How much do you spend ?

No @genesis92 we don't 'live off toast' we have very substantial meals, thanks for your concern.

it’s not just about expecting poor people to be happy with cheese and broccoli pasta

You've somewhat spectacularly misunderstood my post.

Because, when people state they have an extremely low weekly spend, and it's queried, the typical answer tends to be none of the points you have made.

It's never "well, that's actually our budget, so that's all we can spend, and it might mean soup and a roll for two nights but so be it."

Or "I don't actually have the time to cook/don't know how to cook, so we generally have freezer food for dinner, and this is really cheap"

It's when people almost scoff "you spend how much?! I feed 8 of us for £40 a week I'll have you know, and it's very easy if you are an accomplished cook"

Then when you drill down into how on earth this is possible, a meal plan of "cheese and broccoli pasta" followed by "cheese and fried egg on toast" tends to be produced. Then it's like, "ohhhh, fine, I get it now, that's what you call a meal, well yes, you can probably produce that for £40 a week"

It's not "nonsense". If it was my preference, I could serve my family ham sandwiches for dinner all week, and it would probably halve my food costs. It is just somewhat misleading to compare that meal/cost to someone cooking a nutritional, balanced meal as cheaply as possible.

Shitloads. About £200-250 a week. 2 adults, 1 toddler and a cat.

We don't even drink so its not alcohol pushing the spending up!

I love shopping for food and cooking. I tend to do a daily shop for what we need - oddly I spend more overall if I try and do a big shop and plan ahead.

Occasionally have a Maccy Ds but no real takeaways either.

3 adults, 1 huge eater teen - £130 a week, slightly less if adult DS is at Uni. 3 meat eaters and 1 veggie (I eat a lot of vegan food)

£50 pm on dog food.

1 take away/meal out a week.

It is expensive, but we like nice food and aren't big drinkers so food is our treat.

What do you eat all week? Toast?

We always have something, soap, shaving gel, tampax, moisturiser, shampoo, toothpaste and brushes, razors, conditioner, deodorant, on and bloody on!

This sounds absolutely on par with us.

2 adults , teenager & dog.

Per month our food/household shopping:

Main shop £250
Milk delivery £45
Farm eggs £10
Mid week bread/corner shop run £20
Dog Food £50
Takeaways £75
DS school lunches £100

All in £550pm

Just me and DH here.

We spent around £120 a week and sometimes top up with fresh milk/bakers bread.

We bulk buy online - loo roll, coffee pods and cleaning products every 4/5 months on top of the above - we find this much cheaper and convenient.

I know we could spend much less, but we like to eat fresh rather than frozen (although we are partial to a chicken dipper!!) and we work hard for it. We figure, neither of us go on nights out or drink, so, why not enjoy our money through delicious wonderful food instead

£200 - £300 per week on average I’d say .

that’s 2 audits full time, 2 kids just over half the time and 2 extra kids 3 nights a fortnight

I think this often. What are people buying? We spend about £380 a month and eat very well. But it's all homemade quick dinners mostly, and not brand name stuff.

Some these numbers are incredible. We have 3 older primary kids, 2 adults, and 2 pets and easily spend 200-250/week, more around the holidays or if we are hosting people. I shop at Lidl, try to buy produce that’s in season, cook from scratch, and am not a brand snob. I’m clearly missing something. 😳

I include cleaning stuff as a sort of catch all so that might be washing up liquid or foil or bin bags, don't buy it every week but usually need something even it's it's just washing up sponges or toilet rolls

I buy persil powder online £20 for 130 washes which lasts me around 10-12 months. The one branded thing I won't give up!
Cat food comes from Amazon (purr and miaow dry) and blink wet food

About the same as you, ours is about 350-400 a month, and we have one child, and a cat. It makes me wince, would have been not much higher than 200 a year or two ago

Mine is because he's bloody massive not fat just big

Two children and a dog. We have our budget set at £440 for the month for all food and supplies, we do sometimes go over this.

Just mentioned this in my previous reply... Or cleaning supplies!

I last bought washing up liquid months ago, and it is still going strong!!! I am now running out of dishwasher tablets, but the last time we bought some was a year ago!

i bought some deodorant last month... But everything else has been MONTHS ago!!

3 kids, 2 adults and 2 dogs and we spend £600 a month.

I cook mostly from scratch and meal plan.

This week we have lasagne, chorizo and chicken stew with sourdough baguettes, broccoli and bacon potato bake, homemade burgers and wedges with salad, sweet potato and peanut butter curry with rice and naan, pulled chicken tacos and tuna pasta bake. All homemade and make four portions. I am sure there's something wrong with the ratio of protein to carbs and veg that someone will point out, but I don't think it's too bad!

We also have stuff for lunches (sandwiches, scrambled egg on toast, etc. with veg sticks and houmous), breakfasts (Weetabix (own brand version), toast and peanut butter, porridge, etc) and some snack stuff (biscuits, rice cakes, some chocolate) plus apples and bananas and vegetables, some yoghurts, etc.

We also bought a pack of 9 toilet roll and dishwasher tablets plus some surface cleaner.

It came to £93.70. Obviously some stuff I have in cupboards but that just gets replaced when needed as part of normal budget (for example this week I needed to replace cumin, oregano and paprika and some mayonnaise, which don't happen every week but next week it will be some other store cupboard ingredient).

Six months ago we were spending about £160 a week because we were buying branded, not planning food so stuff went to waste, not buying enough bread and milk or not freezing stuff in time so we then had to use the local shop for expensive top-ups. We switched to meal planning, Aldi, pretty much zero brands, and banned the local shop! We are saving a fortune and have much less waste.

About the same for me.
I do rent a room in my house, so 2 adults, and we share buying cleaning supplies and toilet paper, but really... we buy 1 pack of toilet paper every few weeks.
Cleaning supplies are even less frequent. So the impact isnt massive, even if I was buying it all myself.

When people mention toiletries and cleasning supplies in their weekly/monthly shop I am honestly surprised. How much are you going through?!

I cant tally it now, cause Im pregnant and eating weirdly/not cooking and not buying any alcohol, but before pregnancy I was spending around 120 a month!
Im spending a lot less now, as I havent bought meat in ages and obviously no alcohol!

And that’s without toiletries, washing up liquid, capsules etc

3 adults (1 leaving for university Saturday)Just done a small shop for delivery tomorrow £93. Have one booked for next Friday, £130 so far.

Food shopping is so expensive.

Intrigues me when people say 'includes toiletries' surely you don't buy toiletries every week?!

@ChristmasCrumpet what nonsense.

It’s not about what an “acceptable meal” is, it’s about people having different budgets and different priorities. And also different tastes! You don’t need to find any sort of “balance” of your budget doesn’t allow it.

We spend roughly £100 per week, 2ad, a primary school aged child, a toddler and a dog. We could afford to spend significantly more than that; we buy what we want/need each week and we are fortunate in that we know there is enough money to cover it.

And yes, if you know how to cook well you can often be more economical with what you buy and make “nice” meals out of very little; however that in itself is a privilege to have the time, skill level, health and energy, and also the money for gas/electric to cook with, a well stocked spice rack, and some equipment to use.

it’s not just about expecting poor people to be happy with cheese and broccoli pasta 🙄

£200-£250 per week, family of 5