How can I budget my weekly shop?

Apricot

This site has helped me save loads on my shopping bill. Like others have said meal planning helps tremendously, also I don't feel the need to eat meat every single day so this obviously cuts the bills down a lot as veggie food tends to be cheaper to make.

Can I ask what you feed your cats? I have two cats and have started feeding them raw food in the evenings. It works out much cheaper than whisk*s pouches and is much better for them too. I buy a pack of 14 chicken wings in Asda and they have one for tea most nights, meaning their tea usually only costs me about 10p each per night. Also, many butchers will give you free offal which cats love & is very mse! My cat food bills are half of what they used to be.

bargainbonkers

Thanks all for your responses! Sorry for not responding sooner.

It sounds as though your budget generally is very tight. What percentage of your income is going on fixed costs such as rent and transport? Sometimes the awful truth is that our income is simply not enough to live independently.

Well, I worked out on the MSE's budget planner tool that we ended up in over £100 of debt each month. My boyfriend provides the only income in our household at £1040 p/m and he pays £400 p/m for his car finance and insurance (Bad decision made a couple of years ago). We dont keep records of petrol but our household bills come to about £280 p/m, food possibly £200 p/m, my mother kindly currently provides the rent money of £545 p/m so we desperately want to cut down on certain aspects of our life. Sad as it sounds, we dont buy any things we "want", socialise or go out ever as we cant afford it and there are no extra drink/ciggies expenses etc as we dont do anything like that so it really is just down to absolute basic living!

you could maybe cut it down a little, but it depends how badly you need/want to. if you post the sort of things you buy/cook at the moment it could help people suggest ways to cut down.

We did our first "cheap" weeks shop the other day and it came to £24 for us both. We went to Sainsburys and our whole trolley was just white and orange, it was amusing and fun at the same time. We love slow cooker stews, I like to go low carb which I guess can be a complication when trying to eat cheaply but my boyfriend can eat as much carbs as he likes and be fine. We like the usual pastas, pizzas, quite a lot of foods really... Which I guess is why we find it so hard to work out a meal plan as we enjoy variety.

Can I ask what you feed your cats? I have two cats and have started feeding them raw food in the evenings. It works out much cheaper than whisk*s pouches and is much better for them too. I buy a pack of 14 chicken wings in Asda and they have one for tea most nights, meaning their tea usually only costs me about 10p each per night. Also, many butchers will give you free offal which cats love & is very mse! My cat food bills are half of what they used to be.

We feed our cats a pouch of wet food each in the morning, a bowl of crunchies each to nibble at during the day, and then repeat the pouch each for dinner and a bowl of crunchies for them to eat through the night. We usually go for the deals in supermarkets for their food so they don't always stick to one brand, however they're indoor cats and I'm occasionally tempted to give them specialised indoor cat dry food because otherwise I feel like I'm depriving them.. But this is more expensive so we dont do it often. I have never actually considered giving them raw food because for some reason in my head I automatically thought pet food = cheaper than 'human' food. Thanks for your tips!