Author Topic: How much do you spend on food? (for the UK peeps here)  (Read 2415 times)

bownyboy

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How much do you spend on food? (for the UK peeps here)
« on: October 12, 2016, 03:28:35 PM »
There's a canadian thread on how much do you spend on food. I know there are a few UK people on this forum, so this ones for you.

Its the largest outgoing for us after a mortgage. There is just two of us. We both work full time. Both have commutes into / out of London, so time is limited. We tend to cook from scratch most days, but once a week have pizza, and who doesn't occasionally have beans on toast, right?

Even so, despite this, our monthly groceries hover around £350 to £400 a month. I use Money Dashboard (UK MINT sort of equivalent) which auto tags all our grocery spends. Which seems a lot compared to other people here.

I consider ourselves pretty frugal and the only thing I can think of is that this figure includes toiletries, a few bottles of wine, cleaning products etc and not just food.

Still, I feel it could be lower.

So, what do other UK MMM-ers spend?

MostlyBearded

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Re: How much do you spend on food? (for the UK peeps here)
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2016, 06:36:35 AM »
For me, wife and 2 kids aged 7 and 10 we hover around £450 a month. Looking to decrease this and make better habits over the coming year. We don't drink alcohol but we do buy only good quality meat. I think if we can reduce this to about £300 to 350 I would be happy. We have cut huge chunks out of our monthly budget in all other areas so I'm not too concerned if we spend a little extra to have nice food.

RobFIRE

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Re: How much do you spend on food? (for the UK peeps here)
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2016, 10:21:24 AM »
Girlfriend and I. We have an online order of all the staples of rice, cereal, tins, toiletries, household cleaning products etc. every other month, which normally costs around £90. We then do smaller shops every few days, mostly for fresh/perishable items, average something up to £30 a week I would say. So that averages out at £40 a week, £160 a month or so.

We do like to cook together so rarely have ready meals at home. We don’t drink much alcohol at all, do eat meat & fish but generally only small portions (no large joints/steaks etc.) and probably only on around half of days. Don’t buy many ready meals at all and not much prepared vegetables. We’re generally happy with the staples to be supermarket brand and try to buy in bulk/take advantage of offers. I don’t think we’ve had a takeaway at home in the last two years. We’re perfectly happy with our diet, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. I am normally travelling for work a couple of days a week which does reduce costs a bit. We do some shopping at Lidl for specific items, otherwise Sainsburys/Tesco for most stuff. We do go to the pub for a drink or two every week or two and I’m not including that cost here.

Two major factors in cost are meat and alcohol. Another couple might have a large joint once or twice a week plus a glass of wine with dinner most days, that could easily be £20 a week. Though it's obvious if that's the case. Number of takeaways is again obvious. But, within the scope of cooking all meals at home, perhaps the largest factor is how you choose your ingredients. You can make a rice dish at home using supermarket-brand rice bought in bulk for say 20p a person. Or you could make the same meal picking up a single serving rice/spice packet mix on your way home and pay £1.20 or something a person. So there can easily be factor of 5 differences in cost for effectively the very same thing (without going into whether branded rice is worth 50% or 100% higher price than supermarket brand).

So we’re at about £160 a month for a couple, we feel we eat well, we don’t feel like we’re doing anything special or making particular sacrifices to achieve it.

shelivesthedream

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Re: How much do you spend on food? (for the UK peeps here)
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2016, 02:36:47 PM »
£50/week//£200/month not including alcohol or the odd completely gratuitous treat. Meat once a week. Very little prepared food. Tinned beans FTW!

Should have said: two adults, we both work from home a lot so we're eating almost all of our meals here but we're around during the day to do things like soak dried beans or knead bread. Also doesn't include tea or coffee.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2016, 02:39:22 PM by shelivesthedream »

dreams_and_discoveries

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Re: How much do you spend on food? (for the UK peeps here)
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2016, 04:53:26 AM »
I'm at just under £100 a month - single and veggie. It includes the odd bottle of wine, household items, cat food and anything else picked up in the supermarket. I use a mixture of Ocado and Sainsburys.

It helps that I batch cook loads of cheap meals, meals that are really cheap for me are chilli, soup, stews, curry, home-made pizza. Frozen veg is the way forward, it's much cheaper than fresh, easier to prepare, much fresher and doesn't go off. Also dried beans and pules can save you a fortune, big bags are really cheap in ethnic supermarkets, you just need the time to soak and boil them - I do it a lot when I'm working from home.

if you want to reduce your bill, I'd suggest you look at what you are eating each day - if you could post a week's menu people could give you some ideas of some meals that can be tweaked to cost less, and some new ideas to try.

shelivesthedream

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Re: How much do you spend on food? (for the UK peeps here)
« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2016, 05:13:49 AM »
If you want to reduce your bill, I'd suggest you look at what you are eating each day - if you could post a week's menu people could give you some ideas of some meals that can be tweaked to cost less, and some new ideas to try.

+1! Please do! I'd be really interested to try and help.

JrDoctor

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Re: How much do you spend on food? (for the UK peeps here)
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2016, 05:17:55 AM »
monthly I'd say £100-150, including £15.00 I spend like an idiot when I have a meal deal after forgetting to bring lunch in, probably 5 times a month.

FrugalBugle

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Re: How much do you spend on food? (for the UK peeps here)
« Reply #7 on: October 15, 2016, 05:47:10 AM »
I live in London with my wife and we average just under £200 a month for food/household products.
I do almost all of the shopping and am prepared to use more than one supermarket to save a few pennies.

All staples are bought in bulk.
We have fresh fruit everyday for breakfast. Very cheap, filling and healthy if you stick with bananas and then whatever is on offer.
Tesco has 6 apples for 79p, 6 small pears for 79p etc.

I shop 3 or 4 times a week and will buy reduced meat  to be used on that day occasionally too.

We don't mind eating the same thing a couple of days in a row if it needs to be used.

Zero waste helps keep our cost down.


 

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