How much do you spend on food per month?

GreyQueen

YS - yellow sticker. Most supermarkets put the discounted prices on yellow stickers. But Lidl use orange and Waitrose red.


A pal of mine jokes that her daughter was nearly a grown woman before she realised that it was possible to get groceries without yellow stickers.

Jaffapig

Haha thank you. I see, my guineas get a fair bit of that to

[Deleted User]

There are two of us and I spend between £120 - £140 a month, menu plan, cook from scratch, the only outside meal we may have is fish and chips at Sainsbobs for a treat. We are retired so I do have the time to cook. I make my own bread and we vary lunches, soup with toast and either yogurt or fruit for afters, bean, eggs or cheese on toast, sandwiches today we had egg mayo, tomorrow it will be cheese and beetroot, Monday HM soup. I shop mostly at Aldi,things I cannot get there come from Morrison. Very rarely shop at Tesco, Asda or Sainsbury.

We eat well, some meat, fish ,eggs ,cheese, plenty of veg and fruit.

A Sample menu for a day, breakfast weetbisks with skimmed milk, large coffee, on Sunday we have fruit, croissant with jam and coffee.

Lunch a round of egg mayo sandwiches, either fruit or yogurt and a glass of milk. Supper tomorrow is Sunday so Half shoulder of lamb, roast potato's, cauliflower, carrot and green beans, A fruit crumble for dessert with custard.

On Monday I will cut the remaining meat off the shoulder, we will have some with salad for supper and the remainder will be frozen against a meal later or used in sandwiches.

We do buy one or two luxuries, but for many years my spend was £100 a month which is around £25.00 a week. I do keep a decent store cupboard, we live 'out in the sticks' so bad weather means we eat out of the freezer. I always have veggies either tinned or frozen and keep a stock of strong flour for bread. I also keep 2 cartons of UHT milk in the cupboard so although we do not have milk in tea or coffee, we do have enough to cope in an emergency for a few days at least. I also have 6 wiltshire farm food meals in the freezer, so if I am unwell OH can at least get himself a hot meal.

I also keep in powdered potato, its fine if you put a dob of butter and a bit of milk and some seasoning in before adding the water. I use it in soup as well to thicken it.

Eating out at lunchtime will shove you food bill up a lot, making sandwiches or a salad up fpr lunch will save you money. Soup can be put in a wide necked flask, and I used to take all in one stew to work in a flask as well. Hope this helps.

Flat_Eric

My mistake is having groceries delivered then visiting the shop for one item but buying 10! I'm rubbish at meal planning. Going to work on it though

Mr_Singleton

It’s interesting to note how frequently these sorts of posts come up. Have to wonder how useful they are as there are so many variables.

A strapping bloke living in a city compared to an old lady living in the middle of nowhere with only small convenience shops to hand.

Personally, this morning for breakfast I had some porridge with fruit which was cheap as chip but I had £22 of quality takeaway sushi for lunch yesterday.

Some people would be surprised to see I spent £6 on a loaf of bread yet these same people would happily buy a rip-off supermarket sandwich meal deal for lunch.

So, I don’t think what you spend on food particularly matters as long as your mindful on what your spending/eating.

[Deleted User]

Mr Singleton indeed it is being mindful of things that will save you money.

I am mindful that I can make a big pot of delicious home made carrot and coriander soup for around 50p which gives me at least 4-5 lunches with the addition of some soft cheese and crackers, as opposed to a tin of the same which maybe would do one meal for 75p.

I do sometimes treat myself in Sainsburys whenever they have aberdeen angus steak on offer (once in a blue moon ) as I do enjoy them but I certainly wouldn't pay £28-32 per kilo for it .reduced to around £18.00 kilo I will buy some ,even more if its yellow stickered and reduced as it will get portioned up and popped into my freezer for when I want a nice treat.
I do spend about a third of my budget on fruit and veg but I don't eat bread at all and the only time I buy butter is to make shortbread with at Christmas I buy crackers and basic low fat cream cheese and top the crackers with sliced tomatoes /cucumber to eat with my soup at lunchtime I eat veggie about 1-2 times a week and can just as easily enjoy a veggie curry or lasagne as a meat one The secret is using lots of herbs and spices and I have a weakness for sweet chilli sauce and garlic

I do enjoy spicy food and hate 'beige' food I only use UHT milk as fresh milk goes off before its all used up and I will make a 2pint rice pud in the slow cooker with a watered down tin of evaporated milk which does me for puddings for several days with either custard on top or a dab of jam and some diced up fruit.

I haven't spent very much this month as I am trying to eat down my freezer for defrosting but I will food shop tomorrow which will last me for at least 10-12 days if not more as bad weather is likely shortly. I eat at my DDs at least twice a week (I do bake cakes and biscuits in exchange )and I also have one night a week at the pub qiz where we get a small meal included in the price (£2.00) a bargain for a nice night out with my team

As i am retired I don't have to think about lunches out or coffees I have a perfectly good percolator in my house anyway.

But its different strokes for different folks and no doubt my diet wouldn't suit everyone .But being mindful of what you already have in the cupboard and not wasting anything helps .After all it was bought to eat and not just throw away :):)

JackieO xx

Gemfire

Going back to the post, I do not think 50 a week is bad, but the lunches will really add up... I’d look at that first?

But anyway for just food we have a weekly £60 and that includes, all good and drink, toiletries, cleaning etc for family of 2 adults, 1 child and a baby. My way to staying on budget there about- plan meals,x 7 for the week and x2 “nicer” weekend lunches. Take list to supermarket and only buy on that list, plus one “date breakfast” for mid week ie nicer breakfast with husband whilst children still asleep!
- batch cook. We grow some veggies so batch cook for freezer to use up gluts. We’ll have a batch cook day occasionnally but also try to have one of the planned weekly meals stretch in to a small batch cook. We have a large stock of those Chinese foil trays with card lids, you can get cheap online I think from wholesaler.
- buy cheap brands and food, apart from some things that we care about, eg free range chicken. I think most people have something which they want to spend more on, fine, but compromise elsewhere.
- for meat, it’s a personal thing I think but we like to buy less but good frerange/outdoor bred, and also joint it ourselves. Eg we never buy breast fillets, but a whole free range chicken, and use breasts one day and rest another eg in a curry or pie.
- for veg, grow some of our own (if you can/can be bothered as a bit of a faff!) for large batch cooks we go to market to buy pound a bowl, and generally buy just simple apple/pears/bananas and we eat a lot of carrots and broccoli! We also get a couple of carrier bags of blackberries in autumn for the freezer which are great for baking, putting in daughters porridge, or pancakes and last through the winter until we have some own strawberries/raspberries.
- supermarkets, I’m not a massive fan of Aldi/Lidl because not as helpful with little kids and don’t have everything, so I shop around and have loyalty cards with tesco/sainsbury and try and save points for Xmas time when shop will blow the budget a bit. I also use “scan as you shop” so I can see how much my trolley is adding up and I try and put things back if it’s stretching too far.
- I cook a lot from scratch but that’s complimented by the occasional “freezer” meal of fishfibgers (pollack, not cod) and peas, so food taste good, healthy but also cheap. This is where batch cooking saves us as full time working parents getting in at 6pm we just pop batch cook meal in oven.
- we don’t drink alcohol, but go through quite a lot of squash! But if you include alcohol in your budget again £50 is looking quite good.
- lunches are simple. My husband has a peanut butter sandwich every day! I couldn’t do that, have a nice salad I’ve made, or if at home some soup. But on weekend we’ll treat ourself to a nicer lunch, eg this weekend having bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon, and Sunday having pizzas.

- we never eat out unless it’s a speciL occassion eg birthday. We try instead to have slightly nicer food at home for some of our meals, so I guess our £60 budget could be squeezed a bit more, but we have those occasional meals planned which are that little bit more interesting to compensate. Frankly eating out with children zaps half the fun out of it anyway for me!


Sorry for essay! Entertaining myself whilst dealing with a grumpy baby!

Gemfire

Ps Jackieo I loved reading your response. Some great little nuggets of wisdom, thanks for sharing.

t14cy_t

im a food hoarder!! I confess, I love it when every cupboard, fridge and freezer is full to capacity!! im a big user of coupons and ys goods. its just the 2 of us at home now, 3 big dogs, 15 ex battery hens and 2 ducks. on average we spend £70 a week on everything!! im pretty sure if we got really skint we could life of the supplies for months!!

LameWolf

Another variable is if you have a restricted diet for any reason. For instance, I don't buy meat or fish, as I'm vegetarian, and my DH, bless him, is happy to eat the same food as me (otherwise he'd have to cook for himself, as I can't even handle meat or fish to cook it for someone else).

I do keep the cupboards and freezer well stocked; I have lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, and my DH has Parkinson's disease, so if we were to have a period where we were both too poorly to shop, we could still eat.