Budgeting for groceries: average monthly spend

talltom79

We shop online at either Sainsbury's or Tesco's. We are quite good at going through the order and checking that we need what we are ordering. Recently that's been £80 to £90 per week but we always end up needing a few extra bits from Morrisons or Asda. The monthly spend includes everything you'd buy from a supermarket including household cleaning stuff, shampoo, pet food (2 cats). We eat basically all our meals at home including lunch as I work from home.

I think I'm going to go through some old order receipts and work out what proportion we are spending on meals, and then work out what an average meal cost is.

LeeSouthEast

And if your cats are anything like my mother's, you spend more on cat food than you do on yourselves

welshmoneylover

willo65 wrote: »

We spend £150 per month for 3 Adults.

Crikey what do you eat for that?

Sawdust? :rotfl:

You'll have to show me your typical shopping list, I'd love to cut down on my food bills, :T

mummyroysof3

we are a family of 5 with 3 children aged 4, 2 and 10 months and we spend no more than 100 per week including hubbys money for breakfast at work and 2 or 3 days dinner money for my son.

we used to spend double that as i used to pop into tesco most days when doing the school run, now i have a tesco delivery every tuesday and get my bread milk and potatos and a few other things from farmfoods.

charlotte

Any

The obvious answer is that you can spend as much on the groceries as you like - as long as you can afford it.

Some people spend a lot, but there is no reason to tell them they are doing it wrong if they do - they just have different priorities. They rather spend time on the garden playing with kids then planning meals or read a book about planning meals or something (making this up, I know I can't plan more then 2 days in advance - thinking of something would take me half a day).

Everyone is different.

But if you want to cut down for what ever reason, the answer is - yes, you can definitely cut on that spend. You could probably half it if you really wanted.

usedandabused

i earn £600 a month after tax / NI

single, *weeps* male, spends around £30 a week, although since personal turmoil spending £50 a week of fag and booze

LeifGR

2 adults, 1 3-year old. £450/month on average (that includes wine and beer though).

We buy a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, most of it organic. We also buy lots of fresh fish and meat. We mix Sainsburys, Waitrose and Tesco. We hardly ever eat out and never buy ready-made meals.

As someone else said, everyone is different.

getmore4less

Break down your spends to understand where it is going.

Get the bills for last month that add up to the £600-£700 and break them down into catagorties.

On SOA groceries £100pppm is a guide for food and general household stuff cleaners loo rolls etc.

Some can get lower than this but more is not a problem if it give you value and you are not just wasting stuff.

Once the breakdown has been done think about where you could cut back or post for some ideas.


Alcohol is best as a seperate catagory.

Look at other general sub catagories that can add a lot

Meat
Ready meals/processed food
Other things not grocery catagories ( DVD,mags, clothes, meds, personal etc.) getting included in the shoping.

Also monitor your waste for a month you might just be buying to much stuff and throwing a lot away even though you think you are not.
Cost every thing you throw out.

Follow up with, an audit

Check all your storage for things you have that you should be using(going out of date), what in the freezer.


Notes
if you eat out or get a lot of takeaways your in house food bill should be lower
if you entertain a lot then it might be higher.


You could also do a meal audit, price up all your meals for a month and xref with the spends.

slscarborough

I spend under £400 a month on a family of 5 and that includes 2 in nappies and a teen that eats more than the adults!!

I do an online shop once a week of approx £70 and £30 a month through the milkman. I incldue all toiletries & cleaning products and usually 1 or 2 takeaways in the budget.

You should try joining us lot on the grocery challenge too. I dont meal plan though. I could post a typical weekly shop to give you an idea.

Lokolo

Also use this:

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/

You can make your shopping list, print it out, and go get the stuff. You'll know how much it will cost beforehand. You won't impulse buy either.... (well you shouldn't!)