Couples! How much do you spend on food per month?

LameWolf

I have a budget of £220 per month; the last 13 months' spend is thus:

January 2020	£153.46
February 2020	£141.10
March 2020	£365.43
April 2020	£137.93
May 2020	£210.30
June 2020	£166.14
July 2020	£224.32
August 2020	£149.94
September 2020	£222.97
October 2020	£108.38
November 2020	£198.80
December 2020	£201.15
January 2021	£205.57

March 2020 is hideously over, because we went into the first lockdown and we didn't know what The Rules were going to be, so I stocked up on shelf-stable stuff, in case we both got told to Shield. Over the whole of 2020 we ended up £360 in credit based on £220 per month. This includes all necessary food, cleaning stuff, loo rolls etc, but not luxuries such as alcohol and chocolate.

I should add, we don't buy any meat or fish, and get our cheese and eggs at the farmers market.

Lynsey919

We spend around £200 to £230 on food, alcohol and cleaning items.  We are both vegetarian and cook almost everything from scratch.  We don't spend much on cleaning items as I tend to buy the cheapest items or make my own cleaning solutions.

We eat loads of lentils, beans, chickpeas etc.  We buy them in bulk from asian supermarkets along with spices, big bags of onions, gram flour etc.  We tend to do a big supermarket shop in Sainsburys every 6 weeks and then weekly or fortnightly shops for things like fruit and veg in various supermarkets (Lidl, Morrisons, Iceland) and local markets.  

If something we use regularly, like oat milk, is on offer we will stock up buying maybe 8 or more of it.  We don't actually get through much milk as both like tea and coffee very strong so they last ages.  We never pay the £1.80 odd that lots of supermarkets charge.  Iceland often have it on offer, Lidl sell it cheaper all the time and other supermarkets have offers at various times

maman

Some posters seem to be spending a phenomenal amount each month. I don't have a problem with that as IMO it's up to individuals how they choose to spend their own money. 

I can see that buying treats to compensate for lockdown is understandable. Similarly, some have strong views about eating organic whereas I'm happy with a level lower such as free range. Others have ben forced to use, more expensive, online shopping because of Covid. 

I was just assuming that being an mse thread, people would want to limit their spending although I suppose that 's true of the majority of responses. 🤔 £600-700 a month  for a couple is hardly typical on mse. 

pumpkin89

maman said:

I was just assuming that being an mse thread, people would want to limit their spending although I suppose that 's true of the majority of responses. 🤔 £600-700 a month  for a couple is hardly typical on mse. 

That's a fair comment.  The £700 I mentioned is limited in the sense that I am very careful about tracking special offers and only buying non-perishable products when they're on a good promotion.  If I simply went to the supermarket every week and bought whatever we wanted, it would be more like £1,000.  But I'm not willing to compromise on quality/preference, so I do buy a lot of premium products and expensive brands - when they are discounted.

Indigo_and_Violet

I've just checked and for this month it's £352 on supermarkets, plus £16 on the weekly oddbox (although we skipped one this month) so that's £400 (352+3*16) plus probably £10 per week 'top-ups' in Lidl so £440 to include alcohol and household but not including a weekly takeaway at £30 so gosh - £560! 
We cook almost exclusively from scratch with a mix of meat and veggie so I'm surprised it's that high. That said, particularly at the moment we aren't limiting our food spend (and he's drinking a lot more beer at home) and although I was about to say we normally buy supermarket own brand, I've just looked in the fridge and there's quite a bit of Taste The Difference snuck in this week. I've also been guilty of buying quite a few 'just in case we have to self-isolate' bits to have in the freezer. Since we're moving out in March we'll be running down supplies this month. Fingers crossed for a lower spend in February!

Slinky

Across the last year we spent something between £400-£500 per month for 2 of us plus cat. That includes drink, cleaning products and £3 per week on a Sunday paper. It also includes between £5-£10 a week of items for the food bank.

It would be less if Waitrose stopped sending us money off vouchers which OH goes mad with in the booze aisles. It's not like we drink much, him a couple of beers, me a couple of G&Ts on a Friday and a bottle of wine and couple of spirits between us on Saturday. There's quite a lot of wine in stock. We eat quite a lot of meat and most food is cooked from scratch.

ETA we have quite a lot of food in stock as I stockpiled in case of brexit issues and am still keeping more in hand than I would have previously.

SJAllicat

I’m guesstimating approx £350-400 a month for 2 of us. That includes alcohol, all meals, some meat for our dog, toiletries and cleaning products. The dogs main food is a separate budget. I want to bring this down, attempting this month, but I find we spend more as husband is a ceoliac and he does like his bread, which really can add up and I like a drink with dinner. ( he also runs over 30 miles a week so eats huge portions). I have to remind myself how much we would spend going out for evenings to gigs and meeting my DD in the city etc which we obv currently don’t spend. 

Couldsavemore

Probably averaging around £150 a month for adult and 9 year old. About half of which is fruit.
My budget is £200 but I have a rolling shopping list so list what’s been used out of the cupboard then add anything need for particular meals. I bulk with rice and lentils.
I’d say we have a healthy diet and have little food waste.

dont_use_vistaprint

£200 pcm for 2 adults sounds about right if you eat fairly healthy and cook,  food is very cheap right now in the UK compared to other countries.
When we were a family of 4 with two teenagers around 4 years ago our monthly budget was £300. Obviously luxurys like alcohol and take aways can very easily double this amount , but for basic 3 meals a day plus fruit etc its plenty.
If you can buy large bags of rice, lentils, drums of olive oil, coffee beans by the kg and other long shelf life items from specialist supermarkets or bulk discount shops and shop regularly for reduced fresh items and bread from multiple regular supermarkets you can do it much cheaper than £200. But it means adjusting your shopping behavioour to save £50 a month and it may or not be worth it to you.... unless tou love food shopping and saving money!

MrsStepford

Beak trimming, tail docking, routine antibiotic dosing, feed made from genetically modified ingredients, huge amounts of pesticides, artificial fertilisers and sewage waste.. none of those things are allowed in organic farming. 

Organic is our choice, yes. But it's also a choice when people save up all year, eat yellow stickered products and offers and then go on holiday to Spain, Greece, Turkey etc and get plastered every night. I've been told before that organic food is snobbery - it's not seen that way anywhere else. In USA, they eat more rubbish food than anywhere else, but they also consume more organic food than any other country. Downmarket supermarkets Target and Walmart do organic range. In USA and EU, Alldi and Lidl have own brand organic, too. My uncle lives in France and organic food in Lidl was cheaper than non-organic food in Lidl UK pre.Brexit.. Germany eats the most organic food in Europe and IIRC we're second. During lockdown 1, sales of organic food were up 13%

Free range doesn't mean chickens running around all day. It means access to the outdoors. They may not be in cages, but they're in big barns, without much space. If you search free range hens on YouTube you'll find videos.

We were poor for five years and I developed diabetes because we had to fill up round the edges with bread, rice, noodles,chips, mash, pasta and ate a lot of soya, tellow stickers etc. My husband worked incredibly hard, doing overtime to pay for short courses, part-time courses and even adult education classes. for first aid at work He made himself a more valuable employee, he moved jobs, worked in London for big companies and moved up the ladder. 

If he hadn't done that, we would still be eating that cheap food and living in rented accommodation. So I think we earned the food we have now, many times over. We dn't go on vacation abroad, the car is leased, most of our clothes come from supermarkets and charity shops. Gotta eat, and have no kids to leave anything to.