Can someone help with my shopping bill?

Stompa

lady_fuschia wrote:

I would definetely start buying your veg at a market. I did an experiment a while back where I bought veg at my supermarket (tesco) one week, then the same stuff at the market the next week. The total price of the market shop was just over half of the supermarket one.

There was a chap on the TV the other day who'd done some research comparing market prices with supermarket ones. Like you, he found the market to be significantly cheaper - which I must admit surprised me, but I'll now be giving it a try myself.

ti1980

I didn't see anything extravagant in your shopping list either.
It looks as though you are eating a very good range of fruit and veg.
I shop at Sainsburys mainly as its my nearest supermarket and I definitely notice the price differences to that of Tesco and Asda.
Have you checked out the prices in Waitrose? I don't have one anywhere near me but there may be a few items on your list that you can get cheaper or thay may be on a special offer such as BOGOF or BOGOHP.

How fussy are you with your bread? If it is just for toast then you could get much cheaper bread that doesn't have to be value, or get a different brand that is on offer and freeze some if you don't use a whole loaf?
Same with the bread rolls, get a larger pack and freeze.

Are you using up everything with no wastage? If not then thats where you can cut down, by eating/freezing things before it goes off.

Do you tend to go shopping the same day each week? Could you go more often, and not be side tracked by anything you don't really 'need'? Or could you go less often say every 10 days and the days you are low on fruit and veg, use tinned and frozen? That was a big problem for me as I used to waste a lot of food as it would go off before I wanted to use it, especially if I went to the fruit and veg shop (my only local one isn't very good) or if I went to Lidl. Some people are lucky and have good Lidl's. My nearest one isn't so good, I will buy some things there but its not suitable if you are buying for one as the fruit/veg goes manky after a day.

mamaoba

would it be cheaper to get a fruit and veggie box delivered each week? It looks to me like that's where your major spend is coming from really?

Lots of places do box delivery schemes now. If you have a look at bigbarn.co.uk it'll show you where your closest one is. Just an idea if you have no market close by.

My local farmers market is a complete rip off - £4 a punnet of baby tomatoes anyone? so they are not always best vlaue. My street market is fantastic though.

TOBRUK

Jennyw - I agree with most of the suggestions and comments made here, and looking through your shopping list, there seems to be a few items you wouldn't be buying every week, like flora (it would last longer) and toilet rolls.

For someone living alone there seems to be a lot of fruit and veg for one person a week - you have 2 melons, strawberries, grapes, pears, apples, bananas and more! If you really want to cut down, grapes and strawberries are quite dear and I don't buy these unless it is a treat. I suppose everyone has their idea of what a treat is, but as someone who is on a tight budget, to me they definitely are a treat.

Are you meal planning? This is absolutely worth doing and will surprise you once you do this. Also look out for offers of things you use and buy a lot of them then - even if you don't need them at the time because you save in the long run e.g. I drink horlicks malt chocolate and not long ago there was an offer 2 for £3 and I bought 12 during the offer because they are priced at £2.24 each and so I had a stock. Offer for the horlicks comes up every now and then. Same thing with coffee, it's nescafe gold blend I drink and there is often an offer 2 for £6 and they are normally £4.44, so I bought a stock.

I bought strawberry plants this year and they are flowering and coming along a treat - looking forward to a great time eating them - 36 plants! Also, I have 6 tomato plants which will save me a fortune. I bought 3 blueberry plants which will fruit this year - I never buy them in the supermarket as they are so dear - around £3 for 124g, and the blueberry plants were only £3 each - the price of one punnet! I am also growing herbs - parsley, basil, thyme, rosemary, coriander and sage. I also have spring onions growing, and I put some potatoes down a few weeks ago - you can do this in large tubs. This way I am going to save a lot of money.

As for your shopping list there is nothing wrong with it (I'm not knocking it) other than it seems to me that you must have quite a lot of waste unless you are cooking meals and putting them in the freezer. I live alone and I couldn't possibly eat that much fruit in a week!

frosty

we eat a lot of fruit and veg,I am feeding 5 adults and animals for £200.00 a month,I buy bags of frozen strawberries and bags of frozen blackcurrants from farmfoods for 59p for 500g(2 for £1)I use these to make smoothies for breakfast or to flavour desserts,Tesco do a container of summer friuts (freezer section)for £1.00 (500g).I buy all veg from a local farm shop.A sack of potatoes costs £4.00 (56lbs) and this last us about 2 months.we have baked potatoes with various fillings,mashed with evening meal, spicey wedges ect.

me_and_the_cat

I'd also agree with others about using your local market for fruit and veg.

Last week I got 3 punnets of strawberries £1, 2 big bags of grapes £1 and a salad pack (iceberg, cucumber and a few tomatoes) also £1. In my local Tesco the iceberg alone was 80p and £1 wouldn't have bought a box of value grapes -and the quality of the fruit and veg from the market is better than my local Tesco at the moment.

I also tend to bulk out meals with pulses - you really don't notice. When I make soup I chuck in a tin of baked beans (value of course !)- this makes a lovely veg and tomato soup, and is amazingly filling. If you use any veg in the fridge it costs pennies to make but makes loads.

JennyW_2

Hi there. Thanks for all your replies - I've read them all and taken note of what you've all said.

Surely that amount of veg feeds you for more than a week? Do you waste a lot?

yep - what I've listed is what I get through in a week. I use 5/6 pieces of fruit in the morning to make a smoothie and if there are any vegetables that I think wont make it, I'll cook them up and freeze them. So to answer your statement, nope, nothing gets wasted.

I would love to get my fruit and veg at a market but the nearest one is about 15/20 drive and thats located in quite a big town so by the time I've driven there and back, parked in a multi-storey car park for about £3 i don't reckon I'd be saving money.

I'm going to try and think about my meals for the week and buy accordingly, granted toilet tissue/quorn/flora isn't a product purchased each week, more likely every two weeks so perhaps I'm averaging £30 a week.

Thanks again

Rebob

The biggest saver for me is to bulk out meals such as chilli by adding frozen veg so that there will be a portion of leftovevers for me to freeze. Last week the leftover chilli and leftover rice were mixed together and heated, wrapped up in a tortilla and then sprinkled with a little leftover cheese and put under the grill to brown. The tortillas were also on offer at tesco for 40p. This fed 2 adults and 1 nine year old.

I try and cost out each meal we have and make sure that we don't have too many expensive ones IYKWIM? If one meal is £6 for the three of us I make sure the next is only £1 - £2

Spendless

JennyW wrote:

. I use 5/6 pieces of fruit in the morning to make a smoothie

5/6 pieces of fruit every morning to make a smoothie? If so I would suggest this is what is making your food bill add up. I would suggest that either you eat some of the fruit seperately each morning for your breakfast and save a smoothie for just so many times a week. If you prefer to have a smoothie every morning what about using the cheaper fruits for it 5-6 times a week and just have a smoothie made with the more expensive fruits once or twice a week.

wilburpig

How about using some tinned fruits (value) such as peaches, pears or pineapple in the smoothies, add some orange or apple juice, and the liquid from the tinned fruit to eke it out a bit. Or milk?