What is a realistic food budget?

culpepper

Try taking the money for one weeks groceries out of the bank and having it in your purse. It is so easy to overspend if you are using a card as you have no real limit on what money you are carrying.
We spend about £25 a week for the 4 of us (all 17 or over) including fresh fruit every few days.
Homemade bread has been a big help and we make nearly everything from scratch. I only buy oats and occassionally a generic weetabix as breakfast cereal prices are exhorbitant. There is always bread for toast with spreads or homemade jam or marmalade.
Check out wartime recipe books at the library too.

Poggie123

Thanks everyone for all your ideas!!

OK, I've got the food money in a seperate purse now so it should be easier to keep track of. This week is week 2 and there's £220 left so will take MrsMcawber's advice and reduce it by £50 for this month. Will definately try lidl dishwasher tablets next month as they were nearly £7 last week! Grr!

I've been through the freezer and cupboards and made a list of what we've got to make a meal plan. Will try to have a couple of veggie days next week if DH doesn't grump too much!! Have also bought 10 freezer boxes for 99p to make extra and freeze.

Off to trawl the recipe boards for inspiration......and hobnob recipe hehehe!!

taplady

culpepper wrote: »

Try taking the money for one weeks groceries out of the bank and having it in your purse. It is so easy to overspend if you are using a card as you have no real limit on what money you are carrying.
We spend about £25 a week for the 4 of us (all 17 or over) including fresh fruit every few days.
Homemade bread has been a big help and we make nearly everything from scratch. I only buy oats and occassionally a generic weetabix as breakfast cereal prices are exhorbitant. There is always bread for toast with spreads or homemade jam or marmalade.
Check out wartime recipe books at the library too.

Wow! how on earth do you do it? £25 sounds amazing, we have a similar family to you and I have trouble getting it under £60 - £70 a week!

lynzpower

We do 120 a month for me, OH and dog. Dog costs us about a fiver a week

A few things we do:
Use vouchers for money off ( find them on the vouchers board)
Have a couple of cheapie meals a week - home made pizza & jackets is a firm favourite, we can do a meal for about a quid for the 2 of us. ( base, tom puree & herb base, cheese, handful of mushrooms/onion/ sweetcorn
buy value veg and other stuff like salt/flour/butter
hit the yellow label bargain corner at your supermarket first- or find a decent butcher- for cheaper meat
freeze any yellow label gear you can- I got a couple of bags of carrots for 5p each the other day, so I sliced them, blanched them & froze them- Ill plan them in another day
Use cheap cuts of meat - mince is cheaper than steak obvioulsy, thighs n chicken legs cheaper than breasts ,turkey cheaper than chicken -
Look at the price per 100 on the shelf edge label then weigh up pricing.
Its sometimes cheaper to buy loose veg rather than prepacked bags ( eg carrots, onions)
And finally have a look on your recipts, if its got a star next to it, its a vatted item - ( esp in tescos) and its a "luxury"- these usually are things you can make yourself without paying the taxman
and!! use half the amount of washing powder the manufacterers tell you too
Choose cheap - if OH is having sandwiches- cheese or tinned tuna is way cheaper than ham!
Waste nothing-if you cant plan it in then freeze!! if youve got a couple of slices of ham laying around waiting to dry out- chop them up stick them in a freezer bag. Likewise, bread can be made into bread & butter pud, or into breadcrumbs for coating HM fishfingers or chicken burgers.
and last but not least- spend time here- youll get the hang of it by osmosis

culpepper

taplady wrote: »

Wow! how on earth do you do it? £25 sounds amazing, we have a similar family to you and I have trouble getting it under £60 - £70 a week!

We have the veg patch to help a little.We dont buy large joints of meat and most meals involving meat are using 8oz for the 4 of us , I make the meat an acompaniment rather than the bulk of the meal . We have a chicken every second week which lasts 3 to 4 meals including a roast. Lunch is usually sandwiches.Occassionally I will spend as much as £32 but that is usually the top limit.It has been as little as £13 a few times when the veg patch has produced a glut of something.

krispyg76

We spend £200-250 a month on shopping but we have cut take aways from our budget recently. When

krispyg76

We spend £200-250 a month on food shopping for 2 of us but when we have money we do tend to eat well, I like cooking and trying new things as well.

we shop daily and see what there is reduced or being sold off for eating that day and sometimes base recipes around that. So for tea tonight i doing Eggs benedict :

92p for 6 medium eggs
49p for hollandaise sauce
59p for 6 muffins
99p for crumbled ham (reduced)

So thats £2.99 for eggs benedict for 2 of us, thats not too bad although it's not the most cheapest tea. However the box of eggs will do enough for another 2 portions and the Hollandaise sauce I only use half a packet.

Hapless_2

Including my meatbox I spend about £410 a month for 6 of us.

LittleVoice

Melissa177 wrote: »

I spent about 15 pounds a week on my own, although I do have the advantage of getting my washing powder/washing up liquid etc free from work... (At work my job is to buy the chemicals that go into Fairy Liquid )

Are P&G giving it away to staff now? When I worked for them I used to have to pay - though it was obviously cheaper than retail stores.

LJM

in our household there are 2 adults,2kids and a cat i tend to average £200 amonth for us but the last 2 months ive come in under budget which is great