Tackling the family food budget

Food shopping, it’s a love-hate relationship.

I love food, lots of it but I hate paying for it all. It just seems weekly that our food budget is climbing and climbing. We just spend too much money on food on a monthly basis.

There is no defence for it, no excuses, no good reasons for it.

Just plain and simple, we overspend.

So for a family of 4, we do 1 shop a week which is delivered by Tesco. This shop price can vary from £45-£100 each week. This will include our cleaning products and toiletries however it is still far too much. On top of that, I then get meat deliveries from Musclefood or head to Costco and then there are the top-up shops too. A trip for a loaf of bread and milk turns into 3 bags of shopping…

By my calculations, I suspect we spend anywhere between £500 -£650 a month on food. Which is just far too much, especially when we still have takeaways and treats.

With our budget getting squeezed more and more I am now looking at ways to reduce our outgoings. It is now time for a change, we are going to tackle the food spend and share it as we go.

Here are the starting steps we are going to take:

• Look at what we already have in the house – I’m sure I am not the only guilty one when it comes to this, I always pick up things that I think I need then get home and realise we already have it…
• Meal plan – By planning what we are going to be eating that week we should reduce our outgoings and waste!
• Switch brands we use – Some things I know I am a food snob, I like Coca Cola Zero, for example, the replacements are just not the same. If it is a week I need to top up on household essentials and the budget is a little tighter, I will be giving up my favourites or brand switching for cheaper alternatives.

I don’t think there is really any reason we couldn’t cut our food budget by £200-£300 a month in the long run, we just need to be a bit more aware of our bad spending habits. If we could do this then we could tackle a few other debts with the money that we are not spending!