anything. Thanks.

I work as a Debt Adviser - have you sought advice about reducing your debt repayments? You'll be able to provide medical evidence, so creditors may well be sympathetic.

Catchymonkey

We originally thought that the only way to manage would be an IVA, or the like, but if we cut right back we think we can manage. It is our debt that we got into and we really want to make sure that we pay it all back, but I hadn't realised that his disability would possibly be taken into account so if it looks like things will be too tight we will contact CCCS or CAB.

BitterAndTwisted

If you can feed a family of four for £100 a month, and it can be done, check this:

http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/

then I reckon you could easily manage on your budget. "All" it takes is some application and fair bit of time and planning.

Good luck to you, OP

Bitsy_Beans

Am not suggesting you'll get away with only £100 a month for your family you might find some good frugal food suggestions on Weezl's website
http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/ Edit - sorry B&T beat me too it LOL!

How fussy are your family in terms of meals? What sort of meals are you used to preparing? Do you already bulk out food, use lentils etc? Without knowing your current eating habits not sure where else to point you in the direction of.
My family isn't as large as yours so I can comment as to whether £80 budget is feasible - I am currently spending circa £50 for my brood of 4 (and that includes nappies). What supermarkets do you have access to? Aldi's Super 6 is very good value, buying seasonal food will help with the cost. Do you have room to grow any veg, salad etc yourself? Growing your own isn't necessarily cheaper when you factor in the cost of compost but if you have a sunny spot you can grow your own lettuce and spring onions in pots or troughs.

With regards to toiletries what does this cover? I use rock crystal for deoderant - cost £8 about 2 years ago and it's still going strong (and no I don't smell ), I use Tresemme hair products but try and get these on offer. Shampoo is decanted into a pump dispenser so I can control how much gets poured out, kids have their hair washed with Sainsbury's own Tea Tree Oil shampoo which last time I bought it was 54p a bottle. I also use Sainsbury's basics soap, it's only for hand washing after all. H likes his Dove shower gel so this gets bought on offer or similar sort of stuff from Pound Shop. I use Stardrops for all my cleaning, along with bleach. I find using this with a microfibre cloth is more than adequate for my needs. Antibac spray is water and tea tree oil.

Good luck and sorry to hear about your H's condition. Keep hanging around here, loads of advice and good suggestions on OS board

Catchymonkey

Thanks for the links, that site looks fab

We are happy to be very basic and the kids live on pasta and home made pizza most of the time so we can go weeks at a time without buying meat! We use rock salt too and no one is the house is fussy about toiletries so we tend to get whatever is on offer. I am feeling really hopeful that it is possible to make the budget work and will def hang around to pick up as many tipe as possible.

Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement.

BitterAndTwisted

Pound shops, Aldi and Lidl are great for good toiletries and cleaning products. Also, I see that Asda are still selling their one-litre bottles of foam bath for less than 20 pence. This makes great hand-soap if you've got a pump-dispenser that needs filling up.

Check out the Grocery Challenge thread on this forum for load of tips and suggestions.

Check out your local supermarket and figure out when they mark down fresh produce, bread, meat and fish and stock up.

Beans and pulses should become your friends: there's so much than can be done with them to produce very nutritious dishes and they're much cheaper in places like Asian supermarkets.

Sparklyfairy

I'm another big fan of the Cheap Family Recipes site of Weezel's...I cannot tell you enough how many times I refer to it to help me "think" of what to make! It's so easy to use & they have done everything for you - lists of what to buy, nutrition, recipes, etc...so great. Although it's based on a family of 4, I'm sure you'd be able to adjust it to suit for very little extra cost. We are a family of 4 + 1 cat & have a budget of £40 FYI but try to keep it lower than this so any extra goes to our emergency fund. Keep positivem it can be hard to adjust at first but you'll soon get into the groove!

valk_scot

The answer is yes, you can do it, but it will be tight. Look at your household budget outgoings as fixed costs ..you'll use the same amount of bread, milk, nappies, toiletries, cleaning materials, loo roll etc most weeks I expect so you can work out how much you'll need for these every week ...then variable costs ie for foodstuffs. Try places like B&M, Home Bargains and the £££ shops for cleaning materials and toiletries as there are some astoundingly good buys there. Same with dog food.

After that it's meal planning, portion control and cutting wastage. Remember at this level of budget you've got to look at nutrition within your budget as a priority. This usually means eating seasonally and cooking as much as possible from scratch. Veg, pulses, pasta, eggs, milk etc. Whoopsies really do stretch the budget, especially when it comes to meat.

One thing I don't think I've seen mentioned...free school meals?