Grocery Shopping budget thread

salome

Hey

I raised 10 children. Seven girls, three boys. Still have 6 at home ranging from 23 to 13. My eldest two, daughters, are married, sadly my eldest son died due to a car accident 8yrs ago, and my 2nd eldest son lives in Cardiff. Feeding them all was quite a challenge :-) lol. But we did, and still do, plus friends lol.
Only my nearly 22yr old pays rent, as he has a full time job. My 23 yr old works, but doesn't earn that much, so she pays her rent, by helping out with the cleaning (which she's excellent at :-) ) My 20yr old, and 18 yr old are still at college. So we are still very dependent on my husbands wage, which is not brilliant. I don't work. I also homeschool.
I generally cook from scratch. Much cheaper and healthier :-)
I can't really remember how much was spent a month back in the full house days, but I know I kept as low budget as possible. Now I try to stay within about £500 a month, sometimes not as much as that. It depends really. I'm not the worlds best budgeter, and I'm sure there are others on here who probably have done and can do loads better.
If you can do most your own meals, baking etc, that will help, and shop around if you're able. Take advantage of the BOGOFs that would benefit your family, but don't get drawn into buying offers that might end up in the bin. Always buy wisely :-)
When my lot were younger, a pop corn machine was an asset. They loved making up a bowl of pop corn and snacking on it. Very cheap :-)
If you have a bread machine, take advantage of it. Homemade bread is so much more filling than shop bought.
Cookies are fun to bake :-) When my lot were smaller, they loved homemade cookies. Still do. Again, a lot more filling than shop ones.
I can't count the amount of cakes etc I've cooked over the years and still cook lol.
Use your slow cooker if you have one. Brilliant for cooking cheaper meat.
Use up your left overs as well, or freeze them if freezable to be used another time.
There's some good websites that have good low cost recipes if you get stuck for inspiration, and there's loads of good recipes on here as well :-)
Hope I've encouraged you a little :-)

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quintwins

we are a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 children) we live quite remote and the first thing i never do is nip to the filling station because there so dear i'd much rather wait or do without and call into tesco, i am in town after the school run everyday and altho the nearest shop to teh school is lidl i do go to tesco as i find it cheaper and better choice, also i find a great big freezer helps as that way i only ahve to go shopping once aweek or less and if i'm stuck i know we won't starve there prob enough food in my freezer to last a month, i buy big sacks of taties from the local farm shop that last for 2-3 weeks but i find there fruit very expensive so i never buy any from there, i think it's all about planning and what works for you, i def couldn't go shopping everyday i'd pick up to many 'extras' that i didn't really need

cobbingstones

freyanneke wrote: »

Thanks Tori, I haven't been in Tesco for ages. The online Tesco that I can access since last Thursday seems not to carry that many value products. I am still trying to find things on there, so I might have overlooked the best bargains. Closest other stores are Waitrose and Co op.

If you use the search box for food products of tesco's website and type in 'value' you'll see the list products available.

mumslave

we are a family of 2 adults 4 children. I tend to manage to all our food shop and nappies/wipes/pet food for £70 a week. Usually from tesco for the points.

pigpen

There are currently 11 of us.. Me, OH, and the 9 offspring aged 19yrs - 6 months.

Including food for 6 cats, 3 fish and 2 rabbits I spend around £600 a month.. though, DS1 has only just moved back home so that might increase by about £200 as he appears to have not eaten the last 3 years since he moved out and has cleared out a small freezer in the space of 2 days!

I have tesco deliver my shopping.. I am not tempted by the in store offers so don't buy stuff I don't need, by the same token I do not get to browse the reduced bits. We have recently got a very large car so have taken to strict tesco shops.. I refuse to buy anything we don't need thogh I do buy something different we have never had before each time I go.

Cleaning products I buy.. bleach, harpic, washing up liquid and flash spray... that cleans the entire house.
I buy mahoosive bags of wooden cat litter for the bunnies, pasta and only buy value veg.. let's face it.. an onion costing £100 would be the same as an onion costing 1p.. there is so little variation on fruit and veg. The only things we seem to get 'branded' versions rather than shops own basic/premium are the cleaning products, coffee and yoghurts.

Though, for the month of February I m going to keep ALL receipts and recalculate because I actually think it is way less than the £600 now I have thought about it. So far in January we have spent £384 in tesco, £27 in sainsbugs (bread and milk) and £11 in greengrocers...

moomoomama27

Family of 5, we spend £400 per month on food, which includes cleaning products, and toilet roll, washing powders but not toiletries like shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste etc..

tiptoes

We are an average size family although OH eats enough for a small family on his own. When it was just me and the children I had it down to £150 a month including all toiletries, cleaning products, pet food and take aways (which where few and far between). Since living with OH the cost has increased to between £400 and £600 per month a OH will pop into a shop for milk and spend £20 on stuff we dont need such as fizzy drinks.
I try to meal plan for the month and do one big supermarket shop, which stops and drop in to the aldi to top up but as Ive said my good work is in vain due to my OH antics :mad::mad:

laineyc_2

We are a family of 6. I think I currently spend about £500-£600 a month. But I have not been shopping very smartly. I have joined the grocery challenge and my aim is to get it down to £450 this month.

bertiebots

Up until last summer we were a 5 person family and my average food budget was £200 to £250 per month..now there is just me and my beans 14,12 and 10 plus the 2dogs and 2 cats to feed! I shop at sainsbugs and occasionally at lidl. I have tried all the other supermarkets and the various combinations etc but find sainsbugs cant be beaten for its basics!
I often get the reaction that I shop at sainsbugs therefor I must spend a lot!...but my budget is now reduced to £180 and we all eat pretty well.
Have you checked out the GC for some great tips? I also try and do an online shop (with sainsbugs) once a month so that the rest of the food budget is just top ups on the fresh goods like milk, veg, fruit etc each week.

LJM

we are 2 adults and 2 children and we spend on average between £200-£250 a month