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

I think we average around £250 a month for 2 of us, for everything, including toiletries.

That’s a combination of butchers, Waitrose & Aldi.

We could chop that down probably another 30% if we solely shopped at Aldi – but it’s not easy at they don’t do a lot of stuff & some things are terrible in there.

Work lunches are “saving” you a bunch already then. That’s good.

Hope those chicken breasts are good and big for £2.90 each. Can you split them for two? Eating masses of animal protein for bulk is expensive. Rice, potatos and lentils are very cheap!

Nothing wrong with supporting local butcher. I’m moving to a position where we tend to eat just less meat as a household but buy good meat from fabulous local butcher. That direct connection to a locality is worth supporting if possible.

For comparison, we probably spend about £300 a month for 2 adults and a 2 year old. That includes all lunches (unless I’m feeling lazy) and nappies etc for the little one. We saved a bunch when the Aldi opened up near by and generally buy baby wipes etc from there. The nappies are really good too but recent they don’t seem to for as well as she’s a tall and skinny toddler. Their Ella’s pouch copies are pretty good too although we generally only use the apple ones which are really cheap

You know what your veg box and butchers cost, but your OP sounds like you don’t actually know how much you spend in the supermarket or what on. I assume fruit, dairy, bread, starches (potatoes, rice, pasta), breakfast cereal, ‘toiletries’. That shouldn’t be anywhere near £90 every week. Might be worth bulk buying stuff like nappies online. I agree I think your meat sounds expensive too, if it’s not good cuts of red meat; I can see the worth in slow reared free range chicken but mince and sausages should be reasonably cheap. And mince is so easily substituted in most recipes with some extra veg/beans/lentils.

If you are concerned about the cost, I agree with the advice to write a list for meals for 5-7 days and only buy those items. It might mean waiting for the veg box to see what turns up and deciding on meals from that, or getting rid of the veg box for a while and using a local market or the veg aisle in Aldi/Lidl first and working out meals from what’s on offer.

And mince is so easily substituted in most recipes with some extra veg/beans/lentils

What’s wrong with some of you people !

Only one recommendation for buying reduced items…We live pretty much exclusively off reduced stuff from Tesco and the local Co-op, if the meat or fish is cheap enough buy it and bung it in the freezer. I don’t know for sure but I’d be surprised if we spend more than £15-£20 pp, pw.

We are a family of three and our weekly shop is almost exactly £70.00 which includes all food and groceries except milk, which a chap leaves on our doorstep every morning for another £8.60 a week. We also don’t waste time and spend petrol money going to the supermarket because we get a weekly delivery from Ocado, for which we pay a charge of £1.30. Mrs Gti fills the online order, more or less the same as the previous week but looking out for deals and offers, like there’s always a bottle of decent wine half price.

The best thing about getting the food delivered, apart from the ease and time saving, is that you don’t walk around picking up all the 2 for 1 offers that you don’t need then throwing stuff away. By Monday evening our fridge is empty, everything having been eaten.

£60 per week for 2 well fed adults here, that includes toiletries, 5 work day lunches, cleaning products, etc. No beer or wine, that’s bought separate but we almost never drink at home anyway. Aldi and meal plans are where it’s at for us.

We eat a lot of salad and the week day lunches are planned and made for the week on a Sunday. I’m not sure a meat of veg box would work for us as it’d have things in it that either we don’t want or we’d use but have to supplement with more expensive stuff.

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

+1.
The tastiest meat ain’t the breasts or legs anyway. Boil up the carcass for a tasty stock or soup.

I reckon I spend about £80 a week on average for 2 adults and a 5 yearold. That includes 2 bottles of wine which is £12-14. All done in tesco because lifes too short to spend shopping around imo.

Get down to Aldi or Lidl and let us know how it goes OP.

My experience is paying about 40% less for better quality produce.

Overall we probably spend £70pw to feed four (two small kids) including meat, toiletries etc.

I would say that you are buying too much meat

cut down on meat and increase veg and you’ll be happier and healthier

yunki – Member

I would say that you are buying too much meat

cut down on meat and increase veg and you’ll be happier and healthier

You can have meals without meat ?

£247 a month for two adults and a 10 year. Mainly do my main food shop at Aldi but top up more locally at various others. I use a shopping list and just take enough cash, which has helped even more as avoids impulse buying.

Lot’s of good posts above – here’s what we do to save money on food:

1. Bulk out existing meals with veg and or Quorn. So spag bol has loads of celery. mushroom and carrot in and gets cooked a bit longer for the meat flavour to work through (Italians would be horrified at this bastardised version of their dish though).

2. Switch meat where possible. Swapping lean beef mince for British Rose Veal saves around 1/3 and despite being Veal is actually doing our farmers a favour – british veal isn’t crated and creates a market for animals that would otherwise be killed at birth. Farmers hate doing this, the animal gets to live in humane conditions (albeit only for 6-12 months) and it’s cheaper overall. Win Win. Note – it’s still only British Veal that doesn’t get crated – Europeans seem to enjoy completely avoidable Animal Cruelty.

3. Use pulses and beans where possible – throwing a few cans of Flageolet beans or chick peas into a Chilli can triple the quantity of food for very little incremental cost. It also reduces meat intake per meal and saves money. Again – Win win.

4. Get a small fridge and use the freezer. Our food waste reduced significantly when we moved house to a smaller kitchen – the fact we can store less means we buy less and have less food waste. Fridge surprise is a good way of emptying the fridge before the next shop arrives and the freezer is great for storing the “bulked up” portions of dishes for us to eat later.

Your local butcher prices for meat are quite expensive, you can get 10 chicken breasts for less than £15 and 2kg of 5% mince for similar from aldi, for two of us plus our 18 month old including nappies, and all domestic stuff we spend less than £400 a month.

I do not know why anyone would voluntarily eat mince.

All done in tesco because lifes too short to spend shopping around imo.

Agreed. But swap Tesco for Aldi and you don’t shop around but do save around 1/3.

If my better half does the shopping, stuff (often) just goes into the bag – I find it pays to have a quick scan of the £/unit – sometimes larger units cost “less”.

Also I notice stuff like Flash spray bleach goes on offer, say once a month, so we buy enough to last at a price that similar to the cheaper stuff (in this case Flash works better than own brand IMHO).

The Aldi in Wyhtnenshawe, Manchester was repeatedly cack. The veg decomposed while you looked at it. The Lidl in Stafford is pretty good for fresh stuff.

Something that surprised me was that a lot of the Lidl stuff is UK grown and there’s quite a lot packaged stuff has “Fair Trade”, “MSC” & such like certification.

Meat is expensive – reducing the amount we eat has reduced the bill and having bacon sandwich less frequently makes them taste even better.

We try purchase mainly UK produced stuff (with red tractors and the like) and “Fair Trade” bollox stuff as we hope it reduces food miles, makes at least a effort to supporting low pay workers & producers, supports produces that dont knacker the land and sea. It costs more but we just stick to the basics.

Better than being a plastic patriot, too. 😀

10 chicken breasts for £29!! Change to chicken thighs, they are far tastier and a fraction of the price at approx £3 for 8 thighs, (24 thighs would be equivalent to 10 breasts), and shop in Lidl.

We are a family of 4 and spend about £400 per month all in.

£60 per week for 2 well fed adults here, that includes toiletries, 5 work day lunches, cleaning products, etc. No beer or wine, that’s bought separate but we almost never drink at home anyway. Aldi and meal plans are where it’s at for us.[/I]

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, teas/coffees etc plus toiletries all for less than £4 per day, what year are you living in?

we shop in aldi for most things

the wife works next to the tremendously good lurch monster tilly butcher so our meat comes from there and is noticably better than supermarket tasteless crap.

its usually 45 quid in aldi and a 20 quid pick and mix of meat for all meals for the week.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, teas/coffees etc plus toiletries all for less than £4 per day, what year are you living in?

This one thanks.
Breakfast – Oats bought in a huge bag, either as porridge or soaked with a bit of yogurt.
Lunch – I make a batch of something involving mince, cheap veg, brown rice and a couple of cans of tinned tomato. This is done on a Sunday and does me for the week.
Dinner – Salad or frozen veg, bit of fish, maybe some chicken thighs that have been marinating for a few days in whatever I have to hand. Maybe an egg or 2. Sunday I throw a big bit of cheap meat (beef shin or such like) in the slower cooker as treat.
Snacks – Bananas or apples.
Tea/coffee – None, both provided by work, may treat myself to a coffee in town on a Saturday morning.

Toiletries – Big bottles from Aldi. The shampoo, shower gel and moisturiser is as good as the big brands generally.

We’re probably 1 meal short on that as we’ll generally eat out either Saturday lunch or evening. It is possible, it just takes some effort and planning. By doing it on the cheap it leaves me more money for luxuries like bikes, holidays and posh watches 😉

Been meaning to [try Lidl]. Are they really that much cheaper?

Only one way to find out. I guarantee you will be surprised when the nice till lady announces the total! I’ve been shopping in Lidl irregularly for a good few years now, and it still surprizes me! As does Sainsburys when I only buy a few things.

I’ll echo the above at avoiding Tescos. They are the first to shag suppliers. They don’t make billions from fair pricing either.

We’re trying to reduce costs at the moment & I do sometimes wonder where our money goes.
I put £350 into an account for groceries every month & it just seems to disappear; it works out to around £80 a week and that’s for 2 adults & a (almost) one yr old.

I think a fair chunk goes on nappies, wipes & formula milk. The formula milk will be stopping soon for ‘normal’ milk, but not sure if that will be cheaper or not.

I have recently been shopping at Aldi as I can drive past it on the way home via a small diversion; it’s not particularly convenient for my Wife to get to (a longer drive) but we are going to try & do all of our shops from there this month & see how we get on.

We definitely need to be a bit more regimented & plan our meals out a bit better. We used to be quite good at it, but have crept into bad habits.
We also need to stop chucking stuff out. My Wife was always the one who ‘dealt with’ the shopping & most of the cooking, but I think I should get more involved and keep a closer eye on stuff; I assume my Wife has it all under control & then I come home & she tells me that she’s chucked away a pack of chicken breasts because she forgot to put them in the freezer & they’ve gone off – great, that’s a fiver straight in the bin, not to mention a stupid waste of food…..hmph…

With regard to a post above questioning how much really is saved by shopping at Lidl (or Aldi I suppose), my parents switched to Lidl last year and saved easily over £1000 for the year, which is a cheap holiday. We have been Lidlers for years, and the quality is excellent espcially the wine (St Emillion for £10 and Chateau Neuf for £12, our treats) and the best thing is that you’re in and out in 20 mins.

We are on a similar thought process at the movement in the OAB household.

Three hollow-legged, occasionally fussy teenagers, myself and mrs_oab. We do packed lunches for all of us. We eat (too much IMO) meat. We don’t plan meals enough. We struggle for time, and so its easy to stick with what you know.

We do barely waste anything – it gets eaten, frozen, re-used etc. That has been a mission of mine and mrs_oabs this last year.

We buy no alcohol.

Food bills have risen, we haven’t caught up with how much exactly – I am monitoring last month and this month to work out ‘how much’ at the moment. Personally I also want to do a fortnight meal plan, eat veggie lots, and widen what we eat with the seasons and offers.

With regard to a post above questioning how much really is saved by shopping at Lidl (or Aldi I suppose), my parents switched to Lidl last year and saved easily over £1000 for the year, which is a cheap holiday. We have been Lidlers for years, and the quality is excellent espcially the wine (St Emillion for £10 and Chateau Neuf for £12, our treats) and the best thing is that you’re in and out in 20 mins.

Any savings made in LIDL are immediately spunked on Stollen and proper foreign chocolate…

With regard to a post above questioning how much really is saved by shopping at Lidl (or Aldi I suppose), my parents switched to Lidl last year and saved easily over £1000 for the year, which is a cheap holiday.

I’m finding that with Aldi or Lidl some of the savings are not ‘true’. Packs of meat can be smaller, you don’t get the BOGOF and similar offers etc.

Log what meals you’re making to see where it’s all going?

I can’t judge I spend far too much on a single meal – it sounds like you’re not doing too badly if you’re not binning anything.

What about buying in more bulk and freezing single portion meals or sources to make it go further?

£500 per month in my house for 3 of us and a dog.
cook fresh every day.

I like food.

brant – Member

I do not know why anyone would voluntarily eat mince.

Neither do I when everyone is discussing that tasteless lean rubbish!

Seriously though, are you telling me you don’t like burgers, meatballs, kofte, keema, chilli, lasagne, cottage pie et cetera?

Just 2 in our house and spend about £60 – £75 a week, including all household cleaning stuff, toiletries, cats x2 and dog x1 food. Only thing it doesn’t cover is alcohol

Sounds silly and been said before, but write an evening meal plan and stick to it, shop for items you need for the plan, cook in bulk and freeze portions, skip branded items and if you don’t already try Aldi or Lidl.

schrickvr6 – Member

Only one recommendation for buying reduced items…

I even knew which brands of bread would last the longest once they’d hit the 10p bin.

Conversely the last time I cooked lasagne it cost me over £80, though that did include booze for me and the pot.

£40 to £50 a week here, 4 of us. Including nappies which cost fortunes, baby wipes etc. 3 meals a day (packed lunches). Doesn’t include booze, but we really don’t drink much. Maybe the odd thing at the local shop not included above.

There’s the obvious. Meal planning, not wasting food etc.

I don’t tend to avoid brands – I like my Dorset Cereals, but we don’t eat much packaged stuff.

I like Sainsbury’s I know people will say Aldi own brand whatever is nearly as good, just as good or WAAAAAAY better depending on their personal taste, but they’re wrong. It’s all terrible, but Sainsbury’s own-brand stuff is pretty good. So I shop there.

My plan involves a bit of planning and a little bit of ‘playing the system’ – Sainsbury’s now do “click and collect” I like this because I can do my shopping at home, I don’t pick up anything I don’t need that catches my eye and I don’t have to work out how it all goes together afterwards.

My weekly shop is a variation on a theme, but we cover all the food groups and it’s balanced with plenty of fish, vegetables etc.

It usually comes to £60-£70, then I add the code for being a ‘new’ customer and it drops to £40-£50. I just have to create a new account every week.

It is correct that there are no BOGOF offers in Lidl, just consistently low prices, though there are offers in store. if you have time maybe shop for offers at Tesco/Asda and everything else at Lidl/Aldi. Though I suspect wasting time food shopping is not high on anyone’s list.

The outlaws love saving money and know the time that the silly yellow label offers go out in store, and if she’s ahead of time she’ll wait.. She often buys loaves of bread for 20p, large quantities of fish and meat for less than £2 etc. She’ll then go home and separate and freeze portions. She is retired and has time to waste.

Sorry haven’t read the whole thread but…

1. Lots of people (not saying you) fill their trolleys with processed & convenience foods that tend to rack the prices up. Step away from the Monster Munch multipack.

2. Bulk cook & freeze portions – nothing gets wasted.

3. Aldi for basics & veg (a cauliflower’s a cauliflower, toothpaste’s toothpaste)

4. Asian supermarkets, especially for bulk buys on dry & tinned goods (sacks of rice, 12 tins of chickpeas/toms/etc). You can stock up on months’ worth of non-perishables in a single trip for a fraction of chain supermarket prices.

5. Are you sure that veg box is good value?

Lunch – I make a batch of something involving mince, cheap veg, brown rice and a couple of cans of tinned tomato. This is done on a Sunday and does me for the week.[/I]

If this is what it takes to live on £60 (for two adults) a week, I’ll save money elsewhere…

Many of people I know boast about only spending £70 a week for family with 2 small kids at the supermarket and totally ignore the £10 a day each they spend on lunch and coffee.
People have never paid so little for food as they do now, and many totally undervalue it compared to other ‘essentials’ such as an Iphone, posh car, nice clothes. We like food and therefore spend more on, it’s all about priorities*.
* Of course there are people who don’t have options and struggle to feed there family on little money.