What is your monthly food bill? Advice on reducing the bill.

Been doing the budget recently and it looks like we spend nearly £500 on food + household items (cleaning products etc).

We spend nearly £100 on meat (nothing fancy, mostly mince and chicken, a dozen sausages and a dozen rashers of bacon).

Fruit and veg is fortnightly delivery at roughly £40 per month.

Meaning we spend around £90 per supermarket shop a week! This seems ridiculous. When I was a student, my weekly food budget was less than £20. In fact, £20 was me splashing out!

Is this normal? We don’t buy lots of booze (4-6 bottles of beer a month), don’t buy tons of branded goods (peanut butter and greek yoghurt the only exceptions) and buy from the supermarket ranges.

How on earth are we spending this much? We do eat a lot of fresh fruit and veg though. Are there cheaper alternatives I’m missing?

Before you say eat less, all of our weights have remained static to within 250g over the last 6 months!

when we planned/did it properly we did a big weekly shop at roughly £60, then a top up of £10-15. This was enough to cook for all of the week, alongside lunches and put some additional portions in the freezer.

So approx. £300 a month. Largely depends on how much you drink though, shops with wine/beer could easily be 20-30 quid more…

Are you including toiletries/cleaning products in that supermarket shop? I find they tend to put the price up a bit.

I was including all household stuff.

Are you throwing much food away?

to be fair £100 of meat is quite a chunk.
Is it all organic/corn fed/whateverelseisfancy?

Where do you shop? I find Tesco a wallet drainer – particularly for anything fresh. Lidl and Aldi supplemented by Waitrose offers us great value. The wife likes to use Tesco as it covers every item, however, she is going to run a test to see if the main shop is cheaper at Waitrose using their brands for the most part. For me I’d rather pay £10 more and not give Tesco any cash.

Also, are you bulk buying? Not easy if storage an issue but that along with batch cooking is a good way to make what you have go farther.

You haven’t said where you do your shopping. Or how many you are feeding.

Switch to the Germans if you haven’t already.

How many are you ? 4 of us (2 growing lads) and we are probably a little more, all in.

Meal plans.

Decide what you’re eating for the next week, shop for those ingredients.

Lidl or Aldi for produce, stop eating stuff that you don’t make yourself 🙂

Meaning we spend around £90 per supermarket shop a week! This seems ridiculous. When I was a student, my weekly food budget was less than £20. In fact, £20 was me splashing out!

So what do you do differently?

Some basic tips, shop seasonally, don’t but the same things all year round.
Plan some meals – the big cost is sometimes doing something new where you buy a load of ingredients etc that sit unopened.
Shop around for some stuff, http://www.wingyip.com/ was great for stocking up on a lot of Asian stuff that was silly prices in normal supermarkets.

Lastly is 500/month excessive for your income and do you enjoy the food you eat?

Eat less meat. Partial shift to becoming vegetarian.

Are you buying drinks ? If so cut down and drink more water.

As above try and throw away nothing – buy what you need and use it. We cut down on a lot if wastage by buying veg as required by weight not in “pre pack”

The Germans. Frozen veg, it’s fresher than the more expensive “fresh” in the veg aisle. Meal plan, buy what you need not what looks nice.

Use local greengrocers – much cheaper than the supermarkets.
Buy things on special offer rather than your usual brand.

If you are feeding 4 i don’t think £500pcm is a hideous overspend at all assuming that includes all lunches too.

It sounds a lot, but averages out to <£1.50 per person per meal.

As already said by others, just make sure you arent buying excess and throwing stuff out.

Use local greengrocers – much cheaper than the supermarkets.

and butchers!
Eat less meat too.

If you want to get serious about cutting food bills, then this is for you!
https://agirlcalledjack.com/

You don’t say how many people or ages, so for all we know you could be either extravagant or already cut to the bone. Plus it depends on your income, but as you are asking about saving cash, I guess you think it is an issue. Anyway …

Plan your meals.

Think how to get more out of what you buy, eg a decent size chicken will do a roast, a pie, and a soup.

Write a list and stick to it. Not on the list then don’t buy it.

Meat is much better value at the butchers than the supermarket as they’ll have cheaper cuts and you buy exactly as much as you want, not pre-packed. Eat less meat is another of course.

Trying to answer questions.

Largely depends on how much you drink though, shops with wine/beer could easily be 20-30 quid more

We don’t drink much. About a beer each per fortnight.

Are you including toiletries/cleaning products in that supermarket shop? I find they tend to put the price up a bit.

No. No toiletries.

Are you throwing much food away?

Very little gets wasted. This was something we addressed a while ago.

to be fair £100 of meat is quite a chunk.
Is it all organic/corn fed/whateverelseisfancy?

It is from a local butcher. Prices per kg don’t seem much different to supermarket. For example, 10 chicken breasts for £29. 4 packs of lean steak mince for £22 (1.6kg).

Also, are you bulk buying?

Not really, unless there’s an offer on at the supermarket. Butcher rounds down to nearest 10 usually. So a little bit of a discount there.

You haven’t said where you do your shopping. Or how many you are feeding.

Combination of Ocado, Waitrose, Tesco.
2 adults, one child under 2.

Meal plans.

Already done.

Lidl or Aldi for produce, stop eating stuff that you don’t make yourself

Been meaning to. Are they really that much cheaper?
Everything is cooked from scratch apart from 2 frozen pizzas a month. That would save £3-6 I think.

Eat less meat. Partial shift to becoming vegetarian.

Roughly 50:50 split already. Not sure where else to get the protein apart from chickpeas and lentils. Nuts are costly.

Some basic tips, shop seasonally, don’t but the same things all year round.
Lastly is 500/month excessive for your income and do you enjoy the food you eat?

Veg box is seasonal. Some fruit we buy out of season. Looking at cutting some of that out now. Any tips for fruit?
We’re not feeling the pinch financially, but it would be good to cut down that amount by £100.
Yes, we really enjoy the food we eat and enjoy cooking it. There’s the occasional ropey meal when my partner tries something a bit slap dash, but nothing inedible! That’s the bit that makes me question whether there are any real savings to be made, but the amount in itself feels like a lot.

We buy no branded food apart from a few items where we’ve comparison shopped using the lower level brands for (groan) A/B testing.

Veg box is expensive…
get it from your greengrocer.
Don’t forget the humble spud!

Go to Aldi or Lidl you won’t believe the savings you’ll be making.
We saved £50 a week when we swapped to them.

£25 per adult per week is more than enough in the North East but I can go cheaper if I wish to say £20.

This includes meat, veg, fish and fruits but exclude alcohols.

The above budget is only possible if you know where to shop.

For a week’s worth of food even I cannot finish them by myself.

Meat = £3.29 (4 pork chops from Tesco)
Fish = £3 something (8 frozen coley from Waitrose)
Bananas = £1.20 (6 big ones from market as fresh as anyway else)
Apples = £1 (bag of 6 to 8 medium size Royal Gala from Market)
Persimmon(Kaki) fruits = £1 (for 5 big ones from Market)
Bread = £1.29 (that Yorkshire seeded bread 800g)
Porridge = £1 per kg wherever you can get them from.
Eggs = say £2 for 12 medium from Co-op.
Veg = £1 for one big Chinese leaf.
Other veg = £1 one big bag of mushroom from market.

You then rotate with other stuff the following week.

That’s just £15.78 per week per person and I still have £9.22 left to spend.

We’re not feeling the pinch financially, but it would be good to cut down that amount by £100.
Yes, we really enjoy the food we eat and enjoy cooking it. There’s the occasional ropey meal when my partner tries something a bit slap dash, but nothing inedible! That’s the bit that makes me question whether there are any real savings to be made, but the amount in itself feels like a lot.

Try shopping around for some stuff, things like farmers markets can be good for veg along with the local stores. However if you like what you eat and it’s good and you enjoy making it then saving could just end up costing you the time you get the enjoyment from…

Worth having a look at your portion sizes, that’s what catches us out. I’ll follow a recipe for 4 but all of a sudden we’ve demolished it between the 2 of us.
You mention you buy chicken from the butchers, the breasts tend to be easily double that of a frozen breast from Tesco, so you could get away with one between two

You mention you buy chicken from the butchers, the breasts tend to be easily double that of a frozen breast from Tesco, so you could get away with one between two

On that go for thighs, much better tasting and cheaper.

I always buy whole chicken.
For me a medium whole chicken will good for 3 meals easy.

£25 per week per person is £400 pm for a family of four so £500 doesnt sound much to eat drink and clean up after yourselves especially given the Waitrose, Veg box, Butcher sourcing.
Imagine you could half it if you really tried but there’d be some very un stw compromises.

Need to stop shopping here sir! 😀

wilburt – Member
£25 per week per person is £400 …

That £25 per person is adult portion i.e. £25 per adult.

For two adults and one child under 2 year old, £250 to £300 per month is more than enough with spare easy.

Actually £200 is achievable with the adult unspent spare budget going to the child.

ALL our shoppng stands us at 4 quid a day each ( 2 adults 2 big kids) dont skimp waste loads especially loo roll.. what do women do with it?? reckon the dog gets more spent on food than me..

For example, 10 chicken breasts for £29. 4 packs of lean steak mince for £22 (1.6kg).

They’re both way over the odds for what I’m used to paying.
£5.50 for 400g of mince?
I’ve just checked and it’s £3.49 for 500g of lean mince at Waitrose, though you shouldn’t be buying that flavourless muck. Fat=flavour!
Chicken breasts are less than £2 each, you’re being had.

If you want to go super cheap, I used to always go shopping in the evening the day before the delivery. Packs of mince for 22p meant my chilli, rice and pitta was less than 50p per portion, and my portions are bigger than yours!

Been meaning to. Are they really that much cheaper?

Yes! 🙂

500 GBP is knack all

try living in Norway – I prolly spend ca 1000 GBP per month for a family of 3

£400 a month for everything for 4 of us on a Tesco account.

We don’t eat meat.
All meals are planned.
We waste virtually nothing.

2 Adults, roughly £200 a month in the supermarket. Maybe an extra £50 or so top ups.

I never bothered but the bridge falling down in Tadcaster meant that the on the way to work Sainsbury shop wasn’t possible.

Started using a local Aldi and got one hell of a shock at how much cheaper my shopping got. Wish I’d done it sooner.

Also use Wilko for toiletries and cleaning stuff as the local Aldi can be limited on stock.

Sounds about right to me. Good food costs.

When you start to make compromises the food quality suffers, particularly meat.

Only tip I’ve got is something’s from aldi are good substitutes, orange juice, peppermint tea, cheese,dishwasher tabs etc. But on the whole we’re not hugely impressed with their stuff.

I would generally never get mince or chicken from a supermarket. I don’t think it ever tastes the same.

Your meat seems expensive to me too. We go to the local farm shop and 2 MASSIVE chicken breasts are £3.70 and 500gr of mince is £4.00. Sausages are on offer and you get 3 packs of 6 for £6. All made on the premises and things like Duck and hoi sin, Venison etc….

I would generally never get mince or chicken from a supermarket. I don’t think it ever tastes the same.

Maybe not. But the 59p aubergines are just fine from Lidls.
Vegetarian meals can save so much. And Lidls haloumi isn’t the best but it’s only £1.10.

70 quid a week for a family of four (two boys 6 and 3), and that includes dairy free milk, yogurt, and puddings for our youngest who has an milk and egg allergy.

plan every meal, make food last longer – a chicken is good for a roast, a pasta dish and sandwiches. use the germans, the value and quality at times is outstanding.

Is that budget including lunches for work and school?

brant – for us, Yes. oldest has school dinners though

Ok, maybe £500 not seeming quite so reasonable for two adults and a tiny person.

As others said, seems you are paying too much for meat.

What about special kids stuff? Huggies, wet wipes, etc? Possibly using a bigger proportion than you may think.