Spent £63.56 on weekly food shopping

Penny35_2

Just done an online shop for the week and spent £63.56 this is just for me and hubby...

About £10.00 of it was on our lovely dog, thats not a weekly cost
£5.00 on a thermometer, £1.00 on washing up liquid but the rest is food !!

I think we are spending way too much. I work from home so eat at home all the time and husband works shifts and he is home 8 days out of 12.

What do other couples spend ?

Thanks

Penelope_Penguin

There's a whole load of poeple's budgets here I'll merge this thread to that one later.

You could join the Grocery Challenge thread (sticky at the top of the Old Style contents page) if you want to reduce your spend.

Penny. x

hot.chick

Hi there,

just the 2 of us here and I'd usually spend £60 ish every 2 or 3 weeks on a tesco delivery.

We also have a dog but buy his food in bulk so this doesn't include his food.

Do you throw things away or have a lot of waste??

This is an indication that you're buying too much, also how do you decide what you need to buy??

Maybe see what you have in the cupboards and try to make a weeks worth of meals from what you already have in as the building blocks.

LabLover

Hey, I live with my OH and dog , and including hair gels, sprays , cleaning stuff,washing powder and dog food I think we manage to average out about £45 a week. That includes lunch for both of us to take to work every day. My dog eats WAGG dog food and i think her food costs us maybe £5 a month.My OH and I both have very sensitive skin so use Mitchum deoderant which is costly but lasts longer and is good on skin, and all other products we use on skin are branded , but only because they are tried and tested and dont agrivate our skin. I think that I could probably do my shopping cheaper but I do like to buy my OH and I a treat evey week , normally a chocolate bar for me and nuts for OH. I also cook everything from scratch but use alot of chicken and fish. Dunno if that helps? If i spend £65 one week , i tend to cut back the next week and make cakes instead of buying biscuits , make a few loaves in bread maker and defrost meals that ive bulk made for freezer.
XX

sunflower76

You could try adding your list of food to the post so that people can make suggestions on where you can cut back.

How much you spend is a quite a personal thing as it depends on how much you cook from scratch, whether you buy premium brands or are happy with value types, whether you have access to a market and butchers, whether you eat meat etc etc.

In our house we spend around £45 per week in the winter but we have an organic veggie box (I grow more in summer so this is reduced) and although I cook from scratch I tend to go for fancier meals a few times a week which is more expensive than a week of lentil dahl or soup for example.

Toonie

We do amonthly shop and top up with fresh items as and when we need it and spend around £150/month on everything including food, toiletries, cleaning products and any alcohol. The Grocery Challenge is great for keeping an eye on spending and it has lots of great cheap recipes. My partner is home quite a lot (self employed) and I am home three days a week. We eat a lot of stews, cottage pies, soups and the like, but also treat ourselves sometimes.

Penny35_2

sunflower76 wrote: »

You could try adding your list of food to the post so that people can make suggestions on where you can cut back.

How much you spend is a quite a personal thing as it depends on how much you cook from scratch, whether you buy premium brands or are happy with value types, whether you have access to a market and butchers, whether you eat meat etc etc.

In our house we spend around £45 per week in the winter but we have an organic veggie box (I grow more in summer so this is reduced) and although I cook from scratch I tend to go for fancier meals a few times a week which is more expensive than a week of lentil dahl or soup for example.

Hi - We do buy branded foods.

This week for breakfasts somedays we will have crumpets other days muffins. For lunches it will be either burgers, jackets or sandwiches and teas will be hotpot, braising steak, sausage casserole, roast, chicken chasseur.

These are the sort of meals we have we eat meat every day.

Here is my list

2Training treats £3.34 2Washing up liq £1.00 1Disp razors £0.25 1Thermometer £5.00 1Freerange eggs £1.46 1Buttery spread £1.45 1Dumpling mix £0.42 1Whole chicken £3.98 1Heritage Potato £1.28 1Baking pots £0.74 1.0
kgCarrots loose £0.72 2Oxo cubes £2.00 1Cathedral City £5.98 1SP JAM/STRAWBER £0.38 1GFY Croissants £0.87 1Crumpets £0.74 3Back bacon £5.00 1White baps £1.46 1Fresh for week £0.75 4Richmond saus £4.00 2Braising steak £6.00 3Diet coke £4.00 1Baker's chicken £5.97 1Semi skim milk £2.25 1Beefburgers £1.27 1Chicken burgers £1.36

sunflower76

There's an awful lot of meat for one week. What are you cooking with it?

1Freerange eggs £1.46
1Whole chicken £3.98
3Back bacon £5.00 (I'm assuming this is three packs with 6 slices on a pack?)
4Richmond saus £4.00 (4 packs of 8?)
2Braising steak £6.00 (2 packs of two steaks?)
1Beefburgers £1.27
1Chicken burgers £1.36
1Cathedral City £5.98

• I'd use the chicken to make a roast dinner on Sunday(one leg each)
• One leftover chicken breast would go into a pie with the bacon topped with mash or pastry for the Monday dinner and one breast the for sandwiches at lunchtime.
• Half a pack of bacon and half a pack of sausages would be for a fry up for Tuesday dinner. Lunch would be cheese sandwiches.
• The remaining bacon from the opened pack would be served with a creamy cheese sauce and pasta for Wednesday dinner. Lunch would be cheese sandwiches.
• Thursday dinner would be toad in the hole. Lunch would be jacket potato and cheese.
• Fridays dinner would be one pack of braising steak between us and lunch would be jacket potato and cheese.
• Saturdays dinner would be burgers and chips. Lunch would be bacon rolls.

So I'd have a pack and a half of bacon, three packs of sausages, chicken burgers, a pack of steak left for future meals. Do you think you're buying more than you need to or not taking into account that some of what you're buying will go into the freezer?

We have cereal, toast or yoghurt for breakfast which is cheaper than muffins and crumpets or croissants and usually have sandwiches or soup for lunch. This is cheaper than having jacket potatoes / burgers.

It depends on whether you're prepared to change what you eat and how well you can cook. We eat meat perhaps three or four times a week the rest of the time we have vegetable curries or lasagne or lentil dahl. If you can make something nice with veg then you don't miss meat and it's stacks cheaper than meat every night.

allydowd

The two of us spend £20, £25, £30 a week depending on how much we need.

niksyg

My OH and I spend about £35 a week on our shop...that includes all food and non food stuff like toiletries, cleaning products the odd DVD etc. That gives us both 3 meals a day and OH another small meal/big snack as he trains really hard so needs extra calories. When we first started living together her used to get really annoyed if our meals didn't include meat but after a while he stopped complaining and now we probably only eat meat 3/4 times a week and that is always in something that will give us extra portions for another day or that I can do something with the leftovers.
The casseroles and things you make will easily do 2 days surely?

The best way to reduce spending is to make a meal plan...stick to it....use a shopping list....stick to it!!

The muffins/crumpets seem really unnecessary for breakfast - toast is soooo much cheaper, as is cereal!

Anyway, I hope you manage to try and reduce the spending somehow, I managed to get my mum and her OH from £85 a week down to £50 just by meal planning and lists!

madnessandmayhem

Just to give you a comparison i've just spent £58.31 on my online shop today and that is for me, oh and 2 boys (2 and 6) and that is for 2 weeks. The only things i will need to get is milk and some potatoes (I forgot to order then!!)