Supermarket spending

My spending is likely to go down in the next few weeks due to an influx of wine, spirits ,chocs and biscuits given as Chritmas presents.
We are very hard to buy for as we don't want or need much so everyone plays safe and we welcome it.

It’s impossible to generalise with this. It’s always more economical to cook from scratch but not all of us love cooking !

I spend about £120 on the weekly delivery and then a few other smaller shops during the week £20 average. We don't eat out a lot and I cook from scratch but I buy branded goods usually Sainsbury, Waitrose M & S.

I've been surprised at how much less we spend on food since we stopped working. And it's down to wasting less, and having more time to shop around and cook from scratch, rather than to our budget. Tesco have very kindly sent us "£10 off a £70 shop" for weeks now, and I've sometimes had to add extras just to make the shop up to £70 for the two of us, cleaning stuff and toiletries included. Most of our veg, and a lot of our fruit in season, comes from the allotment now. I'd estimate £20 a week for the bits and pieces we buy elsewhere, including wine. So around £80 a week for two while the vouchers keep coming, and we certainly don't stint ourselves. We do eat out or have a meal deal at least once a week, so that'd be extra.

I'm hopeless and have no idea!
My daughter spends £80 a week max for 3 of them. She's the most canny shopper, just like my late mother. She spends little but they have delicious nutritious meals with often a portion saved for me.

Monica - Regarding pensioner income, it isn't clear, but I assume the income of £29k is for a couple? I can't imagine most single/widowed women have a pension anywhere near that. Most women of our age worked part time or not at all for a long time so don't have the kind of pension many men have. I didn't even get that much when working.

Thank you M0nica for these very interesting stats re pensioner incomes. Ours is round about the average without taking account of the B&B my OH runs which is intermittent, depending on business. You're right though, where there are two people both with good occupational/final salary pensions, it would most likely be in excess of £50k.

I think we could learn lessons from those on the basic plus pension credit.

Having retired just over a year ago, and now on a reduced income, I prepared an annual budget to see whether I could afford to live in the manner to which I had become accustomed! Throughout the year, I have kept a record of all my spending. I have just totalled it up and find that my average spend on food is £75 a week and £50 a month on meals out.

I've swopped to shopping at Aldi and my bills are much less. I got a whole trolley load of food plus some extras (their non-food offers) and paid about £45 I think. It would have been double that in Tesco!

Our average weekly shop is probably £125 for 3 people plus around £60 per fortnight from local top quality butcher. I always buy 3 or 4 savings stamps from 3 supermarkets per week in butcher's savings club, so Christmas is always paid for (still got most of this year's Asda card, so just need to top up), DH eats next to nothing, but drinks far more alcohol than he should, so that's where most of our money goes. If it were just me, I don't eat meat. I have a daily tin of Holsten, soup and bread or an egg or cheese. maybe a ready-meal or two each week. I do eat some form of porridge or cereal/, a lunch sandwich, do spend money on good-quality tea, coffee pods for my Dolce Gusto machine and drink milk. Generally have a daily glass of red wine and lots of fruit. Would estimate my weekly shop would probably be around £50. Considering trying going vegan sometime, but suspect that that would be expensive, so probably won't happen!

About £120 per week for two here too. But we also get an organic vegebox at about £15 and ofyen have to pop to the local Morrisons for the odd thing.

bluebelle
Doubling up by 100% as you have shown when there are two not one is OTT .When one observes the obesity, of concern to the NHS, around us then I am not surprised. We need to eat to live not live to eat.

Have a £29,000 income in retirement. As a single house hold draw £70 cash to spend on housekeeping. Have friends round for food quite a lot. Do make all food from scratch, a whole chicken will make about 8 portions of Chicken Saag, lots to pop away in two portion tubs, take advantage of reductions in Waitrose, Lidl is great for fresh fruit and veg. Do things like Cassoulet, or Cereliac Soup?Buy shampoo and cleaning stuff from Poundland or your local chemists, our does a £1 selection, good quality shampoos and deodorants. Milk is separate from the Milkman, including Jersey Milk. Wherever you go take advantage of reductions, last evening Sainsburys had pints of double cream for 10p, with two lemons this will make 6 lemon possets, to die for, to share with friends. Shop for bargains early evening, then you escape the crush can shop with a clear head. Always buy the real luxury items you and guests will love, no poor fare. People love to come to eat at my house but they bring the booze as I hardly drink, so none of my £70 is alcohol, even boyfriend brings Jamiesons for his nightcap when he frequently stays over, as I do at his, he puts on good food too.

We average £130 per week for two of us, which includes all our food, beer, household cleaning and washing products, plus most toiletries and things like paper for the printer, vitamin pills and socks and underwear. We tend to only drink wine at weekends or when friends visit and buy that at Majestic so it isnt included in the weekly shop. I do usually top up with salad in the local Co-op just because the date life on perishables means they dont last the week, but I rarely spend more than a fiver.

About £85 for two including wine, cleaning stuff, toiletries and a few bits and bobs of general household stuff. Draw out cash of about £70 -£100 a week, put some aside for newspaper bill and window cleaner, GDs' pocket money, and £20 into Christmas saving money. I find I have about £1000 to spend on Christmas by December so don't have to worry about presents etc.

We have a Tesco delivery once a fortnight & the average spend for this during 2017 has been £130, so £65 per week for the 2 of us. The shop includes toiletries & cleaning products, some meat, occasional bottles of wine but little veg as we grow a lot in the garden. We buy a whole lamb occasionally for the freezer And I buy a few favourites from Lidl - their luxury muesli is superb & DH loves their porridge. I cook everything from scratch & am keen on the cheaper cuts such as brisket & breast of lamb as, cooked properly, they can be even tastier than the dearer cuts. I'm not trying to save money but I don't see the necessity to go overboard &, to me, £120 per week seems an awful lot. I do find online shopping does stop unnecessary buying- we don't need lots of biscuits, crisps & chocolates!! - and I like the alerts given when any of my favourites are on special offer. Anyway, I hate crowded supermarkets & I can't imagine why anyone goes there if they don't have to. Apart from anything else, I just love having my shopping carried into the house & put on the kitchen table!

In my experience shopping just for myself is much less than half what I spend on myself and adult DD, which is around £100 pw I think.

May I suggest, Mollie, that you keep an old fashioned housekeeping account for a month or two? Write done what you spend, each time you go shopping, and what you spend it on. I find a notebook or jotter easier than using the computer for this.

I add mine up every Saturday and sometimes add the whole lot together at the end of the month.

This way I can see what our housekeeping money actually is used for, and whether any of the expenditure is unnecessary or unnecessarily large.

I don't really think you can use other peoples' advice here, as it does depend where you shop how much you have to pay. As others say too, we have different habits.

Never having had a large income, I am a mine of (useful? or useless?) information on living on a shoestring, like the fact that there is always more in the container than you think. This applies to EVERYTHING from sugar packets to body shampoo containers, which seem to be designed to be wasteful. By upending ours, we both showered for a week on what was left inside an apparently empty plastic bottle!

Mind if I say that all your answers are fascinating? Its interesting to hear how we all manage and I’m reassured that I’m not too far off the average. We spend about £700 a month in supermarkets and I know where it all goes but I asked the question to gain some sense of scale. Clearly there’s room to improve and as a couple we’re doing that mostly for health reasons. We’ve dropped the crisps, nibbles, biscuits and cakes but upped fruit, veg and chosen organic sometimes so our savings on the rubbish is wiped away with the extra goodies. I use Waitrose and Tesco and compare prices but can see that chasing a bargain could become time consuming. I can’t quite give up pushing a trolley in favour of online shopping yet - my 25 mile round trip to the supermarket is also a chance to have coffee with a chum - but I can see the advantages just yet.

Can’t see !!

Grrr, ignore that last bit. I misread my own post. Idiot woman,!

MaryXYZ please share what you eat (or don’t eat) - do you grow your own veg, keep chickens, or eat with friends and family a lot or do anything to supplement your spend?

My budget was £60 a week for one which seems to be close to average, but as I have a little job I have let it go out of the window. However new year resolution is to cut down and save as the job will not be forever and I will be back to the basic pension which allows few luxuries for a person living alone.

I’m reassured that I’m not too far off the average. We spend about £700 a month

Unless I've missed someone, I don't think anyone has said they spend so much for 2 people. I think you're actually way over the average, mollie.

GrandmaMoira. I always referred to the figures as being for pensioner households, not per person. If you look at the graphs in the government report I referred to, it showed in great detail how these incomes were made up.

I am in my mid-70s, had a professional career, working full time for most of my working life. In my 40s and 50s I put every penny I could spare into my occupational pension and now have a total income close to the overall average wage. Most of my friends have similar backgrounds. We are the fortunate ones that make the average as high as it is.

Partner works ,I get state pension ..also have teenage GD as a dependant..I take £110.00 housekeeping a week, this covers packed lunches , toiletries,cleaning materials and food, I cook from scratch,We eat well, and from that I put money aside for Christmas, outings and a holiday break, and a new baby due in June.. sometimes clothes and a book might fall in the trolley,I like the zapper gizmo when shopping which tells me how much I an spending,I head for the reduced section and freeze I also treat myself to a bottle of wine..meet my lively GN friend * Mollie *..I do do buy own brand and economy brands that are no different and we eat fresh veg..