£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

warby68

I shop online and although we're not dealing with debt we do operate to a budget and with older teenage boys I pretty much feed 4 adults (plus a fussy cat)

I work it by placing an order every 3 days or so around the minimum supermarket spend. I buy first what we need for main meals and other fresh items, then scour the offers for a few treats and to keep up stocks of branded stuff and then non-perishable things to get to the minimum spend. I don't stockpile much but tend to always have 'one open, one spare' of most things. Once you get used to the offers you can generally avoid ever paying full price for your branded stuff.

10 x shops at roughly the min spend per month equates to the monthly budget. I don't have to think too far ahead and we don't have a lot of waste as I generally know what everyone's plans are with only a 3 day timescale between shops.

Lots of different shopping patterns over the years but this one is working pretty well and keeps us to a budget but without giving it too much attention.

Cherryfudge

JWPopps wrote: »

(oh who am I kidding, my diet is primarily cheese...):

:rotfl: I think quite a few people could say that quite happily!

JWPopps wrote: »

I decant all my dried goods into clear glass jars, and I keep them on kitchen shelves instead of behind a cupboard door. I even do this with pasta!! Currently I have about twelve jars of fusilli, and my parents in particular think it's really odd, but for me it works because a) those jars act as portion measures; one jar is enough pasta for a meal for 2, and b) I can see at a glance how much pasta or lentils or split peas or dried beans I have. I used to be terrible for picking up another box of something 'just in case' but I've now trained myself to know exactly when i need to replace anything!

Actually - that's inspired. We are forever buying pasta or rice because we aren't sure there's enough in. We aren't sure because we forget to look. We forget to look because it's out of sight. And I love glass jars.

KxMx

I primarily use local market for fruit and veg, it's cheaper and the quality is usually good. If not so good, well it's still cheap and if it's going into a smoothie, doesn't really matter.

Nor does longevity matter much if it's all going to be eaten within a couple of days.

Toni'sfriend

I love the glass jar idea. I never get the amount of pasta right (never wasted, though. - goes into soup) and I'm always buying lentils etc because I forget how much I've got. Going on display in glass jars now. Thanks for the tip.

Sea_Shell

We always weigh out our (dry) pasta - only takes a moment. 100g p.p if with a meat/fish, or 125g p.p if just a sauce on it's own. I'd cook/eat far too much if I didn't do this (more of a calorie problem than a ££'s one I must admit!!)

GeorgianaCavendish

JWPopps wrote: »

Hi TOPM!

I can't actually remember if I've commented on your diary before, but I've been reading it for a while!

I have a (weird) tip I use to keep my food bill down, but I don't know if it only works for me because of my vegetarian/pulse-based diet (oh who am I kidding, my diet is primarily cheese...):

I decant all my dried goods into clear glass jars, and I keep them on kitchen shelves instead of behind a cupboard door. I even do this with pasta!! Currently I have about twelve jars of fusilli, and my parents in particular think it's really odd, but for me it works because a) those jars act as portion measures; one jar is enough pasta for a meal for 2, and b) I can see at a glance how much pasta or lentils or split peas or dried beans I have. I used to be terrible for picking up another box of something 'just in case' but I've now trained myself to know exactly when i need to replace anything!

It's not a tip that I imagine would work for everyone, but thought I'd share anyway...

This is such a clever idea! We're quite limited on storage space in our kitchen so I couldn't do one jar per portion, but I imagine it would work just as well with a big jar with lines drawn on to show each portion size. I might move all of our pasta over to a jar this week!

Treadingonplaymobil

Embarrassingly, I can't even claim that we keep buying stuff because we forget we have it - we don't hold a lot of food in the cupboards. We just buy too much expensive food! We had a big 'eating down the freezer and store cupboards' session last month, and I thought it would knock at least a week off our food bill, but we'd eaten everything within a few days, and it was only things like the odd packet of spaghetti or lentils, nothing expensive.

I caught up on lots of little bits of work and life admin today, all of which had been building up over half term, so it's nice to see a smaller list for tomorrow in my bullet journal.

to do today:
1. NSD. Done.
2. batch cooking for dinner today and tomorrow, as we have changed the boys' swimming lesson day to a Tuesday, making Tuesday a manic run of swimming and Cubs (for eldest). DH is doing it now, as I ran out of time.
3. Clear all the ironing. Not quite done, but only half a basket left.
4. Tidy the sitting room (one room a day again!). Done.
5. 2hrs work. Probably more like 90 minutes, but not bad.
6. Move monthly savings (for Christmas, birthdays, car servicing etc) across into savings account so I'm not tempted to spend them. Whoops, not done, forgot.

to do this week:
1. finish painting the pickets for the front fence. Not sure this will happen this week - it's forecast to rain pretty much solidly till the weekend!
2. plan June's working time (still haven't 'gone back' to work thanks to half term). Done!
3. roughly plan out summer working time (i.e. where I can squeeze in the odd hour while the DC are on holiday)
4. apply for new 0% balance transfer card. Done, accepted, waiting for balances to clear so I can redo the stoozing calculator.
5. research utilities providers - I suspect we can move again and save a little bit. Done. No real saving, but have avoided a price rise.

GeorgianaCavendish

Would you be able to cut back in another area to increase the food budget somewhat? I'm all for brand and/or supermarket switching and shopping around for good deals, but if your family genuinely enjoy some pricier food items (like avocados ) then maybe having an increased food budget or a small 'luxury food' budget would help. I had to implement this because shopping with my husband is sometimes like shopping with a 6 year old, he likes sneaking luxury style puddings into the trolley when I'm not watching and we like to have a bit of a treat meal on Saturday evenings. I feel a lot less stressed now I've put a figure on luxury food spends rather than incorporate them into the ordinary budget.

armchairexpert

JWPopps wrote: »

Hi TOPM!

I can't actually remember if I've commented on your diary before, but I've been reading it for a while!

I have a (weird) tip I use to keep my food bill down, but I don't know if it only works for me because of my vegetarian/pulse-based diet (oh who am I kidding, my diet is primarily cheese...):

I decant all my dried goods into clear glass jars, and I keep them on kitchen shelves instead of behind a cupboard door. I even do this with pasta!! Currently I have about twelve jars of fusilli, and my parents in particular think it's really odd, but for me it works because a) those jars act as portion measures; one jar is enough pasta for a meal for 2, and b) I can see at a glance how much pasta or lentils or split peas or dried beans I have. I used to be terrible for picking up another box of something 'just in case' but I've now trained myself to know exactly when i need to replace anything!

It's not a tip that I imagine would work for everyone, but thought I'd share anyway...

That's inspired! But doesn't it mean you use up an awful lot of shelf room if one bag of pasta gets spread over, say 4 jars? I want to try this but I'm scared of the space requirement!

Treadingonplaymobil

GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »

Would you be able to cut back in another area to increase the food budget somewhat? I'm all for brand and/or supermarket switching and shopping around for good deals, but if your family genuinely enjoy some pricier food items (like avocados ) then maybe having an increased food budget or a small 'luxury food' budget would help. I had to implement this because shopping with my husband is sometimes like shopping with a 6 year old, he likes sneaking luxury style puddings into the trolley when I'm not watching and we like to have a bit of a treat meal on Saturday evenings. I feel a lot less stressed now I've put a figure on luxury food spends rather than incorporate them into the ordinary budget.

That's a great idea, I just can't for the life of me work out where I would cut some budget from! Might be something to address if DH's pay rise is remotely decent <not holding my breath>.