your shopping habits please?

skintmum2012

I know this is awful but I have no idea how much I spend on food anymore and need to set a budget again so while I know everyone is different was wondering if people could tell me how much they spend on food a week and do you meal plan if so how monthly weekly? And how many people you are feeding please?

WantToBeSE

Hiya SM


I am a single mum with 1 teenager (14) and a 10 year old. We spend probably more than most, £100 a week is my budget.
However, we eat mainly dairy free, experimenting with gluten free at the moment (my 10 yr old is on an elimination diet from his GP) and we aim to eat the least amount of fructose/sugar as possible.


Before all of this, we would spent about £70 a week for the 3 of us. My teenager is the one who eats the most!


I meal plan, as I have to make sure I know that everything is GF (Gluten free) etc and it saves time because I have found that when trying to incorporate all of our diets, I cant just come up with meals at the drop of a hat.

NewShadow

Just me - Aiming for £80 a month. This is normally in two online shops of about £30, plus about £10-20 for picking up bits and buying cooked breakfast at work on a friday (£2ish).

I mostly cook on a sunday - make my lunches and evening meals for the week. I tend to eat breakfast (porridge) at work, so weigh out the servings and add the dried fruit so its ready to microwave.

I eat anything, and at the weekend and on a friday night I cook what I fancy from the freezer/fridge.

Come join us on the grocery challenge thread...

rosie383

£300/ month for four of us. 2 adults, 15 yr old and 7 yr old. Take the money at the start of the month and put it in a separate purse. Meal plan sometimes.

january_23

Our budget went crazy when I didn't visit this site for a while. I saw how much it had crept up and felt sick.


I don't want to spend more than £200/4 week month or £250/5 week month (so £50/week average). That is all food, drink at home, toiletries, cleaning supplies etc. for two of us. Not sure what it would be for just food. Probably more like £30-40/week average.
It is higher than a lot of people on this site but I am happy with that as a budget for us.
I'm just glad I budget. When I talk to OH about our grocery budget I just get "If you think we can afford that then go for it" from him, grr. Needless to say I do the budgeting for everything, not him.

YORKSHIRELASS

£70 a week for 2 adults and 2 teenagers, including all cleaning and laundry products. I could do it for less if I really had to but with this is about right for us and allows for a few treats. 2 of us take packed lunches, 1 eats lunch at home and 1 has school dinners.

I mealplan weekly but have done it fortnightly in the past.

Caterina

Managing between £250 and £300 for 3 adults and a cat.

trailingspouse

Life got complicated recently as OH is working away 3-4 days a week. To be honest, I don't know if I'm coming or going!!

I used to reckon about £70 per week for the two of us, but now I'm shopping more often and no longer have a routine so I can only hope that I'm spending less!!

dingdongsaving

Before becoming a regular lurker & then poster on this site we used to spend £450+ every single month...plus, we would eat out due to not planning regularly & would say it was down to us both working full time (& this money probably isn't in that total...but I'm not sure as we hardly kept track! it was shameful, but luckily we both sat down & put a budget in place to allow lots of savings. This was liberating, & it didn't take us long to pull it off & stick to it. We didn't need to "save" as we both had good jobs, but we wanted to regain "control" of our spending & to save for things we valued rather than just eating it!

Our 1st "trial" month we kept a £450 budget for the month (which including any eating out costs)...we smashed it at well under £400. The next month we lowered it to £400 which we stuck at for many months...then, after mastering eating well on this we lowered it to £350...& now, even with 2 children, 2 dogs that eat special food & a cat (none of which we had when we started planning even though our enormous budget would suggest it was for a large family! :rotfl:) we aim for £300-350 including all of the extra milk, nappies, dog food, cat food, cat litter, baby wipes etc. that are now on our shopping list.

We plan monthly & I do 1 big shop that includes everything we can get for the month (literally everything that has a long enough shelf life or which can be frozen). We then take out the rest of the budget in cash & use it to top us up each week to the end of the month. Anything left...straight in our savings pot! :T Great motivation for 2 relatively new savers as we've only been doing this for a couple of years.

When we 1st met 15 years ago we def. spend more on food than we do now as an established family with FAR more to buy to run our household (& when food costs are certainly higher).

Good luck on your mission! x :T

MrsSave

We budget £160 a month for 2 adults and a toddler. That includes nappies and a small amount of alcohol.

I meal plan, usually fortnightly as I do a 'big shop' once a fortnight and then in between we just top up on fruit, bread and milk.

bossymoo

I spend about £50 - £60 a week for me and two younger children. I generally have a busy schedule so I include some convenience things for my working days - prepared frozen veg or whatever. Of course that add to the expense. But we economise in other areas, and of course it helps my stress levels which in turn means happier kiddies. Win win!