Couples - What's your grocery bill?

Lizling

Magpye wrote: »

Coffee pods are an expense on which I refuse to compromise at all, as instant decaf tastes like weak gravy strained through a hitch-hiker's sock, IMO.

Normal ground coffee is a lot cheaper than the pods. If you get an aeropress for £20 or so, you'll probably save around £1 a bag compared to the pods and be drinking much better coffee. I'm no coffee snob, but even I can taste the difference.

Wantobeasaver

We spend far too much but I'm working on it! BF does the grocery shopping as he works shorter hours & I'm unable to carry heavy things at the moment. I know our spends would be lower if I did it but it's far more convenient for both of us. He actually uses up leftovers/buys own brand now and I've educated him on the difference between best before/use by!

As I've said we've got a long way to go but we're getting there. He put stale bread aside the other day to be made into breadcrumbs...this was unheard of a few months ago!!

Fosterdog

If I meal plan we get everything including toiletries and household essentials (not including pet food) for £30-£40 a week. If I don't meal plan we end up spending up to £100 a week as OH goes to the shops every day and buys junk.

When money is a bit tight we can go down to £15 a week but that is for food only.

lushlifesaver

When it was just the two of us (got wonder bairn now) we averaged £30 per week. That was my breakfast (cereal with milk), bf's cereal bars, lunches for both of us and all evening meals (meat with every one. proper carnivores in our house!) We always bought laundry detergent/conditioner, toilet roll, mince beef and chicken quarterly from Makro, and on offer, though which helped keep costs down. We now buy our meat from musclefoods though which helps the new budget

dronid

I would say for us between £70 and £80 per week and we have people round for meals/socialising several times a week. And I think we're pretty extravagant. :-/

Magpye

Lizling wrote: »

Normal ground coffee is a lot cheaper than the pods. If you get an aeropress for £20 or so, you'll probably save around £1 a bag compared to the pods and be drinking much better coffee. I'm no coffee snob, but even I can taste the difference.

Nah, I don't actually like pressed coffee and then I have all the hassle of steaming milk, which is extra cleaning and also have to splash out silly money on either chai syrup or all the ingredients to do it on the hob. I'll stick to my pods as I think I'm allowed that indulgence.

PS I'm a trained barista, so I do know how to make 'proper' coffee, I just genuinely like the pods better. *shrug*

amycool

Before OH got his better paying job we often managed to spend around £20 a week for everything. We're more relaxed now and allow ourselves treats so we tend to spend £30-£40. We do most of our shopping at aldi and are both veggie. The biggest expense is OH' s coffee! He drinks tons and won't go near instant.

siegemode

pigpen wrote: »

This is not always the case.. some 'value' brands are made by the brand name companies.. same as everything else.. they may alter by adding a pinch more salt or a little less herbs/flavourings but it is the same and most brand name ones are full of fat and rubbish and very little meat because they rely on their name to sell inferior produce.

The cheapy sausages are great for casseroles where they absorb the flavour from other stuff.. I up a brand for the children and get decent as I can afford ones for us grown ups.

Although non branded and value products is often produced by the big brand manufacturers the quality of the ingredients and recipe are often different to enable the cost to be kept lower. I used to work for a large manufacturer so speak from experience.

I often spend too much in some peoples view but I think so long as all the other bills are paid and we are debt free where's the harm. so long as you eat healthy is what matters most however it's far more difficult on a low budget I know, only too well.

When things were really tough I used to make sausage meat pasta sauce with cheaper sausages when the value ones were 19p p/pk:eek:.

Goldiegirl

I budget for £250 per month, but it's often less than this. (the £250 includes food, cleaning products and toiletries)


About 2 - 3 years ago I was spending between £350 - £400 per month


We've achieved the reduction by cooking virtually everything from scratch, meal planning, and by having a couple of veggie evenings a week. We haven't changed the store we shop at.


I have no plans to make any further cuts - I'm comfortable with our expenditure

selement

I've started a thread on this in a different section recently! We are currently spending anything from £250-£350 per month (plus takeaways :S), but I had only budgeted to spend £200! After reassessing I have concluded we can afford £250, but we are often going above this. It sounds like my main mistake is shopping at Sainsburys to be honest. I started slimming world so buy a lot more fruit and veg and hadn't realised they are very expensive for that.

We also have meat with pretty much every dinner, also have been buying extra bacon egg and mushrooms lately...