£250 per week on shopping. Is this nuts, or reasonable?

[Twobigsapphires]

The jury seems to be out amongst people I’ve spoken to (not many, basically my family). We are essentially now spending around £250 a week on the food shop (one main shop a week and one top up). Household consists of my and Dh, ds20, dd18 and ds16. Often ds1 gf will stay for dinner on a Sunday and one or two nights in the week. We have 2 dogs but Dh pays for their food separately.

shop covers park lunches for Dh and I plus ds1 and ds2. Dd I give an allowance too and she pays for lunch out of that. Also covers a couple of bottles a wine a week and household cleaning products and most essential toiletries (shower gel etc).

Dh thinks this is excessive, I think at £50 pp per week this is what it is. My dm said I should be aiming for £150 per week! Dsis says she spends around £150 per week on her food shop for her, Dh and two small dc (doesn’t include dinner money and her Dh buys lunch out each day).

what does the mums net verdict think?

I think there would be room to cut it if you wanted to, and it will be higher than average, but not ridiculous.
As a comparison, 2 adults, 2 teens, all meals, alcohol and cleaning, usually spend £180. But it was 200 on the main shop this week, so add in a top up, and it won't be far off your average. We don't skimp on amount or brands for that.

Sounds within the realms of normal. Including toiletries, cleaning stuff and maybe a take away/week our family of 4 (me, DH, baby and 3 yo) spend about £100-£120/week. We don’t eat red meat at home and we don’t buy alcohol. DH very into cooking so does tend to buy some unnecessary and expensive weird and wonderful ingredients to be fair. We meal plan for the week so no waste. Despite this, it still surprises me how much we spend!

We spend about half that for two of us so doesn't sound excessive

It's high to me.

If we are having snacks and wine or whatever, we'd be looking at a 150 per week shopping bill. 2 adults, DD16 and DS11.

I don't think you're spending a silly amount especially if you eat meat every day but you probably could cut it down too. Things I do - partly to reduce UPFs and partly to save money:

Make my own hummus from dried chickpeas and freeze some of it
Make my own pesto from herbs in our garden - also freeze that in portions
Carrots & hummus rather than crisps with packed lunch
Potatoes chopped small and roasted rather than oven chips
Once a week, specifically aim for a cheap/light meal - this week's is carrot and ginger soup

Basically a fair amount of cheaper veg - carrots, potatoes, cabbage, greens (obviously this all depends on what's in season) - and dried pulses to pad things out.

But we are a mostly vegetarian household which really brings down the costs.

Depends what you are buying.
For example rump instead of medalion steak.
Tomatoes on vine instead of salad tomatoes and so on. You can end up with 5 bags of food for 250 easily

We wouldn't be able to afford this so our budget is much lower. But we don't buy treats like we used to, no yogurts or nice puddings, no fancy sauces it's all very no-frills dining here. We don't drink at home at all now so no wine etc - we used to buy bottles of gin and all sorts with the weekly shop! But that's all gone.
I could very happily spend £250 a week if I could afford it! But that's closer to my monthly budget 😞 (2 adults two teens here)

There are a lot of you so it will be expensive but I think you could get this down a bit. £1000 per month on the food shop is quite high even with the cost of living. However if this is proportionately not having a significant impact on your income then it is fine for your family.

£250pw is excessive and if you didn't have that spare you'd be paring it down and looking for cheaper options, it's a choice to spend that.
£35 per day, not many can afford that.

You could spend less but not without using cheap ingredient. I agree with a PP health is very important. If your buying loads of expensive branded but UPF then I would make changes but if it would mean swapping to more processed food then I wouldn’t. I send around £150 a week for 2A and 2 small C but that doesn’t include toiletries. The amount I spend per week varies wildly.

Sounds like a lot to me but it depends on how thrifty you are being. For example we buy own brands and only top up fruit, everything else waits. We do things like buy tins of soup when on offer and then have one for lunch, you can do lunch for under a pound a day per person that way.
We are a family of 4 and spend around £100 a week but the DC get free school meals, so don’t have to feed them.

We are about £150 a week for 3 of us so I don’t think what you’ve said is bad at all.

Don’t have to feed the DC lunch! We do feed them otherwise!

Do you need to reduce the amount you’re spending?
Similar household here- 4 adults and I buy for lunches and our shopping budget is £150 per week.

-cheaper lunches? I batch cook pasta or stir fry and my sons take a portion of that to work with fruit.

-cheaper store? Try Lidl if you have one.

-Shop the reduced item section first

-Bulk out meals with veg

-swap frozen chips for potatoes

-meal plan meticulously and stick tightly to your shopping list

-Avoid brands where you can

-limit snack foods, look at buying wine in bulk online to save money.

-ask your sons gf to contribute if she’s staying there 3 days a week?

Same here. 2 adults and a teen and stepdaughter when she is back from uni. I try and stick to about £850 a month. This includes cleaning products and basic toiletries hand wash, shower gel, toothpaste. I buy about 2/3 bottles of wine a month and maybe 4 beers, a few more in the summer. I am not wasteful and hardly throw anything away. We eat meat about 3 times a week. I generally cook from scratch with a few spice mixes etc. I tend to do whooper shop start of the month, then smaller o es throughout the month.

When I go shopping I can spend anything up to £80-90 2 adults, when my husband goes he spends £30-40!
Husband has a pack lunch everyday and has a yogurt and banana every day, and he has cereal every morning, where as I have breakfast as work and have fruit for work and every night I cook a meal from scratch, Saturday night I always cook something really special with extras, we don’t buy alcohol and all cleaning items are bought with groceries. Toilet rolls, washing pods, are bought inline in bulk as and when required

4 of us. I only have £70 a week because that's what's left (well not all bills are paid even then). It used to be £50.

Including cat food toiletries cleaning etc

We spend £120 but without lunches or wine. We're veggie too. It doesn't sound excessive to me.

I’m cooking six adult portions per night, plus lunches for three/ four and we spend about that much. (Including toiletries, household cleaning products and some alcohol). Most of it comes from Aldi/Lidl, but with a top up at Sainsbury’s for the stuff I can’t get elsewhere. We don’t waste any of it, and everything we eat is packed out with veg to make the meat stretch further. Pretty much every meal is cooked from scratch, so no instant stuff apart from the occasional pizza.

@arintingly "we are a mostly vegetarian household which really brings down the costs."

Same here (2 of us)

I am veggie, DH is not. He eats veggie 2x a week with me.

DH is retired, I'm not. Most days he has sandwiches for lunch/jkt potato

I batch cook and freeze.

Fortunately we have an Aldi and I can bulk buy when they have offers on.

We spend about £80 a week.

I could easily, easily spend £150/week (with booze). Unfortunately I can't afford to so I keep it to approx £110 per week.

Two adults, two teens DDs. Very little meat these days, include packed lunches, very little ready made food and no booze at the moment (Christmas is coming!)

To keep it down I now alternate between Aldi and Tesco whereas previously I just shopped online at Tesco. I really miss the convenience of purely online shopping.

OP, with additional adults in the house yes I can see how it would be £250 per week.

I think it's a lot, maybe double what we spend, but probably not unusual. We're 2 adults, 2 young DC (6 and 9) and a cat. Kids have lunch at school so no cost there. I get a Tesco delivery weekly of around £60, a Simply Cook box (creates 4 meals) at £10 and top up with around £40 extra at Lidl (mainly things I can get cheaper than Tesco).
We don't buy booze.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/vegetarian-budget-meal-plan

https://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/18006/lifestyle-diets/vegetarian/budget/

A couple of years ago I was spending about half of what I am now. I have really noticed the increase in prices, but it is compounded by the increase in portion sizes for the children as they get older.