FOOD BUdGET

vinnyutd6899

HI i have been keeping an eye on where our money is going over the last 3 months, there are 5 of us in the house plus one dog
me
the Misses
son aged 3
daughter aged 2
daughter aged 9 months

something that has surprised me is what we have been spending on food shopping AVE over the 3 months is £600 a month is this about average for a family of 5? this also includes nappies wipes toiletries and things like that. cheers.

MaximumImpact

£600 a month!!!! :eek:

I spend £150 for 2 adults, 1 baby, 3 dogs, 10 chickens, 3 geese, 3 ducks and 2 cats!!

Where do you shop?? M & S???

Seriously, you need to cut back....Stop using disposable nappies, make your own baby wipes...the list goes on....

Try the Old style board and Debt free wannabee....loads of help there...have a look at the articles from Martin on supermarket shopping...You could save a fortune!!!

vinnyutd6899

£150 a month

we shop at asda for our main shop, tesco and co-op for day to day stuff. we just did not realise how much we spend, its like £20 / £30 everytime we pop out to the shops
we seriously have to cut back on our spendings.

nomoneytoday

We spend £300 a month - £10 a day for 2 cats, 1 baby and 2 adults
You can possibly save a load by preplanning meal menus, as there is a lot less waste and less "fast food"..

Additionally they say you can save up to 1/3rd by dropping down a level. The levels are finest, branded, own brand, value range. Some things have little difference, others you will need to stick at the same level to get the quality (for example own brand cola is nowhere near as good as coca-cola IMHO)

We found that planning cut our budget to a level we were comfortable with, without sacrificing quality.

vinnyutd6899

I think thats where i want to get our budget down to about £300 a month.
last month we used the MYSUPERMARKET.COM link on here and saved about £20 on our shop.
we go threw a hell of a lot of milk a day about 8/10 pints people dont belive us when we say that we could maybe try and cut back on that, Take aways as well, we could cut back on them easly we have not had one now for 11 days that would save up about £80 a month.
our oldest is fully toilet trained now so no nappies for him any more and were just about to start potty training the next one.
meal plans sound like a good idea.
we spend a lot on fruit a week as well we worked out about £25/£30 a week the kids love the stuff, but thinking about it some does get thrown away. would tinned fruit be a better idea?

tessie_bear

id sit down and do a meal plan for a week of so and then take it from there....its easier to reduce gradually...uwont notice the difference if u see what i mean....good luck

ifonlyitwaseasier

come over to the Old Style board and get some hints, maybe you could join the grocery challenge and try some of the yummy recipes we've posted?

Swampmonster

Re the fruit - keep the apples in the fridge until you need them. They seem to last forever then - well about a month.

Also there is a site, i think it is called love food hate waste that has great ideas.

Good luck X