starting to budget food shop

pinkskyatnight

hi everyone
ive just started to keep a very tight reign on all of my spending and i just wondered what you would think a 3 adult household should spend on food shopping a week? or whats the least we could spend etc?
we have been lidl shoppers for over a year now and are now scared to go into any other supermarket as the prices seem so high, we do however sometimes have to go to sainsburys to get things that you cant get in lidls.
i think we spend about £300 a month on food, do you think this is high for 3 adults or should i carry on with what im doing?
also any cheap meal ideas would be fab! we are trialing a wheat free diet at the moment so please bare that in mind with your ideas.
many thanks

little_miss_muppet_face

I had this conversation with my husband last night,
We are a family of 4 (2 kids age 14 and 7) plus a dog,
Dog food / Treats etc cost around £15 a week,
I cannot get my food shopping, for less than £100 a week,
this includes the weeks when i need kitchen/toilet roll, washing liquids / comfort etc.
He said we could if we ate cheaply.. ie.. lidls etc. cheaper cuts of meat, more pulses / fillers and stuff.
Which i dont really like to do. I can be a bit of a food snob.. but i do try to get bargains also.. and shop around for BOGOF etc.

So i think your £300 is reasonable for 3..

pinkskyatnight

little_miss_muppet_face wrote: »

I had this conversation with my husband last night,
We are a family of 4 (2 kids age 14 and 7) plus a dog,
Dog food / Treats etc cost around £15 a week,
I cannot get my food shopping, for less than £100 a week,
this includes the weeks when i need kitchen/toilet roll, washing liquids / comfort etc.
He said we could if we ate cheaply.. ie.. lidls etc. cheaper cuts of meat, more pulses / fillers and stuff.
Which i dont really like to do. I can be a bit of a food snob.. but i do try to get bargains also.. and shop around for BOGOF etc.

So i think your £300 is reasonable for 3..

thank you, thats nice to hear. it is a hard thing to do but there are big savings to be made with the right choices

pinkskyatnight

Zip wrote: »

i gets £284 in benefits in month
i has all bills and foods to buys with it

i thinks you cante speake englishe very well!!

pinkskyatnight

Zip wrote: »

i eats plenty sanditch on toest

As i said above we are wheat free at the moment so that really doesnt help me!!!!

meg72

Well it seems posts by Zip have bee deleted, wonder why?

I think if you are comfortable with your 300 then carry on, if you want to reduce it then come to the Grocery Challenge thread, lots of lovely helpful folk and LOADS of meal ideas.

camNolliesMUMMY

We are a family of 4 with a cat, 2 adults and ds1 age 5 ds2 age 7 months our budget is £50 a week
But this is down to being os and living on the old style board.
Menu planning
And sticking to my shopping list.
Buying toiletries and cleaning stuff from home bargains
And we use own brand/ value.

pinkskyatnight

camNolliesMUMMY wrote: »

We are a family of 4 with a cat, 2 adults and ds1 age 5 ds2 age 7 months our budget is £50 a week
But this is down to being os and living on the old style board.
Menu planning
And sticking to my shopping list.
Buying toiletries and cleaning stuff from home bargains
And we use own brand/ value.

wow thats quite impressive! we also have 2 cats forgot to mention that but their food doesnt come into our food budget as i do a big food order for them every few months or so.
would you mind listing a few of your meals so i can get some ideas? many thanks!

pinkskyatnight

meg72 wrote: »

Well it seems posts by Zip have bee deleted, wonder why?

I think if you are comfortable with your 300 then carry on, if you want to reduce it then come to the Grocery Challenge thread, lots of lovely helpful folk and LOADS of meal ideas.

ha he must have zipped off!

well we do seem to be comfortable with that amount but we are trying to cut back as much as possible so we have more cash to pay off debts as quick as possible etc.

i will take a look at the grocery challenge, its all quite daunting when you dont know quite what to do! lol

quintwins

I think £300 is pretty good.

We are a family of 5 (2 adults 6 year old twins and a 3 year old who eats more than me) we spend £200 a month and we eat really well, plenty of fresh fruit and veg and more than enough milk, i eat alot of value brands however i mostly buy butcher meat so it balances out imo.

I know you said you didn't want budget brands but lidl's spuds are really nice (altho i prefer a sack from the farm shop there in short supply right now and expensive) lidl and aldi both do cheap fruit and veg, i don't have an aldi but this week my lidl has 1kg of clemintimes for 99p, cucumbers for 39p courgettes for 50p and lemons for 59p.Also it's worth trying the market i can get 10 apples for £1 there small but then again so are value apples and there 90p for 4, the kids don't mind if our apples are small they eat loads of them anyway.

We also have 2 dogs, we feed them a complete dry food which we get straight from the manufacturer so it costs us £20 a month for 2 huge bags.

camNolliesMUMMY

Yes that's fine we are saving for a house so every penny counts so here goes.....

Mon- spag Bol (I buy tesco value 800g mince and use it all, then split in half for chilli by adding beans, kidney beans and chilli powder)
Tues- hm pasta bake and sfc steaks from Iceland
Wed- no cook day as its chilli just make the rice.
Thurs- sausage casserole
Fri- curry night recipes from the takeaway secret
Sat- hm doner kebabs courtesy of the takeaway secret agin
Sun- roast dinner using a whole chicken and then the rest gets turned into a stew or casserole for later.

Breakfasts are own brand cereals we love malted wheats/ copy of Shreddies and I can't tell the difference.

Lunches are sandwhiches crisps Yoghurts


We get though lots of chicken breast so we normally buy it for either makro or the Asian market. It's. so much cheaper, yesterday I bought a 5kg bag of chicken breast from makro at £18.99 roughly 23 breasts
I try and use my slow cooker as much as possible even my roast chicken is put on high at 10am and then transfer the dish not the lid and I crisp in the oven with the roasties.

A slow cooker uses the same amount of electric as. Light bulb

I take a calculator with me to the supermarkets to work out the cheaper options.

Baby now has what we eat but mushed up abit and he loves a bowl of rice pudding.

Cleaning products I own are just

Polish
Bleach
Antibacterial disinfectant
Value cream cleaner for the bathroom
Washing up liquid
Stardrops

For a surface cleaner I mix disinfectant stardrops and water in a spray bottle and away you go. Cheap as chips and it takes me ages to use up the stardrops and disinfectant.

If you have a pop over to the os board thir are so many tips and challenges for you to join and we are all friendly and helpful x