How much is your weekly shop?

[saltireblue]

Norwegian prices for me...
Food for the two of us varies from £600 to £700 a month (based on an exchange rate of NOK12 to £1) and that is just food. Alcohol comes to about another £250, made up of red wine (me) white ('er indoors) and scotch.

 

[woof woof]

Norwegian prices for me...
Food for the two of us varies from £600 to £700 a month (based on an exchange rate of NOK12 to £1) and that is just food. Alcohol comes to about another £250, made up of red wine (me) white ('er indoors) and scotch.

My Gosh

How on earth do people cope?

 

[broc]

My Gosh

How on earth do people cope?

Average wage in Norway in 2Q2022 (according to Google) is around 50,000 - 52,000 NOK a month, which is about £4300 a month. I understand they pay a lot more tax than we do though

 

[woof woof]

Average wage in Norway in 2Q2022 (according to Google) is around 50,000 - 52,000 NOK a month, which is about £4300 a month. I understand they pay a lot more tax than we do though

My Gosh.

I just don't how this is all possible. Oil money keeping it all going? Anyway, these are questions and topics for another thread.

Our bill for our big weekly shop the other day was under £40 although I have spent maybe another £15-20 in bits and pieces elsewhere since. We haven't before of since hit the heights of £90+ I mentioned in the OP so I suppose the weekly bill just depends on rising inflation and what we run out of and need, I suppose.

Just another gripe about ASDA. I think they need to get a grip of their purchasing as things that seem in short supply or indeed have been missing for weeks are available from the local Tesco... so it doesn't seem to be Brexit or C19 or Ukraine related, just ASDA related.

 

[Dave Canon]

I worked with a member of the Norwegian Civil Service some years ago and noticed how well off he appeared. We had visited his home. Later a young member of staff who was half English told us how much his boss earned, and it was less than we expected. Also as suggested above he paid a much higher rate of tax. At first it left us puzzled how he could be financially so well off. He and his wife later visited us in the UK and his wife then mentioned the timber company she ran and owned. The Norwegians told us that there is only middle class in Norway.

Dave

 

[woof woof]

I worked with a member of the Norwegian Civil Service some years ago and noticed how well off he appeared. We had visited his home. Later a young member of staff who was half English told us how much his boss earned, and it was less than we expected. Also as suggested above he paid a much higher rate of tax. At first it left us puzzled how he could be financially so well off. He and his wife later visited us in the UK and his wife then mentioned the timber company she ran and owned. The Norwegians told us that there is only middle class in Norway.

Dave

Maybe their low population helps here.

 

[cambsno]

I worked with a member of the Norwegian Civil Service some years ago and noticed how well off he appeared. We had visited his home. Later a young member of staff who was half English told us how much his boss earned, and it was less than we expected. Also as suggested above he paid a much higher rate of tax. At first it left us puzzled how he could be financially so well off. He and his wife later visited us in the UK and his wife then mentioned the timber company she ran and owned. The Norwegians told us that there is only middle class in Norway.

Dave

Could be to do with property prices too. Round Cambridge way (villages, not in town) I don't think you can get a 3 bed for below 250k. In fact probably 300-350k+

 

[tijuana taxi]

Could be to do with property prices too. Round Cambridge way (villages, not in town) I don't think you can get a 3 bed for below 250k. In fact probably 300-350k+

Two bed terraced Victorian cottage a few doors along from me is up for £325k, madness.

 

[Cockney]

Me and the boss are the only 2. We do about 160 a week (includes about 50 wine).
About 50 in dribs and drabs or farm shop during the week. She could eat quite cheaply, I'm the pricey one.

 

[ancient_mariner]

I find it's often the extra stuff needed to make a nice meal in a particular style that adds up too. Meat for a stroganoff is £3:50-£4 but then add cream, mushrooms, and herbs etc and it's £6-£7 for a main for 3, plus whatever goes on the side. Cook Thai and it's another £1.10 for coconut milk, £2-£3 on veggies plus base meat and noodles on the side.

Just cooking plain English stuff is cheaper.

 

[woof woof]

I feel a bit conflicted at the moment. After a lifetime of being reasonably careful except when it comes to cars and camera gear a change of outlook in recent times has made me much more willing to spend, for example I've spent vastly more on Christmas presents already than ever before, but I'm still counting the pennies when shopping. I suppose I should stop buying shop brands and buy the branded stuff but it's a habit I've got into and it'll be hard to stop.

Sorry if the above reads a bit off for those struggling with expenses in these hard times but it's just the position and life cycle I'm in and here's hoping anyone struggling can get into a better position soon.

 

[woof woof]

Me and the boss are the only 2. We do about 160 a week (includes about 50 wine).
About 50 in dribs and drabs or farm shop during the week. She could eat quite cheaply, I'm the pricey one.

That looks quite a spend for two but good luck to you.

I treated myself to two Twin Peak bars and a multi tool pen when I was in the Pound shop on Thursday

 

[davholla]

Norwegian prices for me...
Food for the two of us varies from £600 to £700 a month (based on an exchange rate of NOK12 to £1) and that is just food. Alcohol comes to about another £250, made up of red wine (me) white ('er indoors) and scotch.

Wow that is a lot.
I would be tempted to try home brew with that amount (although scotch would be tricky).
Couldn't you do a booze cruise to Denmark and save a fortune on alcohol?

 

[woof woof]

Two bed terraced Victorian cottage a few doors along from me is up for £325k, madness.

My sister died last year. She lived next door. Six months later her daughter put the house on the market for £160K and it sold within a month. I don't know what it finally went for but if it sold for the list price that'd make it easily the most expensive house in the road. Knowing the history of that house I'm gobsmacked it sold at all as sisters hubby wasn't qualified in any trade and a total bodger and never paid a professional company for anything. Every job was done by him and whoever he could rope in. God knows how it passed any inspection.

Other than that. I'm still struggling to stop buying shop brands and the weekly shop is around £40+ to £70 these days depending on what we need. Despite inflation and two cars needing MoT and service and some other one offs like car and house insurance and buying a new lens when I did the banking yesterday I was over £200 up on the month before so it looks like inflation isn't hitting us too badly.

 

[saltireblue]

Wow that is a lot.
I would be tempted to try home brew with that amount (although scotch would be tricky).
Couldn't you do a booze cruise to Denmark and save a fortune on alcohol?

Not worth it. You're only allowed a normal 1 litre spirits or 1½ litres wine quota per person into Norway, and there's no way I'm risking getting stoppped...

 

[davholla]

My sister died last year. She lived next door. Six months later her daughter put the house on the market for £160K and it sold within a month. I don't know what it finally went for but if it sold for the list price that'd make it easily the most expensive house in the road. Knowing the history of that house I'm gobsmacked it sold at all as sisters hubby wasn't qualified in any trade and a total bodger and never paid a professional company for anything. Every job was done by him and whoever he could rope in. God knows how it passed any inspection.

Other than that. I'm still struggling to stop buying shop brands and the weekly shop is around £40+ to £70 these days depending on what we need. Despite inflation and two cars needing MoT and service and some other one offs like car and house insurance and buying a new lens when I did the banking yesterday I was over £200 up on the month before so it looks like inflation isn't hitting us too badly.

To me that sounds really cheap but it isn't really not for a first time buyer. Even if a young person were earning £40k - which is good even in London that is a lot.
I had friends in the 90s who were single not earning a lot (certainly less than the average wage) and could afford to buy a flat in Wimbledon - now even in the cheapest places in London that is impossible. (Wimbledon is not cheap).

Not worth it. You're only allowed a normal 1 litre spirits or 1½ litres wine quota per person into Norway, and there's no way I'm risking getting stoppped...

I had forgotten that Norway is not part of the EU - silly me.

 

[woof woof]

Thread resurrection time!!!

I just wondered how things have changed since the recent round of rampant inflation.

When I started this thread I thought I/we spend around £100 for the three of us, me Mrs, WW and my mam. I've just looked at spending for this year and I got to a total spend for shopping including food and household stuff but not eating out or clothes and got a figure of about £150. So that seems to be an increase of maybe 50% but it could be that isn't all down to inflation and more that we've just given up caring how much we spend.

Looking at spending on almost everything I think the spend per month including the required direct debits averaged at over £1.4k which seems a lot but hey-ho, and then the cars on top. oh er.

I just wondered if I we are overspending or not compared to others. Doesn't need to be highly accurate, just a snapshot guestimate

 

[lindsay]

This made me have a think about whether our shopping has changed over the last year.
We still spend around £6-700 a month on food, but that now comprises (approximately):
- £90 to the butcher at a local farm (was about £50, we buy more from him now)
- £80 to Riverford organic veg (unchanged, but we've now found a local farm shop that we will probably use for veg more, so this is likely to reduce)
- £150 at Waitrose (was nearer £400 a year ago) now mainly just bread, eggs, fish, yoghurt, posh pasta and pesto plus very occasional ready meals
- £75 to the milkman for fresh milk in glass bottles and fresh fruit juices (unchanged)
- £150 to a local farm shop (was about £80 a year ago) for mainly cheeses, artisan bread, frozen meals from local small producers, fresh deli type snack food

If that sounds excessive, I make no apologies. Thankfully we can afford to eat this well and support local producers, plus we don't drink alcohol at all. However we also spend about £150 a month on food for all the cats and dog too.

 

[Al1944]

Retired on pension. We spend about £320 a month for everything - food, cleaning products, etc, etc for three of us. We don't drink or smoke thankfully!

 

[Box Brownie]

I think ours ranges between £100 to £120 per week for our supermarket shopping. We do look out for the likes of Nectar & Tesco Clubcard prices (yes we do shop at both.....driven by money off vouchers they occasionally send us).

NB we also, when offers are there, will often buy an extra 'one'. Thankfully we can afford to do that but are aware that many folk cannot.

Neither of us smoke and very rarely have a drink.

 

[davholla]

Not worth it. You're only allowed a normal 1 litre spirits or 1½ litres wine quota per person into Norway, and there's no way I'm risking getting stoppped...

Do people ever try brewing their own alcohol?

 

[bass_junkie83]

About £80 a week give or take for a family of 4, two adults and 2 kids (2 and 7).

We have really cut back on what we buy though, no treats, snacks or alcohol any more.

Well this is slightly depressing. Now spending around £130-£150 a week. Previously all done at Tesco, now the bulk is done at Aldi or Lidl and just going to Tesco for things that we can't get elsewhere.

 

[woof woof]

Yesterday I tried googling the average weekly shop in the uk but the only info I found was for average food shopping per number of people in the house and not the whole weekly shop which for us would typically include more than food. For eg. cleaning products, washing powder and anything else that needs to be bought at least from time to time.

As all this had got stuck in my brain I then took a look at what we spent on just the "normal" shopping but only household stuff (and not clothes or watches or cars or anything like that) over a nine month period (those were the bank records I had in front of me and from those I could guesstimate what I paid cash for and include that too as I don't always use a card.) Once all food and cleaning products and the like were included in the mix and averaged out to give a weekly figure... we're considerably over the national average spend for just food but if whoever does these things were to include other household things our spending may not look so bad.

 

[woof woof]

Well this is slightly depressing. Now spending around £130-£150 a week. Previously all done at Tesco, now the bulk is done at Aldi or Lidl and just going to Tesco for things that we can't get elsewhere.

This is about what we spend on the weekly shopping and in our case including the non food weekly shopping stuff people usually buy.

Interesting about your multiple shop shopping as we do that too. We used to buy almost everything at Asda but now we split the weekly shopping between ASDA and two or three other shops.

 

[Steep]

Just me, spending about 60 a week on food but I've cut back a lot. A tub of almost butter that cost 1.99 a year ago is now 3.99. Every week I see something in the shop I want then look at the price and say how ffff much?

It's not just the price you see but hidden rises too. I have false teeth and buy gunk to keep them in place. The price has increased ofc but I have a tube in my travel kit, it says 47g, the new ones have only 40g... Hidden costs.

 

[woof woof]

Just me, spending about 60 a week on food but I've cut back a lot. A tub of almost butter that cost 1.99 a year ago is now 3.99. Every week I see something in the shop I want then look at the price and say how ffff much?

It's not just the price you see but hidden rises too. I have false teeth and buy gunk to keep them in place. The price has increased ofc but I have a tube in my travel kit, it says 47g, the new ones have only 40g... Hidden costs.

We've actually gone the other way in the last few years and our spending has now gone up a lot. The reason is that we've had a lot of family trouble over the care and then death of my mother and have decided to just enjoy our lives while we can. I appreciate that for some under financial pressure this isn't an option but after the last few years I/we have had I can't really criticise anyone who is more comfortable for spending on anything their conscience allows if it brings a little more enjoyment and happiness in this life.

"You gotta know happy - you gotta know glad
Because you're gonna know lonely
And you're gonna know sad
When you're rippin' and a ridin'
And you're coming on strong
You start slippin' and slidin'
And it all goes wrong"

(The Bug, Mary Chapin Carpenter.)

 

[Dale.]

We started using Hello Fresh a little while ago. It's great but can become a bit samey after a while. There's 3 of us here and we'd order enough for 3 or 4 nights and it would come in around £50, so pretty good value by today's standards. We gave it a miss last week though and tried Muscle Food for a meat delivery, I think that was £46 but enough meat for about a week. This is of course without sundries, like milk, bread etc, we probably spend another £25 there.

We treat ourselves to take away and some alcohol on a Saturday though and probably blow about £40 there. It varies but I guess we are around £120 a week. No smokers here so we don't have a tobacco bill.

I can remember not long ago, gettting a full shop delivered fo around £70, for all 3 of us.

I find it's things like washing powder, dishwasher tablets, toilet rolls etc etc that can really put a weekly shop up.

Not forgetting pet food, for a large dog, 2 cats and 2 parrots, probably about £30/week. We have 2 snakes too but that's probably pennies/week.

Looking at all that, I'm quietly pleased, by today's standards anyway.

 

[woof woof]

I find it's things like washing powder, dishwasher tablets, toilet rolls etc etc that can really put a weekly shop up.

When my mother was alive she used to bring washing two or three times a day rather than saving it up for even just a day. At first I whinged and told her that one wash meant the washer going for 30 minutes and the same in the dryer whereas me and Mrs WW saved our washing and did it twice a week. Later I thought that it was cruel to argue and if my mother who was very likely in the last year of her life wanted the washing done twice a day then so what? Since she died the electricity bill has tumbled but what's the cost of utilities (if you can afford them) to trying to maintain the quality of my mams life and her happiness in the last year of her life? So the washer and dryer went on whenever she wanted me to do her washing.

 

[Nod]

I find it's things like washing powder, dishwasher tablets, toilet rolls etc etc that can really put a weekly shop up.

Things like that get bought when they're on special offer and then we tend to buy in reasonable bulk. Can make that week's shopping an expensive one but saves in the long run. Same with long lived foods like cans, pasta, rice etc..

 

[woof woof]

I had a GF who used to buy in bulk and by that I mean real bulk

Her basement was massive, a family could easily live there and she had racking units filled with stuff and also in an outbuilding too. I always wondered about the carefulness of her shopping as she and her family are very wealthy and she herself had paintings on the wall running well into six figures. Maybe she just didn't like going shopping

We don't buy in bulk as we just don't have the room for storage.