How much do you spend on supermarket shops?

[canadagoose]

I was reading another forum today and one of them was going on about how she feeds her family on £200 a month of food shops. I see these claims quite a lot and I never really see a breakdown of them. I end up spending more like £100 - £120 a week (well, some weeks I don't need to get anything, but most weeks it's like that) and I think the main thing that bumps it up for me is the gluten-free stuff and the juice etc that I probably don't need. And the odd bottle of alcohol (I'm OK to drink again, within reason). My partner tends to buy his own food (partly so he's not restricted to GF stuff), but we often share food deliveries, just to save a bit of money.

How much do you spend, and where do you go? How do you keep your costs down? I often alternate between Tesco, Asda and Morrisons. I used to use Sainsbury's more but you don't really get as much for your money these days. I sometimes go to the big Lidl near me for bits and pieces too, but they don't deliver, so that's a bum.

[Norton Canes]

A pie chart demonstrating the rough proportions of our supermarket visits



Though we don't... heh, we don't just go there for pie!

[Sebastian Cobb]

I probably spend about 30ish. Maybe slightly more if you include pints of milk/bread from the corner shop.

Mostly keep the costs down by cooking things from scratch, mostly (but not entirely) vegetarian these days and cooking soups/dahls for lunch. I tend to cook big vats of curry/chilli etc and portion it up so I don't have to cook every night as well. I've got an electric pressure cooker which is good for Biriyani and that's pretty cheap being mostly rice and frozen veg.

[Fambo Number Mive]

About £100 a week which includes delivery. I use Sainsburys although I did use Tesco for a while (I think Sainsburys have a wider range). I buy too much junk food to be honest and I don't cook, just eat out of tins etc.

Love the pie chart, Norton Canes.

[madhair60]

how much are those big bags of Co-Op own brand Frazzles? whatever they are times five.

[Butchers Blind]

I was reading another forum today

The fuck is this?!!

[Shaxberd]

On average £150-200 a month, although I might go to a restaurant or have takeaway a couple of times a month. I live by myself and mostly shop at Aldi, don't buy meat more than once a week if that, and I'm feeling particularly skint I'll make a massive batch of curry and live off that for a week.

[Goldentony]

we cant be using "shop" or "shops" in this manner, it has to be stopped

[Goldentony]

[griff rhys jones voie] WEEK-LeeeEeEee Shoooooorrrpp

[Buelligan]

Could it be that "feeds the family" are supermarkets shopses are two different things - one not including cleaning materials, washing materials, toiletries, household shit, pet shit, etc?

My actual food bill is minuscule, it's all the other stuff that fucks me.

[Underturd]

Too fucking much.

[markburgle]

I used to budget 2 quid a day for food, but the Cost-Of-Living-Nightmare forced me to go to £20 a week. Spending even more would mean going out on my bike to do more Deliveroo type bollocks so there was more to spend, so is easily resisted (also being out in the evenings is perfect to nip into supermarkets to check for reduced stuff).

Reduced sections aren't what they used to be, but there's also Olio, which is mainly good for free bread and pastries, but occasionally yields some veg (or on one exciting recent occasion, a Crunchie bar).

[Emma Raducanu]

Family of 3 for us anywhere between £50-£100 per week.

I'm not sure why it varies so much. Sometimes we have stuff left from the previous week.  Sometimes I'm cleverer about how I cook. Sometimes we eat no meat.

I honestly feel sorry for people on a lower budget, sometimes my trolley costs £50 before I can identify an actual meal.

[Jockice]

£34.85 in Tesco on Saturday. Not the bigger (although not gigantic) one nearest my place, which rather annoyingly doesn't sell the bags of KP dry roasties and salt and vinegar peanuts I like. So I bought three of each on the way to the pub. And some other stuff.

I'll be popping along to the local one later this week as my fridge's tiny little freezer compartment is defrosting at the moment, so I'm down to my last couple of yoghurts and there's also a decent selection of veggie/vegan stuff in there nowadays

I tend to buy most of my stuff either from Tesco (there are another two smaller ones within easy driving range for me so it depends what I'm after, or the Spar next to Sheffield United's ground, although there's a female cashier there who always gives me the most suspicious look when she serves me. Because of this I have a strange sort of almost crush on her.

There is an Aldi not far away I've used in the past and I keep intending to do a big shop in there (their chocolate mini rolls are rank but everything else is passable) but haven't got round to. I've nothing against Sainsbury's, they're just not as conveniently located for me. I've never set foot in a Lidl or Asda though.

[Proactive]

Average about 110 a week for two of us. Don't go overboard but could certainly do it cheaper if we were with anyone other than Ocado, but fuck it we're pretty frugal otherwise.

[Zero Gravitas]

About £500 a month on average including cat food and nappies, so clearly some scope for dead cats and shitting on the floor to reign things in if needed.

[shoulders]

£25-30 a week for two people.

[thenoise]

Family of 3 for us anywhere between £50-£100 per week.

Same, and same. The variety is mostly from the extras as mentioned by Buelligan - cleaning things, toiletries et al. We save money overall by buying them in bulk, but this obviously rams the price right up when it's restock time.

I like the idea of those packaging free refill shops but they cost a fucking fortune don't they? The aspiration middle classes have discovered the scoop 'n save and turned it into some lifestyle bollocks.

I could spend less, but I try and cook healthy and interesting meals for my family. When I lived alone I could quite happily survive on sandwiches and tap water.

[Gurke and Hare]

£40-70 a week, depending how much stuff I've got in the freezer that I need to use up and whether I go to Tesco, Asda or Lidl. There's no Sainsbo near me, not even a local one, Tesco have got the convenience stores round here well stiched up.

[Jasha]

£250 on a once a month big shop, plus another £50 ish in the week on fresh bits and pieces plus around another £50 ish on looking and smelling reasonablely clean

[Butchers Blind]

Probably around £65 a week which is divided up between Lidl and Sainsbury's. Prefer the fruit and veg at Sainsbury's as the stuff at Lidl always looks like it's on the turn.

[Jerrykeshton]

It varies.  Probably £85 a week, at Aldi and Waitrose for me and my wife.

We tend to buy quite a lot of fruit etc and my wife likes organic apples and things.

[Jasha]

It varies.  Probably £85 a week, at Aldi and Waitrose for me and my wife.

With the Waitrose shopping going in Aldi carrier bags

[curiousoranges]

Right. £45 a week,for two people.

[Jerrykeshton]

With the Waitrose shopping going in Aldi carrier bags

I'm not that fussy myself, but the Waitrose bags are pretty decent, if expensive.  They fold flat really easily

[Sherringford Hovis]

Fuck knows what our weekly shopping bill actually is; I dare say Mrs Micawber Hovis has a spreadsheet somewhere with every last ¼ farthing pivot-tabled hourly. An impartial observer of my own spending habits alone would probably conclude that I'm a victim of financial abuse, but it's fine. OK, I'm not fine: obviously my impaired risk/benefit judgement that accepts less than £15 an hour for punching the laws of thermodynamics right in the nadgers has no overlap whatsoever with the skull-offal necessary to navigate fiscal parsimony. But WE're fine. We're a team – we complete one another.

Almost never do a planned large shopping run, rather always topping up piecemeal every time we leave the house with the odd reticule of pea protein sausages, Aldi/Lidl tasty time-limited treasures, armfuls of reduced-sticker riches or Clubcard mega-multibuy discountery, referring to our Cloud-list and Cloud-calendar like a right couple of nerdy spod-geeks. When BIG SHOPP precog AI parses our loyalty cards for Morrisons, Nectar, Co Op, Tesco, B&Q etc. we'll be Minority Report-ed straight to an Iso-Cube indefinitely because there's no way BIG COPP wouldn't assume a household with our bizarre consumerist digi-footprint isn't up to something nefarious.

The parking ticket redemption for Sainsburys only works if you spend £25, yet here I am with a hand-basket laden with £18-worth of comestibles? Cue snap decision to buy 10 cartons of compostable nappy sacks at 80p a go – that's 3000 dog scoopy-poo bags. Three dogs probably averaging about 9 dumps a day between them mean that's barely a year's supply. Bosh 'em in the porch cupboard, job done. Yet BIG SHOPP data will likely flag us as parents of babies to algorithmically hammer us with inappropriate needs-related marketing. Then BIG SHOPP realises that we've never bought any nappies, formula, baby food etc. and can't find any evidence of us buying pet food either because we get it delivered for cash straight from a neighbour who uses his hefty employee discount at the factory. Thus, the precog red-flag interlock between BIG SHOPP and BIG COPP distils the conclusion we're obviously Josef Fritzl-ing a legion of freak-spawn in our basement. So Iso-Cube it is, feet not touching the ground.

Hardly buying any fruit and veg between August and Christmas due to suffering a debilitating gardening addiction, yet beeping through six 700g of punneted mushrooms when they're reduced to 20p each for a fun evening feeding the dehydrator and cauldronning up a gallon of soup to freeze? BIG SHOPP concludes we're home-brewing 4.2kg of our own botulism rather than purchase their own lines of BabySmooth™ Botox-at-home kits. Because BIG SHOPP inter-relational dynamics with BIG COPP will have been haphazardly plumbed by the same species of bid-low/bill-high Fujitsu foetus that wove such enchantment for the lucky postmasters, our neighbours round at number 72 are Iso-Cubed instead of us here at number 27. Tuttle, Buttle.

All I know is that you've gotta have money to be able to shop frugally. And have storage space for bulk-purchased provisions. And be mildly conscientious rotating even the non-perishables if you're to avoid waste. The Vimes Boots theory of economic unfairness applies to groceries.

One instance.

Pocket food.
Always got some grub on me: bag o' nuts, bag o' dried fruit, couple of cereal bars or similar. Always. Means I don't have to impulse-buy in newsagents, garage forecourts etc. Two or three hours from home? Not had any dinner? Called back to work for open-ended fuckwittery 15 minutes after leaving a punishing 4-hour session flailing in the rain and mud? Don't suffer a £5 chippy snack or meal deal, take the edge off with Lembas bread from pocket, proper supper in my own kitchen later: saves £300+ per year easily.

OLD Pocket Food


Egregious shrinkflation of Tesco's Munch bars (down from 192g 6 in a packet to 5 at 160g, still £1.20, the thieving twunts)
So 1.6kg is now £12
Per 100g – 6.8g protein, that's only 2.2g per 30g bar; need to eat two bars to stave off the pangs.
108.8g of protein for £12
9g protein per £

Fuck you, Mr Tesco. I'm going online to bulk-buy at Approved Food or GymStop.

NEW Pocket Food

36 x Protein flapjacks 1.8kg £15
9g protein per 50g bar; only need one bar to subsume starvery – taste nicer than the Tesco Munch bars. Extra Bonus!
324g protein for £15
21.6g protein per £

I've just cut my pocket food consumption by 10g per instance, doubled my protein intake and halved the total cost, but I've had to spend over ten times the amount to do so. I'm sure I could further improve my efficiency. What I need is some pocket chicken.
31g protein per 100g
900g is £6.29
279g protein
44.4g protein per £
Get on the pocket chicken. Calculation does not include capital outlay for pocket fridge, energy and time expenditure for cooking chicken or costs incurred for extra triple-ply loo roll following inevitable battery failure of pocket fridge.

Same applies to energy drinks
The cost of these fuckers is more than monetary – the real cost of all the UPFs I so dearly love is certainly shortening my already too-long life, but like delicious bastard fags, it's not the best years of our lives they're subtracting, is it? So, meh.

250mg Caffeine – £13.50 for 24 tins! Convenience stores can demand £2+ per can for this stuff. At 56p a tin bulk-bought I can easily afford to be the wise and beautiful Slurm™ fairy: colleagues, friends, Big Issue sellers, random proles shuffling past? "Here mate, you look thirsty! Have one of these!"
Note: a regular 250ml tin of Red Bull only contains 80mg of Caffeine. You can depend on BIG SHOPP frenziedly grassing me right up to BIG DOC to increase my health insurance premiums every time I take a hearty swig of Brawndo™ The Thirst Mutilator _{it's what plants crave!}

In the battle against BIG SHOPP vs. my innate shopping skillz and Mrs Micawber's exemplary Excel, we happily lie to ourselves that we're not all petulantly perpetuating predatory capitalism.

[Jockice]

With the Waitrose shopping going in Aldi carrier bags

I tend to go to Waitrose about three or four times a year. There's a type of wine the mate who feeds my cat when I'm away likes that you can't get anywhere else locally. On one of my recent visits I realised I'd bought a Lidl bag to put the stuff in. I was more puzzled than embarrassed. As I've already stated, I've never been to a Lidl in my life. Haven't a clue how I got hold of it.

[Underturd]

My brain saw "type of wine my cat likes" there.

[WhoMe]

Averaging a 'big' £80-100 shop every two weeks with maybe another £15-20 a week top ups between two of us. Big shop tends to be Lidl or Aldi, both about equidistant walking which is handy. M&S for the odd treat items, the blueberry hot cross buns they've got in now are the nuts.

[SteveDave]

For a family of 3, I usually spend between £65 and £80 a week. The price is pushed up by toilet rolls/washing tablets/fabric softener that seemingly is always needed. My son can't stop shidding.