How much do you spend each week on food?

Sugar snap peas from garden (see I can cook fresh food)

Simmered, steamed or stir-fried GandTea?

I wish I had planted some this year, the beans have been useless. Not one runner bean yet.

Well, this is very reassuring! To answer one or two questions, no we don't snack, the only 'treat' we have food-wise is one choccie biscuit each a day as we're both calorie counting. Just bought a Nutribullet too so I make smoothies and soups from scratch as and when the mood takes me. Seem to be in the majority here with the weekly spend which does include all household cleaning and bathroom products.
Can't think how to cut back without reducing quality of life. Those of you with allotments have the edge I think as fruit and vegetables, of which I do buy quite a lot each week, are plentiful and very, very cheap for you.
What is interesting is how cheap it is to rely on ready meals rather than cooking from scratch. Saw a couple earlier in the supermarket with a trolley full of ready meals - cost 25 pounds at the checkout and they had enough for a week's worth of dinners between the two of them. Add in the rest of their shop and it didn't come to forty pounds in total. Might try it for a week and see how I get on.

Just wondering if a roady would be a bit tough

If I spend £3 on milk next week we could live on what is in the freezer and cupboards.
(probably for a few weeks as some of the veg are ready in the garden now.)

The trouble is, I go to the supermarket and see all the offers - but I do freeze a lot of them.

Could be very tough Jalima, particularly if he had several amplifiers under his arm

Even after several hours of stewing?

I don't eat many ready meals but tried one on DD's recommendation, a chilled king prawn with linguine and fresh veg. Heavenly. The ingredients separately would have cost me so much more, and it wasn't freezable for batch cooking.

That sounds lovely, where was it from mcc?

I am a bit sad, I actually have keeping a spreadsheet of expenses since the beginning of next year so I know what we spend for when we fully retire. Not that it's made me more efficient, I started with NOW TV about 3 months ago to save money on Sky TV but still haven't got round to cancelling Sky.

Anyway I know we spend an average of £120 a week, that includes food for 2 adults, 2 cats 1 dog, as well as toiletries and cleaning stuff plus 1 takeaway and two bottles of wine. I also feed DD and DGS on Wednesdays and anything from 2 to 6 for Sunday roast.

I'm sure I could make savings, I've just got no intention of doing so until I have to.

Just me & 1 cat now, I do Tesco on-line once a month for large/heavy items between £60 & £80 per month. Shop every few days at my local Post Office/General Store for fresh fruit & veg plus top up on a few other items plus bread which comes from local Bakery. I have milk delivered twice a week & sometimes top a few extra bits besides milk. In total I suppose I spend about £70/£80 per week. No opportunity to use other shops as I'm not allowed to drive on Medical grounds (hopefully not a permanent thing). No alcohol as I do not drink but I do smoke about 5 a day (expensive habit!!)

For the two of us it's probably around £80-90 if we add in the wee visits to Waitrose along the road to supplement the normal Asda/Aldi weekly shop. This includes all the household stuff though, not only food. We also eat out at least once a week and have an occasional takeaway.

Ready Meals are really not available here in France/SWitzerland. I do wonder what the proportion of ready meals is for the 'average' couple or family in the UK- where the choice is massive.

I was feeling quite reassuredwhen I read the first few posts as our weekly bills seemed roughly comparable and then the more frugal of you started posting. We get a weekly delivery from Tesco. It costs us £6 a month but to go into main town and main supermarkets would probably cost around £4 return by car. So we spend about £100 with them including cleaning products etc. We usually have to top up locally about £20 -30. This feeds the two of us and includes most of the shopping for DD and two DGCs .

£10-18 a week,depends if I need toiletries etc, just me , no animals and I don't go hungry,I don't buy biscuits etc, going to try using lentils/pulses to bulk up things like spag bol, curries,chillies etc.

My neighbours go on holiday a lot and I have now got them filling their suitcase with the "welcome tray goodies, tea bags, sugar" I keep these for emergencies when I run out. I also like to buy branded foods where possible. Rarely eat cereals too expensive, plus got to use lots of milk up on them !

Just myself and three terriers £70 covers it all food, toiletries, cleaning stuff, bit of make up. I eat exceedingly good stuff but you have to time it so Waitrose is on its second reduction, Sainsburys or Morrisons for staples, get to understand just as a hunter would the rhythms of the hunting field. Cook from scratch meat, fish, buy industrial quantities of fruit invite your friends in to share. Be inventive and flexible if a goats cheese is down to 30p make goats cheese tarts, freeze some of the pastry to make tiny bilberry tarts you have harvested in the woods, that accompany the reduced pot of cream. Use it as an exercise for Master chef training. Iceland is superb for freezer staples.

I am absolutely staggered at the amount of money spent on supermarket shopping seen in the above posts. My son lives with me and I have 2 cats and 6 hens and yesterday I spent just over £54 at the Co-op for us all. And I think I live well. Obviously you live in a completely different financial world to me!

My shop is around 80 -150 but I have my teenage grand daughter live with us too, so our shop is a bit more but of course I don't begrudge paying it she it's well and I cook good healthy food. My main shop is bought on line and I get somethings local.

I love carol's image of the hunter/gatherer prowling the aisles of Waitbury's!
I came back from Waitrose having spent £75 but that included The Economist (£5) for DH and a sneaky little sea salt chocolate bar for me (£1.60) Oh and £4 ish on some flowers.
I will have to go back for more milk midweek which will be £6.60 and sometimes have a Riverford veg box (£13.45) depending on whether I remember to cancel it in time on Sunday night or want enough veg in my fridge to start a soup kitchen
I do self scanning as I shop so that I have a running total and if it is too close to 3 figures, I rein back, or if it is going well I might stock up on dishwasher/laundry tabs etc. This of course is not all food, cleaning materials, loo paper, etc
But I forgot the new oven glove

I've got a scanner on my mobile, you've got me all excited now so I'm going to try it.

Sadly, the cost of my shopping as never been a problem, and I'm now wondering how I would manage on just a state pension.

Why is that sad? Be glad!

Looks like I'm "Mrs Average", because I too spend about £90 -£110 a week in Sainsbury's. I don't buy a lot of meat either, or wine.

Have to say, that Sainsbury's prices have really gone "off the wall" and I see the increase on SO many things each week.

As another poster says, 'food has gone down in price' over the years ( or kept it's price, which amounts to the same thing.)This is just what I had thought ( only I haven't kept a record of prices, unlike her DH.)So, that's something, eh?
Terribull I imagined a big husky roadie/ roady having a meal with you.
DaphneBroon .... A 'little' sea salt choc bar you say ( sure you don't mean a rather large one?)

I also include toiletries/ cleaning products/ socks/book/ childrens gift etc in my weekly shop.

Just wondered how many of you have tried the 'basic' range in supermarkets. Ive tried sainsburys basic peanut butter, muesli, lemonade,tinned tuna and corned beef, tin peaches and crisps and I have to say they are just as good as the branded foods.

Daphne and other ladies, the money that is freed up is there to be used for other joys, cinema, perhaps theatre, Carvela shoes in the sales, month in Oz. Life whether it be eating or experiences can be as rich a tapestry as you can make it, money tight give richness by handfuls of books from the library. How yummy to enjoy the salted caramel chocolate bar. Anyone else fancy a snorkelling cruise as a single all around the Maldives?