250 pound weekly shopping/food

[Whome91]

Please try not to judge. We are a family of 5 two adults 7 4 and 7 months kids. Some of that is takeaways that me and dh have at night. I have a Diet Coke habit (20 for cans) I cook meat for the kids most nights. It’s including nappies for two kids in full term and baby milk. Help please

What I'd do is try to keep a spending diary for a month and see where it all goes. Nappies and baby milk are expensive, so it's hard to compare with families that don't have those expenses. My main issue is that it doesn't seem very healthy. All that diet coke is really bad for you, try and wean yourself onto water. Are you buying a lot of snack food? Take out is also quite unhealthy.

I know you are busy but meal planning and making up big pots of stew, curry, chili, soup, past sauce, etc and freezing leftovers is also good for easy dinners.

Well stop buying cans of fizzy drink for a start.

Don't waste money on takeaways...I never get them. It's such a waste. Buy a good quality ready meal or a posh supermarket pizza...it will cost about a fiver. Much cheaper.

Shop in Aldi for starters - I reckon we reduced our ship bill by 30% by doing that alone

Do you need to eat meat everyday? We are vegan/vegetarian family and do eat a lot of meat substitutes but always have a couple of meals a week that are just something like pasta and tomato sauce, or noodles with vegetables.

It must be the takeaways. How many nights do you have one?

Oh dear @TheReef ... I read your "starters" as in the first course of a meal, rather than meaning the first thing she should do, and thought it was rather odd advice

What sort of meals are you eating? Do you buy a lot of brand names? Where do you shop?

It is a phenomenal amount of money to spend on food, I don’t think I could spend £250 a week it I tried to!

If the takeaways are evening meals for you and DH in place of dinner out because you have young kids, then I'd take the cost out of the food budget and put it in the 'leisure' column.

If your nappies and milk are the least expensive but still appropriate ones you can source, then I'd tick those off and put them outside of your food budget as well. There's nothing you can do about those, and it isn't helpful to compare food budgets with them included.

The pop must be reeking havoc on your body. You really deserve to treat yourself better, but it must be difficult. For the time being (until you kick it), I'd take that out of the food column too and put it down as your personal spends. It's a significant cost, just for you, in the same way cigarettes would be to a smoker.

What would you be left with then? That would be a more accurate budget to compare and work with.

If you remove the cost of the Coke, alcohol and takeaways, how much are you spending?

I think we spend on average £120 at Tesco. It various a lot per week. Two adults, a 3 year old and a 6 month old. No formula. We use pampers nappies. We eat lots of fish but little meat. Both children have milk allergies so we buy a dairy amount of dairy alternatives for the 3 year old and me which are expensive. DH budgets £25 a week to buy lunches out at work as we are just very busy at home and it’s easier. So I’m total that’s £145 a week.

Ok. I cook two meals a night or one meal and a takeaway. I often go shopping daily so buy what I need then I often buy veg that is peeled and chopped etc. I can’t cook so struggle to meal plan but I want my kids to have a healthy diet. My husband eats lots for example 6 sausages and a full ready made mash. I would struggle to post a full weeks shopping but it’s easy top of the range food I buy. Just being lazy really. I don’t drive so walk to Asda and there is an Lidi but I would have to bus it there.

There are 4 of us, 2 teenage girls wit healthy appetites (and a pepsi max habit) and we;re not exactly frugal, but we spend about half that. DItch the takeaways.

Are you willing to start prepping and cooking from scratch?

Are everyone else's portion sizes similar to your DH's? I'm not sure why you're cooking a meal AND getting a take away or cooking two meals-or am I missing something? 6 sausages for one person?!

Just came on to tell you about the chicken. I buy a chicken on a Friday. I use a cheese grater to grate off a portion each day until Sunday, when I roast it and there is enough for 5 people, we even eat the leftovers for lunches and dinners, usually get a curry, a casserole and multiple chicken sandwiches out of it, plus a bit of

Leftover for the freezer. Then we have the bones made into soup and enough left to make a months worth of gravy. And if you cannot do this with a kitchen you are clearly not even trying HTH

Chicken not kitchen

Obviously tongue in cheek, but I do find a roast chicken does fill us up nicely! I try to roast two a week.

I spend about £100 a week in Tesco for 2 adults. Cook everything from scratch and lots of fresh stuff

Six fucking sausages?

You sound really defeated OP.

Do you really want to make a change?
Are you (or DP) able to put a bit of effort into making a change?

You need to take it in bite sized chunks (sorry!). Can you start by thinking of one meal that everyone likes, and cooking that from scratch. Then you do that again with a different meal. The aim is to be cooking from scratch say 5 nights a week, always making the same meal. This takes a bit of trial and error, but it's achievable. But you have to want to make the change.

Sorry so I don't think that's that bad but you can deff cut down- why are you cooking a meal and then getting a takeout later? DC is pricey!

Diet Coke that is not children- although they are too

I spend around £150 sometimes £180. If need washing liquid ect family of 3. X
You could still spend less. Make sure you write a list and work our meals for 7 days and stick to it. X

Things like takeaways, pre peeled veg and ready mash are a money pit.

Can you watch online videos to learn some basic cooking?

A bag of potatoes will be cheaper than ready mash and give you a few meals- so easy to make mash a peel veg for a start?

Agree with pp to double up-when i make mash i then use left over the next day for shepards pie-very very easy to do and should feed all of you.

Stop making multiple meals-one meal for everyone is another big save.

Small steps but lots of room to make cuts

You would save quite a bit from swapping from ready prepped fresh veg to frozen veg. It often contains just as many nutrients as fresh.