shopping hungry and then over buy.

Gods yes. Ultimate tester. Cycling home past the open, heaven-scented chip shop on a cold grocery run is one of the toughest things I’ve ever encountered.

It helps as I say to take as near to exact cash as required for items required. With overall food budget withdrawn in cash at start of week. At least then you have another level of defence against the endless urges to buy and consume.

Around the £35 point, give or take a bit, including cleaning stuff, for 2 adults and a baby, Mon-Fri.
Weekends vary a lot as often away or have friends around, could be £10-£100.
Good choice of butchers around us, lot of bulk cooking (beats having to cook every night), home made cake, neither of us drink, that seems to help keep costs down

100-150 for two greedy/foody adults.

We eat extremely well – all the meat comes from the farm shop and is not cheap.

We don’t even try to scrimp really. So yeah you could do it for less but it wouldn’t be as nice in my opinion. We generally do our own bread and yogurt but that doesn’t save any money either.

Posh eggs aren’t cheap either especially since moving to organic.

I’ve no idea tbh, lots more than I should.

It helps as I say to take as near to exact cash as required for items required. With overall food budget withdrawn in cash at start of week. At least then you have another level of defence against the endless urges to buy and consume.

Is this frugal approach due to financial, health or ethical reasons?

If you don’t mind me asking 🙂

I seem to spend between £80 and £120 a week in the supermarket for just me.

Includes a couple of bottles of wine and household stuff.

I’m probably about the same, more erring towards the 80 mark for food and household stuff though. I guess another £20-30 would include the pub. I eat well and I eat a lot.

Just tallying it up..

Weekdays:
Breakfast- Musli/porridge= £0.30*5 > £1.50/week
Lunch- Salad, leftovers, humus & Pitta= £1.25*5 > £6.25/week
Dinner- Bulk Curry= £10 week
Snacks- nuts/coke/fruit/other= £5
Total weekdays= £22.75
(free milk, coffee/tea & fruit at work)

Weekends:
Breakfast- Eggs, toast, beans or musli = £1.50
Lunch- varies as I’m out lots = £5
Dinner- varies = £5
Total weekends= £11.50

Total spend a week on food= £ 34.25
I think I eat well. I save a lot since turning vegetarian too.

Is this frugal approach due to financial, health or ethical reasons?

If you don’t mind me asking

Not at all. And – all of the above. Overdraft to clear, weight to lose, fitness/health to improve, waste to reduce. Ethically I couldn’t live with myself any longer on a number of fronts/acquired bad-habits. Home-cooking and cycling (and food) are luckily three of my Favourite Things so it’s been a very positive ongoing discovery to change stuff for the better. Not always easy though, but ingenuity is fun too towards the end of a week using leftovers. Plastic overuse/waste is a pet peeve also. If relatively wealthier would probably eat out more but would still shop in the same way for home-cooking for all of the all reasons mentioned.

Posh eggs aren’t cheap either especially since moving to organic.

Try local villages? Found a couple of local hen-keepers/small-holdings where the hens run around in pastures, paddocks and orchards. Never thought to ask if ‘organic’, but – £5 for a tray of 30. Seems a good deal?

PS – used to live next a neighbouring farm that produced ‘posh eggs’ (top prices in the supermarket, named after woodland) – we visited once to get some eggs and was greeted with a featureless green pasture and thousands upon thousands of hens cramming selves into a ‘barn’ that looked like a warehouse. Nothing of interest to hems outside so they of course crammed inside to eat the ‘feed’ instead. Am sticking with friend’s hens. All is not as it seems on the packaging, so be aware what you might be paying through the nose for.

@ Malvern rider – make’s sense then, explains the elements of restraint and creativity that come with the choice then.

I was just trying to get my head around the restraint bit, whilst I don’t love home cooking I do love food. But I’m lucky with the health and fitness bit. We all have our quirks. I run with the adage that being a bit cold and hungry is never a bad thing. Which probably explains why the beans and poached eggs on toast I had with a great big mug of tea, for the princely sum of £3.80 earlier tasted as good as things I’ve paid 10 times the price for. I think the simplest things done well can be as good as some of the finest things done well.

My wife logs everything, so I can tell you we spent £3972.69 on shopping last year. That’ll be sainsburys/waitrose/tesco/ocado deliveries, spot of Aldi, etc

That works out as £331.06 per month (£76.40 a week), for a family of four (12 yo daughter, 10 yo son). Obviously August was less, december was more.

Doesn’t include meals out, and most of the alcohol was bought in france, so is separate. The odd school/work lunch won’t be in there, but mostly it’s sandwiches for all.

Hardly any ready made food, and not that much meat (but when we do, we don’t hold back on quality)

For me, it depends. Depends if I shop in Lidl, Co-op, or Sainsburys. Or Morrisons. They’re all convenient, but Lidl is about £20 per shop cheaper.
Depends if it’s my weekend with the child – he’s a teenager so eats loads.
Depends if I do a full planned shop, or go when I need to.
Never worked it out and never likely to.

I’ve sometimes caught a bit of that Gregg Wally programme and it’s clearly better to plan your weekly shop and go for cheaper brands, sale items etc, but I ain’t that organazized.

Now there is a Lidl where all that stuff used to be. And the corner shop is gone

While I see your point most “local” shops are not open when people are about unfortunately. It seems to be a UK phenomenon of retail where most of the shops close when people are not in work.

While I see your point most “local” shops are not open when people are about unfortunately. It seems to be a UK phenomenon of retail where most of the shops close when people are not in work.

That’s certainly one effect. Also the grand takeover of most small grocery stores by Tesco mean these small shops open til 10pm but are basically mini-supermarkets with no actual loose produce just pre packed low low-choice fruit and veg. And sending your kid to grab a few groceries on his walk home from school/after school may be extremely frowned upon nowadays 🙁

I hope things change in the UK, but it seems we are set on going full-on US-retail-park-wholesale style, or bust? Maybe both?

Actually, the retail trend is the complete opposite

Smaller shops are the growth area in food retail (tesco express, sainsburys local, little waitrose). People are also more willing to shop around on price, or pay for those that differentiate – waitrose, lidl and aldi are doing well

The big 4 are really struggling. Tesco took a MASSIVE property write off when it was clear that the property they were holding was suddenly less valuable as the whole of the retail market had changed

You need to avg it out if you are batch cooking. I have binned the cake in favour of flapjack, just change the recipe or you get bored. Also, home made muesli, again each batch is different.

Tbh i love food so its the last budget to be cut.

Also buy everything in bulk so some weeks are expensive.

Just added up last two months and it’s around 500PM without takeouts or my lunches at work. Family of four with two teenage boys. Used to be more but then Lidl/Aldi arrived and cut the bill by 30% I’d say. I cook from scratch but also buy some pretty pricey meat and fish.

Just popped to Waitrose on the way home to get some Sage, Parsley and Pearl Barley for a mushroom broth for this evening.. a bottle of decent wine and a bottle of vodka (on sale cos it’s xmas deals) so £33 to add to tomorrow’s normal weekly shop at about £40.. so back to my £70-£80 weekly estimate as mentioned.

Smaller shops are the growth area in food retail (tesco express, sainsburys local, little waitrose)

Call me cynical, but it seems these are just the same monopolising chains (‘smaller shops’ here being essentially satellites of same giant supermarkets) yet you pay slightly more per item for less choice, but it’s still the same mass-produced, mass-shipped, plastic-tubbed, super-chilled force-grown produce re-shipped from gigantic warehouses?

So, more (yet shorter) car-journeys, more expensive yet less choice, same plastic-tubbed/wrapped super-chilled force-raised produce? More plastic packaging overall? (as compared to traditional greengrocers and butchers). On the plus-side it may result in a slight reduction in food-waste if people shop more than once a week?

So, more (yet shorter) car-journeys,

You can walk or cycle….

You can walk or cycle….

My ice cream would melt.

My ice cream would melt.

Not in this weather…..

£170 a week for family of four including booze, bog roll, cat food, cleaning stuff, toiletries, work and school lunches.

Shop at Aldi for big shop and top up at Indian shop for bulk curry stuff, corner shop for odd bread and milk, plus a bit of M&S and Tesco if in town.

I don’t buy ready meals, but if I am slobbing out a posh shop pie is nice.

This does not include eating out a few times a month or going to the pub.

£65 per week with Ocado is our target which includes household stuff like big roll, washing powder etc. Excludes beer, but we don’t drink much.

There’s usually a few trips to the local Co Op to restock bread / milk.

The above is for a famil of three.

Family of 4, £100 a week for all food and household. We withdraw cash and put it in a jar. Anything left gets put in a holiday jar, currently have £400 in it.

I hope things change in the UK, but it seems we are set on going full-on US-retail-park-wholesale style, or bust? Maybe both?

As ever it’s quite class based imo. I live in a small market town with very busy butcher, bakers a million coffee shops. So if you have flexible work, or one of the family does or works part time etc it’s all raa raa wonderful. If not it Lidl Sainsbury’s or Waitrose after work.

Around £150 a week for the 2 of us.

As ever it’s quite class based imo. I live in a small market town with very busy butcher, bakers a million coffee shops. So if you have flexible work, or one of the family does or works part time etc it’s all raa raa wonderful. If not it Lidl Sainsbury’s or Waitrose after work.

It’s changed. As a kid only ‘posh’ folks went/go to Waitrose. My grandparents and parents lived on a (massive) council estate. They all used the same greengrocers, butchers and Co-op. They also grew their own fruit and veg in season. In fact mom’s first Saturday job was working in the local fruit and veg shop. Women or kids did the shopping while dad was at work. If both parents worked day shifts (mine both did at times) then after-school regular mini- shops were in order. Or stock up at weekend and store in larder/freezer. Greengrocers would also box up and deliver. I remember seeing hand-written menus : ‘Tues: shepherds pie. Need: 2 carrots, 1 onion, 4 potatoes’. In fact mini-shops were the order of the day. Buy as needed. The definition of ‘fruga’l?, ie not ‘lavish/excessive’?

Surely ‘middle-class’ people also cook/ed at home from scratch, from local producers/grocers? Or did they buy ready-prepared from Waitrose?

Now we all expect not to wash a wonky (but hell of a tasty) veg, opting instead for a regimented spotless (but comparatively tasteless) plastic-wrapped alternative, be they displayed next to giant prints of earthier-looking siblings in wicker baskets. The pale imitations are then slung in a boot to be transported back to houses with fridges and freezers (bigger in size than old-time larder-rooms!) – big enough to store enough packaged food to last a nuclear-winter, until next week.

Not a ‘class’ thing, but a culture thing? We most all of us (in the UK) have friends and family across the ‘class’ spectrums who are wasteful, and/or obese.

Surely ‘frugal’ is an inherently meaningless/confusing term within a flagrantly wasteful and consumer-class/culture?