How Much for Groceries?

Ex-Spendaholic

Just wondering what you all think we should be spending on groceries. This is the situation:

2 adults
2 kids (school age)
1 child (2) - drinks a load of milk

OH works 5 days per week and I work 3 days of the week and on those 3 days the kids have their dinner at their grandparents house. 1 child takes school dinners 3-5 days per week and the other takes packed lunches 5 days per week - their choice.

It is worth pointing out at this stage that there are no Jamie Oliver or Delia Smith's living in our house.:rotfl:We are both rubbish so the idea of batch cooking etc isn't likely to work.

I seem to spend £100 every week in Asda. :eek: I've started to do an internet shop once a week to try to cut down on running to shops everyday of the week. Somehow I think I'm now spending more. :eek: I think this is too much and want to reduce it. I try to buy meat at a local butchers and fruit/veg at a local greengrocers so probably incur costs about £30 a week on this too. :eek: Plus we have a takeaway at the weekend costing around £15.

We seriously need to sort this, any ideas? What do other people pay for a similar family?

Tixy

Hi

So excluding the takeaway you are spending £130 pw or £563 per month.
People on here will tell you they can feed a family of the same size for half that (I live alone so am not the best to advise really)

I don't think you need to be a brilliant cook to save money but just be able to cook from scratch (which if you are buying meat & fruit & veg you presumably can do/are doing!)

I know over on the old style money saving board they are really good at giving advice, even to the extent of you typing in whats on your receipt for them to make suggestions.

Is all the spend on food? do you buy a lot of alcoholic drinks, cigs, magazines or clothes that bulk up the asda spend?

Do you buy premium brands? Have you tried Martin's drop a brand challenge to see which items you could buy store brands without noticing the difference.
Things like Andrex toilet roles are usually quite a bit more than just getting the supermarket brand (especially with 5bottoms in the family!)

Do you buy a lot of fizzy pop/ready mixed cordial when squash for diluting would be cheaper.

Are you buying fruit and veg in season rather than expensive air freight items?

Maybe look through your last week receipt and see what items cost the most and if you could get cheaper (ie maybe look at everything over a £1).

Ex-Spendaholic

Thanks Tixy.

We don't buy any alcohol, cigarettes or magazines. We do buy clothes but not part of the Asda spend.

Yes to the fizzy drinks. We buy 2 x 12 packs of coke each week costing £6 (ie £3 each). I know we could drink water instead but as we aren't buying alcohol or anything I don't see an issue with this.

As for brands, I suppose that could be the problem. Muller yoghurts, Kelloggs cereals etc. In fairness though there is nothing that could be described as luxury in the weekly shopping.

gonzo127

Hi when it comes to groceries i usualy suggest people try and aim for £60 per person per month so a family of 5 would be about £300 for the month however as Tixy has pointed out you are doing it for £563 + take away every week costing about £60 a month so you are spending roughly £620 a month on food which is massive.

now for food ideas you really do not have to be a massively competent cook to make savings i also feed a family of 5, me the wife one 17 year old lad one 13 year old girl and a nearly 2 year old girl but do it on much less than you ~£350 give or take £10 (ok not quite at £300 a month however i have budgetted in that we can have a little bit more as i love meat) however i have gotten to the point where for a normal Curry or Chinese i will only use 2 chicken breasts between the 5 of us and then i use much cheaper veg to bulk out the rest of the meal,

Pooky

We're 2 adults and 2 kids (teens so bottomless pits) and my budget is £60 a week for everything (including feeding 2 cats, all toiletries/cleaning stuff). Both kids take packed lunches. We all get our 5 a day but I don't buy expensive fruits and veg, it's got to be basic, in season items. I don't buy snacky stuff either, we'll make some cakes or biscuits at the weekend which is much cheaper. I get my meat at the local butchers and work around what's on offer rather than go with a set meat in mind.

Look at what meals you're making and see what you can substitute for cheaper ingredients...if you cost each meal out per portion it's quite an eye opener sometimes....I've moved those more expensive meals to "special occasion" meals.

andys15

I would cut out the brands straight away. We get tesco shreddies and weetabix, and you really cant tell the difference. We get the cheaper beans, which are slighlty less quality. Noodles are very cheap and the kids love them. We cook a Stew once a week which is 2 teas, which actually tastes better the next day. 1 tea is soup with Tiger bread. 1 night it is beans on toast. We hardly ever get takeaway. I try and meal plan for 10 day meals and get the ingrediants for them. Fizzy drinks are never bought in the house, not for money saving but to protect the kids teeth. We get 2 bottles of tesco brand cordial and that lasts 10 days, and costs about £2. Shopping is still our 2nd biggest item on our outgoings after the mortgage, so it really should be done wisely.

gonzo127

Ex-Spendaholic wrote: »

As for brands, I suppose that could be the problem. Muller yoghurts, Kelloggs cereals etc. In fairness though there is nothing that could be described as luxury in the weekly shopping.

i think this is going to be a big saver the other day at Asda we was looking into this and Muller corners where 'ON OFFER' so i had a look at them and then compared them to Asda's own corner's, and on offer they still workout out about £2 more expensive for 12 than the Asda ones

just think about this in some basic figures

on a £100 shop you might on average get 70 items now if you saved only so much on each product think about the savings you will make

10 pence per product would be £7 a week ~ £28 a month
20 pence per product would be £14 a week ~ £56 a month
30 pence per product would be £21 a week ~ £84 a month (or in other words one weeks shoping)

Ex-Spendaholic

Some great points, thanks everyone.

The coke is just for the OH and I. The kids don't drink it. They have fruit juice.

:eek: about the mullers. The OH and kids are addicted to them. I wonder how they'll react if I supplement them with Asda yoghurts? I tried this with the Asda 9p teabags once and the OH moaned daily. I didn't even tell him they were different he just knew. :rotfl:

gonzo127

well i can understand the tea bags :P you can only drop so far on some things! (toilet rolls included :shudder: )

but that is the idea of the drop a brand challenge, you drop to the lower brand and see if it is an 'acceptable alternative' if it is you keep with the 'new' cheaper brand for a while and then see if you can drop to the next cheaper brand without too much difference

just remember to do it in stages do not go from 'leading brand' to value in one step! thats when people moan

andys15

Ex-Spendaholic wrote: »

Some great points, thanks everyone.

The coke is just for the OH and I. The kids don't drink it. They have fruit juice.

:eek: about the mullers. The OH and kids are addicted to them. I wonder how they'll react if I supplement them with Asda yoghurts? I tried this with the Asda 9p teabags once and the OH moaned daily. I didn't even tell him they were different he just knew. :rotfl:

Yes teabags are different. Yogurts, again we do tend to get brands, but we vary our choice based on what deals are available. I think the 10 day shop is working wonders for us. It means 3 shops a calender month, rather than 4 sometimes 5. Yes we need to top up with milk, but we make sure when we do thats all we do. We challenged ourself to get a 10 day shop for what we used to spend on a weeks shop and it is easily doable.

redsquirrel80

Have you had a look at http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk ? If you put your weekly shop into there, it not only tells you where it's cheapest, but also suggests cheaper alternatives (the "swap and save £££s" button at the top).

I've not found any decent value tea bags but own brand yoghurts aren't bad - the Tesco toffee yoghurts for 29p each are lovely! There are a few threads where people have posted up their good and bad value finds - there's an Asda one here - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2304979

Hope that helps!