I fear I’m spending far too much on groceries. Does £700 for 2 people sound excessive, excluding work lunches, per month, sound excessive?
1 Like
Yeah I think you might be right about the groceries. Not sure about making working lunches, by time you’ve bought the ingredients and kept something fresh in rotation, I’m not sure you save that much.
Also if you’d asked me this question yesterday, I would have said we spent about 500 a month. But I bothered it add it up, along with trips to the corner shop etc - and was a lot more than I realised.
We are a family of 3, 2 adults, 1 toddler and we spend about £60-70 a week.
£700 is more than my mortgage so I personally would say a little excessive.
1 Like
£700 a month for 2 people is definitely excessive. We budget £100 a week and usually end up with some left over which we put towards our monthly “eat out”.
Of course, there are loads of different factors that can make a huge difference, like:
- Where you are in the country
- Where you shop
- Whether you buy all big name brands or own brands
- Whether you buy all fresh and make your own meals, or buy ready made/“throw in the oven” foods
1 Like
I was about to say the same thing 
I used to take pot noodles, soup, sandwiches etc, but have recently started doing a meal prep for the week. Not only is it much cheaper and offers way more varieties, but it’s healthier and far more satisfying which has surprisingly stopped me going to the vending machine for an afternoon snack.
They’re surprisingly not a lot of effort to make either.
2 Likes
What do people make for lunches for work? I’m useless at it and food tends to go off.
For 2 of us food alcohol cleaning products etc etc the odd lunch out we easy hit £700 month everything just keeps going up in price
1 Like
Thanks.
Do people like bulk cook start of the week and then fridge it and lasts til Friday?
I find that most recipes serve 4 people, so I divide it into 4 portions, and that certainly lasts 4 days. Make it on Sunday and store it in the fridge.
If you need 5 days worth it’s simple to do the math to scale up the ingredients
1 Like
On average £162.93 a month.
That’s my half of two and covers all breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Not including eating out.
Work lunches are always just dinner from the night before in a Tupperware box.
But it will also include non-food as it’s just what I spend in supermarkets so the odd bottle of wine and some toiletries are included too.
3 Likes
Fair enough. I should probably try and reduce it - it doesn’t help that my only supermarket is Waitrose and it’s London.
I’m surprised though how little people here are spending. I feel maybe people are under exaggerating.
As for home made lunches, I think it’s a false economy unless you are very strict and organised.
It really depends, what you include into Groceries category 
My groceries usually do not go above £200 /month
The rest is
I’m impressed you’re donating nearly as much as you’re spending on food! You’re a better person than I am.
1 Like
Wow, do we live in the same country? Only £42 for utilities? £12 across 12 transactions for cafes? That would only get me 2 lattes 
1 Like
1 adult, feeding between 0 and 3 older teenagers at various points of the week and I spend about £600 a month at Tesco. Lunch for me is usually sandwich, crisps, fruit etc. all from home and definitely cheaper than a meal deal.
3 Likes
Pretty much what we spend too, and excludes eating out.
Utilities only a chip in towards household expenses (renting a room).
Coffee at work, £1 per shot of expresso
Drinking includes pubs and bigger top ups at supermarkets 
I spend about £100 a week on food shopping and make my own lunch to take in.
Lunch is almost always a salad at the moment. Buy a load of chicken b-ests at the begining of the week cook them in the air fryer and shred them up. Then add them to the salad I chop up fresh each morning. My lunches cost me about £15, for the week.
The biggest cost for me is usually wine or craft beers…
2 Likes