monthly food budget

jobbingmusician

Ooooo yes, Loneranger - have you discovered Lidl and Aldi? I love Lidl in particular....people talk about it being downmarket, and they've obviuosly never shopped there, as their stuff is EXCELLENT quality - M & S standards for half the price, often!!!!!

(And welcome)

tyllwyd

Our best tip is to get the calendar and plan the meal for every day of the week before you go shopping - that way, you only buy what you need and (hopefully) nothing goes to waste. Keep a notebook by the fridge, and write down when things run out so you know what needs replacing. And check the dates on any meat - there is nothing worse than going to cook a meal and discovering the meat went out of date two days earlier. If you aren't throwing away food, the money spent in the supermarket goes a lot further. Oh, and we find that there are fewer bags of rubbish going into the bin, which has got to be another benefit.

loneranger

Thank you all for your replies, there are two of us in the house and a border collie who eats pal (lucky it's one of the cheaper foods) I live out in the sticks so go to tesco which is the closest supermarket,can't do it online cos can only get (young saver!) electron card (i'm old but have a terrible credit rating,and that is a very long story!) Tesco's will not accept my card. I have to go 15 miles to get into town. Have been in the habit of picking up bits and pieces at local shop (loaf of bread £1.20!) and need to organise myself into stocking up for the month. I seem to be working full time just to survive the month,and more often I am not surviving the month, eg sitting in the dark to spare the electric on the key meter and not having hot water- I really am managing things very badly and need to work on getting things organised,I am a terrible procrastinator but feel so tired after a days work that sorting out finances is the last thing I feel like doing.OH is an absolute sweety but not well and unable to cope with stress.Loneranger

immoral_angeluk

Ours is around £150 but we have a toddler in nappies so £14 p/m goes on nappies, another £7 on wipes..... then you start to see how quickly your budget gets eaten up before you've even bought food!!

rarele

Hi
:hello:

"need to organise myself into stocking up for the month"

I have actually now changed to weekly shopping (from monthly) and am finding it works for me. Previously I did a big monthly shop with the intention of making it last til the next pay day, but, apart from always forgetting things, I would also always run out of fruit & veg - or it would go off - so I would end up going back half way through the month. This half-way trip would almost always turn into another big shop - maybe not quite as big as at the beginning of the month but getting there:o

So now I find I can just buy enough for the week and so far I haven't needed to top up til the next Sunday.:j It's making a big difference to my budget.

Just a thought.......

R

pollyanna24

I thought I was doing really well on a budget of £160 for two adults and a cat until I saw the other posts on here. I haven't actually managed to stick to that yet, but there's always next month. That £160 includes all toiletries, food, etc and kitty here only has Iams cos I don't want her getting bad tummy!

KatrinaC_2

chilli_dog wrote:

were do people shop generally? the big names Tesco, Adsa etc or a mixture of different shops?

Thanks

Martin

It depends what I'm after.

My weekly round of the shops includes a greengrocers, Asda, Lidl, Aldi, Home Bargains, Heron Frozen Foods, a bakers, a fish monger and the Market Man - a fantastic market stall that sells all sorts of short date and passed sell by date foods.

It takes about 3 - 4 hours on a Saturday to visit all of the shops, but it's worth it as I've cut my shopping budget from about £120 per week to £50; if you think about it I'm earning myself £70 for three and a half hours work. I wish I got paid £20 per hour in my real job!

Kat

Jumps

I work out a budget of approx £250 per 4 weeks (OH gets paid 4 weekly) for OH, Me and 2 little ones (youngest is a baby so I have to buy nappies and formula) I shop at Tesco so what I do is I put my budget amount onto a Tesco Clubcard Plus account (it's like moving the money to a second account as suggested by Bagpuss1973 but you get double clubcard points on everything you spend. Which I save up and use for deals).

immoral_angeluk

chilli_dog wrote:

were do people shop generally? the big names Tesco, Adsa etc or a mixture of different shops?

Thanks

Martin

Tesco for us..