Wife overspending on grocery shopping

I doubt that €800 is an accurate figure.

We spend around €200 a week on groceries and that’s probably too much.

On top of that we probably spend €200 a week again on lunches, coffees, brunch at the weekend, etc, and another €200 a month on a meal out.

And I’d consider us to be off the wall.

€800 is crazy!
 
Condemned by the women from my reading, resource pooling at its best, why is it that woman get so emotive and wound up about a women they don't know getting a bit of flack for squandering resources? Guilty conscience ?
 
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I know exactly the price of things as I did the shopping for over 6 months. It's not as easy with work.
 
Regarding the original point. I'm not sure it's something this internet forum can solve, as its not really a money problem per se.
Perhaps if you produced some examples of the purchases, people would be more able to make a better judgement? For example, I also find spending E800 in a week on groceries preposterous, so any example of what made up said weeks spending would be most interesting!
 
Switch to ordering groceries online. Easier, faster, you always see how high the bill is.
Can always go back to check exactly what was ordered in the previous shops.

My wife has the Tesco app on her phone, puts the order together, I go and collect it.
Anytime something odd pops in your mind, you can login add it to your cart.
 
There are two of us at home. We have been availing of the €10 off voucher that you get with a €50 spend in Dunnes Stores. We sometimes spend this in Tesco on their special offers.
To be honest we even struggle to spend the €50. We would spend a portion of this on non perishables just to reach the €50 spend. We cook from scratch and will avail of the "special offers" on fruit and meats in store.
We might do a less than €20 top up spend in Lidl or Aldi because they have "different" stuff.
We will have a lunch and breakfast out once a week and the occasional take out.

If we were buying in our local Marks & Spencers I could see us spending 4 times the above. You can get a kilo of carrots in Tesco's for what you would pay for two cut and peeled and packaged carrots in M & S.
 
username123 said:
Regarding the original point. I'm not sure it's something this internet forum can solve, as its not really a money problem per se.
Perhaps if you produced some examples of the purchases, people would be more able to make a better judgement? For example, I also find spending E800 in a week on groceries preposterous, so any example of what made up said weeks spending would be most interesting!
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The Quote Mostly groceries tells me house and family Items are mixed up with the 800 Euro spend When I buy Groceries I also get cash back to buy other Items required to pay all of the family Requirements which could run to 800 euro,
 
mf1 said:
Marriage counselling.

Or

End the marriage.

mf
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^^^^ What she said ^^^^
It's not about the groceries. Stop trying to control the symptoms, and look at the cause.
I have no idea what the cause is, and wouldn't even start to guess, but until you step back and ask the questions/start being curious about the why, you will just keep getting annoyed with the behaviour/symptoms with no resolution.
(And this includes being curious about your reaction to the behaviour).

(That'll be €50 please :) )
 
Anyone care to set up a website askaboutwemon.com I think a lot of us could do with a bit of advice from time to time. OP I feel your pain the only advice I have to offer is communication about what' coming in and what' going out and if your expenditure exceeds your income your in trouble.
 
Hello,

I can perfectly understand how someone might intend to go into M&S on Grafton Street, but find themselves in Victoria's Secret instead ... happens to me all of the time :D

Getting back to grocery shopping though, we used to find we were spending too much on grocery shopping (sorry to say with food sometimes going to waste as a result). We decided to stop shopping for everything but fresh fruit and veg. for a couple of weeks, and cleared out much of the freezer and presses instead. It was quite a surprise how much food was actually there.

Having done the above, we then decided that we would start using online shopping with home delivery. The reasons for doing this were:
  • No impulse purchases in the supermarket (someone in the family who will remain nameless, had a habit of buying beer and wine every time they saw a special offer).
  • It's very easy to keep an eye on the overall spend, you can even reduce it by removing a few things from the basket before you confirm the delivery.
  • You don't need to keep buying more bags because you forgot to bring them with you (yet again !).
  • Saved a couple of hours a week, between going to and from the supermarket, pushing the trolley around the isles etc.
There is a charge for home delivery, but Tesco do a monthly charge which makes it less than €3 pw if you get a weekly delivery. I expect that Supervalu do something similar, but not sure.

We still buy fruit and veg, along with cuts of meat, from a good local outlet, but everything else gets delivered.

All in all, it is working very well and at a guess, I'd say we've cut out shopping bill down by close to 50% (and there's still wine on the rack and beer in the fridge ;))

I'd recommend this as a very worthwhile exercise for anyone that thinks that they are spending too much on groceries, not least the part where you first try and clear out the freezer and presses, most houses have a hell of a lot of food in storage and don't even realise it.
 
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Going to a website where a lot of the posters live frugally isn't the best place to look for advice on your freely spending wife. You are largely going to get a one sided arguments.

Lots of couples have spenders and savers and it does cause arguments, usually started by the saver who can't believe the other half has spent so much money (and men can be just as reckless as women with money. I have met loads of prudent women who's husbands spend like today's their last day on earth). You need to talk about the spending, why it's so much and come to an agreement on the levels. As mentioned before, she is probably bored and that makes sense. What does her day look like? Is she wandering around the local shops to fill her day? If so, no wonder she's spending.

Showing your wife how to do the shopping is demeaning and I'm surprised she didn't slap the head off you in the supermarket as you showed her how to put items in a trolley. If you carry on like that, you'll own half the land.


Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie
 
SBarrett said:
Going to a website where a lot of the posters live frugally isn't the best place to look for advice on your freely spending wife. You are largely going to get a one sided arguments.

Lots of couples have spenders and savers and it does cause arguments, usually started by the saver who can't believe the other half has spent so much money (and men can be just as reckless as women with money. I have met loads of prudent women who's husbands spend like today's their last day on earth). You need to talk about the spending, why it's so much and come to an agreement on the levels. As mentioned before, she is probably bored and that makes sense. What does her day look like? Is she wandering around the local shops to fill her day? If so, no wonder she's spending.

Showing your wife how to do the shopping is demeaning and I'm surprised she didn't slap the head off you in the supermarket as you showed her how to put items in a trolley. If you carry on like that, you'll own half the land.


Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie
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Demeaning? Yeah right, that's fine and dandy using that word but when you are struggling to pay bills and taxes because there's so much money being wasted every month common sense has to prevail. Do you think when the taxman wants his share in October I could say to him "sorry lad but my wife has it all spent during the year" and he'll forget about it. hardly.
 
username123 said:
Regarding the original point. I'm not sure it's something this internet forum can solve, as its not really a money problem per se.
Perhaps if you produced some examples of the purchases, people would be more able to make a better judgement? For example, I also find spending E800 in a week on groceries preposterous, so any example of what made up said weeks spending would be most interesting!
Click to expand...
I'll see if I can find it over the weekend and put it up here.
 
username123 said:
FYI, you can use the quote button, as done above, or @<username> (such as @jackswift) to direct a comment towards a person. They will get notification of same
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Yeah I know, I was using the phone and clicked the reply button by mistake and there was no option to delete the comment and start over.
 
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