Grocery/food/household shop, what is "normal"?

poppyinthemiddle

Hope its okay to post this here, I know you give out great advice on SOAs but if wrong place could it please be moved to somewhere more appropriate?

I have been struggling with money and my partner and I are taking a close look at my finances and how I can improve the situation.


Long story short, one of my financial responsibilities is the grocery/household/toiletries shopping.

My partner feels I have been wastefully overspending in this area - and this is what has led me to use credit cards for the above, and get in a bit of a pickle.

I was just wondering for context what is generally a normal amount to spend on groceries/laundry/toiletries etc for a household of 2 adults?

I have been budgeting 150 a month for this expense, but my partner feels that is too much and I need to cut back to £100. I'm not sure it can be done. (And clearly by the state of my CC I have been struggling with the 150 budget) Am I way off the mark? I just don't know how to cut it any further, he sure as hell would notice if I started serving frozen turkey twizzlers every night!!

I am a good cook and do everything from scratch, and usually cook half and freeze half for future use. I only buy things on some sort of offer or reduction (shop at end of day for those yellow label bargains!) or budget/bargain range, and any dry food/cans etc comes from bargain/poundland type shops. I am also slightly obsessive about food waste so nothing gets thrown if I can help it!
I refuse to buy any sweets/crisps snacks from my budget, I can live without them and if he wants them he has to fund himself. similarly I have given up drinking and smoking as I can't afford either, OH does both but funds himself.

I also have to add that I don't eat breakfast or lunch at home, just dinner, they are also provided free at my place of employment which is great and saves a bit at least!


For background, I previously lived with a family member working as full time housekeeper/carer in return for accomodation so this is why I am now a 30 something with a naieve grip on spending/finances, although I have always been thrifty and tight (scottish, make of that what you will! ).


Thank you for reading this far - please be gentle with me, I'm a little fragile at the moment! :-(

Angry_Bear

Quite honestly I think that £150 is pretty frugal for a grocery budget for a month (does this also include toiletries/cleaning supplies)?

It would be possible to cut down, but I doubt by much and it would probably be quite a lot of effort. I think your OH is being pretty unrealistic - maybe he just doesn't realise the cost of living.

Why don't you sugegst he take over the grocery shopping and cooking for a month to see how he does?

AGirlWrites

Angry_Bear wrote: »

Why don't you sugegst he take over the grocery shopping and cooking for a month to see how he does?

I agree with this said above, I spend around £150-200 per month on Grocery/Toiletries and that's just for me and 1 cat. I think £100 a month for 2 people for all that you mention is very unrealistic.

lincroft1710

£150 pm for 2 is hardly excessive. If your OH can show how 2 can live on £100 pm he should be on "Superscrimpers" and getting paid for his appearances, thereby increasing the household income.

fevlo

For the 2 of us in my house we Budget £200 per month
This gets us everything food wise for breakfast, lunch and dinner and washing/kitchen/toiletries stuff.
I think £150 is very frugal, It might sound like a strange way to get out of debt but it might be worth budgeting more than £150 that way you have the money saved in your budget and you dont need to turn to the credit cards when the money doesnt strech.
An accurate budget is just as important as saving money IMO

Lagoon

We spend around £50 a week, which gets us some relatively cheap cleaning products, our toiletries, meat, potatoes/pasta and veg for the full week, as well as ice lollies, fresh juice and squash. We don't tend to bulk-buy, or bulk-cook, but we do buy exactly what's needed for the week's meals.

I'd consider £150 a month to be frugal as well.

Angry_Bear

Just to put it in perspective £100 per month for 2 is less than £12 per person for a WEEK!

moohound

£300 a month for 2 adults one child and one dog.

Dog has chronic pancreatitis so has special diet.

Used to spend £450- £500 before LBM, plus wine on top!

£150 a month is pretty good.

I would make my own dinner as normal, and cook him a dish of plain cheapest pasta and value ketchup, to see how he gets on with that, if he wants any cheese on it, it better come out of the fags/booze budget.

£100 a month would be hard, and probably unhealthy.

PasturesNew

£150 isn't the worst.... £100 is achievable. The way you can do this is to:

- have absolutely NO food waste
- be aware of the cost of every meal, every ingredient, then evaluate if you could have used less/none of one ingredient, or added another cheap ingredient to the dish to pad it out and create a 3rd portion out of it to be used later (freeze if you have a freezer).
- don't just buy what you usually have/want, compare prices of similar products on other shelves and/or wait for a deal and/or check another shop's prices.
- separate out food from loo roll etc and evaluate the spend/how much you're using with all that stuff too. e.g. shampoo/conditioner, do you use a pawful, or do you just pour out a broad-bean sized blob on your hand?

Don't change what you're doing in one go - simply evaluate everything you are using/buying and how much .... and tweak, tweak, tweak it down.

mummybearx

I've put down £35 each week for this month, that's for me, DH and two small dogs. Well, nothing is budgeted this month for the dogs as they have plenty of food.

This includes all food and toiletries, cleaning products etc. But I've got a really good stock cupboard built up, as well as my plan to use up all cleaning products and toiletries before buying any new ones.

Realistically, when I'm back buying 'everything' in about August time, I will budget about £50 per week.

Food isn't just a substance, something to have because you have to. It's about enjoyment, cooking, eating, being together, it should be a good thing. Your OH should try doing the shopping and budgeting, see how he can change things to meet his budget.

Have a chat with him. Not in a nasty way, accusing him of being unrealistic, just talk and see what ideas he thinks can cut the budget without resorting to drastic measures. Maybe he can come on here and share his knowledge

Paige_Turner

For the first time this month, I am tracking how much we spend on food/household stuff. Bf and I both think we maybe overspend but going by what other's have posted, maybe we aren't too bad.

We both get paid on the same day and on that day we go and do a big shop. This month we spent £127, but that did include about £20 alcohol as a "treat". Once we've done the big shop, we just top up with £20-30 per week on essentials, so probably spend £200-250 per month. Unfortunately we don't have a big stock in our cupboards/freezer so by the end of the month we always have bare cupboards and fridge freezer. We are used to it now though and we look forward to doing our big shop!

We always do our big shop in Asda, but the rest of the month I go by myself and shop around, getting most of it from Aldi. Food is soooo expensive these days, I got annoyed when I popped into Tesco for milk one day and it was 29p more expensive than Asda...