£800 pm on groceries for a family

By the way £800 is not ridiculous. I used to spend £100 a week for two of us (retired) Since the rise of COL I struggle to keep it below £150.

Your DM is out of touch. She has also forgotten that teens have hollow legs! They eat huge amounts. Some posters are giving you money saving tips which I’m not sure you requested. However, here’s one: when I was cooking for a family with teens I often served up a starter of soup with warm bread. Very filling 🙂

Veggie here with 2 cats on good quality food including chicken twice a week.
Lots of fresh veg and fruit. One meal a day plus banana and/or yoghurt, evening snack.
Shop for good quality but had to forget organic due to being careful around COL.
£160 per month.

Some children have sensory issues though which can make eating tricky, and I’m mindful of not wanting to create stress around food. I try to encourage my very young DC to eat what we make, but occasionally we will make them something different and I think that’s fine. We’re quite a flexible family and that includes with eating.

We can do a month on £400 if we’re careful, but we’re only 2 adults one toddler. Plus we’re vegetarians, shop at Aldi, and eat quite simply, always from scratch and lots of batch cooking.

Yeah maybe

Eek I feel like I must serve gruel. We never spend more than £100 a week, usually it’s around £80 and that includes nappies for toddler. We have an older child too. They snack a lot but obviously don’t eat like teens. For reference we shop in Aldi. A rare Ocado shop as they keep sending me discount codes but recently found Iceland excellent for school holiday snacks and packed lunches

We spend £60 per week for a family of 4. We meal plan and buy in bulk. We eat very healthily. Kids are given a meal and if they don't like it they can have cream crackers or cereal.
I bulk buy everything and we eat very little meat or fish and dont drink much alcohol - obviously makes a huge difference.
I've been very skint in the past and by the time I got to a decent amount of spare income I didn't want to spend it on food.

I was planning a lamb dish last week, diced lamb was £7.50 for 300g, and I’d have needed 2 packs. £15 may be cheap in terms of animal care needed to breed the lamb but it’s certainly not cheap for a midweek run of the mill dinner.

Chicken can be cheap, but the quality of the meat and the care standards for the animal aren’t great. Decent meat is not cheap.

It’s not expensive. I only shop at marks and Waitrose as it’s near me but meat is so cheap.

🤣Did you not read the very good reasons why we joined in the first place? Oh and just so you’re aware now we’re out the EU doesn’t have to do anything they don’t want to as regards us and trade or anything else. Ditto the USA. We are a piddly little island, they are not.

The London School of Economics say Brexit has caused household food prices to raise by a third- a third!!! That’s a huge amount of money. Op alone would have £3200 extra in her household a year…That's just food. The value of the pound falling means many other imports cost more too. Ditto energy, then there is the loss of jobs….The loss goes on and on and it’s the pockets of every day uk citizens that are feeling it and will feel it far worse in the years to come from fewer jobs, lower investment, higher costs and less trade..

So you just have to offer them something they will eat but begrudgingly. For mine that is bread, bananas, plain yoghurt. Nothing they would ask for but they will eat. You just have to find your equivalent! Honestly don’t offer them a different meal. You’ll get to a point where you’re making separate meals every night and it’s just not fair on you.

I tried doing this, offering them just toast and milk at night. Then they started forward to the bread and milk at night. My toddlers are great with trying new foods, I think sometimes it depends on whether they have napped, etc. I'm not trying to make excuses, but if I have a hungry toddler going to bed, they won't let me sleep all night

Ok of course I forgot the only reason we would want to be in the EU is for trade. 🤣 Even pushing aside the fact that trade barriers that have cost us £27 billion when trading with the EU since Brexit….

And you still come out with such a ridiculous statement.

We spend about £100 a week for two adults and two children (both under 12), and a dog.

I shop in Tesco and Aldi (Tesco for fruit, veg and meat; Aldi for everything else). I buy dog food online.

We never buy big brand items except some snacks like those fruit roll things, and occasionally bagels as the ‘nice’ ones are nicer!!

The adults eat a lot of salads, lentils and veg based food. Family food is the usual spag bol, roast chicken etc. Kids also eat a lot of simple meals like chicken and noodles, homemade pizza etc.

🤣Oh the naivety.Have you looked at the world recently.