My shopping bill keeps on going up and up!!!

Purpleclutterbuck

Only take a limited amount of cash and no cards as it makes you really think what you need -perhaps do this 2/3 times a week - and start a basic store cupboard but only really basic ie enough for 2 emergency meals !

fedupfreda

Hi Moneypanicker

2 adults, 3 children, £400/month on groceries works out at £100 per week or £20 per head per week (roughly), which, IMO, is not bad at all:dance:. Seems like you have things down to the bare bones already. I take it such necessary things as loo paper, washing powder, washing up liquid etc are included in this figure? Its not just the price of food, all the economy things I used to rely on such as washing powder, soda, star drops etc seem to have doubled in price or more over the past year:mad:, I think the supermarkets have been bumping the price up on the economy lines as they know more people are going for them these days. Also takes the pressure off the headline prices on the brand name items.

I don't think you could really take this down much further, but FWIW online shopping works brilliantly, if only because you do not have little hands (or DH;)) 'dropping' odd things into the trolley! Its a great help to see the £s mount up. I used to go round the shop adding things up but I found I much better preferred to do things online. Also sites like mysupermarket.co.uk can come in helpful when it comes to price comparisons but I do know some who don't get on with it at all.

BTW do you have an Iceland near you - they are selling 4pt milk for £1, I rely on this a lot as we get through 2x4pt a week. Also stock up on any BOGOFs which keep well - cheese is a favourite of mine. Meat is a terrible expense, at the moment I am making use of some sainsburys vouchers I was sent, £6 off a £30 shop - £24 for £30 worth of meat can't be bad :cool: Other than that, I found that keeping a running total of what I was spending was a great aid to putting the brakes on. I often found I was 'nipping to the shops' 3 or 4x a week, and wasting money in the process. Also strategically 'running out' of things now and then helps - if only because it encourages DS1 & 2 to try to eat something else, which they would have dismissed out of hand otherwise.;)

Sunnyday

Would it help if you built up a storecupboard of all the dried ingredients so that you can make things stretch a bit further?

I now keep some pulses, lentils, rice, lasagne sheets, spaghetti etc on a shelf and use them quite a lot. Something that i never used to do.

Have a look at the meal plan thread and also at the grocery challenge too.
The GC is what really made me change how i do things and there is a long list of recipes on the first page. These arn`t recipes with huge lists of ingredients but tried and tested ones by peeps doing the challenge. Much more thrifty and very tasty.

What kind of things do you like to eat?

SD

floss2

moneypanicker wrote: »

... If i'm organised and done a big roast he'll have leftovers as will my other 2 children but they are getting fed up of this at least once a week.

You are not in a position to allow children to control your food shopping - to become more frugal, you really need to utilise every bit of a roast joint, even if it means leftovers! As a child we had leftovers of some description on a Monday for tea - one week it would be cold meat, veg & fried mashed potato, in the summer we'd have cold meat & salad & new potatoes or fried cold potatoes, it might be curry or sweet & sour with rice, or cold meat, chips, veg or salad & pickles. Thats the way it was in a family of 6, to make everything stretch.

moneypanicker wrote: »

... Milk for the week is at least £10:mad: This morning i spent £75 but that is only enough till friday and doesn't even include meat as i buy that elsewhere and freeze it!...

Do you buy milk at the supermarket or from the milkman? What exactly did you buy for your £75? Have you worked out a meal plan for the next week from what you bought? Also, do you buy thinks like loo roll & washing powder when its on BOGOF?

aliadds

fedupfreda wrote: »

I don't think you could really take this down much further, but FWIW online shopping works brilliantly, if only because you do not have little hands (or DH;)) 'dropping' odd things into the trolley! Its a great help to see the £s mount up. I used to go round the shop adding things up but I found I much better preferred to do things online.

Totally agree about online shopping! I can stick to a strict budget by seeing exactly whats in my trolley! And if I go over budget I go back through the trolley and see if 'I really need it' this week! At the moment I'm feeding 2 adults and 2 dogs for £35 a week.

shopaholictiedtheknot

I am so glad we are not the only ones!

Our food shopping bill is now £100 every 10 days since we started doing it online (Tescos) this includes all meals for me and DH, DD who is 16 and DS who is 6 months, it also includes nappies, toiletries and cleaning stuff and cat food for two cats. I am happy to eat veggie things but DH and DD won't entertain them so we do buy meat and always good lean stuff but apart from that I buy lots of value products and I have stopped buying ready meals and jar sauces but I find I am getting bored of the meals I am making. I think I am going to start doing a monthly trip to B&M bargains and Aldi and see what cheap things I can pick up to liven up our diet a bit!

Sunnyday

aliadds wrote: »

At the moment I'm feeding 2 adults and 2 dogs for £35 a week.

Averaged out this is the same as us, we are feeding 2 adults and 2 dogs and a cat for about £35 and we are eating well too. In fact sometimes the animals food is more expensive than ours :rotfl:

Typical meal planner for the winter weather is :-

Sunday - Roast chicken, stuffing, carrots, onions, broccolli, potatoes & gravy.

Monday, Chicken & mushroom pasta bake - leftover chicken with mushrooms and a tin of condensed mushroom soup for the sauce. Sometimes red pesto for a change and a red pepper YUM.

Tuesday - Chicken pie with either gravy inside or a tin of chicken condensed soup. Different veggies can be added to the pie to make it different. Serve it with jackets and peas.

Wednesday - Hm soup made from the chicken carcass and various herbs and veg all blended together with thick crusty home made bread.

Thursday - Toad in the hole filled with veg and gravy with jackets on the side if a bigger meal is needed.

Friday - Chilli con carne & rice with mince and padded out with pulses and sometimes i stretch it further by adding a tin of baked beans and freeze half for another day.

Saturday - Curry & rice & naan or cottage pie with the rest of the mince with green beans. Whatever meat is left over from the curry will be used for sandwiches for a couple of days or frozen for another time.

A favourite winter meal is lambs liver with onions and bacon made in the slow cooker with a tin of tomatoes served with huge jacket spuds. I add softened butter to the left overs after straining off the gravy and shove it in the blender. Leave it to set in ramekins and freeze, this makes a very tasty hm pate for toast for breakfast.

We often make hm pizza too, lots of toppings for pence and they can be frozen for when you don`t have time to cook.

HTH

SD

NJW69

I'm like you I don't have to cut down but I want to because I don't want to keep wasting money.

I've joined the Grocery Challenge on the Old Style Thread and in January I estimated £350 for the month and spend £319 so I cut that down to £300 for February and so far I've only spent £219 and that includes my shopping from Sainsburys being delivered tomorrow.

I buy from the offers section first and then add to it for the rest.

Buy any F&V that are on offer, get some whoopsies for the freezer, batch cook and freeze half, get the 3 for £10 on meat from the supermarket (two of these each week should give you enough meat everyday for £20), freeze leftovers in portions rather than stick in the fridge and then throw away and keep an eye on whats going out of date and use that up first, make big pans of soup with your left over bits of veg and cooked meat for example.

My typical weekly meals are chilli or spaghetti one night with enough left over for one or two freezer meals, pork chops with potaoes and veg another night, shepherds pie or savoury mince or keema curry another, soup one night, roast dinner (if its chicken this will do another night as sweet and sour or curry), some kind of casserole in the slow cooker with whatever other meat I've bought i.e. beef in beer, pork in apple juice, gammon in cola, lamb shank.

I get cooked meats and cheese whichever is on offer, make my own bread, but I also buy loads of biscuits, crisps, yoghurts etc. Again whatever is on offer. Milk can be bought for £1 for 4 pints (tesco recently had Cravendale) but Farmfoods have it all the time at that.

I buy about 12 litres of fresh juice per week out again look out for whats on offer and stock up, same with dilute juice.

We get Farmfoods leaflets through the door and I've always just thrown them away but you can use the vouchers on them (£5 off £50 x 2 and £2.50 off £25 x 2) in Tesco. I get some through every couple of weeks and have started to use them. They didn't bat an eye and even let me use a £5 and a £2.50 one together because I had spent over £75.

Tonight we're having pork chops from Netto £3.00 for 4 and I've got some mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, carrotts and green beans and cauliflower cheese out of the freezer that I froze last weekend when I made too much. Going to make some HM sage and onion stuffing and nice gravy. Previously I would have ended up throwing this away.

OrkneyStar

I spend approx £200 per month on food- so in a 5 week month that's £40 per week and in a 4 week month it's £50 per week. We are two adults, who are not that fussy, except that if we have mince/stew it has to be local Orkney steak mince/stew (it is bulked out with carrot, onion, swede though !), 1 toddler (2 and a half) and 1 cat. We have Tesco, Coop, Lidl and small local shops up here (no Aldi and the like!). I like to cook and am fairly proficient although, like someone else said, like new ideas sometimes too. We always meal plan, incorporating leftovers/adapting where need be. I often make soup with skanky looking veg and some lentils, and we do eat veggie based meals (our meal plan and others are on this thread).
Don't think Tesco online works up here, and although the Coop deliver I tend to find I cannot get everything I want in there!
hth

aliadds

Sunnyday wrote: »

Averaged out this is the same as us, we are feeding 2 adults and 2 dogs and a cat for about £35 and we are eating well too. In fact sometimes the animals food is more expensive than ours :rotfl:


SD

My 'poor puppys' ' food is definitely not expensive! Mr A smart price @ 92p for 2kg of complete dog food, lasts a week! And their coats are shiny and noses wet so they're fine with it:)