www.iva.co.uk

Our monthly allowance for two of us for food and household goods is £268 per month. For the last four weeks I have used Tesco home delivery - with only one additional trip to the supermarket in the middle! I would normally spend £65 per week - by only buying what I really need and having it delivered I have managed to feed and drink (including wine and beer) for £50 max per week!

Worth trying it if you haven't already ! I now have £50 spare in the pot for xmas presents ! It all adds up!

10 down 50 to go!

I agree Lulu, taking a trip to the shops is just far to tempting. I use asda home shopping but find that some items are not available which is a bit of a pain, but on the whole I can save quite a tidy sum by doing it online

I use Asda as daughter works there so we get 10% off the shopping. Unfortunately they don't deliver to me so I have to go to the shops.

This week we managed to spend just under £50 and I was well pleased. We have stopped putting stuff in the basket other than that on our list. It's hard to stop yoursef picking goodies up, but it can be done!

I would feel a bit of a fraud shopping online at Tesco as it's only half a mile from where I live!

I used find Asda cheaper than Tesco's but to be honest having used both now, Tesco quality, even their value stuff, is fine....my sister was here tonight when it was delivered - she has two children and her nose turned up at the amount of tesco value stuff we had bought, she also questioned where the fruit and veg was ! Then in walked the man with the last basket of food - all the fresh veg and fruit for the week! Let's say her face was alittle surprised to see that for £48 I had bought meat, toilet rolls, cider, fruit and veg along with the normal weekly items etc!

I am not to proud to have value foods - and even after the IVA is finished I will continue to shop in this manner (although might change the wine from Country Manor (£4 a box) to Pinot Grigio (£12 a box)

Whatever life throws at you, once in an IVA you learn to cope and you do get through things - looking back I am so ashamed of our actions and our obsession to overspend -still now I can honestly say I hate shopping !

We buy lots of value stuff, and most of it is ok. We did try Asda's smart price instant whip tonight at 3p a packet. It's edible and kids would probably like it, but I don't think I will be buying anymore!

i tried both asda and tesco home delivery. the service was good and initially it looked as though i had saved money. but there were too many substitutions that wernt any good i.e. i asked for a joint of beef to feed 8 people no less than £8.00 and they sent me one for £4.00 so i had to go out shopping again as it was for our dinner. so what i saved not what round and picking stuff up i had to spend again for the new stuff and what i had paid on the delivey charge. this happened every week so i dont bother now, just shop at Aldi.

Re value brands.
When I was taking my degree in Social policy I remember reading that supermarkets value brands had more added vitamins and were therefore in some cases better for you than the dearer brands. If my memory serves me right it was on food such as milk, breakfast cereal, bread plus others it was a long time ago. Since then I have brought a lot of value brands even when I didn't have too!! some things are great others fine some I wouldn't buy again because they were wasted because we didn't like them. I very rarely buy branded goods now always where possible buying the own and value brands, items like flour is so much cheaper, OK it needs sifting but the results are the same.
I enjoy looking for bargains and don't care what people think, I also cook a lot more meals from scratch rather than convenience foods more taste, cheaper and not a lot more effort really.
Jan

We buy mostly own brand and value when we can, but I do agree with you Jan that some value stuff is dreadful! Won't touch the value baked beans, we do splash out on Branston!

All our meals are done from scratch. Hubbie is retired and so at home all day and does all the cooking. We (well, he) makes our bread as well. We have had a breadmaker for years but it was just sitting there, so now we have fresh, homemade bread every day. We buy Hovis white breadflour and it is just 40p for a two pound loaf.

I'll buy some own brand stuff (not baked beans, cereal, ketchup, beans or toilet roll!) but when I have bought value things I find I throw more away. I bought value tinned tomatoes (I can't remember where from) and they were mainly stalks, and I looked at Sainsburys value potatoes and they were full of black bits.

I tried getting my shopping delivered, but there were so many substitutions that it was ridiculous (and some of them weren't even similar!), it turned up late and a lot of the dates were really short - I much prefer choosing my own stuff, especially meat!

Now we will have own brand cereal (not value though) We'll have own brand sauce and always have value tinned toms - always found them to be ok. Potatoes are funny things anyway. I bought some the other week, not value ones, and they looked ok. Hubbie spent most of his time cutting out the black from them. Couldn't see that from the outside.

It's swings and roundabouts I suppose, and it all depends on individual tastes.

I see Aldi and Lidl's profits have been going up as well. I suppose a lot of people are trying them.

A last little bit - there could be a price war with the big supermarkets as they are all doing really good prices. Can only be good for us!

If you can be strict with yourself and go round with a list you can often pick up bragins that would be missed if shopping online.
We are going shopping tonight and managed to get last weeks 7 days of groceries to stretch to 9 days so we have £75 to spend but the food only has to do till this thursday when we will go shopping again. If we can do this we will either save a little on the shop or be able to get a few extra treats(or buy some of sons school clothes for next term).

We have had a right faff this week, I put some money on my pre-paid Bread card to get my car tax online, the DVLA database said the car was not insured, (it is) so I could not do it, I cannot get the money back off the card as I have no PIN so had to use the money to buy some food shopping from ASDA. never again, they send you stuff with really short sell-by dates on, they sent 2 pizza and kitchen rolls and charged me for them! I ended up going back to Morrisons anyway so I have spent double my weekly shopping budget this week! and had to pay for the car tax tooo! and the Bread card has now got fees on so have lost a few pounds there! won't use it again

I never buy the really cheap value food but do buy Morrisons own biscuits and bread as they taste really good. Only buy Heinz beans and soups.

DVLA have had a problem with insurance not showing on the database. Check to make sure that all your details are correct. One of my colleagues at work tried to insure his motorbike online to be told he had no insurance, and when he checked, he had given them the wrong reg number! It was down as a mixture between his bike and his old car - don't know what he was on when he did it! Upshot was that he got charged £25 for having to change the details!

I won't buy Heinz or HP on principle since they closed down the factory in Birmingham.

I grocery shop online 90% of the time and find it much easier. You can seee the offers more easily and as said you tend to buy what you need not what you see and fancy. Subs can be a pain but to be honest of late ther seems improvement and I had none last night and only a couple recently on other orders if they are pricey I send them back. I still go for bread and some fresh stuff as I do find the bread is rotten from supermarkets, but I make that trip anyway to the local recinct and iceland.

Ang

As I said some value brands are fine others aren't I like others don't buy baked beans, loo rolls or cereals but other things like milk, flour, basic mature cheddar cheese is fine. The best whole meal bread I have found for the money is Aldi's and its 69p loaf, nice taste keeps well. I do use Aldi's sometimes as there is one near my office but i find that things like vegetables have to eaten on the day they are brought but their frozen fish is good i do find that things seems cheap until I have realised that the packs are smaller so not such a bargain.
jan