Re-prioritise I need help to change my supermarket budget for next year.

cabbage

you could look on the old style money saving boards. they have tips on eating cheaply.

Have you tried Martin's downsize challenge?

cooking from scratch helps cut bills and adding lentils to bulk it up a bit.

Try shopping at Aldi or Lidl, Farm Foods, Jack Fulton etc even Iceland has some deals on at times. I buy my vice Choc buttons. they are £1.38 in asda for 3 packs but a £1 in Iceland (or Poundland). I've also started buying cold and flu remedies from Poundland instead of paying £3 or more elsewhere.

Once you start cutting back and saving money its addictive - be warned you might be much better off!

cutting alcohol seems a good way to save money.

chesky

ska_lover wrote: »

Gosh that IS a shocking amount to be spending on such things for a 32 day (one month?) period on certain bits - but I am sure we can put our heads togehter and help sort it out

If it were me, I would be looking to massively reduce the below bits:-
alcohol 65.9
drinks 59.79
biscuits 35.34
nuts 24.8
sweets 22.65
choc 20.1
crisps 19.23
pizza 17.94

Whilst I agree with most of this list, it may be that the OP's son has to have certain things like the crisps and pizza. To be honest, I'm more worried about the 'drinks' item than I am about the booze - after all, I suppose we all need a bit of a lift at the end of a hard day, but spending nearly £60 on soft or fizzy drinks is way too much - your son might be better off without them also.

MrsCautious

I wondered if nuts were needed at all, if just to graize on, could you cut them out?

My (new) mantra is, do I need it and if so, can I get it cheaper without incurring other costs? That's directly influenced by something I read on this site, article on grocery shopping tips, sorry can't link at moment.

good luck - I hope you can make the changes easily -- meat costs could come right down by using more veg to bulk out meals, opting for cheaper (often tastier) cuts, using offers and finding a good meat market. Or opt to have meat-free meals a certain number of days, I have done all these things and it has really helped.

tessie_bear

hi...very interesting way u have tabulated the costs in categories...i have an asd ds and know how expensive they can be...mine is from a waste and refusing to eat it point of view...i meal plan and shop from a list do u do that ?

id try and reduced each section by say a fiver a month so the schock isnt so severe...have a look out for offers on the processed stuff and stock up when it is on offer...if your son wants to cook i would weigh out ingredients for say cornflake cakes and keep the cupboards locked so he cannot go mad

good luck tess

ps id try and get the alcohol spend down but easy for me to say as i dont drink

Towser

Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you, this was just the type of help needed.
Well I couldn’t quite believe it myself so now I am feeling really bad. It’s a good job I have started my spreadsheet to cut down. So now I am going to do damage limitation and keep as much back for freezer, store cupboard and Christmas as possible.
When I have worked out total food expenditure for the whole year it was more like £99 for a week which I was told was high hence the spreadsheet which over the last 32 days of keeping receipts it worked out to around £120. Higher !
I will buy whoopsies, shop at the market and Aldi and Lidl and definitely cut out the empty calorie food and drink. No wonder I didn’t loose any weight this month! Lol
When I used to shop online I could easily stick to my budget so the above paragraph won’t work. So may just have to do that as many people rate Asda for things against Aldi.
From my total expenditure spreadsheet things are definitely getting better because we have not eaten out as much, gone out ect hence the high empty calorie food and drink sections.
It’s just got to get better from a health point of view.
I will have to meal plan, buy cheaper cuts of meat, hubby likes meat.
I don’t buy any value stuff I’ll have to try but don’t mind trying different brands.
As always cutting back not cutting out.
Anybody else?

missmucksmum

Just by changing a few things we have managed to cut loads off our budget if your family likes fizzy drinks try cordial and tesco value sparkling water 19p a bottle we mix it with lime cordial or vimto, we use tesco value biscuits or buy a 4 pack selection for a £1 from Aldi, we do our main weekly shop in aldi maybe if your son was involved with the shopping he wouldnt be too daunted with the change in brands eg taking him to aldi he would see there are no brands? it might help i dont know hope you dont mind the suggestion. If you have a 99p store or home bargains they are good places to buy your nuts, crisps, sweets and toiletries from. Also always check what you have in first in the freezer, cupboards and fridge after looking earlier I have realised I have enough in the freezer to do an evening meal for 12 days with only fresh veg and bread to buy! x

*HalfBaked*

This NHS site may help you get the 7 dinners organised for a week:

http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life/Pages/supermeals-menu-planner-recipe-finder.aspx

Sharon87

I do think the drinks budget needs to be drastically cut and the alcohol. Unless that was stocking up, but if all that alcohol has practically gone already, then definitely need to rebudget that. My alcohol spend last month was over £100, but that was stocking up for the next 3-6 months.

That's a lot for biscuits, if the biscuits were a pound a packet, that's over a packet a day eaten in your house!
And chocolate if it's £1.25 for a 200g cadburys dairy milk then that's 17-18 of them in a month, over once every 2 days.

Can you get cheaper nuts? Nuts can be healthy eaten in small quantities.

Also how much oil do you use? I saw this programme where they used 10 times the amount of oil than was necessary (Fat Families I think it was lol) I always try to be conservative with the oil (I use olive oil mostly), as it's expensive and very calorific.

the_cat

You mention buying certain brands for your son. Fair enough in your circumstances but have you considered only buying enough of those brands just for him and getting own/value brands for the rest of you to enjoy?

You might find that without prompting he will try some of the things and like them. Of course you might not, but would be saving in the meantime by reducing the quantity of necessary branded goods anyway, so haven't really lost anything

pk04

Have you considered switching the items into branded packets - eg buy supermarket own digestives and put them in an empty mcvities digestives packet. I don't know if your son would know the difference but i read somewhere that most things like this are made in the same factories anyway