Budget for 2 people..?

Edwardia

My husband has a jar into which goes all the shrapnel ie 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p. It keeps him in wholemeal rolls, chewing gum and wine gums.

theGrinch

Essex22011 wrote: »

Is this a typo do you mean £40 a week?

No typo.

We forward plan our meals on a fortnightly basis so we have a balanced diet. We make our meals from scratch. No ready meals.

We shop to a list - albeit we are flexible when a good deal arises.

Importantly, we have good knowledge of the local shops and when they reduce prices. If you schedule your shopping to coincide with these times you will often get things for 9p, 12p and 15p. Even things like coffee with a dent in the tin will be reduced.

Oh and it helps to charm some key shop workers as then they are more willing to cut prices when you are there rather than wait. I dont know if I am surprised or not at how nasty some people are to these shop workers! We always get to know them by name and chat. That way if the manager hasnt given the go head for reductions, they will let you know what time they will start reducing its that 7% headstart that makes a difference.

Also drastic reductions happen the day before a shop is closed for a bank holiday. Some of this is ideal for freezing.

I use to eat meat 5 times a week (back in the day), but now its only once or twice a week and I dont miss it. We have got more creative, trying out recipes.

Portion control has been a benefit as I have shed 28lbs in 2 years and we waste a lot less than we use to. We keep the fridge very cold and store everything we can in there, including certain fruits. We don't go by sell or best before dates, but use our noses and eyes.

We use to be very bad especially with fruit, cheese, desserts, bread and other foodstuffs as we always had an oversupply of food. When that dried up we had to rethink our shopping habit else we would be spending a fortune we don't have on food.

This is not for everyone and there is no right budget as it will be affected by numerous factors, but we enjoy oneupmanship on the shops and what we save tends to be spent on other non food things - easy come, easy go as they say :-)

quintwins

£50 a week for 2 does seem high to me but thats because i fed my family of 5 on the same amount.However if you have the money and are happy to spend it i don't see a problem, if there was just 2 of us we'd spend alot less as we'd need less than half the amount of fruit, milk,yogurts and meat which all take up a huge chunk of our diet.

We eat meat most nights and that even includes a takeaway (takeaways can be good depending on what you order we can feed the 5 of us chinese for £9.50 and theres always some left for the dog because the portions are so big, saying that the nicest chinese here is £16 for just me and hubby and is lovely so when we have the money we like to go there)

Like theGrinch we go shopping for reduced items, i've stopped buying reduced sliced bread at my hubbys request he likes nice soft fresh bread so we buy lidl at 75p and it says soft for around a week, his opinion is we're not poor we can afford decent bread, i do buy reduced bagels, muffins and pancakes for the kids and e as they don't mind, reduced meat and veg, and sometimes yogurts if i think we'll use them.

We use mainly value brands with the exception of branston beans and butter- we only use real butter for sandwichs and spuds for baking we use value marge.

I cook from scratch 90% of the time, when i don't it will be a takeaway or something from iceland like fishfingers and chips- i prob like fishfingers as much if not more than the kids :rotfl:

When money was tight for us i used to shop online, yes you have a delivery charge but it also makes it alot easier to stick to a list.