Retire from 8 to 5 

Recently, we came across this graph, published by Family Food FYE 2022, showing an individual’s average expenditure per week is £41.11 on all groceries, including eating at home and out. For a family of four, this is a weekly expense of £164.44 and monthly expense of £690 on just food. Just food. Unreal. This is almost as much as a monthly mortgage. And if you are wondering if this is any different in the USA, it is not. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published this data in 2023 showing average spend by an American household per month on food, grocery and eating out, is $779 ($475 on grocery and $303 on eating out).

UK average expenditure on food and drink in current prices, per person per week, FYE 2022

Our monthly grocery and eating out bills this year have been £336 in January, £231 in February, £238 in March and £372 in April. On average, this is resulting in £1.08 per meal per day per person in our household. Granted our son eats a meal and a few snacks at nursery, so the number is likely a bit higher (say 15%, £1.25) if we account for some portion of the nursery bill to be added to this bucket. Nevertheless, it baffles us on how others might be spending so much every month on food. On real tight frugal budgets, we have seen a target of £1.00 per person per meal, and this seems realistic, within reason. We’ve discussed this topic with a lot of frugal friends, and watched common pitfalls of plenty of non-frugal folks. Listed here are a couple of commonalties have caught our eye that frugal folks might be getting right.

Buy store-brand – We are big huge enormous massive fans of this one. Cannot be understated and hence the multiple adjectives. When S first got a functional dishwasher (March 2016) after we renovated our first house, S only bought branded dishwasher pods since she thought that was key to a clean wash. Until one time, when by-mistake, she purchased a store-brand dishwasher pod. And poof, no difference in wash whatsoever. That point onwards, S has made it her mission to compare store-brand and branded products for almost everything we use. From Oats and nuts to body creams – they have all been tested by S. Some we have stuck with branded products, but we have found ourselves slowly but surely moving to store-brand products.

On dishwasher pods alone, let’s do the math for how much S has saved us – a branded pod costs $20 for a pack of 100 vs. a store brand at $1.99 for a pack of 40. This is $0.20 per pod for branded vs. $0.05 per pod for store-brand. Assuming 1 pod per day since March 2016, that is a total of 2983 pods and a savings of $447 with no change in end dish cleanliness. While we were living in the USA, we also found no difference in pods or dishwashing liquid, which was about 50% cheaper than pods. Unfortunately, we have not been able to find dishwasher liquid in the UK, and have to stay at the pods cost. While $447 does not seem like much money, over 8 years, remember this is free money. Zero effort, zero change in end result. And initially, we did this for every single non-edible consumable in the house – dishwasher pods, washing machine went from pods to liquid to powder, floor mopping fluid went to a store-brand and the floor shined the same. Over time, the savings have added up significantly. We now, don’t even bother trying branded products and only use them as exceptions.

Buy in-bulk – As space in our kitchen (and some closed shelves in our living room as well) permits, we buy canned foods, pasta sauces, pasta varieties, rice, lentils etc. in bulk. If stores have clearance sales for something we need and like, we clear out the aisle.

Cook in-bulk – This goes hand-in-hand with buy in-bulk. We thrive with meal planning, and have forgotten the art of cooking just one meal. With minor incremental time/effort and gas/electricity utilized one can make four servings, as easy as a single serving. We did not always do this, and only started this approach after our son was born in 2020. To us, this adds sanity to weekday meals and reduces our reliance on last-minute take out orders or grocery runs. There are weekends we think this over-rated and skip bulk-cooking, and by Wednesday we regret the decision to not bulk-cook.

Target zero food wastage – S does not tolerate food wastage. She thinks an educated person wasting food, however questionably cooked, is an unconscionable act and should be a criminally punishable offense. If too much is cooked in our weekend bulk-cooking endeavor and we get bored eating more than a few of the same meals back-to-back, then it goes into the freezer and we will dig it out the following week. Household annual food wastage in UK accounted for 6.6M tonnes of landfill, and for a four person household this is estimated at £1,000 annually. Our target cost is £0, so far this year, we have probably thrown out a few boxes of yogurt (approx. £1.80 total) which had some mold growing in it after leaving open for too long.

No food service recipe boxes – Unlike aforementioned ideas, this is a bit more personal. Every month it seems like a new fresh food in a box, or a recipe box, company opens and provides some option that the remaining companies do not offer. Without a regular subscription plan, once the sign-on offer expires, this results on average £3 – £8 meal per person, depending on type of food selected and portions ordered. If you are ordering a box for one person this increases dramatically to £5 – £12 per meal. There are plenty of upsides to getting to try a different cuisine each night, and it is definitely healthier and, might even be cheaper, than eating out every meal, but this is ridiculously expensive. We, and most frugal friends we know, do not go this way, but we are intrigued by it and may change our minds in the future to trial it short-term, with some lucrative sign-on offer.

None of this goes to say, we are not well fed or don’t indulge in luxury foods. In fact, we could both use loosing some weight and constantly find ourselves sneaking a post-dinner Magnum bar (one item S has refused to replace with store brand). There are probably plenty of ideas for cost reduction hiding in every kitchen that is worth exploiting and getting some free savings.