International Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
how much do you spend?
So how much do you spend on food or groceries in your part of the world? We probably spend 400+ pounds/month on groceries and we eat almost every meal at home. DH is gluten-intolerant, so we buy two loaves of bread a week, and other things like noodles, dinner rolls, and GF flour are much more expensive than regular. We also eat a lot of meat, but I buy most of it on sale or before it expires and I freeze it. This price also includes diapers and shampoo, body wash, etc. We usually also have my SIL with us at least 2 meals a week and we have friends over for dinner about once a month. I know we spend a lot more than our British friends, but they don't eat meat much, shop at cheaper stores (I don't have a car and shop at the store nearest us), and their meals are usually more simple: i.e. jacket potatoes with beans.
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Re: how much do you spend?
Oh man, I was the queen of this at Tesco!
Side note I will add because there's so many Brits here: I was surprised at the quality of produce at Lidl in Edinburgh. At first I thought it would all be cheap crap but the produce was 10x better than what you could get at Tesco.
We've budgeted $600 per month for groceries in Brisbane (which includes booze, TP and home stuff like that). I will do my best to go below that, $600 is a lot. Though we've also budgeted $600 for eating/drinking out so that should maybe be where I focus more of my cost cutting efforts....
About ?400 for two of us and we shop at Waitrose. That also includes wine, and paper/ household products. I tend to get our beauty products at Superdrug or my spa.
We average between ?60.00 to ?90.00 per week. I am a vegetarian and DH only has meat once or twice per week, but we do buy a lot of fruit and veggies, cheese and fresh breads. We rarely buy processed food.
We don't eat out that much, maybe three times per month, but we enjoy cooking healthy meals, so I am fine with that amount.
Where do you get your box of veggies delivered from?
How can I find something like this in my area?
Able & Cole
http://www.abelandcole.co.uk/
ETA: It's a brilliant service if they're in your area. You can do everything online - add to your order, skip it for the week if you've got enough on hand or you're on holiday, put in food preferences - don't like kale? no prob. they'll substitute something else for it.
We spend too much, we are terrible at budgeting but I would estimate we spend between 500-600 GBPs a month at the grocery store. That's for 2 adults and a toddler. We probably eat out once a week (usually lunch at the weekend) but I'm not including that. We have friends over to eat about every 2 weeks which I am counting.
My DH is away a few days a week, which actually I think makes us spend more because I never properly plan meals. I also often go to the local store which is walking distance and it is a rip-off and if I drive I go to Waitrose which is also expensive but at least it's nice!
Does your DH have coeliac disease? If so you can get gluten-free products on prescription or reimbursed by the NHS, I have a co-worker who does this.
Oh lucky you! In NYC veggies and fruits are ridiculously priced
Yes. I remember the first time I bought bananas here and saw that my bunch of 6 bananas cost me around 25 cents, and it's even cheaper if I buy them at the farmers' market instead of at my supermarket (but I never get up early enough on Sundays to make it there). I really have no excuse for not eating my veggies and fruits here
So much. I didn't think it was possible to surpass my NYC grocery budget, but somehow it is. In NY, I spent about $800/month in groceries ($200/week). Here, I probably spend closer to 250 Euros/week.
I have to take into account, though that a) I have no idea how to save on anything yet because my whole notion of what fruits imported from where are more expensive is still in process and b) I lack a lot of the cooking gear & etc. that helps me save money on cooking at home, like a slow cooker (but maybe I just need to stop going to the store so much to drool over the fresh cheeses and whatnot).
ETA: I feel compelled to add that I buy a lot of "bio" things, especially meats, and that drives prices up. We probably eat some kind of meat- lamb, chicken, pork or rabbit- at least 2-3x/week and DH and I go through boxes of 6 Euro Muesli like nobody's business. I buy 2-3 boxes at a time at the local health food store.
Also, with DH's new schedule (yay!), he eats dinner with us a lot more often than he did in NYC. Although, in all fairness, I cooked the same amounts there and ended up inviting friends over for dinner if I had too much for just me and DD.
We spend about 75 Euros a week on groceries.
I go to the local market for seafood/fish, eggs, fruit and veggies and to an arab butcher for meat.
We go to Aldi for general stuff like oil, pasta, juice, cleaning products, toilet paper, etc... This saves us a lot of money!
H tells me all the time how proud he is of me for finding great deals on groceries. Generally our meat, milk, eggs, fruit and vegetables are bio and local.
?350ish a month for the four of us? I cook most things from scratch, try to source bargains, etc. I recently cut back from probably ?400-450 a month. We do eat meat probably 3-4 days a week.
I order a monthly stock up of pantry items at Tesco, have a biweekly organic veg box delivered, and then buy fresh items at a combination of Lidl, Morrisons or Sainsburys. Or the market in town. I also try to buy reduced items. I love M&S and Waitrose for this - great quality and if you hit the times right, you can get a real bargain.
I cook almost everything from scratch, and I still only spend about ?65-?70 per week, including household goods and baby crap. I buy all the veg each day when it's marked down, and whatever there is, that's what we'll eat. I buy meat when it's on a great sale, otherwise we eat "cheap and cheerful" like DH says. Lots of bulk beans/lentils/rice and cheap salads.
I spend about $75 (Aus) per week, and usually add about $80 for meals out. There are two of us in the house, and I plan 3 vegetarian meals and 3 meat meals per week. I usually buy boneless chicken breasts/thighs and ground turkey, unless I want the beefy flavour for something. Sometimes I'll go over on my budget when meat is on sale, but it balances out the next weeks when I don't have to buy it. We stock up on Quorn products when they are on sale. I find fresh produce very expensive here, but try to have at least two days using a fresh fruit/veggie as opposed to frozen. I splurge on nice cheeses and premium yogurt.
Probably around $300 a month. We don't eat any grains, breads, wheat, etc, so we eat a ton of meat (which is pricey here comparatively) and veggies.
If we eat more pasta/grains, we could probably get away with spending about $100-$150 a month on groceries.
We spend about $150-180 a week. That's with me cooking low-carb, H brings his lunch to work, my company pays for my lunch and we rarely go out to eat.
I would love some cheap and cheerful recipes!
We spend way, way too much. I answered this a few months ago, but since, have really started paying attention to what we actually spend and I'm a bit shocked. We average about ?130-?150 a week - and I cook all of our meals from scratch. We do buy only organic fruit, veg, meat, cheese and milk and grains, but I'm about to cancel our Abel and Cole delivery and start shopping at our local Morrisons. They just had a massive revamp and it looks like Whole Foods now - which is awesome. Right now, we only eat 3 meat dinners a week, but am thinking of cutting it back to 2.
LRB, I hate MOrrisons. It's our local, so the walkeable supermarket - apart from Lidl. I find the quality really poor, and the prices relatively high. I've stopped shopping there apart from odd emergencies, and found that's helped our food costs.
The other thing is that we used to buy organic fruit and veg -what I could find here, plus our box, and organic milk, dairy, etc. I've had to make a tough decision on that. I still buy organic milk, but not yoghurt. I make organic bread, but don't buy other organic bakery products (but I do try to do my baking now). And I only buy organic from our box scheme, not in the stores - unless reduced. It's not ideal, but I felt like I was throwing away so much money on food. :P
I used to hate ours too, and so would split our weekly shop between M&S and Abel and Cole, but since the revamp, I LOVE it! The produce is out of this world!
We spend about 400 Euros each month. This includes food, wine, paper products, personal hygiene products and cleaning products. We eat most of our meals at home with the exception of DH's work lunches out and 1 or 2 weekend meals out.
We eat meat at most meals usually chicken because the red meat here isn't great. I buy produce that is in season.
I miss Costco!!
I honestly don't know how much we spend on groceries. That's bad, right. It just really really varies per week. Anywhere between 25 and 50 euros a week at the butcher, and then between 45 and 70 a week at the grocery store including wine and tp and DH's shampoo and such (my cosmetics are bought elsewhere and come out of my personal budget, which isn't budgeted either.)Then there's the occasional evening out or ordering in. And once every few months I take a trip to the wholesale/restaurant store for things like good olive oil in bulk.
I buy lunch most days, which also comes out of my own budget, not our household budget.
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
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