It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

Albermarle

michaels said:

zagfles said:

Sea_Shell said:

Do 'high grocery spenders' routinely have puddings/deserts?   We don't.

What about portion sizes?  Do you weigh or measure stuff out?   We do.

Maybe that's the difference?

Does money spent = calories consumed?

There's probably a link - rubbish like crisps and chocolate are very expensive for what they are and of course highly calorific.

The other major thing is probably meat, our kids were veggies at uni because they were too tight to buy meat

Also how much cooking from scratch you do, or do you buy ready made pizzas, pies, sauces etc. Plus do you insist on top brands for stuff like coke, cereals etc or have you tried the supermarket's equivalent which is often far cheaper and quite often unnoticably different.

We are also own brand for crisps and avoid soft drinks where possible too currently do 1 x 19p aldi lemonade and 1 x 63p aldi fanta each week plus 4l long life juice - easy to spend 10x this if you insist on branded carbonated drinks.  Also just own label tea bags and no coffee drinkers helps.  We do spend a lot on green veg (broccoli, beans etc) but save by getting basic cheese and mostly eating chicken.  Pizza?  69p Aldi cheese/pepperoni, 1 between 2

A 70p pizza between two. Presume you have no problems with your weight 

Overall, I find some branded/more expensive products better than unbranded. I other cases I can not tell the difference.
For example I do not like cheap lemonade, but that is because we always buy the diet ones, and you can really taste the cheaper sweeteners they use. However if it is orange/fanta, the cheap ones taste OK.
Tried recently some cheaper coffee, but was positively unpleasant. However discovered a mid priced one that was fine and cheaper than we usually get.
So although we buy a mixture of own brand/branded and shop at Aldi/Costco sometimes, the bill stays stubbornly high, by the standards of this thread anyway . I suspect away from this bubble that many people with the money to spend, will make almost no effort to save money, and  regularly spend twice as much as we do. A visit to M&S and a look in some peoples baskets can be an eye opener. 

zagfles

michaels said:

zagfles said:

Sea_Shell said:

Do 'high grocery spenders' routinely have puddings/deserts?   We don't.

What about portion sizes?  Do you weigh or measure stuff out?   We do.

Maybe that's the difference?

Does money spent = calories consumed?

There's probably a link - rubbish like crisps and chocolate are very expensive for what they are and of course highly calorific.

The other major thing is probably meat, our kids were veggies at uni because they were too tight to buy meat

Also how much cooking from scratch you do, or do you buy ready made pizzas, pies, sauces etc. Plus do you insist on top brands for stuff like coke, cereals etc or have you tried the supermarket's equivalent which is often far cheaper and quite often unnoticably different.

We are also own brand for crisps and avoid soft drinks where possible too currently do 1 x 19p aldi lemonade and 1 x 63p aldi fanta each week plus 4l long life juice - easy to spend 10x this if you insist on branded carbonated drinks.  Also just own label tea bags and no coffee drinkers helps.  We do spend a lot on green veg (broccoli, beans etc) but save by getting basic cheese and mostly eating chicken.  Pizza?  69p Aldi cheese/pepperoni, 1 between 2

I do coffee from scratch - got a small grinder so buy coffee beans and grind them, then use in my cafetiere, or in my briki for a Greek coffee. I actually don't have a clue if it's cheaper than instant, but it tastes far better

Similar with tea, don't even buy tea bags, use loose leaf tea in a pot.

Time4T_Accounts

I don’t know what it’s like in the various places that you folk live, but around here the checkout queues at Aldi and Lidl are pretty much always horrendous. I tend to value my time (and my mood) more highly than the undoubted financial savings!

chile_paul2

zagfles said:

Sea_Shell said:

Do 'high grocery spenders' routinely have puddings/deserts?   We don't.

What about portion sizes?  Do you weigh or measure stuff out?   We do.

Maybe that's the difference?

Does money spent = calories consumed?

There's probably a link - rubbish like crisps and chocolate are very expensive for what they are and of course highly calorific.

The other major thing is probably meat, our kids were veggies at uni because they were too tight to buy meat

Also how much cooking from scratch you do, or do you buy ready made pizzas, pies, sauces etc. Plus do you insist on top brands for stuff like coke, cereals etc or have you tried the supermarket's equivalent which is often far cheaper and quite often unnoticably different.

I'm sure there is definitely a link yes, however from our family's perspective:

Puddings - yes for the kids, they get a Mr. Kipling type cake with their packed lunch and then either a yoghurt, mousse similar with tea along with fruit (I'll come back to that!). They also get a snack bar when they get in from school to bridge the gap until tea as they are ravenous when they get back from school. Adults rarely have pud, an occasional yoghurt sometimes. We may have a family pud with sunday lunch.

Portion sizes - we recalibrated portion sizes and weighed things out carefully a few years back as part of a healthy eating drive, have stopped more recently as we felt we had a grip, but by nature I expect this will have crept back up

Home cooking / ready meals - almost all food is home cooked from scratch. Kids have 2 'freezer' meals a week because they are rushing back out of the door on after school activities. Quite a lot of batch cooking in slow cooker.

Fizzy drinks - definitely not, we're blessed that both our kids only want to drink water! Am astounded by the stories of how much people are paying to get hold of this Prime drink 

Cereals - this has been creeping into the family shop as they've got older, but we normally only buy when on offer - and this is something we're keeping an eye on as I am concerned about sugar levels. Adults only have shop brands.

Crisps / chocolate - not an every day occurence, more of an occassional treat, but definitely gets splurged on at Christmas

Fresh fruit - this is probably one for us to look at. DD2 absolutely loves strawberries which cost a fortune out of season and there are other similar examples of where we could substitute for in season fruit which would be cheaper and better for the environment. I'm also concerned about the food waste because it doesn't keep well.

Meat - actively trying to cut down for environmental reasons and we aim to have at least one veggie meal a week. Would like to increase this.

Feels like there needs to be an app/tool that can analyse your grocery spend to see where you are spending money - otherwise I'm going to have to build a new spreadsheet to work out where our grocery spend is going!!

trevjl

Ah loose leaf tea,my childhood !!!! Hope you have one of the great old stainless steel strainers. My 80 year old  Aunt has and I do give her some tongue in cheek lip about it.

Lidl and asda for me as no Aldi within worthwhile range, although one opening soon.

Just the two of us, last year for groceries , include toiletries etc but not dog food worked out £52 a week. No meat for me, do eat fish however which is not cheap, and mainly just once or twice a week for meat for the wife.

Mostly buy Lidl own stuff,but some things you just can't skimp on. Beans just has to be Branston or at a push Heinz and Daddies sauce is a must. Use to say the same for Tomy sauce and salad cream but when lidl own is about 60p and Heinz is £2.60 it's a no no.

Lidl Newgate Veg soup better than Heinz or Batchelors and less than half the price.

Sea_Shell

Steve_PL_too said:

I don’t know what it’s like in the various places that you folk live, but around here the checkout queues at Aldi and Lidl are pretty much always horrendous. I tend to value my time (and my mood) more highly than the undoubted financial savings!

We are blessed with a fairly quiet Aldi, so no problem with queues.

We've got checkout down to a well choreographed art. 😎

Maybe because we have 5 in or around our town!!



Also it's not just food where brands cost more.  Just think of all the toiletries and cleaning products too.

zagfles

Albermarle said:

michaels said:

zagfles said:

Sea_Shell said:

Do 'high grocery spenders' routinely have puddings/deserts?   We don't.

What about portion sizes?  Do you weigh or measure stuff out?   We do.

Maybe that's the difference?

Does money spent = calories consumed?

There's probably a link - rubbish like crisps and chocolate are very expensive for what they are and of course highly calorific.

The other major thing is probably meat, our kids were veggies at uni because they were too tight to buy meat

Also how much cooking from scratch you do, or do you buy ready made pizzas, pies, sauces etc. Plus do you insist on top brands for stuff like coke, cereals etc or have you tried the supermarket's equivalent which is often far cheaper and quite often unnoticably different.

We are also own brand for crisps and avoid soft drinks where possible too currently do 1 x 19p aldi lemonade and 1 x 63p aldi fanta each week plus 4l long life juice - easy to spend 10x this if you insist on branded carbonated drinks.  Also just own label tea bags and no coffee drinkers helps.  We do spend a lot on green veg (broccoli, beans etc) but save by getting basic cheese and mostly eating chicken.  Pizza?  69p Aldi cheese/pepperoni, 1 between 2

A 70p pizza between two. Presume you have no problems with your weight 

Why? Are you jumping to the conclusion that a cheap pizza will be more calorific?

I couldn't find the cheese/pepperoni one, but comparing Aldi and M&S cheese and tomato:

https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-everyday-essentials-cheese-tomato-pizza-300g/4088600158587

https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-cheese-tomato-pizza-514022011?ds_rl=1290893&ds_rl=1291426&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItsWEhsm__AIVwtvtCh3q0goBEAQYAiABEgIrfvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Per 100g:

Aldi: 266kcal 9.1g fat 

M&S: 268kcal, 9.5g fat

So the M&S one is more calorific and higher in fat. It's a myth that cheaper food is always more calorific.

Sorry if I've misunderstood your point.

zagfles

trevjl said:

Ah loose leaf tea,my childhood !!!! Hope you have one of the great old stainless steel strainers. My 80 year old  Aunt has and I do give her some tongue in cheek lip about it.

I do indeed!

Silverbullet036

Just the 2 of us and the budget works out about £30 per week at the supermarket (aldi) , thats just the way it is. Nothing gets thrown out because we eat what we buy and dont buy anything we arent going eat. My wife eats veggies and I dont do lumps of red meat but I will eat fish couple of times per week.

We buy 2 fresh loaves from the bakers though every week and that does my lunches and two evening meals (£2.36) haha

MallyGirl

Sea_Shell said:

Do 'high grocery spenders' routinely have puddings/deserts?   We don't.

What about portion sizes?  Do you weigh or measure stuff out?   We do.

Maybe that's the difference?

Does money spent = calories consumed?

No desserts here apart from own brand Greek yogurt. All rice and pasta is weighed (a hangover from weight watchers).
We don't eat ready meals or pizza and don't drink pop but we do value some brands like Schweppes or Fever Tree for tonic. OH likes Covent Garden soups but a carton does 2 lunches. We do have a big bag of nice crisps on a Saturday or Sunday evening with the G&T.
The rest is fruit (berries on breakfast), meat, fish and seafood, veg, various carbs, milk, a couple of bottles of wine and a few beers/ciders (some 0% alcohol).
We did try Sainsbury's coco pops when daughter was little - truly awful! The box said you could return if unhappy - I don't think the store guy had ever had to deal with a return on the basis of taste before!