How much is your food shopping bill??

Ellieseleven

We meal plan and make everything from scratch, we shop mostly at Aldi and our local market for fresh produce.

For 2 people we spend between £40-50 per week including toiletries but can squeeze that down to £30ish when the budget is tight by making use of what is in the cupboards, freezer etc.

I found YNAB (You need a budget) really helped me to see where my money was going and helped me to cut back on the grocery shop.

Apricot12

Have you tried Sainsburys basic range Ketchup we think it is as good as the brand leader and 35p a bottle I think. No comparable to Tesco's own. Might be worth a try.

LondonGirl252

For two adults I am ashamed to say we spend about £400 at the moment, I spoke to OH the other night and I am going to start reducing this immediately. We've agreed to start more batch cooking again, include more nights where we have jacket potatoes or beans on toast etc and then treat ourselves once or twice a week to cooking something nice from scratch - we seem to cook something different every night of the week that require a lot of ingredients and we have too much waste.

Time to get this down, aim is to have at at £200 a month by October

Pepperoni

Ellieseleven wrote: »

We meal plan and make everything from scratch, we shop mostly at Aldi and our local market for fresh produce.

For 2 people we spend between £40-50 per week including toiletries but can squeeze that down to £30ish when the budget is tight by making use of what is in the cupboards, freezer etc.

I found YNAB (You need a budget) really helped me to see where my money was going and helped me to cut back on the grocery shop.

Do you mind me asking how YNAB has helped with this? Do you mean as you seen how much you were spending and it shocked you?

I use YNAB and I'm wondering if there's something I should be doing to see exactly what that Grocery spend is spent on. At the moment I just log '£XX at Aldi' etc.

Al1x

We are a family of 2 adults and 2 children and we spend £40-60 per week.

On the better weeks I meal plan but don't always remember to and then usually wish I had as I do save a lot. I don't cook a lot from scratch, I should do more but due to not meal planning its easier to look in the freezer. When meal planning I have to consider the kids clubs after school so I know how much time I have to cook in. I will often do a roast dinner on Wednesday, Lidl do large chickens for £4ish. That will do us for 2-3 meals. We buy a takeaway style pizza most weeks but only when they are on offer! That would have replaced our dominos or pizza hut takeaway. Also get frozen fish in batter (also only if on offer) and do fish and chip friday instead of going to the chippy. I do make the most of special offers, even if its something I share with my sisters or parents then go halves. We have bought massive sacks of potatoes for dirt cheap and shared them out.

I also put Tesco value ketchup in Heinz bottle and nobody questioned it tasting different, after a few times I got a value one out and said lets try this one and they said it was just as nice as the other ketchup (may be a little sneaky but it was quite funny). I also empty non branded cereal into tall containers and then no one knows the brand, occasionally someone might say something tastes different but it still gets eaten. I get value biscuits too, they may not taste as nice and the branded ones but it means they are eaten less lol

Mee

• Between £5.00-£10 per week as I rely on reduced fish, chilled stuffs and produce from various supermarkets. Includes purchase of toilet rolls and cleaning products (monthly/fortnightly subject to offers).
• Tend to eat reduced price fruit and/or (toasted) rolls for breakfast and lunch, and whatever meal I can cobble together from the reductions
• I don't buy any old reduction - one key criteria is how long and how much it takes to cook.
• Also make best use of MyWaitrose card to reduce daily outlays.

suki1964

LondonGirl252 wrote: »

For two adults I am ashamed to say we spend about £400 at the moment, I spoke to OH the other night and I am going to start reducing this immediately. We've agreed to start more batch cooking again, include more nights where we have jacket potatoes or beans on toast etc and then treat ourselves once or twice a week to cooking something nice from scratch - we seem to cook something different every night of the week that require a lot of ingredients and we have too much waste.

Time to get this down, aim is to have at at £200 a month by October

As someone who averages £10 pp per week there really is no need to be buying ingredients and then throwing the excess away

The rule I live by, is an ingredient has to be used, or frozen

We eat a lot of Indian, Chinese , aisian dishes. I always have garlic and ginger as part of my fresh staples. I have a full shelf of dried spices and seeds and I always have tinned toms, black beans etc in the house. It's choosing a dish that can be changed and reused that's where the money saving comes in

So let's say I'm having prawns with noodles in a Thai fish sauce for a dinner, then I'll make nigellas peanut satay noodles with the rest of the Veg for either packed lunch or "I'm hungry" meals

Same with everything I buy. I look at what I have at home already and make the meal around that. This week for instance I was given a salmon and I wanted to make encroute. The only ingredient I needed to buy was filo pastry. So now the left over filo will be turned into spring rolls to go with the chicken in black bean which will use up the chicken I've bought to make chicken madras which I'm using the bread mix I've made to make naan, after making kinda of like pizza rolls to take as lunch on our day trip

It's utilising every ingredient which keeps the bills down

Oh and yes sometimes I eat food which isn't to my preference. Hell I'd live on crisp sandwiches and red wine, but it a case of its bought, so I will eat it. Online recipes are a flaming godsend

chelseablue

Crisp sandwiches and wine sounds a good diet to me

quackers82

I'm single if i meal plan and stick to it, i can get my weekly shop down to around £10 a week at Asda. If i don't i just chuck anything i want in and end up with a £50 bill.

I did try Aldi last year to see what the fuss was about, NEVER EVER going back, a few times i had my head over the bin spitting the food out it was that vile. If it was something i could tolerate i.e. their version of Monster Munch the flavour was inconsistently spread so one side of the crisp would be to strong and the other side almost plain :mad:

Stick the the normal supermarkets but see how low you can go, like Asda's smart price garlic breads are ok.

MrsSave

I aim for £45 per week. I do spend extras on top us shops which I am aiming to stop from here on as I end up spending far more than I budgeted!