Grocery budget for two... now .

My main grocery shop comes to between £80 & £100 a fortnight for two of us and two cats. I expect it will go up, mind you, with the current price rises. Sometimes I do supplement that with a few extra items on the week in between.

I home cook meals, and bread, and don't buy alcohol.

TBH I don't think there's an average only what you can afford and how you like to eat. I'm spending less on food ATM because I have home grown fruit and veg and we don't eat big portions of meat. Everything has gone up in price but I just don't buy as much and I don't waste anything. A large chicken does us for several meals and the stock either goes into soup or something like a risotto, we make our own bread and almost always cook from scratch.

All the meat we consume is Pasture for Life or Organic, bought for animal welfare, and environmental reasons, so that automatically puts the bill up. I also buy organic where possible. Although I do, most years, grow a lot of our veg, this year between the drought and being ill for several months, the veg patch has been a complete failure.

Expenditure also rises and falls with the number of visitors we have. DS, DDiL and 2DGC staying for a week, whack the bills up.

My son (single) is spending £45 a week and he is quite frugal but not a vegetarian. He is tee total

@foxie48 . I agree .I think we could reduce our bill a little but we eat quite a bit of good quality meat or fish which does cost a bit more .Unfortunately we dont have space to grow our vegetables or fruit
Septimia , can you give me an idea of your home cooked meal . It may be me some lower cost ideas . I do have a bread maker but mainly use it for rolls and pizza base as Mr Sandytoes prefers sliced bread .

It goes up every week!
I used to do a small twice weekly local Aldi shop( milk, veg, fish) for about £9 but it is now nearer £12, x2 plus whatever else we might need eg washing tabs.
DH shops for veg and salad, plus other bits, £15-£20 pw.
Fortnightly delivery we try to keep to about £80. Most of that is for DH, bottled fizzy water, mayonnaise, coffee, cereals.
Local butcher delivery about £30 but I manage to eke that out over several weeks by batch cooking, slicing up and freezing roast meat.
I make that nearly £90 pw. Too much.

Sandytoes, we have a variety of meals but not all of them sound very healthy! We do eat quite a bit of fruit at lunchtime.

Main meals include: omelette with mushrooms, onion, broccoli and cheese in it (with bread or salad depending on what we have); sausage toad-in-the-hole with baked beans; salmon with mashed potato and broccoli; curry made with whatever veg we have and one chicken breast; very unhealthy egg and chips (!); cauliflower cheese with beans and perhaps a rasher or two of bacon; cheese and leek flan.

I use a food mixer to make bread, sometimes sourdough, sometimes with yeast.

I think we should all try to eat decent meat. I'm very fortunate as I get a free lamb for the freezer from my local farmer as he grazes some of our land, I get pork and eggs from a friend at cost and my neighbour gives me venison and pheasant but I am really mean with it and use every scrap because I value it. I have a venison casserole for tonight's meal made with shin. TBH most people would chuck it away but cooked long and slow (think Slow cooker or bottom aga oven) and it is delicious. I did a slow cooker breast of lamb with lots of spices recently and it was gorgeous but I scraped the meat so it was like a pulled meat. Cheap as chips! yes it's great to eat the best cuts of meat but I love to make the poor cuts into a good meal.

We spend a huge amount on food I feel. I couldn't put a price on it as I could have done years ago when we were feeding 5 teenagers!!
I am fortunate that recently we have bought what we like much more.

Although vegetarian which is often cheaper, we only buy organic dairy, eggs and root vegetables - can't stretch to everything organic (but would if we could).
We eat a lot of nuts and seeds and make bread from expensive flours. We also use a milkman which we see as a social good and an investment in our local community - but organic milk from the milkman is very pricey.

Another expense is tea and coffee. We are fussy about it I'm afraid - though these days it is often bought for us by our adult children as gifts.

Like M0nica we have been in poor health and our veg plot has suffered.
We use a lot of olive oil and are particular about it, buying only bird-friendly. We use eco cleaning products which also come on our food bill and so does toilet roll etc.

We do also buy alcohol. Don't drink a huge quantity but it all adds up.

A delivery every 10 days or so is always on the £100 mark.

Sorry for typos . Pressed " post " rather than preview .

Your meals sound fine to me Septimia ! . Most people have one or two less healthy meals during the week , including us . I did notice you have a couple of meat free meals which would help to keep the weekly cost down . Mr S does like crisps and snacks which seem to have gone up beyond any normal proportion ! . May be time to cut down on those .

Mainly vegan so our weekly budget is about £30 -£40 a week for 2 of us but that excludes cleaning products. no alcohol.

I suppose we spend around £100 a week. That includes toiletries, cleaning products as well plus the odd bottle of wine, maybe once a month for DH.

As a widow living alone, you always see offers on larger amounts for 2 or 4 people , so it can be harder to shop economically. Some things I will make and freeze some for a different time as I do not always want to eat the same food 2 or 3 days running. I do eat meat and find one of the simplest and warming and quite quick to do is to use pigs kidney , cut into pieces and I slice up an onion and peel some mushrooms and then fry onions is small amount of oil, then add kidney, mushroom and then add some gravy and let it simmer. Boiled potato, some cabbage or cauliflower or whatever veg I have available and it makes a very warming and cheap meal I find that I go out with a shopping list, but that can change depending on what is the best on offer , or alternatively what has gone up so much I am not prepared to pay the price, but definitely I would say I have vegetables with meat rather than the other way round!A favourite veg for me is celery, as I enjoy it raw or cooked and there is very little waste and it adds a good flavour to casserole.

I would find it very difficult to say an amount per week.

If family are coming for a few days then the cost of shopping inevitably rockets. No family this week but dishwasher tablets have boosted the cost.

And, if the wine we like ison offer, I buy lots. Which should lead to a few cheaper weeks but it never seems to.

I actually prefer the cheaper cuts of meat to the more expensive. The only meat I buy is mince, stewing cuts, liver and kidneys. Chicken thighs, not chicken breasts. I have always done this.

For joints, and I am not a big 'lump of meat' person, I like rolled stuffed lambs breast and ham hock, both quite cheap. I also buy game and venison as, when bought from our local farm shop, a pheasant or some pigeon's breast can cost only a couple of £s and be enough to feed two people. I freeze the carcasses and when I have 3 or 4 simmer them for stock and pull the remaining meat off the bones and have enough for another meal.

I am fortunate our income is such that we are not feeling the squeeze as badly as many. I am not wasteful with food, but I can afford not to compromise my animal welfare and natural environment concerns when buying food

Sainsburys delivery every 10 days or so, usually between £100 and £120. Co-op for little things if we run out but that is not often. Now and then a big burst around M&S . Just the two of us

We average out at £60 - £70 a week for everything, less when it's just us, more when the family are here.
I was going to buy a leg of lamb the other weekend when they were all here but backed off in a hurry when I saw the cost - and then felt guilty for not supporting the sheep farmers.

MOinica , We do have cheaper cuts of meat. They can be really tasty when cooked slowly but we do choose higher welfare / organic , which is what pushes up the price . I would probably choose some meat free meals and cut down on the quantity rather than compromise on this although I do appreciate that for some this may not be an option .

Most couples could manage on £50 a week if they tried but you would not be able to buy premium brands or alcohol. If you had a large pet it would be a challenge too.

Yes we have eaten free range, grass fed organic meat for years.

It is more expensive of course, but we do so purely for animal welfare reasons.

However we have cut our consumption because of environmental reasons and eat meat only every 3 rd day now. The other days are fish and veggie.

Our fish is purchased from a local fisherman - we live on the coast, and our veg is from oddbox - saving fruit and veg that would otherwise go to landfill and from a local organic farmers shop.

I am mindful of using everything down to the last bit.

All in Sandytoes our food bill is similar. I also buy good quality meat from a local farm and we eat plenty of fish and fruit and veg. I am not sure egg and chips is that bad, carbohydrates, protein, vitamin C and iron etc!
I do take a shopping list now but that is partly age.

Really appreciate all your comments . I had thought we were spending well above the norm and although we spend more than some it does now seem pretty average .