Average weekly grocery spend

catkins

On another site I visit regularly there is a topic about the average weekly supermarket spend. It is apparently £141 in Britain. I must admit I was amazed by this as although I only spend about £30/40 a week most of my friends/relatives spend about £70/£80. Some posters on that site say they spend £180 or more, one poster says she spends £300!!!! On What? I realise that households with children will spend more but what on earth can people buy to spend that amount?

I don't eat meat but even if I did I don't think I could spend anywhere near even £80 a week if I tried. Also I guess that includes things like loo rolls, washing powder etc but even so. I have no problem with people spending what they like but just cannot fathom what they must buy. What do you all think?

Penny-Pincher!!

Thats horrendous!!

Pre MSE and when I was working, we used to spend £100-£120 a week to cover everything plus have take-aways on top, but I shopped only at M&S or Waitrose.

We now spend £30 roughly a week and that includes everything-and we eat meat daily. There are 3 of us. DD has a packed lunch and OH & I are indoors daily so have lunch at home too, but normally a jacket spud, soup or leftovers from previous day.

My sister spends £100/£120 a week and she shops between Tesco and Sainsburys. There is only 4 of (2 adults, 1 10yr old and a 5yr old)them and she cooks for mum and dad twice a week. She does buy all brand names and alot of processed and ready meals etc. She called yesterday to say thanks as I gave her link for Tesco voucher codes and she got £15 off her shop this week:D Have noticed though that she spends alot on fruit, veg and salad and she bins so much each week. She is trying though, but i think because she has never had to watch the pennies-this kind of spending is acceptable

Can you post the link?

PP
xx

doddsy

That's hideous!!I also have friends who spend well over £100 + each week at Sainsburys. As Penny Pincher said - can you post the link?
regards
Doddsy

catkins

Sorry I don't know how to post a link, but the site is the Daily Mail site - go on to message boards and then The Cafe.

Glad I am not the only one who is astounded by the amount some people spend - what do they buy champagne and caviar every week? I bet a lot of it is wasted. My parents in law spend an awful lot of money a week (probably at least £100) as they buy everything readymade but they end up throwing a lot away especially fruit and veg which seems to just sit in their fridge until it is not fit to use

Rachie_B

OMG and i thought i was bad spending £85 ish a week before !!!

im sure it could easily be done if you eat / buy lots of junk and only brand names / luxury items / lots of alcohol etc

i now spend around £5o ish a week, tesco online ,but recently ive been finding that lasts almost 2 weeks,with just a top up of bread / milk / orange juice so i only order tesco online every other week now

System

catkins wrote:

Sorry I don't know how to post a link, but the site is the Daily Mail site - go on to message boards and then The Cafe.

http://chat.dailymail.co.uk/dailymail/threadnonInd.jsp?forum=106&thread=9748967&message=11596182

EagerLearner

We spend £50 absolute max per week by shopping at Sommerfield, Tesco online and sometimes Sainsbury's, average is under £40 for the two of us. Tend to buy bulk loo roll (12), bulk washing liquid tabs for clothes (the larger boxes which contain twice as much). Plus we don't buy many snacks/sweets/yoghurts/fresh juices/pre-made salads or pre-made oven food, which normally gobble up alot of cash. We even get a bottle of wine each week if we can ;o)

I have also found that changing to soya at least some of the time cuts down money spent on milk (which goes off faster and is supposedly worse for you than soya.)

We are moving to a new address soon and will try to just order from Tesco like Rachie B and then top-up items...

EagerLearner

**purpleprincess**

Wow that's a lot of money!!! Mind you living on my own I was spending about £50+ a week on food!!! This was pre-MSE of course!!

Now I have got it down to about £20 or less a week and this is with the boyf staying round most nights too!

Never throw anything away now!

Bunnie1982

That is a lot, me and H2B manage on £20 or less a week of shopping

Heth_2

We spend about 200-225 pounds a month on food, and that also includes loo roll, washing powder, cleaning products and any toiletries we buy in sainsburies (not that many). I love cooking and buying food, and we never buy ready meals, or have take aways. We sometimes buy a frozen pizza though. We take pack lunches to work (with at least 2 pieces of fresh fruit), and have family/friends over for a big meal once a month which means we splash out on nice wine and often yummy cheese.
We never through food away, so none of this is getting wasted, which I think is one of the important things. I'll happily admit I'm a bit of a food snob, and we eat because we enjoy different, fresh, good food, not just because we have to to keep alive.

Penny-Pincher!!

Up to a few weeks ago, I did a fortnightly shop but always used a voucher for Asda and got it delivered. They have now put the delivery up to £6:eek: so am trying to shop weekly. Its a pain as I dont get out much because of not being well, but am lucky the OH goes out and he gets all the bargains later in the evening:D

I tend to write a small list of what we "need" (fruit, veg, fridge bits et) then he will look for bulk meal items (meat, poultry, fish) when its reduced in the evening. Probably spend weekly £25 a week on this, but am lucky that we have a huge frezzer in garage and one average one in kitchen. He went out last night and bought enough meat, poultry and fish to last at least 2 months...and Im not joking. Last night he did spend alot £65 after using a few voucher but that only works out to £8 a week on all excellent quality main meal items. 90% of all the items were organic with at least 70% off. He also bought the items we needed too. Also but our bread this was as we're fussy with the bread we like...has to be Warburtons, Hovis special loaves of the finest stuff-but OH bulk buys when they are reduced to 15p a loaf. Tuesday evening our local Asda was selling bread at 4p a loaf:D

I wont compromise on washing powder, nescafe, tetley tea, lux loo rolls, flash liquid, kitchen rolls and fabric conditioner, but we wait for them to be on special at Makros and bulk buy-so all in all about £5pw there.

HTH

PP
xx