Couples - What's your grocery bill?

pickledonionspaceraider

Abbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbneed

Mrs_Boo_Boo

I have a budget for £300 a month which includes cat food and beer for OH. Cook from scratch and meal plan so not too difficult. Sometimes go over when I buy special food for celebrations and extra people and wine bumps it up. Not too concerned as I like cooking and rarely throw anything away. Don't have any decent takeaways apart from fish and chips so don't buy them often. Having a budget is good because it prevents impulse buying and using up food from the freezer.
Try to buy locally and British. A mix of LIDL,Aldi and local food hub. Also belong to community allotment scheme which costs £35 a year plus labour to plant and weed.

tocs23

We spend £40-50 per week... and shamefully waste so much food, it is both ridiculous and embarrassing! We both have busy jobs, so quite often can't be bothered to cook and therefore throw good money after bad on takeaways and meals out whilst our fridge sits full at home.

Planning meals in advance is definitely the key. I'm determined to get smarter with our grocery spend and reduce waste - as of tomorrow, Sundays will be all about prepping and freezing meals for the week ahead!

I'm also going to try out a local fresh food store which delivers fruit and veggie boxes for a tenner - from what I hear, the boxes are over-flowing! When I consider what I spend on various pre-packed veg at the supermarket, it's a no-brainer. They also deliver supplies from local butchers. Much better quality and value than the supermarkets. Plus, it will be good knowing that we're supporting local businesses!

Wantobeasaver

tocs23 wrote: »

Planning meals in advance is definitely the key. I'm determined to get smarter with our grocery spend and reduce waste - as of tomorrow, Sundays will be all about prepping and freezing meals for the week ahead!

Yes prepping on Sunday is the only way to go for me anyway...yesterday I made beef stew, doubled the quantities so there's 2 portions in the freezer. Also made mushroom risotto for the freezer and prepped homemade chicken goujons which I can chuck in the oven when I get home.

Starrystarrynight

We have quite a few packs of YS mince, stewing beef, diced pork etc in our freezer, that I can turn to, and a cupboard full of other basics and spices to help me make tasty, health meals for us, so our weekly shop can sometimes be as low as £25. My husband is very good at sticking to lists, and I'm becoming increasingly disabled, so he does most of our shopping nowadays, which is a great help. If I do go out, I always look out for bargains to stock up the freezer, and that can take the shop up to £30 or so. If it was left to me, we'd be back up to spending £60 a week! x

Purplesky_2

We spend about £30-70 a week all told (some weeks more, other weeks, just top up £5 for some veg or something ).
We shop the local market for food and big box the toiletries.
Lately we buy more top steak/lamb and local/organic/free-range/artisanal products than previously :j. When I buy the supermarkets, we pretty much just need cream cheese/fruit juice/junk for OH/soya milk/bread/spreadable butter in winter or we shop the sales/clearance shelves and use vouchers:beer:.

My partner is one of those people who 'can' eat everything they want and not gain any weight. Except that unless he eats a ridiculous amount of calories in a day, he gets horrible hunger pains and loses weight at the rate of a stone a week! We need a LOT of food for him:eek::eek::eek::eek:.

We go to the big box about once every 6-16 weeks and stock up on long-life products (Seasoning and cans etc) and toiletries/paper products (£50-70) .
We used to get by on more like £20-£30 a week from the market (down from about £60 at the supermarkets:mad:) supplemented by £10-20/week at the supermarket. We just used cheaper cuts of meat and about two-four meals a week would be bacon/sausage from butcher (sausage and mash, spaghetti carbonara, macaroni cheese, full english, bacon eggs and bean etc). So we know we could do it again, if necessary. But we're enjoying buying food of a greater quality, now there's more wiggle room in the budget.:T:j

mulchingoverwinter

Hey,

We spend anywhere between £30 and £70 a week though I budget £200 a month for us, so if we go over one week we have to be under the next week. We do seem to do ok, though I want to do better as we are svaing like no tomorrow for our first home. We also put £25 away for dog food/ treats and denti sticks a month, and having lost one of our babies last year we are now down to one, so I think we might be able to take that away and put it into our £200.

If we want to buy crap or lunches out or takeaway this is taken out of our own money most of the time, as when were shopping if its not on the list you've missed out. Makes it alot easier and once you start spending your own money on food you find out you don't really want that lunch out/takeaway!

Also we take our money out in cash for that week, based on my menu and shopping list for the week anything left over to the closest pound gets put straight onto the saving stamp scheme (the rest gets put back into the seperate wallet we use), so that it only gets spent on food shopping. This is one of the things which has really helped us especially on those occassions we come back from our normal holiday spent to much and then have to find the money for food, its such a weight to know you have a full savings card!

HTH

Wantobeasaver

Purplesky wrote: »

My partner is one of those people who 'can' eat everything they want and not gain any weight. Except that unless he eats a ridiculous amount of calories in a day, he gets horrible hunger pains and loses weight at the rate of a stone a week! We need a LOT of food for him:eek::eek::eek::eek:.

My partner is like this! He can eat like a horse but you'd never guess it by looking at him. It's partly why our grocery bill is high, he has 2/3 portions of dinner...:eek:

Mrs_Ryan

About £120-130 a week so probably about £500 a month :eek: OH has a heavy manual job and eats a lot. He refuses to entertain Aldi or any value brands so that's why its high. My only vice is my Quorn products which are stupidly expensive..