Can we talk about groceries please

So we are a family of 4, one of us is only a baby, but a baby who will eat me out of house and home if I let her...but I can't seem to get away without spending £95 in the supermarket every week or ten days. And thats including a top up of fruit, veggies, milk or whatever mid-week...

I cook pretty much every night, maybe once every other week we will have a takeaway, we eat meat and fresh veg regularly. My kids love yogurts, I love coffee...

So people...Moms & Dads alike...can we talk about our shopping habits and how much we spend at the supermarket please!!!

Family of five (including breastfed baby)

60 per week

Sainsburys and Aldis, mainly

all homecooked meals, packed lunches and breakfast foods

Typical weeks menus:

Sunday roast chicken, veg, potatoes, apple crumble
Monday- chicken soup with noodles, veg (using leftovers) homemade baguette
Tuesday- lasagna, salad
Wednesday- steamed fish, veg, dessert
Thursday- pasta, salad
Friday- curry with rice
Saturday- homemade pizza

I guess I am a bad shopper...For me I will spend about £100 for 2 weekish...As I shop as soon as DH goes back off shore.  Honestly I decided for me I may hit M&S and buy everything done as one week I did that and it was £25-£30 and that may be cheaper for me.

I know belong to Costco and will pick up kitchen rolls, toilet paper, and anything else I can use and buy in bulk (store it in the loft).

racheee - do you lay out a menu? I also buy my meat at a local butcher as the meat is better and the grocery stores charge a bloody fortune!

Here lately, for the two and a half of us (DSS is only here part time, but has a huge appetite!) we spend about $60 each week, sometimes a bit more depending on how many household goods we have to buy. I cook all of our meals. Typically, we eat things like fried rice, spag bol, chicken fajitas, meatloaf, and roast chicken dinners, plus sandwiches, cereal, snacks, etc. This figure isn't including beer or wine, of course!    We usually shop at Lidl or Aldi and I have been walking up the street to do a bit of shopping and buy the marked down items.

There are 4 of us and I spend between £60-£90/week.  However, this includes healthy packed lunches for the girls and MrRed5. 
The bulk of our groceries come from Sainsburys.  We don't eat that much meat, and I try to stretch what we do eat with beans/lentils/soya mince/quorn.  Frozen meat tends to be cheaper as well.
While I do buy quite a lot of fresh fruit and veg, I do use a lot of frozen veg-mainly broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and brussels. 
While I have gotten out of the homemade bread habit (must start making it again) I make any sweet treats from scratch.  I do miss my kitchen aid!
Both of my girls like yogurt and I try to buy large containers of it-that way I can dish out a  bowl for their breakfast, along with some fruit and nuts.  When they come in from school they will have a small pot of whatever is on offer-usually Mueller little stars yogurt but this week the fruit corners were on offer. 
We aren't big drinkers so our alcohol bill isn't high.  I don't buy pop and we drink water with our meals. 
The two splurges that MrRed5 insists on is good toilet paper and coffee for the tassimo.  Over the weekend we drink a lot of coffee. 

For the two of us, we're spending about £20-25/week.  We do most of our shopping at Morrisons, but go to Iceland once or twice a month.  Tend to eat chicken or mince twice a week and rarely buy pop, sweets, biscuits, or crisps.

I've discovered that the discount shops, like Home Bargains, the 99p shop etc. sell some of the same things you might find at the supermarket for a fraction of the cost.

And there's a veg shop just down the road where I tend to pick up whatever is on offer and create a menu around that.

I used to make my own bread, but it's cheaper to buy it from the shop    Same for biscuits.

I spend about £40 a week for myself, my husband (who has an enormous appetite) and my very picky 2 and a half year old.

I could probably save a bit more if we had a freezer (rental house only came with a large larder fridge). Then I could buy larger packs of meats, make and freeze meals ahead of time, use some frozen foods, etc.

DH eats lunch at work and DS and I will grab lunch in town together once or twice a week, so that's probably another £25 easily.

But on the whole I don't find groceries too terribly expensive here. We easily spent $100/week in the States prior to our move here (and that's not including the number of meals we ate in restaurants/take out. We ate out a LOT more in the States)

Wow. I spend probably $80-$100/wk for just me here in the US. I did find groceries were SO much cheaper over there, though. I'm not a huge planner, but I will plan every other day and leftovers from dinner become lunch the next day. My problem is I can't finish stuff (mainly fresh stuff) before it goes bad. Even salad will go bad after 2 days before I finish it, so I feel like I spend more just to have fresh food. I never go out to eat either. I cook everything here at home (including daily coffee! Not one of the Starbucks folks.)

I have the same problem with salad.  It always went rotten and nasty before the husband and I could finish.  I found that it lasts a lot longer if you buy unwashed greens rather than the pre-washed stuff and then wash what you use as needed. 

I have the same problem with salad.  It always went rotten and nasty before the husband and I could finish.  I found that it lasts a lot longer if you buy unwashed greens rather than the pre-washed stuff and then wash what you use as needed. 

I don't even bother with salad anymore.  I just do lots of steamed veggies in its place now.

I don't even bother with salad anymore.  I just do lots of steamed veggies in its place now.

But, I love salads! Especially now with nice autumn apples and pears and cheddar and stuff. Yum.

When I was in the US as a single person I spent about $40 every 2 weeks on food. Bulk pasta, boneless skinless chicken breasts, beef mince, fresh veg & fruit, even a few roasts now and then. I always cooked every couple of days and ate lunch at work off the leftovers. I found that if I wanted salad it was better to buy actual head of lettuce & the other veggies rather than buy a bag of salad as the veg tended to last longer for me.

Here with DH & a picky 2.5 y/o we spend £35-£50 at ASDA every couple of weeks plus £10/wk topping up milk, bread & veg. So we probably spend £30/wk on food on average for the 3 of us.

But, I love salads! Especially now with nice autumn apples and pears and cheddar and stuff. Yum.

Now you're making me want a salad--autumn style!  Celery would be good in the salad you described, too!

Wow. I spend probably $80-$100/wk for just me here in the US.

Buying/cooking for one person is almost impossible in the U.S.  I'm not sure if it's much easier in the U.K., but here, there's just such an emphasis on bulk- and value- and family-sized everything in the supermarkets, that if you're trying to buy smaller quantities, it gets expensive.  And waste is definitely a problem as well.   I probably spend $50-70/wk at the grocery store, and I still end up getting take away at least once a week because cooking for just one person is so difficult for me.

I am the wrong person to ask about this! The Husband and I just did a shop this afternoon and bought stuff for meals for the next three days, plus packed lunches for the coming week (family of four). Our bill came to £68xx (for just three days???) but I had £18 worth of coupons bringing it down to just over £50. But still, for just three days? It's very frustrating because I know we can do so much better. But I refuse to buy the lowest quality food because we'll pay dearly for that in the long run. And we try not to eat processed foods/ready meals. We mostly do fresh and that includes a lot of fruit and veg.

I really need to sit down and figure out a grocery budget/menu plan because it's killing me spending way too much money on food every 3-4 days like this!