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

I spend £60-£65 on 3 of us (me and 2 teenagers), we have a take away maybe once a month. I think £200 isn’t that much if you consider your buying nappies for 2 kids and buying take aways, if you think it’s a lot then maybe cut out the take aways and cook more from scratch? My kids are fussy so I often cook 2 meals, dd1 is vegetarian and has lots of sensory issues so that doesn’t help. If we all ate the same meal it would cost me a lot less but it’s just not possible .

My shopping bill goes down a lot in the summer as we grow out own veg and fruit.

7 month old eats what the others have. My mum couldn’t cook so we got fish fingers etc growing up but I told myself since my kids eat well I’m better but just the same. The thought of cooking from scratch scares me. There is actually a local children’s centre that offers cooking classes. I actually have cook books so much so you would think I cook every night

I do think you need to cook.
Sorry.

We spend about £70 a week. 2 adults ( 6. 4 large dh) 17 year old DS and 13 ds (who eats like a horse).
I do meal plan and TLC be fair I like cooking and do does ds.

I would eat with your dcs a few times a week if you can, because it helps them too get better social skills and table manners.

First coke is both expensive and really bad for your bones so I'd stop if you can .

Is it that you can't cook or you don't like cooking?

*diet coke not first coke.

£150 a week on take aways and wine and 6 sausages but normal weight. Aye, right.

No need to budget. Three adults £180ish including beer, cat and cleaning stuff and tpiletries. I do lots of easy meals because I regularly work 10/11 hours a day.

Meals this week:

Mon: stir fry with sirloin steak and noodlez
Tue: meat balls, ready made tom sauce, salad and garlic bread
Weds: Spanish chicken- 2 x £3.50 trays and there will be enough for lunch next day forntwonof us
Thurs: pasta bake made after roast chick last week and 2nd meal therefrom with salad
Fri: fishcake, dollop of leftover fish pie, peas and chips.

We don't stint on yoghurt, cheese, juice, bread, bacon, ham, veg, fruit, salad, cereal, eggs, good oil, etc.

But we do not drink pop!
Chick recipe - large chicken fornthree roasted with stuffing, pigs, gravy, roasties, cranberry, delish gravy.

Remove all remaining chick - about 1/2. Boil carcass with carrot, onion, bayleaf peppercorns then simmer for 90 mins. Strain stock off and reserve and use to boil 3/4 bag of pasta then strain again and reserve what's left.

Slug of oil, 2 chopped leeks, add big lnob butter, add tbsp flour and stir. Add stock, add a bit of marogold stock to make up to about 3/4 pint. Stir until thickens and add glass of wine - bung in about 6oz grated cheddar and stir, add 2tbs creme fraishe. Add chopped cooked chicken and add pasta. Split between two baking dishes and bung one in freezer for next week.

That makes 9 dinnersbfor about £9 in total.

www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/features/soda-osteoporosis

Why not start with something simple like.... Jacket Potatoes you can put a big tray of them in the oven for an hour. There loads of simple fillings beans and cheese, tuna and mayo, coleslaw, chilli con carne etc etc

Coming off the diet coke is going to be hard but you need to swap it for a nice cordial e.g. elderflower or blackcurrant.

I second the recommendation to look for some local classes to build confidence in basic techniques.

Delia Smiths online "how to cook" site is also good for basics at even includes how to boil an egg:

www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook

Its also worth finding recipes on YouTube to watch the prep until you are confident.

For budget meal ideas which include instructions on prep try:
www.budgetbytes.com/

For weekly meal plans this example is veggie but other planning sites are out there:
ohmyveggies.com/category/meal-plans/

Lots of recipe sites have categories for family meals/seasonal food. Sharing meals with the children (even if not eating at the same time) and focusing on seasonal food should also help to bring costs down:

Again sites such as these can help:
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/family-meal
www.bbc.co.uk/food/seasons

If you build some self confidence in cooking and get into the practice of planning for the week and tracking what you buy it should become easier to get a control over the costs. Start with the cooking technques and tracking first, then use the skills to reduce the spend.

The 7 yr old is old enough to help and learn, the 4 yr old can start to join in. They can learn a lot with you.

1. set an amount your happy to spend on takeaways a week and take it out in cash. Only pay in cash for those so you can't buy anymore.

2. switch to lidl or Aldi

3. meal plan for both kids and you and partner for the week

4. do one food shop and that's it

You can still have a nice life and enjoy nice food and takeaways but £250 is insane

If you're spending a lot on takeaways, wine and coke, that's easy to cut down.
Have one takeaway day a week, buy one bottle of wine (or one each) a week, and 7 cans of coke, one for each day, and when they're gone, they're gone - make sure you don't buy any more.
I had a bit of a fizzy drink habit, and I find cans are easier to ration out than a big bottle.
I have just one can per week now, or sometimes not even that, whereas I was having them every day.

Oh and I meant to say 2.5kg spuds for £2.25. Peel cut in chunks, boil and drain. Add salt, pepper, butter creme fraishe and mash - hard. Freeze in serving sizes. Makes the equiv of £10 of ready made packs at least. No additives and no cooking involved. Tastes a zillion times better.

Here is a link to that programme:
www.rte.ie/player/series/operation-transformation/SI0000001272?epguid=IP000065744&seasonguid=121444904000

I hope you can see it where you are. It's called operation transformation

If you can afford it, I don't see the problem

Depends what you mean by 'afford'. The OP says they can technically afford it, but the money could be put to better use.

To me that suggests that they're in the position that most people are, where they can cover the basics, but don't have endless money, and if they spend more than they need to on food, chances are that they can't afford as many nice things as they'd like, such as holidays, family days out or sometimes struggle if the washing machine breaks etc. So they would benefit from reducing what they spend on food, as it would free up money for things that they enjoy more.

I actually think we spend 150 on takeaways wine and coke a week

So it sounds like this might be your problem? If you're spending £100 on the normal groceries, nappies etc that's fine and probably not a lot of scope to cut down.

Takeaways are expensive, multiple cans of diet coke really add up, wine can be expensive. If you're struggling for time, or being able to cook food that you like, would a supermarket 'dine in for £10 meal deal, which usually includes wine, be cheaper than a takeaway and wine? Baby steps and all that.

How much is the average bottle of wine that you buy? How many per week? Who drinks it? If you share it, can you get cheaper wine - again your DH could pick it up from Aldi or Lidl, or other supermarkets when they have a 25% off when you buy 6 bottles type offer. Or maybe you could try and cut down if you're drinking more than a couple of days a week? If it's one of you drinking most of the wine, can you buy it out of personal spending money if you keep that separate?

£40 a week on wine is a lot, too. At £10 a bottle that's two bottles a week each.

How about this?

Learn to cook one new dish each week (do it at the weekend) and then add it to a week plan so that you can cook ONE meal that gets served to the kids early and you later.

Over the next month learn one pasta dish, one stir fry, one slow cook casserole type dish, and one roast. (e.g chicken thighs).

Do the same with veg. Broccoli and fine green beans are very easy to prepare: no peeling. Introduce a new 'from scratch' veg each week. Frozen Petit Pois are very nice, too.

Start with the Macaroni cheese on one day this week.

Cut back on wine: Friday and Saturday nights only! (I am doing this and have it down to Thu/Fri/Sat nights).

What sort of food do you like? What would you like to learn to cook?

Honestly: you can do this. £125 a week is a generous amount to spend on a family your size per week.

If you halve your spend to £500 a month instead of £1000 a month you will have £6,000 at the end of a year to spend on a holiday. Or invest in your pension, or put down for a new car...

£6,000 a year is a lot of money, what ever you can afford to spend on food.

35 a day is easy to hit if you are including fags, clothing purchases, alcohol, pharmacy...

There's two of us and I just spent £48 in Aldi. That included washing powder and stocking up on things like rice, pasta and tinned goods.

We have a takeaway maybe once every other month and though DH drinks, he drinks beer and only gets what's on offer. It sounds to me like if you're spending £150 a week on takeaway, booze and coke then it'll be easy for you to cut down - you just don't necessarily want to!

We cook everything from scratch - ALDI is great for frozen veg and good value meat/eggs/basics, and I do a lot of batch cooking too, so homemade soups, sauces for things that can be customised slightly for different meals.

I honestly don't know how you're spending £250. There are two adults here (DH is 6'4 and big) DS5 and we spend about £60-70 a week. I have a bit of a Pepsi habit and I am guilty of buying some convenience food but still. We also have a large dog so he costs about £60 a month for food and treats on top.

I think it must be the volume of food you are eating as well. I'm quite happy with jacket potatoes with beans and cheese or something - omelette - we have a roast most Sundays. We do only eat chicken and fish - do you eat a lot of meat?

I don't religiously meal plan but I have an idea of what we are having for the week and I check the fridge every couple of days to see if I need to freeze anything.

Wow, just seen you are having 10 cans a day, you will need to cut back more gradually then. That's over 3 litres a day.
Maybe could you switch to the smaller size cans, think they are 200ml rather than 330. Not necessarily cheaper at first, but might help wean you off a bit.
Then when you're used to it, I would work on replacing one can a day with cordial, and try and drop another can every week, until you are down to a six pack a week (or whatever).

It is a lot but the good news is there's plenty of slack and easy wins in there.

Off the top of my head, Asda nappies are pretty good for the price so switch to those if you're on Pampers. Wipes too.

I'd agree you need to learn to cook but equally, if you're having several takeaways a week, there are healthy and cheaper convenience food options to buy. Instead of a takeaway, you could get something like a rotisserie chicken, bag of salad and some nice bread. Probably not much over a fiver and no effort. It might be worth planning for that.

I actually think we spend 150 on takeaways wine and coke a week

Well, that's fine if you are happy with it and it solves the mystery of your food bill.

I like wine, takeaway and diet coke too.

Mumalu. How do spend £30 on cleaning stuff and £30 on bathroom stuff a week? What on Earth are you buying that costs that much? Your house (and you) must be phenomenally clean.

Ditch the Diet Coke. Your bones will thank you for it.

The OP can't do one shop a week, she doesn't drive, and Lidl and Aldi don't deliver.

A meal plan and a Tesco / Sainsbury delivery is the way to go, IMO.

@Whome91 that's good he eats the same, at least in theory it makes it a bit easier! Nothing wrong with some freezer bits, just check the salt levels as some things have a lot in, if you can get one a steamer makes it so easy to just pop some frozen veg in and make the meals more balanced. I find the 5 bags for £4 lasts us ages, and every evening meal has 3 different type of veg (I just chuck it all in together and set it for 10 minutes). Also frozen peppers and spinach are easily and quickly added to a cheesy omlette, for example. The classes sound like a great idea, and might give you some more confidence to follow some recipes from your books. It takes time to get used to it, but it will save you money as well. Good luck.