How to reduce Food Bill?

[Jellycat]

Things this month onwards until dh has a new job are going to be very tight
Already looked at reducing:
Gas/elec bill
Tv/broadband/phone
The only other area we can make any savings is our food bill

Food/ toiletries/ nappies/ wipes/ baby food
I spend about at the moment without budgeting about £100 per week

Dh thinks we should be able to spend £200 max a month. So question is how much do you spend on the above, how can I reduce my costs?

Eg looked at Changing toilet roll to 9 rolls for £2.50, planning on value labels vs brand, plan meals for week, smaller meals in evening like beans on toast.

Should I do lots of small shops or one large monthly? More frozen vs fresh for meat and veg?

Any insight on what you do to budget foodwise/toiletries would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

 

[summer rain]

Hi

with a family of three you should definitely be able to get all the food for £200 a month; ours is around £300 a month for a family of 6 and thats for all supermarket purchases, including nappies, toiletries, cleaning products etc. We shop from Ocado which is stereotyped as being expensive but actually its not and it has decent offers on stuff you actually need as opposed to offers on frivilous products you wouldn't buy if not on offer. I do one large shop from there at the same time every month; that is around £240. We do buy a lot of frozen stuff, especially veg and we buy the large packs of toilet rolls etc. We have got 24 packs of toilet rolls from other places for about £3 but its a false economy as the paper is extremely thin and you get less than half on the roll as the 9 packs from ocado. I also buy a lot of from scratch ingredients, tinned tomatoes, tinned chickpeas, flour and other stuff for baking; and I try to avoid processed ready made stuff. The waitrose baked beans are much nicer than heinz but a fair bit cheaper. The other £60 we do small top up shops for perishable items such as salad, fruit, pitta breads (we get 5 packs for £1 from a turkish shop locally), milk and eggs. We do eat meat but since its so pricey and there are other decent sources of protein that are much cheaper; we spend only around £20 on meat every few months. I go to the butcher, buy 1kg of each of beef or lamb mince, chopped chicken breast, lamb chopped on the bone and beef steaks and then split them up into several bags of each thing when we get home and freeze it. I use the thick freezer bags, i.e. ziploc and the meat stays fresh for up to 3 months, though I do prefer to use it within a month or so xx

 

[Laucu]

Hey there, I am in a similar situation, I have just accepted a new job which on the plus side means I will escape the current hellhole, but on the bad side means we will be about £150 down every month

I think the key is planning - it is very boring and the last thing you feel like doing on an evening/weekend, but if you know what you will be eating for the week, you know exactly what you'll need to buy and will only buy those things. Go into the supermarket armed with a list and try to resist anything that isn't on it!!

We tend to get most things from Lidl these days - it is very cheap for meat, fruit and veg. I try not to buy anything 'special' for Emma - nothing specifically for babies/kids and nothing ready-made as it is always more expensive.

I bought cloth nappies and wipes when I was flush last year so luckily don't have that expense - although we do use sposies at night. (Lidl own make of course!).

 

[moomin_troll]

we used to try and live on £200 a month for food but we still needed to top that up each week with things like milk, bread. it can be done but its not easy.

shop every week instead of once a month, make a food plan every week and only buy the foods u need that week, aswel as nappies and wipes ect

 

[Mrs-C]

Go to Tesco on a Monday - they reduce all the fresh meat. I got loads this week, about 75% off. It's on its sell buy so I just put it straight in the feezer. Saved a fortune!

 

[honeybee2]

between two of us we spend about £200 a month on shopping.

We do two big shops a month for about £50 a time and then another £100 on extras we need such as milk, bread and if we run out of certain stuff thats expensive such a toilet roll, washing powder, shampoo & conditioner etc

My OH is actually better at shopping than me!

We never buy frozen stuff in a supermarket- we always rely on farmfoods as we save an absolute fortune!

I do spend about £15 a week extra now because of OH's pack lunch box and he eats so much in it.

I always spend the majority of money on fridge and cupboard stuff anf my OH is good at freezer stuff.

Always look out for deals. The most expensive brand stuff is eye level on a shelf, look up and down for cheaper options. Dont just buy the same stuff every week because chances are you still have half of what you bought last week still in the freezer and before you know it, you have 10 bags of chips. Plus it keeps dinner time interesting with different options.

Buy frozen fish and meat instead of fresh (unless its cheap). Fill up the cupboard with cheap tins of veg (I buy tomatoes and carrots religiously- but thats maily because Im on a diet and I eat them when I'm peckish).

 

[clairealfie]

Defnately plan all your meals before you go and stick to the list! I spend waaaay less the weeks I can be bothered to do this. Make stuff from scratch and you don't need meat everyday, there's loads of good veggie recipes using lentils or pasta etc. Oh and don't go mad on crisps, cakes and pop it's bad for you and bloody expensive!

 

[Jellycat]

Thanks for the ideas, with frozen fish and meat do you need to defrost overnight or can you cook straight from frozen?

 

[Boony]

I spend £300 a month for 4 of us.

Get a tesco clubcard you can get really good deals. Also at the minute tesco are doing 15p off per litre of petrol if you buy specific things on your food shop!

Check that the tesco own brand does work out cheaper than the named brand. I went shopping the other day with a calculator lol and i worked out that pampers were 6p cheaper per nappy than the tesco own brand!

I also shop monthly so i can buy things in bulk like pasta, toilet rolls, dog food, cat food and it works out much cheaper! Again toilet rolls the past few months andrex has worked out cheaper than tesco!

Tesco do 3 for £10 or 4 for £12 on fresh meat and they have a variety of things too!

 

[Boony]

oh and also sign up to quidco i get some good vouchers/cashback deals off there for normal stores and supermarkets. I've only been on there a month and already made £20! If you PM me your email address i'll invite you to it.

 

[MrsT&Ben]

I was going to say shopping in Lidl saves us a fortune!! But someone beat me to it

I plan our meals for the week and its much easier to only buy what you need when shopping there as they dont tend have all the 'random' things that you look at and think 'mmmmm i'll just have that it wont make much difference'.
We use Lidl own nappies and bulk buy our wipes as it works out cheaper.
Again dont buy any foods that are directed at lo's as they are more expensive and generally you can get them cheaper by just buying 'adult' food.
Try to shop on your own. I notice that is I took OH with me our shopping bill goes up by at least £10 a week because he puts stuff in we don't really need.

Good luck, its hard at first but you get used to it x

 

[farmerswifey]

There are some great tips on here already - but I just wanted to add that supermarket brand wipes are really pretty much the same thing as more expensive ones and they are so cheap. I think Asda wipes are only something like 34p per pack! They dont have the lovely strong baby smell on them like johnsons do - but they clean up kids bottoms just as good! lol xxx

 

[amie-leigh]

i found switching brands saved me a lot
we used asda little angel nappies 2 big packs for £10 lasts just short of 3 weeks for us
asda
we basically went down one brand for everything we buy (expect hp brown sauce that is my expensive item)

 

[Pixoletta]

Not read all the replies but i know that when you buy brand items they are much more expensive so try buying supermarket own brand? make a shopping list and buy just what you need etc..

 

[babyblog]

Hiya, our budget is £240 a month and although it is tight at times, we don't go without our treats. We don't buy alcohol within that budget though, and at times it doesn't always cover nappies.

I always buy tesco value wipes which are 18p for 80(think they may be 36p at the mo tho) and i use them for everything-from my LO to taking my make up off.I would bulk buy the big things each month-loo roll, dishwasher tabs, washing powder etc and although it seems like you are paying more , it will def last longer. I split up the remaining months money into weeks, and always use cash-only take what you know you have for that week and that way you can't spend over.

Some things you can downgrade on-value things such as tinned tomatoes, baby bubble bath is 5p at tesco!, veg etc but other things i would rather pay for as it does taste better i think. Plan your meals to reduce waste and have a soup night once a week which works out really cheap if it's just veg. Add up your food as you go round and try to get the best deal on everything, even if you only save a few pence it all adds up. Good luck

 

[katy1310]

Our income has been reduced by about £600 a month since I stopped work to be a SAHM, so we have really had to cut back.

We used to do our whole food shop in Tesco, but now we go round Aldi, Farmfoods, Home Bargains and Tesco, getting things as cheap as we possibly can! It takes longer, but it's definitely worth it. We get frozen meat and veggies in Farmfoods, sometimes also eggs etc, fresh veg, tins, milk etc from Aldi, cleaning products, toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, washing up liquid, washing liquid, (I get the Astonish 4 in one, which is non bio liquid, softener, easy iron and something else all in one, £1.99 for a big bottle and it saves buying separate softener), some food (teabags, coffee, jars of indian sauces, those pasta and sauce packets etc) from Home Bargains. Anything else comes from Tesco but we keep a look out for offers and like someone else said, make sure that their own stuff IS cheaper before buying it - yesterday we got Huggies wipes on buy one get 2 free, for just over £2.50 whereas Tescos own are 99p each. We usually get our wipes from Home Bargains - they usually have a 2 packs for £1 offer on, and they're absolutely fine. We get our nappies there too - at the moment they're the best value we've found at £7.99 for 72 Huggies.

I make all Sophie's food and a lot of our meals from scratch, sophie mostly gets fruit or cucumber as snacks rather than the proper baby snacks that you can buy. If bread is reduced, we get an extra one to freeze.

I also cook a lot of things in the slow cooker, and bulk things up with veggies and lentils. I make things like chilli, casseroles, mince etc and just put less meat but loads of veggies in, and it goes a long way - I always end up with lots of portions to freeze. Oh and Aldi do big bags of baking potatoes quite cheaply so that's another cheap but healthy dinner.

If we want any snacks, I bake rather than buying things in - 24 fairy cakes are cheap to make and I just keep a bag of Tesco's value flour in the cupboard, a bag of caster sugar, tesco value marg in the fridge and we get a big box of eggs so you can get loads of batches of fairy cakes from things you already have in. Scones are cheap and easy to make as well and I usually have everything in the cupboard for them. You get far more for a lot less money by making these things yourself than buying them from a shop

We always make our menu for the week before we go shopping, and buy accordingly, and we spend much much less this way.

It's amazing how you can manage when you have to - we used to think we didn't have much when I was working, but now even though we have so much less, and we have an extra person to feed and clothe, we are coping just fine!

Sorry I seem to have rambled on a bit - hope some of this is useful to you

 

[ronnie1234]

Gosh I really need to look at cutting back, I spend about £80 a week on shopping, then about another £20 - picking bits up!

 

[MustangGTgirl]

I wish I was better at reducing my food bill! I spend about 700$ a month on food for a family of 4 people, 3 dogs, 3 cats, and a ton of fish.

I used to be an extreme couponer and I had a whole spare bedroom dedicated to my pantry, I had a year supply of almost every type of food you could imagine and I only spent about 100$ a month. It was very time consuming and very hard work though, I gave it up...lol. I still have a 3 years supply of razors and dish soap though.