Weekly spend £££

[MrsCLW1]

Well, today, I've been to home bargains, farmfoods, Aldi and tesco. Think I saved about £15, but I lost petrol driving the length and breadth of town and my time :/
think tesco online for me and I can pop out for bits I now know are cheaper in my own leisure!

 

[strawberryshortcake]

They started doing the "less than 5% fat" mince at aldi now, if anyone is intersted...it's 2.99 for 500gr...it's 3.70 in sainsburys

 

[lizzie_b]

I feed 2 adults on £150 a month, frozen veg instead of fresh (cooked in a steamer rather than boiled) and buying my meat in bulk and portioning up to reduce waste are my saviours xxx

 

[Llamasoks]

We (2 of us) spend £120 a month on groceries, but we did buy a lot in bulk when we moved (big bag of rice from the wholesale shop, pasta, tinned tomatoes, oats etc.) so if the £120 isn't enough we have the basics without needing to top up, it can be done. We also make food lists, I've got pretty much every meal planned between here and April, so we know exactly what we need and we make sure we use the same ingredients in some meals to use anything that might be leftover.

This way we never have to use anything other than fresh, we get our meat from butchers rather than supermarkets, and our veg, brands etc come from Ocado, you'd be amazed what you can do with a budget, right now my friedge is full of coconut water, almond milk, organic jams, peanut butters and we have bottles of Evian so we don't live on a shoestring by any means.

 

[Shygirl84]

There's me, hubby and a toddler (who eats everything!!). We spend around £200 a month, but that also includes nappies, wipes and all our household bits and pieces. I do a bigger shop at the beginning of the month for meat and household things so it's just fresh fruit/veg/milk we need for the rest of the month.

 

[MrsCLW1]

£200 a month?! There's four of us, two adults, a seven year old and almost three year old. My spend is £450 and I struggle to keep it to that!! Now, this is nappies, wet wipes, all household etc included. Plus my boyos lactose free milk which is pricey for the carton you get. But wow.... I plan! I do lists! I do this all wrong, obviously! ?

 

[matt9210]

Came here expecting to see people spend a similar amount to me or more, but it seems I'm the one spending a lot! I've spent £42 this week (and hoping to limit spending to £60 over a 2 week period), and that's me trying to budget!

Do you guys not eat much meat? I eat meat at least once everyday, almost always twice a day.

My budget does include everything, so yoghurts, drinks, spices, tea, sweetener, etc. not just food, not sure if this is included in your weekly spend?

 

[Eloira]

So this is my "shopping habit" XD
I usually spend around £12-20 a week, I'm vegetarian so a lot of Quorn pieces which tend to destroy the budget
I shop in asda and aldi (asda for quorn and frozen veg) aldi for fruit, noodles and sauces ^^.
I'm also very frugal in before I go anywhere I use money supermarket app and make different lists for asda and Tesco (if offers are cheaper), I'm lucky that they're a 5 minute drive from each other! I also never buy fresh veg (apart from cherry tomatoes for omelettes nomnom) because well, I just don't use them fast enough/eat enough (only one person here hehe)

 

[lizzie_b]

My £150 a month includes everything except any takeaways/eating out we do. Every evening meal we eat is meat based and OH takes a chilli (usually Turkey) to work for his lunch. It can be done, you just need to think ahead and shop in the right places

 

[Shygirl84]

We eat meat every day. Money was very tight when I was on maternity leave so had to pull it right back. Was spending around £160 a month. I've recently increased this to £200 a month as I'm working more hours now and we have more of a disposable income. I don't buy loads of 'extras' or 'snack' foods. I will try any 'value range' food once. If we like it we will continue eating it, if we don't we won't buy it again. I buy very few branded foods. I don't buy ready packaged foods/jars at all. We don't throw food away. I watched the bbc programme Thursday night (eat well for less I think it was called), and the family this week threw away what we spend each week. We eat what we buy. For drinks we buy value lemonade (17p) and value squash (42p) or there's water from the tap. I did our 'meat' shop at the beginning of the month and over half of it was yellow sticker. As it goes straight into the freezer it doesn't matter. I did also buy a pork shoulder (it's massive and was on offer) and the 5% mince. I planned our meals based on the meat I had bought and each week buy what we need to make the meals.

Nappies - my son wears Aldi ones during the day, but Pampers at night. I buy very few 'baby/child' foods. I do buy child yoghurts (brand depends on offers) and the small packets of raisins but other than that he eats our food. I stretch our meals by adding veg/lentils. We eat well, lots of fruit (fresh) and veg (mix of fresh and frozen). Pasta and rice is always value (can't tell the difference), meat is never value (can definitely tell the difference). We bulk buy. I buy the half side of salmon when it is half price and fillet it myself (half the price of buying portions) then freeze.

Sorry for going on and on. Money saving is a topic I feel strongly about!

 

[seadie]

I spend easy £100+ per week. There are four adults in my house and my one son works shifts so looks after himself some days so have to buy to suit everybody. This is the norm for me. I tend to shop at Aldi and Lidl but sometimes at morrisons when I need stuff that Aldi dont sell but luckily my daughter works there so have one of her discount cards which does help.

 

[iwillbslim]

My tesco shop bill is anywhere between £80-130 for everything, that's for 2 children (who seem to constantly eat, mostly all the fruit) and 2 adults x

 

[Lauren.B]

Reading everyone's answers I kind of feel like I'm spending way too much money for only 2 people, am I? This month I have roughly spent about £60 per week and that is in Tesco, and the odd top up in Sainsburys at £20-£30 (only because I've been close by) usually stick to just Tesco as when I'm staying at my boyfriends it's Tesco. I try not to buy meat in supermarkets much as my boyfriend is a butcher so I know that if I ask him to bring a specific meat home it will be really good quality and he always picks me a good bit (also if it has fat on he can cut it off for me hehe) I find when I do buy meat in the supermarket it makes it so much more expensive so I guess I'm lucky to get free meat from my boyfriend hehe Though I've heard the first few weeks shopping is usually a tad more expensive as you buy in the staples like herbs and stuff and this is my first month soo I shall see how next months shopping trips go money wise!