£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?

It seems a lot at first glance but essentially it's for 5 adults x 3 meals a day

You are obviously worried though. Do you buy convenience food? Brand names?

Hoe much alcohol do you buy?

Crikey! That's a lot

If £50 a week on food shopping is “average” then it just shows how lacking Universal Credit payments are.

A single adult is awarded around £70 a week which is calculated by the state to cover all outgoings, including food, utility bills, Wi-Fi, phone, travel, car costs, clothes and so on.

It must be impossible.☹️

We prob spend £200 for 2 adults and 1 teen and a dog. That includes food, cleaning products/ toilet rolls, dog food and alcohol. We eat a lot of fresh fruit and veg which is expensive. We also eat out at least once a week which isn't included in that.

I think those with smaller dc have yet to comprehend how much teenagers and early 20 somethings eat.

I think £250 for three growers and two adults plus occasional guests, for three meals a day is pretty fair. It isn't stretching the MNet chicken to 25 meals for flavour, and it isn't unduly excessive.

There are three adults here and only I take a packed lunch. The supermarket bill is at least £150. That's to eat well but not to dine on smoked salmon and fillet steak. Like the op it includes all cleaning stuff and toiletries and usually some beers and a bottle of gin from time.to time.

If I had to economise I could cut it down but I don't and we like good food as one of life's pleasures.

We are spending £200 a week for a similar amount of people and it’s all shit quality cheap crap. Food has got mega expensive

Now that's extortionate. Babies barely eat anything so that's pretty much £100 per person - nearly £20 a day 😬

If I were at home all day I would use the local market for fruit and veg. The cost would be halved but so would the shelf life and for now my time is money.

I agree, food has got very expensive!

In perspective, I don’t agree with posters saying “we eat a lot of veg which is SO expensive!

I bulk out meals with veg as a way of keeping costs down.
Large bag of carrots (50p) two heads of broccoli (70p) for example. Frozen veg is also just as healthy.

I think those with smaller dc have yet to comprehend how much teenagers and early 20 somethings eat.

Yep. Comparing two adults and three primary children with five adults/teenagers is a bit like comparing the costs of feeding a house cat and a tiger.

Mine is the same 250 a week- for me, DH, DS (19yo), DD (17) and her boyfriend 3-4 nights a week - that includes cleaning stuff, some toiletries and some dog food. I do 1/2 the week cooking from scratch and 1/2 not as some days we both work long hours - I normally do 200 on the big shop once a week and 50 on top ups - fruit, bread, milk etc

I'd expect around 120-150 for normal food. Extra if you add alcohol, ready made expensive snacks like yo sushi, expensive puddings so on to it.
Obviously you could feed everyone on less, but it would mean less treats and convenience food.

I don't think this is outlandish at all, unfortunately. You are feeding basically 5.5 adults. Here it's dh and I and 2 primary age dc (who eat a lot and a lot of snacks, but have lunches at school 5 days a week). I would say on an average week we spend about £120 on our weekly food shop, but maybe an extra £50-100 on top ups (I spend more in the £50 range but many weeks dh is too lazy to sort his lunch so will buy it out or will go to petrol station closest to our house for ingredients to make lunch, which is more expensive than Tesco). I don't drink and dh buys any alcohol separately usually depending on what he wants.

I've just done my weekly sainsburys order for tomorrow, and it comes to £116.14. That’s a low week. It varies between about £115-150 depending on what I’ve stocked up on in previous weeks. Then I usual spend about £30 midweek in Aldi as well – fresh bread, fruit, salad, milk, plus whatever we’ve run out of, and a few items I prefer in Aldi. So around £145-£180 per week. I'm sure it wasn't all that long ago that the Big Shop was much more like £80-£120 and the top up £20.

That’s for two adults, two teens, two cats, all meals except Friday lunches which the DC buy at school, and including cleaning products/toiletries. I cook everything from scratch, and I think we eat really well, but I have tried to switch towards cheaper cuts of meat and fish, and fewer of them. I’m sure we could shave a bit more off the bill by eating more frozen foods, and reducing the snack mountain that the teens demolish daily, but we are lucky that we don’t have to.

Our meals over the past week have been, Sunday - home made chilli (veg chilli for dd and I) with rice and garlic bread, Monday was chicken stir fry, Tuesday ds1 made himself pork chops potato’s and veg, Dh and I had a Greek salad with home made guacamole and veg sticks, dd made herself veg wraps and ds2 had chicken wraps.
Wednesday Dh and I and dd has home made soup and some bread, ds1 made himself chicken nugs and wedges from the freezer with salad. Ds2 came back from sport late and I made him sausage omelette and hash browns.
Tonight I have a home made veg curry which Dh, dd and ds1 will have, ds2 doesn’t like curry so will likely have some pasta.

Tomorrow night will be leftover curry for Dh and I (prob with some naan bread or Bombay potatoes). Ds1 will go to gf’s to eat, dd and ds2 will have macaroni cheese. Saturday night will probably be a fresh pizza or chicken flatbread.

lunch for us at work is usually a salad or soup for me, roll, pitta, wrap with bacon, cheese salad, chicken, ham etc for Dh, ds1 and 2.

ds1 doesn’t eat breakfast. He starts work at 5am and will take a banana and cereal bar for mid morning. Ds2 and dd have supermarket brand cereal for breakfast. I have toast or yogurt and fruit. Dh will have toast or omelette.

All our cleaning products are supermarket own brand, as are most toiletries (not hair care).

I bulk buy cans of drink at £20 a month and Dh pays for our Tassimo coffee separately. Other than that I buy tonic water and fresh orange juice.

Sadly, it seems reasonable to me too OP. We're up to an average of £155/wk now for 2 adults, 2 primary-aged (but very very active with competitive sports) DCs and 2 cats. That includes all cleaning products, alcohol, pet food, top up shops and quarterly Costco trips. That's 3 meals a day, and we eat meat/fish for 3 or 4 dinners per week only. Everything else is veggie. 90% of the meat we eat is yellow stickered that I buy as I see and freeze until we're ready to use it. We eat a good variety of food though, it's home-cooked, and most of it is good quality. The cat food does add a significant amount as their food has a very high meat content, but my logic is that will hopefully equal out in savings on vet bills, as well as keeping the cats happy, healthy, and long-lived (and not producing stinky farts, in the case of DKitten with his sensitive-to-cheap-food guts 🙄😂).
You have more and bigger people in your household, so it seems proportionally in line with us. I dread to think what my DCs will eat as teens, given the 9yo has already been eating the same as me for some time now 😩

That doesn't sound over the top for 5 adults, as that's for all meals. We spend £150 on all groceries for family of 4(1 junior, 1 Teen) and a cat. However that doesn't include lunch for the kids on school days or for me 3 to 4 days a week either.

Is your 20 year old contributing? I think he should if working and possibly his gf if staying over a lot?

My sons (22 and 20) work ft, live at home and pay £130 per week towards food/ housing costs/ utilities.

Its not ridiculous to spend that amount if you can afford to.

Its the same as what we pay. And I've been trying to get it down but more and more I'm thinking maybe this is just how it is 😱

6 of us here, 2 adults, 2 teens, 2 young children.

We have ARFID in one DC so has to be certain brands so 💰💰💰 this adds up fast eg it has to be aunt bessie roast potatoes at £3 a pack rather than £1 Asda own ones

We spend approx £150 a week on the main shop with ocado (who are fairly reasonable price and price match to Tesco)

Then approx £50 a week top-up at Asda.

£80 a month milkman for milk juice bread.

£100 approx a month at Aldi on cupboard items eg cereal that are cheaper there than ocado. We are lucky we have space to store bulk buy items

£10 a day on school lunches. I don't have the headspace, time, or literal kitchen space to make 4 X packups plus DC get a wider variety at school.

So average out around £1000 a month / £250 a week 😱

Basic veg is cheap yes. But stuff like salad veg etc and to have variety is bit pricier.
My fave veg is cabbage 😁

It sounds like a bit of money could be saved by meal planning and sticking to it.

You say Ds1 regularly just cooks his own (and gf’s?) meal.
Fair enough- he’s 20 but he needs to let you know his meal plans for the week- the Ingredients needed and pay for them? Or buy his own food?

Ad hoc meals for different people adds up.
You end up having to do top up shops if food is unexpectedly used, or you buy lots of extras because you don’t know who wants a different meal or a quick easy tea?

The same when you and dh had homemade soup and bread then dd had wraps,someone had nuggets and wedges, ds came in later for sausage omelette and hash browns. Why not all have the same meal- the kids can reheat it?

So probably money could be saved buying less convenient cooked frozen food?

That said, if you don’t want to make cut backs and you have 3 adults in the house working it’s not an issue to spend what you can afford/ enjoy?

It could be got lower. But if you can afford it, I don't think it's an outrageous amount for five and a half adults who seem to eat quite well but not all the same thing, and are having their most expensive meals in the house. Certainly can't see how the spend of someone who's feeding little kids is relevant in your circumstances anyway.

By all means you could shave a bit off. Cut out one of the bottles of wine, eat more veggie etc. if you want to.

Fair enough if you want to spend more on a variety of veg, out of season or prepared stuff.

Ive never met anyone whose favourite veg is cabbage 😂

I'd say it's normal.

I imagine those feeding a family of 4 for £70 a week are eating much more simple 'basic' meals like pasta etc. Not that there's anything wrong with that but it's going to be completely different cost wise to those who eat more fresh meat and veg.

We spend around £150 per week on 2 adults and a 3 year old.we eat lots of fish like salmon and sea bass and fresh food like berries, avocados etc so it does add up!

I am not getting prepared stuff, but yes, I eat and use stuff out of season. Most of us do. I have salads as one of my main meals so yeah, it needs stuff.

Cabbage is so versatile! Very underrated veg! Vit C, fibre, cheap😁