How much do you spend on groceries each month?

minerva_windsong

When I was at uni I budgeted £25 a week to feed myself plus buying house supplies (loo roll, kitchen paper, washing up liquid etc) when it was my turn to do so, but normally spent around £15 or £20 depending on what deals were around. That included one Asda order every two or three weeks plus the occasional trip to the corner shop for milk and bread and other essential bits.

This was mainly achieved by buying Smart Price or own brand everything (unless there was an offer on), taking advantage of offers on stuff I was going to use (I remember one deal which was two 500g boxes of Shreddies, normally 97p each, for £1), writing a weekly meal plan which I stuck to religiously and checking what I had in the cupboards and what needed using up before I went out. Oh, and I bought all my fruit and veg (unless it was something really fancy and bizarre) from the greengrocers down the road.

ETA: And yes I do think Tesco is a bit expensive, I was a fairly regular user of mysupermarket.com at university and Asda nearly always undercut it by a couple of quid - granted that's not much but on a student budget every penny counts! That said though I think Sainsbury's, Tesco and Asda are starting to move much closer price wise now.

Edited again to add: Oh, and my big secret was vegetarian chicken pieces (Asda's own). You can quite often get two bags for £3 and they don't need to be defrosted so are great for just grabbing a handful from the bag and chucking them into a stir fry or whatever.

LittleMissAspie

£120 for two adults. Food, household and my boyfriend's toiletries. Usually Tesco.

crocodileteeth

OMG we spend about £90.00/£120.00 a week or 2 adults & 1 dog. Just started last week doing a 'eat the pantry' fortnight. Have allowed £30.00 a week for bread, veg, fruit, milk etc. Did ok last week, will see how next week goes.

crocodileteeth

By the way did anyone watch that programme - economy gastronomy last week? It was fairly basic but did get me thinking about cooking basics again.

sophieschoice

berniesmaster wrote: »

oh dear, we are a family of 2 adults, 2 kids, (baby on way) 2 dogs and 2 cats, avarage spend.......£500-£600 :eek::eek::eek:depending on how long the month is.
i really dident need to know that!!:rotfl:

I've just looked at my Nectar points on my Sainsbury's receipt and it's in excess of 14,000 points which have been accrued on groceries alone since the end of January.
I don't think I needed to know that either!

skiTTish

We regularly spent over £500 a month on groceries until january this year when I decided that was a waste and changed the way we shop and the way I plan meals.
We now spend less than £250 a month
We are a family of 4 ,2 adults ,2 kids 11 and 16 ,2 dogs ,a rat and 4 ducks

Woby_Tide

notlongnow wrote: »

I spend APPROX £60 ish a month on average for 2 adults, 3 children, a dog, 2 guinea pigs and a hamster.
.

All credit for managing that but I just find it impossible to get anywhere even close to that low. We probably spend that amount on fruit alone at the moment. If we had the time or money to visit a store each day to catch the reduced stuff it would probably help but as soon as you have to buy any form of food fresh the costs goes through the roof(and this isn't fancy fruit just bog standard apples/oranges/bananas/grapes and currently strwabs/raspberries/blackberrues or anything else that happens to be on offer).

clutterydrawer

crocodileteeth wrote: »

By the way did anyone watch that programme - economy gastronomy last week? It was fairly basic but did get me thinking about cooking basics again.

I did...mostly to chuckle at how clueless the families were to begin with I'm afraid :o There's a big thread about it on the Old Style board if you want to join the fray.

valk_scot

I spend £400 per month for 2 adults, 2 kids (one is a huge teenage boy) and two cats. This covers food including packed or school lunches for the kids and lunches for me, (Hubby gets his at staff canteen.), normal toiletries, cleaning materials, cat supplies, a couple of trips to somewhere like Subway when out and about and perhaps one takeaway. Oh, and some beer for Hubby now and again. I don't drink.

I usually shop in Tesco and Lidl but when possible I swap the Tesco shop for a Sainsbury one. I think Tesco prices are going up and their quality is going down, while Sainsbury has better quality stuff and some great offers. I like Lidl for certain specific items, and keep my eyes open for the offers.

Also, oddly enough, I shop more in M&S than I used to. My local one puts out their woopsies at around 4pm every day and some of the reductions are amazing, like £2 for an Extra Large Oakham chicken or 50p for four 1/4 pounder pure beefburgers. I try to get up once per couple of weeks so I can stock the freezer up with good quality meat basics. This saves me tons of cash.


£400 is still quite a lot of course and I could quite easily skim off another £100 per month if pushed. I've never had to push it down below £250 per month so far. I do think I'd have a hard time budgeting on £60 per month, have to say, even though I'm a fair cook and I've got time as a stay at home mum.

My top tips are to make a meal plan for at least three or four days in advance, make a shopping list ad most importantly work in cash. I take the same amount of money out the ATM every week and it basically has to last. It's amazing how much harder it is to hand over cash rather than just wave the debit card!
I do like offers. I'll go over budget for a week (and use the debit card!) if I see something that's a real bargain and I know we'll use it. I've only just finished using the last of the eight huge boxes of Persil I got from Tesco at £1.50 a box 15 months back! There are always good deals around...just don't buy something because it's cheap if it's something you won't use. Better to wait for the offers on your favourite products.

Fire_Fox

Woby_Tide wrote: »

All credit for managing that but I just find it impossible to get anywhere even close to that low. We probably spend that amount on fruit alone at the moment. If we had the time or money to visit a store each day to catch the reduced stuff it would probably help but as soon as you have to buy any form of food fresh the costs goes through the roof(and this isn't fancy fruit just bog standard apples/oranges/bananas/grapes and currently strwabs/raspberries/blackberrues or anything else that happens to be on offer).

Berries are VERY expensive to buy even on offer, but you can grow them with minimum effort. Strawberries will grow happily in tubs, and raspberry canes are best up against a wall or fence. Blackberries can be picked wild if you aren't in the middle of a city. Frozen and dried fruit is often cheaper than fresh and will do nicely in puddings.