Food Bill help

Paige

Hi Everyone


My daughters have just both gone to uni and I need to make some serious cut backs.


That just leaves me and my husband in the house, no pets. How much do people spend per week on food, cleaning products and toiletries for 2 adults ?


There is a new Aldi due to open not too far from us. Will I make savings swapping from Asda/Sainsburys to Aldi. Never been to an Aldi or lidl as they've been too far away.


Thanks

HappyMJ

I spend £50 a week for a couple and that's plenty even includes a few non-alcoholic drinks as well and there's always food left over at the end of the week. I'm very slowly building up a store cupboard of items.

You will definitely save by shopping at Aldi as long as you can avoid the impulse buys which you'll probably do the first few times as they do stock quite different products.

Restricting your shopping to exactly what you need and no premium items you could get the essentials for less than £20 a week.

culpepper

What i did when both were at uni at the same time was, continue to cook for 4 then freeze the spare portions. It meant that some weeks, I didn't really have anything to shop for food wise.
I think we spend about £10 per person a week and there are 3 of us here at present. That is for most things although hubs will buy himself toiletries and so will DS.

suki1964

That rather like asking how long is a piece of string

Everyone is different, use different products, eat different types of meals

You may find it easier to look at your outgoings and see how much you have left over to budget for shopping

Swapping to aldi and lidl will save you some money, esp over sainsburys prices. Down grading will also save money. But meal planing and not wasting food and only buying what is needed will save you the most

Also if you have the time, cooking from scratch really does save on the pennies

PenguinOfDeath

It depends what you buy really but I'd be surprised if you didn't save some money unless you now buy basics of everything. For me aldi has the same or better quality than nomal supermrket brands but at a cheaper price, however you might not be able to source absolutely everything you usually buy from an aldi/lidl.

For 2 adults and a cat we spend around £30-40 a week but that includes bulk shopping at Costco for meat, visits to home bargains for toiletries... Its sometimes a lot less

Paige

I emptied my big chest freezer over the summer. I thought it would be expensive to run with only 2 of us here most of the time. Sometimes its just me if husband working away. So now I just have 3 drawer freezer. Perhaps I should leave the big one on and fill with bargains and left overs?
I am quite good at not throwing anything away. I will go to Aldi and have a look next week when it opens. Do you meal plan still for 2 people. Always meal plan when the girls were here but seem to be struggling for 2 for some reason. Also am rubbish at portion sizes for 2. !!!

HappyMJ

Paige wrote: »

I emptied my big chest freezer over the summer. I thought it would be expensive to run with only 2 of us here most of the time. Sometimes its just me if husband working away. So now I just have 3 drawer freezer. Perhaps I should leave the big one on and fill with bargains and left overs?
I am quite good at not throwing anything away. I will go to Aldi and have a look next week when it opens. Do you meal plan still for 2 people. Always meal plan when the girls were here but seem to be struggling for 2 for some reason. Also am rubbish at portion sizes for 2. !!!

Same here. I cook for four. Serve half and store the other half.

You won't see as many "so called" bargains as you did at Sainsbury's as everything is cheap anyway so there's no need for half price sales or buy one get one free. The prices don't change dramatically so there's less need to store cheap items as you know next month the price won't be much different.

Cornucopia

Paige wrote: »

Will I make savings swapping from Asda/Sainsburys to Aldi.

Best case: savings of probably 40%+ swapping from Sainbury's Branded items to Aldi. They don't sell many brands, so effectively almost everything there is own-brand.

Worst case: savings of maybe 15-20% swapping from Asda own-brand and Smart Price to Aldi.

Here's a typical example:-

- Philadelpia Light Garlic & Herbs (170g). £1.87 at Asda, currently on offer at £1.

- Sainsbury's Own-brand Lighter Garlic & Herbs cheese (250g) £1.20

- Aldi "The Cheese Emporium" Lighter Garlic & Herbs (200g) 49p

Aldi are especially strong in Deli & Dairy, Breakfast cereals, Bread, Cakes, Biscuits, Crisps, Chocolate, Tinned Goods, and Fruit & Veg (if your local store looks after them properly).

There are occasional price reductions around the shop, though almost never BOGOF and similar multi-buy offers. There is also Super 6: a permanent promotion on 6 rotating/seasonal lines of fresh fruit & veg, usually at a single fixed price of 39p, 49p, 59p or 69p.

oliviamoore81

We spend around £60 a week at Sainsbury's. That's for two adults. We used to shop at Tesco but switched when a Sainsbury's was built near to us and we haven't noticed that much difference in price. We can tell the difference in the quality of food though.. Sainsbury's is much nicer.

wannalot

I would recommend that you pay for your shopping in cash. Take out your weekly/monthly food budget and keep it in a separate purse/wallet. This makes it much easier to monitor your food spending.

I agree with everyone telling you to freeze leftovers. I've been living alone since my mum died at the beginning of the year, and I am useless at cooking for one, but it is actually a really good idea to cook extra portions for the freezer. It makes weekday dinners a lot easier after a busy day at work.

Aldi/Lidl are great, and you will definitely save money, but I can rarely get everything I want there, so I tend to visit a different place every week, or I do a large Aldi shop, and top up at other places looking for bargains. It's a great idea to try other supemarkets though. Loyalty to one supermarket will cost you money!

I rarely buy meat at full price. It is worth checking out your local supermarkets to see when they do reductions. I get my meat and fish from Tesco, and never pay more than half price. Similarly, I get loads of nice bread from M&S in the evening and it costs pennies.

With regard to how much you spend, that depends what you can afford and like to buy. Why not shop normally for a month and keep all your receipts. Also, keep an eye on how much stuff you chuck out! At the end of a month you will have a better idea how much you can trim off of your food budget.

Have you looked at the Grocery Challenge thread here? You will get lots of great ideas there. It really helped me to stop spending a fortune on food I wasn't eating!

suki1964

Paige wrote: »

I emptied my big chest freezer over the summer. I thought it would be expensive to run with only 2 of us here most of the time. Sometimes its just me if husband working away. So now I just have 3 drawer freezer. Perhaps I should leave the big one on and fill with bargains and left overs?
I am quite good at not throwing anything away. I will go to Aldi and have a look next week when it opens. Do you meal plan still for 2 people. Always meal plan when the girls were here but seem to be struggling for 2 for some reason. Also am rubbish at portion sizes for 2. !!!

When I meal plan I tend of look at the joint I'm buying that week, chicken or gammon and decide what I'm going to do to use it all up. 0ne chicken between two should give a minimum of 6 meals, roast one day, say sweet and sour another, a pie another. Now obviously eating chicken for three days on a trot is a bore which is where the freezer comes in handy. Strip the chicken when finished for dinner and portion up. Then I look at what else I need for the week. Mince will be shepards pie, meatballs, chilli etc etc. fish pie perhaps or fish cakes and when I'm cooking I make enough for 4, two or three for now, one for the freezer for another day. Nothing for me is set in stone. I meal plan on the hoof so to speak by seeing what is best value for money

I do buy a joint or chicken most weeks as I find a Sunday dinner is easier then worrying what to make and I can stretch it through the week so for me it's worth the initial outlay. Even better if I get a good reduced joint or the butcher has a good meat pack going.

As for portion sizes, you don't actually need a lot of meat. I've always measured it as a lb between four or even more if it's mince. A couple of slices and then fill the plate with veg

Freezing the extra portion means that when you are home alone you have a meal and won't be tempted by take always or a ready meal

And ys bargains are only that if you have a use for them. No point in buying something to stick in the freezer just to throw out in 6 months cos you didn't have a planned use for it