Young couple, no pets or kids - how much should weekly shop cost?

SkintMonkey

Hello all
I've been going over my budget and the household budget and are one week area is that we spend a lot each week at the shops and then mid week seem to have nothing in the cupboards.

We are not brilliant cooks, we don't improvise or work from recipies, we buy a lot of ready made sauces etc and have the same old meals each week. Hardly inspiring and seem to cost a lot. We also don't take a list with us, which I know is ridiculous.

How much do you think a young couple - no pets or children, should spend - I was thinking perhaps trying to keep it at £30 (rather than the £50 we spent last week).

I am going to try and find some budget but nice recipies for our next shop and do an 'audit' of what we have in the cupboards and freezer.

Any advice/suggestions, welcomed.

Addiscomber

Introduce changes gradually or you will feel overwhelmed, or come to resent trying to save this way - although most people do find that they enjoy it, or even get addicted, once they start.

I would suggest starting by making your own sauces. Most sauces freeze well, so you could make double quantities or more once you have gained confidence, and get your own supply in useable amounts in the freezer, if you have one. If you haven't, I would recommend that you seriously consider getting one. They are one of the keys to being Old Style if you are both working as you can make double, treble or even larger, quantities of recipes in one session for only the same amount of mess and time washing up, then you have your own supply of ready meals for days when you are extra busy or not feeling up to the mark.

I am not going to comment on how much you should spend, because I am firmly of the opinion that it depends on what shops you have available to you, and whereabouts in the country you live. I go by the theory that everything that someone else has done to the food we buy costs me money. You have to work out your own balance between what you can cook and your working lives.

Have a look at the Mega index thread (access through 'Indexed Collections' - just above your post, or I will be surprised if Squeaky or Pink-Winged haven't done a link by the time I post this!!) for recipe ideas.

Crazychik

Try discussing with your OH and chat about the foods you like to eat, remember back to the days when you lived at home, and what you use to eat. Find out each other's likes and dislikes.

Do you have a slow cooker? You will be surprised what you can cook in there, and cos there's the 2 of you, you can freeze any left overs.

I agree, that we cant advise you how much you should be spending, but it is important to make a list when your'e shopping, Its so tempting to put extra things in your trolley which really you dont need

Never shop when your hungry - as you always buy more food.

Try writing a meal plan, of your favorite meals, and work out from there. You dont have to be a super and cook fresh everyday, we sometimes end up having light meals also, like baked spuds or beans on toast, due to lack of time when it somes to work and after school clubs.

melt71

There are so many threads like this when people first come on to the OS site! You are not alone, and it can be reduced.

I would say the 2 things that have helped me to reduce my shopping bill is to mealplan - decide what you want to eat for at least a week beforehand (preferably 2 weeks) using the ingredients you already have in your cupboards and freezer, then create your shopping list for the bits you need to go with it.

Go shopping no more than once a week, preferably less if you can for your main shopping using the list. Never shop when you're hungry or without your list or you will end up with lots of 'convienience' food that you don't need. Go to your local shop for Milk if you run out in between.

Also, by doing some of your shopping at Lidl/Aldi you can still get good quality foods without paying out silly prices. Alternatively, if you have a good Asda near you, find out what time they reduce their fresh food and bread. We try to incorperate this into our shop and it can make a big difference.

Keep coming on here for meal ideas, tips on mealplanning and other OS ideas that will all help.

jembie

melt71 wrote:

Also, by doing some of your shopping at Lidl/Aldi you can still get good quality foods without paying out silly prices.

Does everyone still think this?
We have a Lidl near us and everytime I go in it really makes me miss Kwik Save. The only things I buy in there are the large tins of catfood and the gorgeous Strawberry Vodka that I treat myself to occasionally.
Everything else is ridiculously priced for saying it is supposed to be a budget store.:rolleyes:

Roz_V

It's just me and my boyfriend living together, and we put aside £50 each per month for food and groceries (so £100 a month).

We meal plan (although not rigidly, just write down what meals we can make out of the stuff we have coz if we make a rigid plan ie monday = spag bol we usually make other plans and the whole week goes to pot!) and usually have about £10-£20 over at the end of the month. We do have a lot of treats though, and that £100 also covers stuff like cleaning products (basically Stardrops & Washing Powder). We shop at Tesco, but subscribe to the FixtureFerrets email so that we can see if something we like is on offer, in which case we pop to that supermarket if it's a decent offer, as we are lucky enough to be easily able to get to Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Somerfields if needs be!

melt71

jembie wrote:

Everything else is ridiculously priced for saying it is supposed to be a budget store.:rolleyes:

Tins such as kidney beans, sweetcorn, butter beans are cheaper than in tesco! Frozen veg is cheaper than the value range in tesco. Cheese is definitely cheaper. The orange juice is lovely and is cheaper than the one in tesco (for the equivilent size). The chinese noodles are 13p which is dearer than asda but the packet is nearly twice the size and whilst the asda ones are nice, the lidl ones are lovely.

It's not just about it being cheap, it's about it being better value. Kwik Save was cheap but I never liked any of the stuff from there, so I never went back.

tr3mor

jembie wrote:

We have a Lidl near us and everytime I go in it really makes me miss Kwik Save.

Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!

Lidl is fantastic. Most of their food would be stickered "Finest" in Tesco or wherever. It's good quality stuff at reasonable prices. Not cheap nasty stuff at cheap prices like in Kwik Save.

Eg. Have you tried their Ice Cream? The Gelatino stuff is a hundred times nicer than Carte D'or or similar.

Crazychik

Hi Roz - sounds like your'e pretty clued up ref money wise and shopping, I know its easier said than done ref treats, but try and cut back on those. My OH is a pain for putting stuff in the trolley Ive not seen (mainly sweets). Sometimes I make him put them back (he's like a child about to cry when that happens) lol

I used to shop for brand names and alternate my shopping from Netto to Tesco (what I cant get in Netto I finish up in Tesco), and have become wise to watching prices and knowing whats cheaper and where. I always stick to the list, so no buying extra's we dont really need.

Ive started to like tesco value food etc, but do have to stick to heinz for my beans. That has cut my shopping down tremendously.

Montymoo_2

I think that its quite hard to stick to a weekly limit. Me and my partner spend roughly about £50 the week that we are paid and do a 'big shop' and then spend about £15 to £20 a week the weeks afterwards on milk, veg etc, this does include cat food for the 2 furbabys


We use the slow cooker a lot and freeze batches of food, aldi pasta and pesto also features a lot in our meal plans!!

kkgree1

Hi

We're a young "ish" couple (28 & 29) and we budget £60 for our fortnightly shop at Tesco. We do do a top-up shop for Bread, Milk and any essentials in between which is max £5.
I think it depends on what you eat. Before other half moved in with me he ate a lot of stir-fries (bought pre-packed expensive veg) and ready made sauces. We now cook from scratch and he'd never go back to ready-made stuff. The difference in taste is unbelievable.
We tend to stick to what I call staple meals using mince as it's cheap. Things like shepherds pie, chilli, spaghetti bolognaise and lasagne. Most receipes for these feed 4 so you can get two meals out of them.

K