Weekly food bill?!

[3rdtimemummy2845]

How much do you spend on a food shop?

I am hitting anything between £170-£200 a week. It is literally killing me at the thought! We are a family of 5. 2 adults, 3 children aged 11, 5 & 6mo. My husband has lunches for work 5 days a week, we eat everything fresh & home made. When I speak to friends they spend anything from £80-£120 a week. I do have older children than the people I am comparing myself too but £200 seems an awful lot per week??!!

We spend up to £500 per month (so £100-125 per week). We shop mainly in Sainsbury’s with about £30-£40 of that in the butchers. If I had more time, I’d do top up shops in Aldi but I don’t so we get most stuff online.

That’s for two adults, a 6 year old and a toddler in nappies, plus one cat. All breakfasts and dinners, about half the week’s lunches (6 year old has school lunch, toddler is in childcare two days), a fair amount of snacks, cat food and all cleaning products. The odd bottle of wine. Not toiletries or meals/food out/takeaways. But we don’t have many of the latter and things like the odd bought lunch on work days are from personal spends.

2 adults, 5 kids aged 17, 13, 11, 4 and 2. At most, we spend around £90 a week at Lidl, and that includes all nappies, toiletries, cleaning products, crap snacks for the kids and 2 school lunchboxes. We'll do a shop at Iceland probably once a month and spend around £70 stocking up the freezer.

Ours was about £180/200 a few months ago, but we switched from Sainsburys to Tesco/Lidl and made a real effort to rein it in a bit. Weekly shop now costs about £120.

There are 7 of us. Two adults, two high school aged children, two primary school aged children and a preschooler.

We cook almost everything from scratch, eat a lot of veggie meals and don't let anything go to waste. We also grow some of our own fruit and veg and keep hens for eggs.

About £250 a week but that's for 5 adults and a 4 year old. We go to Morrisons and Aldi. 90% is cooked from scratch. Its about 50 a week extra since last year with price rises

We spend anywhere between £60 and £90 per week, depending on whether we shop at Aldi or Tesco and whether we buy alcohol or not. 2 adults and a 3-year-old. We cook mostly from scratch. This doesn't include cleaning products nor toiletries which we buy through Amazon with a subscribe & save discount.

Roughly £90pw for 2 adults and a 3yo. That does include household items eg loo roll, some toiletries, cleaning products etc.

I don't have many tips but they might help?

Cleaning products - have a look at home bargains or Wilko or online pound store and do some price comparisons. It works out cheaper for me to go to Wilko and do a big cleaning shop (I say big, it's not really!) and get everything in one go

If you eat something, it's not perishable and it's on offer, buy it. Even if you don't need it that week. Coffee for instance say is £5, but you see it at £3, get it then you never have to pay the full price for it. Find some storage room for this. Works with anything like beans, loo rolls, pasta, peanut butter, washing up liquid.... anything! Always aim to buy it at the lowest price
It means sometimes I have 3 tins of coffee, sometimes 1 but I'm never paying full RRP for it

Again home bargains etc can have snacks cheaply, I found multipacks (5 to a bag) of crisps were 50p so I checked the date and stocked up. Same packs were £2 in the supermarket

Cleaning products again but hot soapy water goes a long way, if you use sprays then watch how much you use and always give the product time to work. Washing powder usually works out cheaper and is better for machines

Check Amazon for deals on not perishable stuff - I eat marmite rice cakes all the time, they were on offer, so I bought them! Also worth checking loo rolls prices and stuff like that on there too as sometimes subscribe and save is cheaper

Stick to cheaper fruits and veg. Stuff like apples, bananas, carrots, cabbage... bulk meals out with them too. I'm not advocating the MN chicken style but stuff like carrot and potato mash is filling, using stronger cheese for more flavour with less, chucking some extra veg in meals

Try dropping down a brand, or a new product if it's on offer. Look for reduced food too

That does seem like a phenomenal amount.

I'm less sure at the moment (as I never know how many are going to be here and I have various adults going out and getting shops at odd times, so I'm not currently doing my regular once a week shop, but, pre-COVID, 4 adults would generally be £50 in Aldi..
Plus a Farm Food Shop (£40 ish) once every 3 months or so (toilet rolls, washing powder ad a few other things). Occasionally get toiletries (soap, toothpaste, deodorant, shower gel etc) elsewhere.

So say £65 in total, on average.

We spent £106 yesterday and also had a takeaway that was £23. That’s 3 adults for a week. Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner for all of us and cat food. Plus we have eaten own homegrown tomatoes and pears all week.

I always think with these threads the variables mean you can't compare.

Some people only buy their food from the supermarket. They buy toiletries and cleaning.prodicts from home bargains/Poundland B&M and don't include that when they say £60 a week for all of us.

Some people have pets and spend £ PW on their food. Ditto babies and formula/nappies.

Some people dont I lude booze in their weekly shop. They get a delivery or stop.at the offy, or go to the pub.

Some people pay for school dinners and don't say, £x Tesco plus £x school dinners.

Some people only spend thirty quid a well, but spend £2+every day on coffee.

And so on.

We are a family of 4. We often have extra people for dinner and we entertain once a week without fail. We all take packed lunches, we have no pets. We buy booze on our supermarket shop (2 £10 bottles of wine plus ciders, beers and a bottle of spirits). We have a takeaway once a month ISH. We also buy all washing powders, shampoo, cleansers, shower gel, etc.

I spent, on average £180 pw on all that excluding the takeaway. So, call it £200, maybe £220.

@JuneOsborne

I always think with these threads the variables mean you can't compare.

Some people only buy their food from the supermarket. They buy toiletries and cleaning.prodicts from home bargains/Poundland B&M and don't include that when they say £60 a week for all of us.

Some people have pets and spend £ PW on their food. Ditto babies and formula/nappies.

Some people dont I lude booze in their weekly shop. They get a delivery or stop.at the offy, or go to the pub.

Some people pay for school dinners and don't say, £x Tesco plus £x school dinners.

Some people only spend thirty quid a well, but spend £2+every day on coffee.

And so on.

We are a family of 4. We often have extra people for dinner and we entertain once a week without fail. We all take packed lunches, we have no pets. We buy booze on our supermarket shop (2 £10 bottles of wine plus ciders, beers and a bottle of spirits). We have a takeaway once a month ISH. We also buy all washing powders, shampoo, cleansers, shower gel, etc.

I spent, on average £180 pw on all that excluding the takeaway. So, call it £200, maybe £220.

Yeah that's what I've realised with quite a few people who have commented here that not everyone does a the full shop in a supermarket where as that is where I get everything in one sweep, I did briefly do a few food shops in Aldi but the kids didn't like any of the snacks from there & it's easier for me to get online delivery.

We also don't top up on anything during the week as I buy everything in one go so we don't have to worry during the week & I admittedly could probably cut down on fruit possibly as I do tend to buy a lot of berries & melon as someone did mention so I went back to look at prices.

Couple of questions:
Do you meal plan? (If so could you post this week's plan, including breakfasts and lunches)
How much do you spend on snacks?
Do you have desserts, if so what sorts of things do you have?

Around £75 a week for two adults (food and cleaning).

Shop at Aldi and I love it so much. Went to get some coffee filters come and dishwasher tablets (dh insists on finish) from Morrisons and and it's about 30% more.

I had deliveries when I had covid and it's is very expensive.

Surely they will adapt to snack from Aldi- what don't they like about the snacks?

Should say I meal plan and we eat very well and have indulgent food tastes- rib eye and prawns for dinner. We also get premium meat from an online butcher every few months (included in the £75).

We are in the process of house buying so have cut our budget to £75 a week (2 adults and 17yo DS) I love cooking but the stress combined with lots of overtime means we are eating a lot more processed foods and have switched to Aldi for everything except fruit and veg.

I suppose because we always ate good quality, high welfare food and mostly shopped in Waitrose we were bound to make a saving. Sometimes it's good, mostly it's ok and occasionally it's grim but we know it's not forever thankfully

We are 3 adults (1=18yr male) and 2 teens and it was getting to about £160 a week which is just ridiculous.

I've managed to get it down to about £120 if being careful.

I cook from scratch have one fussy pescatarian who pretty much only likes seafood. I also cook alot of Asian stuff which uses lots of different ingredients in small amounts so I have to keep a well stocked pantry.

I also spend an incredible amount on snacks goods like noodles and crisps and smoothies as otherwise the teens would be cooking expensive meals at 2am

I know others with similar households which do it alot cheaper however they have to be more restrictive and don't let family members help themselves because they have no choice.

I realise that my budget is actually a privileged one and based on choice. Everyone's budget is dependant on what they can afford therefore folk who can afford 60 a week to feed 6 will do that, regardless of current prices as they is what they have.

Do you eat a lot of meat?

I pay no attention really to cost when doing the grocery shopping, do it with Sainsbury's and come out with much lower numbers than most on here which I think is being a mostly vegetarian household. When we do buy meat to batch cook for the kids, I really notice it in the total cost.

I use different supermarkets. Twice a month I'll get an asda delivery as somethings such as their own brand oat milk are great and cheap. I try to avoid buying cleaning products and toiletries as asda are expensive for these items.
I go to heron to see what brands are cheaper once a month and I'll go to morrisons to check for offers as well. If I see something on offer thats non perishable and we use I buy in bulk so I never pay full price for it.
Once a month I'll go to lidl for items that are cheaper there. It does mean the shopping takes longer
I often buy toiletries online from boots as its convenient and less expensive than you would think!
Bulk buying does require some surplus in the budget and some storage space though