Reducing weekly shopping costs?

falko89

We are a family of 2 adults and 3 kids, I earn min wage and its at the stage now where almost half of my wages are going on shopping, We shop in Iceland as can't afford anywhere else and my partner gets a discount because she works their so we are kind of stuck.

But this weekend I spent.

£65 in Iceland
£10 in butchers (5x Chops + 5X Chicken Marylands)

and it'll be another £10 through out the week on fresh bread, milk and fruit, and thats a pretty normal week to us.

How can I reduce this? Interestingly I am on a DMP with CCCS, they recommend £450 for a months shopping for us

Pink.

Hi falco,

Meal planning is a good way of managing your grocery spending. It takes a bit of getting used to but once you do it's a great way to save money by making sure you don't buy unnecessary things. Perhaps try it for one week to see how you get on by making a list of what you have at home and trying to build your meals around that. To get some help with mealplanning have a look in The Complete Menu Plans Collection.

For lots of tips and ideas on cutting back your grocery bill have a look at Martin's article on Supermarket Shopping and we also have a board where grocery offers are posted regularly: Food Shopping & Groceries . The Discount Codes 'n Vouchers board also has vouchers and codes that should help if you shop online.

For cheaper meal ideas have a look here: Cheap recipe threads

It might be worth your while joining in with the October 2012 Grocery Challenge thread. You can set a reduced amount that you feel comfortable with and if you manage that then try to reduce it a little the following month. In that thread, everyone sets themselves a personal grocery budget and try to encourage and support each other throughout the month to stick to their own budget. What you include in your budget is entirely up to you.

I'm sorry to have given you so many links but if you take the time to read through them it should help you to cut back. Good luck with reducing your bill.

Pink

MarilynMonroe_2

I've cut down only buying Tesco value range and then just topping up bits and pieces at Lidls.
I've tried stuff I never dreamed I would and am now a convert to the cheapy range!

pinkmami

personally I'd stop buying at the butchers. Far too expensive....well mine is. I buy my meat from Aldi.

I did a sum earlier on line for packs of mince, packs of diced beef, packs of chicken breasts & 1 whole chicken and it came up to £28.21 in Aldi & a whopping £34.80 in Tesco. In my butcher I dread to think how much it would be.

I buy lots of Value stuff. Kids like orange juice & Lidl do 1.5l box for 89p. Value is 60p+ for 1L. hovis bread is also cheaper in Lidl & Farm Foods. These things I buy & know where they're cheaper locally.

Once you find the cheaper stuff for your liking pop it in a notebook for your handbag.

I also do meal planning to go with the kids football nights. During winter we like lobscouse (cheap & cheerfull) and they love it! Stews, lasagnes, chilli con carne etc. They do get the usual kids food like hoops & waffles & fish fingers etc. I haven't always the time to make something!!

But take the time out to lits the basics you need, where the cheapest are & stick to it xx

Liz3yy

I guess it depends on how fussy your family are and what they will eat? There is just me and OH in our house, and we spend between £30 and £40 per week and eat pretty well on that, I bake cakes at the weekend and I always make use the of the 3 for £10 offers on meat and fish at Tesco. The only time we buy meat from the butcher is at Xmas, as we like to splurge on a joint of beef to share with the in-laws.

You need to take time to check out all the shops to see what offers they have, it's time consuming but worth it if you can make big savings. For instance I saw today that Iceland have packs of breaded fish fillets for just 75p (normally they're about £3)

shoei

I have found that when I do an online shop it seems to massivly reduce my shopping bill as I go through the offers and multi buys first.

falko89

The butchers isn't overly expensive, for example Iceland has 4 pork chops for £4, the butchers has 5 for £5 and there a damn site nicer than Icelands meat.

Last week I bought a meat parcel from the butchers, for £15 I got

4 x Steak burgers
3 x Pork Chops
1 x lbs Pork Sausages
1 x lbs Beef Sausages
1 x lbs Steak Pieces
1 x Vegetable Roll
1 x lbs Mince
1 x lbs Back Bacon

I thought that wasn't to bad for all that and the meat was tasty and tender.

Butterfly_Brain

So you are spending £85 a week on shopping, is that for food and sundries such as toilet rolls, toothpaste etc.
Do you have any sort of store cupboard such as flour, sugar tinned foods etc?

Shop on the market just before it closes to get some bargains.
I buy chicken in Aldi, I get some bits in the butchers such as hocks, liver ox or lamb cheeks and hearts, that are nigh on impossible to find in the supermarkets, plus the butcher will always help with how to cook things and give good advice, you don't get that sort of service in a supermarket.
Try and have a meat free day a couple of days a week
Cut out crisps and fizzy drinks for the children, try baking biscuits, cheese straws, scones and cakes instead.
Go foraging as a family and try preserving your bounty there are plenty of sites that show you step by step and you tube is a brilliant portal for that.

There are lots of ideas all through the forum

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4148389

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/8736367#Comment_8736367

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/481412

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4084527

Helen2k8

I would look at everything else before I turned away from a good butcher Speaking of which, how adventurous are you? Would you eat offal (beef heart is not so different to chunks of beef, if you pop it in a stew)?

Are you wasting or not using anything in particular?

Is anyone in the family snacking (snacks are expensive!)?

How old/hungry are the kids?

quintwins

I was also about to mention the butcher, i was walking past the other day and mine had, 2lb roast, 4 pork chops, 1lb mince, 1lb rump steak, 4 peppered steaks, 1lb of veg roll,8 sausages for £20 so thats a weeks worth of meat, however i didn't buy it instead i went to a different butchers that sells in bulk i bought

half a sirlion-made 15 good sized steaks
4 boxes of chicken with over 40 breasts
2 boxes of breaded chicken goujions which has around 40 in each box
80 sausages
8 caramelised sausages

we used 5 steaks last night at the inlaws so as a treat so much cheaper than taking everyone out, but whats left will do us 5 steak dinners, 20 chicken dinners,6 chippy teas (breaded chicken), 11 sausage based meals since as mash, veg sausage and gravy/peppercorn sauce or sausage casarole. We spent £127, taking away the cost of last nights steaks it will cost us an average £2.66 for our meat for each meal, granted steaks will cost more than sausages but it's still good value.


I also buy value brands and meal plan, shopping late for reductions, buying extra milk and veg (as it lasts a week anyway) and freezing bread means i don't have to nip to the shops and spend extra.


I'm amazed anyone can spend £65 in iceland and thats with staff dicount, but then the most i spent is £10 and thats usually some veg a few lollys and a bag of fishfingers.Years ago i used to do most of my shopping there it was just me and hubby and no money, i could feed us for the week on a fiver, granted not well but that was all we had spare.

There are 5 of us and our budget is £200 a month, for everything from spuds to loo roll.

falko89

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

So you are spending £85 a week on shopping, is that for food and sundries such as toilet rolls, toothpaste etc.
Do you have any sort of store cupboard such as flour, sugar tinned foods etc?

Shop on the market just before it closes to get some bargains.
I buy chicken in Aldi, I get some bits in the butchers such as hocks, liver ox or lamb cheeks and hearts, that are nigh on impossible to find in the supermarkets, plus the butcher will always help with how to cook things and give good advice, you don't get that sort of service in a supermarket.
Try and have a meat free day a couple of days a week
Cut out crisps and fizzy drinks for the children, try baking biscuits, cheese straws, scones and cakes instead.
Go foraging as a family and try preserving your bounty there are plenty of sites that show you step by step and you tube is a brilliant portal for that.

There are lots of ideas all through the forum

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4148389

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/8736367#Comment_8736367

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/481412

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4084527

No £85 all in for everything, We do have a lot of snacks in this house, chocolate bars, crisps, coke etc

Thats for the threads.