Weekly spend on food?

Having brought up five children on a limited amount, I consider myself to be top-notch at food budgeting. All of my food is cooked from scratch, I never buy takeaways, and rarely eat out. As I live alone I eat only when I feel like it, and one meal on most days is usually a bowl of home made veggie soup. Breakfast is usually a big bowl of citrus fruit, and my third meal, if I feel like one, is a lot of vegetables and a small portion of meat or fish.
I don’t know what my weekly spend is, as I stock up when I see a bargain. Huge packs of toilet rolls come from the cash and carry. I don’t spend much money on cleaning materials, as I think that all these fancy chemical cleaners are both bad for you and unnecessary. Our parents managed perfectly well without them. I don’t drink or smoke, and have no pets, but I buy wild bird food, and pears for the blackbirds. I can honestly say that I waste no food at all. I rarely have leftovers, as I shop several times a week for fresh food, as I need it.
I see people wandering around the shops, blithely tossing all kinds of things into the trolley, and I wonder just how much will be wasted. I learned to budget by having to watch every penny when my family needed to be fed, and it has become routine for me. Nowadays, though, if I feel like buying a treat for myself, I can afford to do so.

All I can say is

There's just me and I spend around £40 a week including cat food, cleaning products and wine. Might eat out once a week. I keep a well stocked freezer and there's always something in, and I batch cook.

There are just the two of us. We tend to buy bread and milk as we need them from a local Co-Op and do a big shop at Aldi once a month. Our Aldi shopping rarely comes to more than £60. We have to nip across the road to Sainsbury’s to buy the goat butter that we love. It’s our only extravagance at nearly £2 a packet. We get through 5 packs a month.

Should read "stops " me buying at normal price. Apologies.

I buy double amounts of coffee, loo roll, kitchen roll and other non-perishables when on good offer. I am adding an extra one or so now because of the Brexit forecast but, in general, find that buying larger amounts helps me buying at normal price. Bounce from one special to the next.!

I have always kept weekly accounts under broad headings, but not the item by item day by day accounts I can remember my aunt keeping. I collect the till slips and tally them at the end of the week.

There's two of us, my hubby does the weekly shop in Aldi and spends about £35. He doesn't drink so I buy my own wine, up to £7 a week at most. Buy two newspapers every day. If topping up with loo rolls, cleaning products, can go up to £40pw - and we eat well!

After years of budgeting to feed a family, it's such a treat to be able to buy what we fancy, without worrying too much about the cost.
I still can't resist bargains, though.

It just occurred to me that people might have a different interpretation of wasteful.

I throw very very little food away but sometimes end up with some horrible combinations due to disorganisation.

While on the subject, does anyone keep an account book of your daily spend. My mum used to do it and now I do it. I live on my own, so my spend is mainly on food for the older grandchildren. I pick them up from school, average twice a week and give them tea/dinner. I also spoil my little toddler grkids. I make sure I have some little toy in my bag for them. I know that it will be broken by the next day, but I just love to see the excitement in their little faces, rummaging through my bag, to see what I have got for them.

I went to Waitrose for milk, spinach and beetroot but en route, passed Robert Dyas shop and bought a rotating knife block with 6 knives for £12 in their sale plus 2 cream storage caddies with glass windows £3 each.
Further on I saw a new shop which looked enticing. Very very naice. Bought 6 white linen napkins with fancy edging @ £6 each and 2 huge velvet cushions, 1 swizzle pink and one very pale plum, half price at £15.50 each. I could have spent a lot more but sense told me to get out.
Finally arrived at Waitrose and didn't dawdle in the aisles.
That's my lot till next week.

Looking back, I see someone mentioned minced beef was getting expensive. I bought 500g of organic beef mince last week for £4.50 & I made a large spaghetti Bolognese which fed the 2 of us & our 5 year old grandson the first night & GraffaC & I polished off the rest the following lunchtime so at 90p per person per meal, I'd hardly call it expensive!

I live with my OH and adult son, the latter has autism and is picky about food so there always has to be something alternative in the freezer for when he doesn't enjoy what we do, eg he hates lamb but we love it, so he has a chicken breast instead. I do the bulk of my shopping at Aldi, as I worked out I save over twelve quid by doing this. I only go to Tesco for things I can't get at Aldi. The two bills usually come to around £100 but sometimes more, especially now as I'm so worried about Brexit that I am stocking up on dry and tinned goods. We live 4 miles from town, so petrol has to be taken into account.

I am impressed by how little posters spend on food. I find it difficult to gauge our food spend because there is so much spent on toiletries, kitchen rolls, cleaning etc. For example I spent more than £80 in Tesco today, but only bought 4 food items. I also do a weekly menu list, only buy what is necessary, and mostly cook from scratch, but still manage to spend too much compared to others here I think. Are you telling porkies grans?

I don't think brexit will cause us to starve.

I must say I'm shocked at the number who admit to throwing food out ! I can't imagine doing that on a regular basis - we very, very rarely get rid of anything. I spend about £90 a fortnight on a Tesco delivery & that includes almost everything from bleach to bread. I top up at Lidl for about £15 a fortnight & I buy wine by the case when it's 25% off. I buy cat food from Pets at Home. We grow a lot of fruit & veg. We do spend more if we're entertaining & we eat out several times a month. I cook from scratch.

An average weekly supermarket bill for the two of us is £80-100. We also shop locally during the week for fresh bread, milk and eggs. And we get all or fresh veg at a farmers market. If we're replenishing the freezer or cleaning products the supermarket bill might be £130+. I order dog food online every 3 months. We waste almost nothing as we only buy what we know we will eat. Sometimes we buy large joints of meat or fish and cut them up to have several smaller Sunday roasts. We have just one takeaway a week. When the AC and GC come to stay the shopping bill can top £200! I think it also makes a difference where you live, some areas are more expensive than others.

I really don't have much idea how much we spend weekly but I would say around €100 (no alcohol). Some weeks more and some weeks less. We also use about 5 different supermarkets (but not every week) according to what we want or what's on special that week. Our cat is very fussy and wont touch fish so we have to buy her pouches at a French owned supermarket who sell their boxes of pouches in either meat or fish and obviously buy a month's supply at a time or more if it is on special . Cleaning materials are bought several at a time when they are on special, likewise toilet rolls. We also stock up in dog food when it's on special.

I must admit to feeling maybe a wee bit extravagant when I read posts saying they spend £40 to £50 per week for 4 people.

Please don’t stockpile food for ‘Brexit’ it’s not a war situation and if many do this it will be the cause of shortages.

Between £90 and £100 weekly, but that includes everything
Not just food, and also includes 3 meals or more for hungry teenager who descends on us and visitors for tea and cake etc.

Oh yes, included in that is Brexit stocking my freezer.

My food shopping is £70 a week. I am not able to cook anymore so have to buy ready meals for each day. Fruit are the most expensive items.

I shop on line that way you only by what you need.
I have my gd live with us dh and I.
So it’s between 65-70. My gd is 18.

At least £100 for two per week sometimes more - includes dog food, cleaning materials and wine. We rarely eat out or have takeaways, unless on holiday for several weeks a year, but we do entertain quite a bit.
Hope that helps - we try not to waste. I used to grow veg but no one waters them when we're away so I gave up.