Weekly Groceries shop

Nothingcompares

I live with my parents. My two brothers used to live with us but they no longer do. Myself, my dad and my brothers eat likes horses. Well, we eat like bears, plenty of fresh meat, veg.

Despite the household declining in size significantly, we still manage to spend ~250 euro on groceries a week. This includes meat, fruit, veg, bread, milk, coffee, some beer, wine, washing up powder, dog food etc. We shop in Dunnes Stores most often.

From this weekly shop we get breakfast, dinners for all of us and lunches for me and my dad. Do we spend too much on our groceries?

Shalla

:eek: Do your brothers still come home to eat? For myself, my partner, two toddlers, and two teenagers (weekend only for the teens) we spend around that every month, with small weekly top-ups for fruit and veg, bread and milk and lunchtime sandwich fillers - say another 250 a month. Including washing powder. We really couldn't afford what you spend. Tesco usually, and fruit and veg, cheese, washing powder, often in Lidl.

The Sweeper

OP, it depends on the sort of food you eat, what you like to indulge in etc. I know people who spend £40 a week on their shopping. Myself and himself have always spent closer to £100. Even here in Australia, we spend around $220 a week in the supermarket between three of us.

It's a lifestyle choice. There is no "too much" to spend on groceries - unless you're throwing out half of what you buy, which is just wasteful. There are two things I'll never scrimp on - central heating and food & drink.

Saying that, I DO have a store cupboard that's stocked as though there's about to be a war. I think if the supermarket closed tomorrow, there'd be easily two to three weeks of eating in dried goods in that cupboard.

Do you do the shopping, cooking and paying?
Or are you looking for grounds to crib about your mother?

CathyMoran

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

OP, it depends on the sort of food you eat, what you like to indulge in etc. I know people who spend £40 a week on their shopping. Myself and himself have always spent closer to £100. Even here in Australia, we spend around $220 a week in the supermarket between three of us.

It's a lifestyle choice. There is no "too much" to spend on groceries - unless you're throwing out half of what you buy, which is just wasteful. There are two things I'll never scrimp on - central heating and food & drink.

Saying that, I DO have a store cupboard that's stocked as though there's about to be a war. I think if the supermarket closed tomorrow, there'd be easily two to three weeks of eating in dried goods in that cupboard.

We spend over €100 per week on food for the two of us - we also have a freezer full of stuff. In Shane's work they say that if there was ever a natural disaster they would come to us as we have so much food stocked up.

I do not think that you spend too much on food.

I am not the worlds best eater, so if I like a food, be it salmon or saerkraut I get it.

I would spend approx that much as well per week. I call it "eating well". Everything is cooked from scratch. Meat is got from the butcher. I do not buy "own label" stuff as most of it is inferior quality. As a result we are a healthy family and my kids are easily the tallest in their classes at school.

Pigletlover

Op, I'd say €250 sounds a bit much for 3 people, but if you're including beer and wine then I'd see see how it could quickly add up.

It's just the two of us and the dog and I spend €130-€160 pw on shopping. We only have one meal a week at home during the week, but on the weekends we'd have 3+. We eat a lot of crisps, chocolate and ice cream though so they add a good few euro to our shopping bill each week

OsciiBoscii

OsciiBoscii wrote: »

I would spend approx that much as well per week. I call it "eating well". Everything is cooked from scratch. Meat is got from the butcher. I do not buy "own label" stuff as most of it is inferior quality. As a result we are a healthy family and my kids are easily the tallest in their classes at school.

Sorry but the premise that your children are taller because you buy better branded processed stuff is really silly!

Most of the tall girls in my primary school, stopped growing in Primary school and are shorter than average now.

Where as the tall family I know keep growing into their 20's thanks to gentics.

Gavin "shels"

My mam spends about €350 a week aswell in the Supermarket, our food bill would include dinner for my mam, dad, myself and my teenager brother, breakfast and then lunchs for me and my brother. My mam shops in Superquinn which I'd say is a bit pricier that most places and we consume alot of fresh meat (well I do:D).

Nothingcompares

Moonbaby wrote: »

Do you do the shopping, cooking and paying?

I do the shopping and the majority of the cooking. I don't pay for any of it. :rolls:

Thanks for the replies so far I'm going to look into the receipts a bit more in detail. I just wonder if we bought more stuff at lidl/aldi etc. could we save money.

old boy

the old girl finds dunnes and superquinn very expensive, fruit, veg, toiletrys, etc lidil and aldi, tesco for the rest, meat from the local butcher, bread and ham from the local shop

gucci

old boy wrote: »

the old girl finds dunnes and superquinn very expensive, fruit, veg, toiletrys, etc lidil and aldi, tesco for the rest, meat from the local butcher, bread and ham from the local shop

This thread is making me hungry and homesick. I miss carrolls ham and fresh batch loaf from me local shop

Moonbaby

Moonbaby wrote: »

Sorry but the premise that your children are taller because you buy better branded processed stuff is really silly!

Most of the tall girls in my primary school, stopped growing in Primary school and are shorter than average now.

Where as the tall family I know keep growing into their 20's thanks to gentics.

I said I cook from scratch ie they eat healthy nourishing meals, not stuff from jars and packets.

Claire121

I said I cook from scratch ie they eat healthy nourishing meals, not stuff from jars and packets.

LOL that isn't the reason your children are tall though! I was very tall when I was younger and I ate a good bit of processed food as well as healthier stuff. It really doesn't mean anything. In my case I just had my growth spurt at a younger age than most and stopped growing at 12.

And you can eat very well for much less than that.

mike65

Buy all you can at Lidl/Aldi, did you know you can buy a 72 pack of weetabix for about 4 euro? Its called Bixies but trust me the contents are Weetabix.

Since I swapped to the Huns, I've cut my shopping budget in half.

Mike.

My spend includes household detergents, newspapers, dogfood, etc etc.

watna

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

There are two things I'll never scrimp on - central heating and food & drink.

My exact philosophy in life. I work hard(ish!) so think that I should eat good quality food and be warm. Having a bad day on the central heating front (they don't have any in NZ because they're CRAZY!!). I'm finding it hard to stay warm and as a consequance and feeling sick and run down and generally in a bad mood and have taken to my bed and electric blanket.

OP, if you can afford what you're spending then I wouldn't worry. There is ways to get your weekly shop down. I've cut down a lot over the last year or two by doing a few things:

1) Buying meat in the butchers and freezing it, or making weekly visits. It's usually better quality (I hate supermarket meat) and they have deals which can work out cheaper. e.g. a lot of butchers do things like 10 chicken fillets for €10 which is a good bit cheaper than the supermarket.

2) Buy things loose e.g. you can get a foam tray wth 6 apples on it wrapped in plastic or buy six loose apples and put them in a bag. The second option will save on money and packaging.

3) We buy our veg in the market. Surprisingly it works out cheaper a lot of the time and again, is better quality. Supermarkets often pick veg and fruit based on their appearance, not on what tastes nice. You can get very tasty veg at the market that maybe just looks a little more rugged! I try buy seasonal local veg if possible but often I'm too lazy to do this!

4) Buy in bulk. I try buy 3kg bags of pasta and the biggest boxes of washing powder etc. Like MAJD and CathyMoran my kitchen is well stocked with dried goods and I buy in bulk where possible.

5) Look out for special offers, but don't get sucked in too easily. I only take the offers up if it was something I'd get anyway. In NZ, they're obsessed with deals and we get magazines from the supermarkets with the deals, that's pretty handy.

6) Planning meals for the week can be helpful in controlling what you buy. This means you're only getting what you really need and any fresh items won't go to waste.

7) Finally, make a list before you go shopping so you're not just flinging stuff in the trolley. I find that in the past, our weekly shops were huge because I was putting in whatever I fancied without thinking about it and also going to the supermarket hungry (always a bad idea!!)

8) Just be sensible about things. I always check the prices on anything before it goes on the trolley and where possible, go with the cheaper option, unless I think it's really dodgy. I'm fairly fussy about what I eat (usually) so don't buy many ready made things - again this saves money.

IronMan

I went into Lidl for the first time two months ago, and have being buying all my fruit and vegetables from there since, far superior quality to Tesco. I also buy all my cleaning products, washing powders, cheese, cured meats, fruit juices, chocolate and pasta from there.

I save a fortune, and find the quality in most cases to be equal to Tesco, with a lot of the time it being superior. You will sometimes find a dud product, e.g. the tinned tomatoes are very poor quality, and the mustard was appalling, but I was pleasently surprised.

I visit my local butcher for my meat, again, as other posters have mentioned, the quality is far superior to the supermarket chains, and is often cheaper. I would never scrimp on meat, and the sight of people buying Tesco value chicken breasts makes my queezy.

I rarely eat fresh fish, but will visit a fishmonger if there is one in the area. Superquinn for fresh bread and smelly French cheese if thats the way the weekend is going.

The Sweeper

Just did our budgets. Weekly grocery spend for myself, himself and our cats: 135 yoyos. That comes to Yoyos 567 a month, plus a E26 bag of Hills catfood each month means we basically spend the guts of 600 euros every month at the supermarket.

That includes everything from food to cat litter to detergent.

siobhan.murphy

I agree with mike,u have to shop around for value,I spent E70 on fruit and veg alone in lidl on saturday and it was half price,but I mostly bought organic,I Have 2 sons that never stop eating fruit,u have to be smart abot ur shopping,go online b4 u shop to see where the deals are.