£130 per week on food!!!

simm678

Hi Old Stylers

I have just totted up my monthly food spend (as I suspected that's where all my money is going) and I realised I am spending a shocking £130 per week on food for 2 adults, 1 child, 1 dog/1 cat!

I have read the getting started threads which are a great help, but I wonder if anyone can help on these:

1. DD is strict vegetarian, DH is confirmed carnivore (believes he will fade away and die if he doesn't have meat with every meal), leads to me buying for 2 separate meals and lots of waste.
2. No Aldi/Lidls/Asda near here, only Tesco/Morrisons/Sainsburys/Waitrose. Which is cheapest (not Waitrose I am guessing!).

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Rikki

Wow Thats my monthly spend.
I make most things things from scratch which drastically reduces the amount you spend.

There are quite a few threads in OS about building a basic food cupboards and where to start. I'll have a look round for you.

If you give us an idea of the type of food you like to eat we can show you ways of making it yourself.

Rikki

Have a read through this for some great idea. Old Style Receipe Index

It has great ideas on what to cook and how.

Sarahsaver

Good greif :eek:
Well done for looking at this and thinking about it. Too many people just plod on unawares.
I probbaly spend about £100 per month now, to feed 2 adults, 3 children and 2 chickens, and that includes 2 deliveries of Organic veg. Good luck. You are in the right place.
If DD is a veggie send her down the library (if she is old enough) and get some recipe books out. I would have maybe one or two veggie nights a week where you all have a veggie meal, then the rest she has the same in principal, just without the meat. E.g. make a bolognese sauce but for her do the sauce minus the meat. DD told me she wanted to be a veggie but thats when she was 7, she got over it! She was too young to make that kind of decision.

lil_me

I was spending about that myself on 2 adults 2 kids and the animals, sometimes more, much less now, loads of good ideas on here, you're in the right place.

researcher

Hi and welcome.

There's so much you'll learn from this site and you'll be able to adapt everything to your own circumstances.

Firstly, as a rule of thumb, Tesco definitely provides better value for money where I live - but I do buy meat direct from the farm and veg and eggs from an organic box delivery. I save loads this way.

Also buy wisely (foods in season always cost less) and use your freezer - we don't do wastage in OS - even leftover veges make a soup! Bones get made into stock (not for DD of course), and are the basis of other meals. Look for ways of adapting your leftovers for another day.

If you're buying ready made food, huge potential savings can be made, as there is very little that doesn't taste much better home made, for a lot less cost.

Have a look around the treads, try searching by keyword for favourite foods and see what you find - you'll be amazed at the breadth of knowledge and just how easy you'll find it to make substantial savings.

mouseymousey99

Hi - Yip I used to do the same, even worse as we are only 2, mind you we do have a HUGE cat!! Change in circumstances forced me to re-think. More and more I find myself cooking & doing the things my parents used to do, basic common sense really. I found this site on wednesday of this week...wow...its been an epithany. I've spent hours reading my way through, this is advice I've been looking for - for so long! Hope you get as much enjoyment out of this as me & nil desperandum!!

OddjobKIA

We spend about £60 a week on food for 2 adults and 3 kids, We shop in morrisons where you get a lot of BOGOF offers. We used to live in property with a big chest freezer and when bread was reduced to aboout 10p we brought 10-15 loaves abd froze it down.

Making from scratch is much cheaper than packets ( it is called conveniance food not cheap food).

Do you have a garden if so have you considerd growing your own veg.

When I lived on my own I spent £40 a week on food we now feed 5 times as many mouths on only half as much again.


Just a thought how much if any goes on alcohol??

sammy_kaye18

Wow!! You spend more in a week than i do in a month!! Ive got me, canivore bf, fussy 2 and a half year old and a jack russell terrier. We spend about £90 a month.

The main thing is you've come to the right place - some of the girls on here are awesome in the kitchen and can give you alot of help with recipes etc.

Like someones also suggested why not write out what you would normally buy in your shopping list and people can prehaps give you advice on better money saving alternatives etc.

Alos if you take stock of what you have in the house - cupboards, fridge, freezer and whatever else you have lurking around - people could help you with store cupboard stuff

i think making veggie alternatives for your daughter would be easy enough - liek someone said make a pasta sauce, put some aside in a seperate bowl for her then add meat to husbands after wards. The same can be done with soup - batch cook a vegetable soup, then take hers out or freeze her a few portions, then add meat to the other half for hubby to have or freeze. i think most meals you should be able to get around this. i think having a veggie night once a week would be good too.

Id defintely reccommend Tescos for shopping - they have good quality things whihc are also good value and you'd be surprised how much you can save - plus if you check out the voucher codes section on this site im sure you can probably save more money off an online shop

Debt_Free_Chick

simm678 wrote:

I have just totted up my monthly food spend (as I suspected that's where all my money is going) and I realised I am spending a shocking £130 per week on food for 2 adults, 1 child, 1 dog/1 cat!

It might help if you give us a rough idea of what you're buying. You may simply be buying expensive products, for which we can suggest some alternatives.

Or you might be buying ready-meals (esp for Vegetarian) in which case we can suggest some healthy, nutritious alternatives.

Shortie

Also, if you're cooking for just one veggie, why not batch cook lorger portions to freeze for dinners another night? That should take some of the 'pain' factor out of cooking seperate meals for one.

Mind you, that would be good to do for the meat eaters too anyway