'How much is your weekly shop?' poll results discussion

rag31

nearlyrich wrote: »

We eat well and I wonder what people eat who spend over £150 per person per week?

Gold flakes? I wonder too!

Becky

jacki981

i normally do a shop monthly then top up on bread n milk totals about 140 per month including nappies for 2 adults 2 under 5s and 4 days a month an 8 n 10 yr old!

this month im trying to cook more to a plan ect and reduce my bill to 60-100 so far ive spent 5 on the nose but need nappies milk bread n lentils so itll go up soon!

minerva_windsong

nzseries1 wrote: »

What an eye-opener this poll is... I had no idea that spending over £75 per week on groceries was bad (that's an average week for me - £50 per week if I'm really scrimping and saving). I'm very into money saving but I don't see how on earth do people live on £20-29 per person per weekly shop???

I live alone, so I can't share the cost of some things across multiple people... but still? £20-29? How is that possible? I mean, that has to cover toilet rolls, cleaning products, pet food, hygiene, food and drink... it can't be done I tell you! It CAN'T! 48% of people who took this poll LIED!!

Like I said, I as a single person could feed myself quite happily on £15-20 a week. Then again, I have no pets, I didn't buy house things every week, and I had a separate 'stuff' budget for things like shampoo and shower gel. Plus pretty much everything I bought was own brand or Smartprice/Basics, and apart from things like soup the vast majority of it was stuff I cooked myself from scratch - no ready meals for me! I also shopped at the local greengrocers for my fruit and veg, unless I needed anything particularly exotic, and ate Quorn rather than meat due to vegetarianism. I had meal plans too, but they were flexible - more of an 'I am going to make these meals at some point in the next two weeks, but not necessarily in this order'. Add a daily multivitamin and I was fine.

In terms of good BOGOFs, Asda's own brand Shreddies were always 2 750g boxes for £2. You can't even get one box of regular Shreddies for that!

liz545

blobusmacdobus wrote: »

OK Call me a geek, but since May I have started a spreadsheet and put cost of all my spend( for groceries and home products) there and set up a quick calc to let me know how much for the year and per week as an average.

I'm getting geeky too - since getting debt free earlier this year I'd loosened my grip on the purse strings slightly, but as we're getting closer to Christmas I want to start watching things a bit more carefully. So for a month I'm keeping track of all the shopping in a spreadsheet - how much we spend and what we buy - and then I can see where the costs are mounting up. I think a lot of people have absolutely no idea where their money's going when it comes to grocery bills - like they say on Economy Gastronomy, we've gotten out of the habit of planning our shopping, so we buy food and work out what to do with it, rather than the other way around!

beefturnmail

I also was amazed that the majority spend £20-£29pp. I spend more like £40-49pp. I do tend to buy a lot of fresh fruit and veg and tend to pay more to get the premium brands on things like chicken and sausages, becasue I don't like the thought of the low quality stuff you can get. IMHO where food is concerned it's definitely the case that cheapest is not necessarily best, and I'd rather save my money elsewhere.

sarymclary

nzseries1 wrote: »

What an eye-opener this poll is... I had no idea that spending over £75 per week on groceries was bad (that's an average week for me - £50 per week if I'm really scrimping and saving). I'm very into money saving but I don't see how on earth do people live on £20-29 per person per weekly shop???

I live alone, so I can't share the cost of some things across multiple people... but still? £20-29? How is that possible? I mean, that has to cover toilet rolls, cleaning products, pet food, hygiene, food and drink... it can't be done I tell you! It CAN'T! 48% of people who took this poll LIED!!

I shop for 6 of us (7 @ weekends), and I did my weekly shop yesterday, which will actually do us for more than a week, probably 10-12 days. I buy basic brands, mostly in Sainsburys, and tend to tailor my shop with what is on offer. So, whatever fruit & veg is on offer goes in the trolley, along with meats, diary, etc. You can get shower gel for 10p a bottle, 9 Kleenex toilet rolls from superdrug for £2.99. Own brand cereals are just as nice as Kellogs/Quaker/Nabisco, etc. We only have to buy Weetabix rather than a stores own, having tried them all. Sometimes the brands have good offers, so we stock up.

I nip over to my local Co-Op a couple of evenings each week to take advantage of the reduced priced bread/rolls, usually 10-15p a loaf/pack. Otherwise, I use my breadmaker to bake a loaf for less than 30p a time.

A big saving we have made is by not buying biscuits, cakes, and general 'treat' foods. They're non-meal items, but add £'s to the bill.

I stock up on branded items when they're on offer. That would be things such as dishwasher tablets, pasta/curry sauces, washing powder, etc. although I bought a 120 wash box of Surf laundry powder for £8 and it's lasted me months, and I do a LOT of washing.

Once every 6 weeks I go to Farmfoods to stock up on frozen food, such as veg., chicken grills, chicken breasts, fish, fries, etc.

Our average meal plan each week is:

h/m lasagne
h/m hotpot, beef stew (when braising steak is on offer)
sausages (95% meat ones) with h/m yorkshires & mash & veg
quorn based meals - grills, sausages, burgers
sweet n sour chicken
bolognese
chicken pasta bake
baked potatoes with chicken breast
chicken/quorn curry with rice

More and more of our income was going on groceries, and I have made a concerted effort to reduce the money spent, whilst keeping the quality the same.

I don't understand paying a premium price for an item that has a comparable lower priced option. An example is basics like lasagne sheet pasta, why pay £1 when you can pay 32p a box? Flour at half the price of say Allison or Homepride.

I challenge anyone who thinks they can't reduce their bill to take Martin's advice and drop a brand down, and shop around. The key is also to KNOW your prices. Do you know how much you should pay for pasta shapes, pasta sauces, cheese per kilo, chicken per kilo? If it's too much, compared to elsewhere, I won't buy it, and go to another store another time. Why waste money?

DKLS

ceridwen wrote: »

IIncluded in that is my VERY expensive coffee (as I really dont like cheap coffee or ANY tea)

Would that be Jamaican Blue Mountain by any chance?, If so I fully understand the draw, and financial pain, especially as my mate has stopped going to Jamaica every year.

nzseries1

You lot are very knowledgable on this subject... unlike me.

My problem is that I live by myself and don't cook. I am a hard-core money saver in many aspects, just not food. For some reason I feel like if I want that punnet of raspberries or that bottle of soft drink or coffee and muffin from starbucks, then I don't feel like I need to justify it to myself.

My other problem is that I have a massive sweet tooth, more than anyone else I know. Even if I could cook (which I am getting better at) I still have to have a supply of chocolate and sweets available, and that definitely makes the bill add up. I can't buy chocolate and sweets in advance and make it last all week because if I know there's chocolate in the house, I can't even sleep until I finish it all.

I don't even look at specials or prices when I'm out shopping, because I have cravings for particular foods and get worried if I can't have them!

If I ever lose my job or needed to cut back for whatever reason, I could give up other costs like holidays, transport, internet/phone, entertainment, even things like personal hygiene... but not food!!!!! I just love it too much.

cw18

I budget £12.60 per person per week for food

Then a further £2.80/week for toiletries & cleaning products including things like freezer bags and kebab sticks - but this is a total figure which is for 2 people full time, 2 grand-children before & after school, and another person when home on leave from the Army - which is almost 10 weeks so far this year. So at a guess, about £1.20/week for the full-timers, though this could be reduced without 2 dogs to clean up after as well

So that's about £14.80 per person per week, plus what little DS spends himself on a (very) few odds and sods. Well within the £10-£19 per person option

Even if I included dog food and treats (£5.30/week between 2 people = £2.65 per person) then we're still in the same bracket with some to spare :rolleyes2

cw18

nzseries1 wrote: »

I live alone, so I can't share the cost of some things across multiple people... but still? £20-29? How is that possible? I mean, that has to cover toilet rolls, cleaning products, pet food, hygiene, food and drink... it can't be done I tell you! It CAN'T!

It can........ I'm one of those that does (and lower than that!)

I bulk buy a lot of ingredients, use some for now, use some in batch cooking with meal portions being frozen afterwards, or just freeze the item until wanted.

If you check my signature it shows what I've spent on food so far this year...... as I type this I've spent £968.76 on (human) food, but a lot of this (£287.41) was spent on clearance items that were either used the next day or stock-piled in my freezer(s). If I'd paid full price for everything (ignoring the fact that a lot of my clearance items would either have been 'down shifted' or not bought at all due to them being treats) then I'd have spent £1773.60.

This is for 35 weeks for myself and younger son (who's 18), plus 10 weeks of elder son (20) home on leave, plus snacks for 2 GDs after school (a total of 195 snacks) and 21 main meals for my younger GD (21 half-days at pre-school, when she came home to me at lunch-time)

I've also spent £108.82 on toiletries and cleaning items, and £156.04 on dog food and treats...... making for a grand total of £1233.62 actually spent

Ignoring the extra people, this is a shade over £17.62/week if I divide it all between just myself and my son.

Using the full values of the clearance items it 'creeps' up to £2038.46 over 35 weeks - or £29.12 per person per week between the two of us.

If I make allowances for the 10 weeks my elder son has been home, then these figures drop to £15.42 and £25.48 per person per week respectively.

(If I use the 'human food only' figures, then it comes in at £13.84 / £25.34 between 2 of us, or £12.11 / £22.17 after allowing for a 3rd person for 10 weeks)

** Edit **
Almost 43 hours since doing these sums, and I'm still amazed that including the full price of the Clearance items makes a £10-£12 per person per week difference to the result !!!!