Shopping-Monthly vs Weekly or daily (merged)

forever_skint

We manage very well on £60-£70 per week. There are 2 adults and four children in our family (the amount includes 2 in nappies, 1 having baby milk.) I generally do a big shop once a week at £45 ish then get bread and milk when needed, although shopping when needed is good in some ways as you are more likely to come across reductions a lot of which can be frozen. But bad because you are more open to temptation to buy things you don't need.

I could never shop monthly as having 4 small children I would need 120 pints of milk 15 loaves of bread, and 90 bananas to mention but a few!!!!! I would never store it all. Imagine the SAs face when I get to the checkout with a trolley full of bananas and a trolley full of milk! :rotfl:

angchris

forever_skint wrote:

I could never shop monthly as having 4 small children I would need 120 pints of milk 15 loaves of bread, and 90 bananas to mention but a few!!!!! I would never store it all. Imagine the SAs face when I get to the checkout with a trolley full of bananas and a trolley full of milk! :rotfl:

i always buy extra milk to stick in the freezer it saves me having to pop out and spend £20 :rotfl: in fact my chest freezer is rammed full of milk at the mo as every shop i seemed to go in at xmas time had it reduced to silly money:j

dlb

I to do a big shop on payday, and fill up on storcupboard item eg,flour,yeast,dried milk,oils,herb,rice,pasta ect Plus and freezer items.
Then shop weekly based around my meal plan, i only plan weekly at the minute as i am still trying to get the hang of it, but i keep all my old meal plans, and aim to do a monthly shop eventualy.
Fresh stuff milk,veg bought as i need it.
There are 2 adults and 4 kids and i spend around £280 a month, but aim to cut this down to £220.

goonlord

TKP wrote:

I have the same thing! Everyone thinks I am mad (glad to hear I am not alone :j ), but I love shopping in supermarkets!
I try to shop online and have groceries delivered now and then (makes it even cheaper as I go through the trolley over and over and remove everything I really don't need), but it's not the same fix as going in person

Me too! :T I absolutely love going to the supermarket and spend hours in there looking at everything (although does mean I am tempted by stuff not on the list).

I go once a week cos I like it (just me to feed) and my budget is £25 a week (which covers packed lunches as well) but would like to get this down. The other thing about shopping weekly is that (for example this month) i have decided that next week I will only buy a couple of fresh things and everything else will come out of my well stocked cupboards. looking forward to saving a bit of cash and being creative! Will have to be very disciplined at the supermarket though!!!

GL

newlywed

If we did a monthly shop the biscuits and cakes would never last that long!! Now that I bake them, it could be a bit easier.

However, I found if I shopped monthly (online or instore) I could never estimate how much veg/bread etc we needed and usually had a panic and bought way too much. Didn't have the sense to cook half of it and freeze it either (as I would now thanks to this board)!

We only have a small freezer and I find it easier to keep track if I plan two weeks or more worth of meals, make sure I have all the meat we will need for the freezer and then just buy the fresh stuff each week extra. Do tend to get distracted and buy "extras" too so I just carry a basket round. When I took a trolley it would come to £70-100 every time!! Now I take a basket and its £30-£45 and after that it's tough, it'll have to wait till I go again!! Occasionally have to go twice in one week but not often. I'm trying now to cut down to only go to the supermarket certain days and stretching it out to not go so often (using frozen veg as backup and buying more milk when I do go).

My other tip is don't take OH or kids with you - the extra things that get asked for soon add up!!

Edit: Online didn't work for me as I wasn't meal planning properly and so always forgot things and had to go to a store anyway!

Our bill used to be £450 a month for two adults and two kids (Fri/Sat and Sun). Now its £200 or so but I'm doing the grocery challenge to try and reduce it further. I know I can get there.

cupid_s

I used to go to big tesco about every week. I used to buy lots of things at once to last through the week and over estimate or underestimate things needed so I'd have lots of waste or have to go again anyway. Even if I meal planned and worked out I needed a certain amount of fruit or veg some would have gone off before the next shop was due.

Now we go to the ickle tescos on our way home from work about 5 times a week. I get stuff for that day, and maybe the next according to my meal plans. It's much better as they stock very little there so we can't go mad! Also popping into the shop most days lets us check out the bargain reduced stuff more often and as we stop on the way home from the train station we don't buy as much as we can't be bothered to carry it back home.

I cannot believe how much less we spend now. We've spent £40.92 since the beginning of the month so I'm really pleased with that especially as we've been buying much more healthy stuff which is more expensive. Looking at meal plans we should spend less than that from now until the beginning of february. Good job as we have the excess on the house insurance to pay for.

md123

I find if I go monthly I waste more, because I don't fancy something a few weeks later. I get paid weekly, so I just take my money out of the bank at the end if the week and do the shopping then.

Over the past few weeks I have made a meal plan and shopping list and have found a difference with what I am spending. I find it easier to do this for a week than a whole month.

dumpy

I'm a weekly shopper. I do the menu list at the weekend for the week, write the list based on what we are having to eat and shop not looking left or right and only buying what is on the list.

I couldn't be bothered to sit down and meal plan for a month but I can manage a week at a time. It also allows a bit of flexibility if I have to work late etc etc.

At the end of the week the fridge is empty and we start again. It's not too bad when we are in the routine and we have been known to stop in the car in the carpark and do the menu plan and list before going into the shop!

Saved a fortune doing this and loads of time as instead of getting home and thinking "what do we have tonight" I look on the list and cook it.

russetred

Definitely weekly though I tend to shop last thing to pick up the bargains in the reduced section daily so have to adjust the weekly shop on friday to get any ingredients I don't have in.This may not work for all but my shopping bill is halved by doing this.

kberry_78

Hi,

I want to try my luck with this, but a computer crash and failing memory are halting my efforts. Can anyone give me the link to the online supermarket comparison. Not the deals one but the one that looks at all the online super markets and compares your usual shop etc.

Thanks in advance.