Couples - What's your grocery bill?

minerva_windsong

About £40 a week for the two of us on food and household goods (so kitchen roll, loo roll, cleaning products etc but not toiletries). Sometimes it's more; this week it was £80 but we did do a massive stock up of loads of things so it will even out over the next couple of weeks.


We don't eat much meat - maybe once or twice a week and the rest of the time it's those frozen Quorn pieces - or drink a lot at home so that probably drives it down. And yes to planning ahead; we've saved a fortune since we started making packed lunches for work (though appreciate that's less easy if you don't have access to a fridge) and meal planning then doing a weekly shop rather than buying things as we needed them.

Pollycat

danih wrote: »

I am careful with meat products, I only buy high meat content sausages, and only free range chicken and eggs. Free range organic if I can get them, as I understand this legally means the birds get even more space.

That's the only time I ever look for organic. A good wash will sort out the fruit and veg, I buy as cheap as possible, yellow sticker when I can get my timings right.

Junk food, and not planning my shopping, are my worst shopping sins. I rarely throw away food - have dogs and guinea pigs who eat appropriate leftovers and unused. (Inappropriate at times too, Dog stole a entire birthday cake 2 weeks ago )

I rarely find the most expensive brands taste the best. I do basics for lots of things, mid range for a few others. OH likes the brands - but can only taste the difference if he sees the packaging! I do most of the cooking.

danih wrote: »

To be scarily honest, we have a takeaway at least once a week (used to be 2 to 3 times, so an improvement, but would like to cut that out too), we both drive a lot for work and pop into shops for drinks, snacks, and sometimes lunch - - - - works out between £70 and £90 a week.

Terrible for 2 adults!!! Its a lack of planning, off work today, sorting the house and planning to plan ahead. Gotta get this sorted!!!

It sounds to me that you know where you are going wrong.
You just need to work on doing things differently.

arbrighton

I try to keep it to around £50 but we are comfortable and my shops often include cleaning products, dog treats etc too.
Oh likes his meat but we do have some meals without and I do try to stretch it a bit further. I wouldn't buy non-free range chicken or eggs on principle and generally think you get what you pay for with meat.

If i get my act together and go to the greengrocers and am strict with the list and the amount of chocolate/ bits I buy for OH, we do better

mashedavocado

We budget £200 per month for groceries (including toiletries, cleaning products etc). This proves quite comfortable tbh; we sometimes manage a takeaway in there too. We both also have weekly "pocket money" for our bus passes and other bits and bobs, so if we want to buy lunch while we're out at work, that comes from there.

That said, OH doesn't eat meat, so we very rarely buy meat to eat at home. I will occasionally get it for myself if he's out and I'm just cooking for myself, but often it doesn't seem worth it (unless I treat myself to some high quality sausages or something).

Lately we've started shopping at a greengrocers for our fruit and veg, which has pretty much cut that cost in half (especially if we get a box from them - we got a £10 veg box the other week that contained 14.5 kilos of veg!). I've also started buying basic ranges for stuff we won't notice a difference on, although there are certain things we don't compromise on (eggs, coffee, tea, decent loo roll etc).

I find it really interesting hearing about other people's food shopping, I'm so nosey

LameWolf

I allow £220 per month, and we almost always come in well under this at the end of the month.

This excludes alcohol, which is a luxury not a necessity, but includes toiletries and cleaning stuff.

We don't have meat or fish (I'm veggie, and can't cope with handling them, and DH, bless him, is happy to eat what I cook); and we never have takeaways as we don't like them.

I buy cheese, eggs, bread flour and honey at the monthly Farmers Market; I do a weekly F&V shop at the market in Central MK; the rest comes from either @ldi, T£sco or M0rries, with the exception of coffee beans, which we unashamedly buy Guatemalan Elephant Beans from Wh1ttards, which I confess are not cheap, but we like them.

Just checking my records, and fwiw, our actual spend over the last few months was:

August 2014: £173.05
September 2014: £142.33
October 2014: £221.59
November 2014: £157.55
December 2014: £224.29
January 2015: £124.28

slowlyfading

We spend about £35 a week for everything

good_advice

last weeks bill for x3 adults was £65.46 for food
£7 bag of dry dog food that should last 2 weeks.

Lots of fresh fruit and veg
X3 MILK = £3
Cheese of diffrent types, grated, sliced and spread - a whopping £10 to be eaten over x2 weeks.
x2 pizza on 1/2 price offer for freezer £2.50
snacks doritos and pop corn =£2.29
x2 mince beef £6 (~had x1 split into cottage pie and the other half a chilli. The other mince pack was split into x2 and put in freezer.
Coffee on offer @£4 for 200g Egberts.
Bread, various jars = jam, pickle.....
Brown sugar and cake toppings - have several HM cakes to bake/gift.

Then will be using things from food cupboard/fridge and freezer.

LawGraduate22

Hi all, great to see the differing amounts being spent, I'm always wondering what people spend on an average week's food shop.

Rather shamefully we've averaged approx £400 per month (inc household items and cat food/litter etc) since we moved in together at 17 and 18yo. This more than anything has been through not planning ahead and a lot of wastage due to deciding on a daily basis what we feel like rather than using what's in! We're not generally sticklers for big brands either so I can't even offer that as a reason for the expense, and my H2B is a great cook so again no excuses at all really!

However I'm now determined to cut this down massively as we're saving to buy a house this summer and for our wedding which will, fingers crossed, be next September. Looking forward to using these forums more to gain advice and tips to do so! Any advice on just how and where to begin would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance x

YKay

For 2 adults we can easily get a weeks shopping for a total of £20. This doesn't include any whole meats, but consists of breaded chicken, fish etc (birds eye). We tend to have with that potatoes, chips & rice, noodles etc.

We also get frozen veg to go with the meals, but tend to not have many treats such as fresh cakes etc. We're happy with cuborad biscuits so treats don't seem to bother us too much.

Breakfasts - cereals and toast. Occasionally potato waffles etc as a treat.

That included ALL household products, totally everything. We are never short of food.

Hey, it gets us by until we are both working .

flissh

We spend about £70 a week, more if we get booze. We are meat eaters but I try to do one jacket & cheese meal a week and we have home made soup once a week too.
I take packed lunches most days and have an egg each day for breakfast.
We could cut it down but tend to have what we fancy.