monthly shopping bill

Carmk2008

Totally serious will drop into old school money saving to. See if I can get down to £200 pm

teddysmum

I really struggle to spend £200 per calendar month for the two of us (to use up the 5% on £100 contactless card purchases for two TSB accounts ), so often spend much less. Part of this spend is also made up by deliberately buying in things like tinned dog food, which have a long use by date, that aren't needed now but will be required in the future.


A lot of the things which aren't good for you, such as cakes, sweets, biscuits, crisps and pop total up quite quickly and as said, Aldi and Lidl products are much cheaper. (The latter's scotch eggs ,pasties and pies are actually nicer than big brand ones, but I'm not happy about Aldi's beef joints, which are cheap, but tend to be made up of rolled meat, with gristle, that unravels when being cooked.)


It's also cheaper to pre-plan what you need and not to take children along, as they tend to pick things you wouldn't normally choose, which are also more expensive.

fierystormcloud

We spend about £300 a month on two adults. Probably sounds a lot (to some) but this includes ALL food, packed lunches, takeaways, detergents, toiletries, toothpaste, polish, and so on, and a monthly trip to costa, the pub, and maccies. And we don't buy booze to drink in our house, we don't smoke, and I walk or cycle to work and rarely use our (jointly owned) car.

In addition, we spend around £80.00 a month on petrol, and some folk I know spend £150-200 a month on petrol. In addition, we don't have sky; just a freeview box, and we both have £10 PAYG mobiles, and use approx £10 a month credit each. Some people I know spend £50-£75 on sky, and £30-40 a month on their phone plan.

So I don't apologise for spending £300 a month on groceries; we like nice food. And that does include everything we consume and use in the house (like toothpaste, washing powder, washing up liquid, shampoo, shower gel, as well as food and beverages iyswim.)

So OP, if £400 for a family of 4 includes all food, booze, detergents, toiletries, maccies, coffee shops visits, packed lunches/school meals/school dinners etc, then that's not too bad.

Don't know how to suggest you reduce it, apart from changing to a cheaper shop.