Cost of one day’s food for a family - how much do you spend when not trying to save?

[CrikeyDozes]

This isn’t a “how can I save money?” Thread . I know I could spend less. It’s more a “am I the only one that spends this as everyone else on here seems to spend so little.” I don’t understand how busy families with little time for cooking and making packed lunches spend so little on food.

This is us on a weekday. We are a family of five with three hungry and sporty teens. We live in London and due to time constraints tend to buy food from a Sainsburys Local.

Breakfast:
5x bagels with peanut butter and sliced bananas. Plus a coffee each. Ingredients per day approx: £3.50

Lunch:
teens all get a Tesco meal deal or similar as school food rank: 3x £4 = £12
DH and I eat at work canteen, I get the salad bar with protein (eg poached salmon steak) which is £6 so let’s say £12 for both us each day.

Snacks
DH and I both usually get a coffee at work for £3 each so £6 a day
Kids each have cereal and an apple when they get home. They eat so much it’s nearly a bag of Alpen every day. So about £4 a day across the 3 of them with the apples and milk.

Dinner
DH and I work late and have little time to cook. We use things like Cook brand frozen family lasagne and heat it up with some green veg or a salad for everyone. That’s about £19 for the lasagne (even if I cook something like lasagne from scratch by the time I’ve bought mince, onion, courgette, carrots, celery, 3x mozzarella balls, Parmesan for the top etc its about £14 so loads of work for the saving). Then a packet of salad leaves, a cucumber, a pack of cherry tomatoes and an avocado is about £5

so thats just over £60 a day or £420 for 5 of us each week even if we do not drink alcohol, have pudding, get take aways, eat out.

Is this really very abnormal or do lots of people actually spend this type of money on food?

I live on my own, don’t drink, and my food bills are around £330-360/month which equates to £11-12/day, so it’s not difficult to see how you are spending this much when there’s 5 of you.

Sounds pretty standard to me.

When working and a single mum with no local family I still always did pack up lunches and simple quick and cheap meals

Egg and chips and a salad
Jacket potatoes with cheese or beans and a salad
Tuna pasta
Cheat bacon rissotto ( who needs all that stirring )
Pasta pesto
Spaghetti Bol with a grating of cheese not lasagne

All packed out with frozen veg

It's maybe a little higher than average, but as you say, you're not trying to save so it's not that unusual. This is just how much things cost right now.

We spend about £150-170 a week all in if you include takeaway coffees etc, and there are only 2 of us.

If you have the money and want to prioritise food and convenience then why not?

There's five of you, you shop at Sainsbury's Local and Cook. Sounds about right.

Probably not abnormal for people cash rich and time poor.

There is now just 2 adults here - £60 per person a week is closer

About £20 a day, including weekend wine/beer.
Thats 3 of 3 days a week, and 4 the other days.
DH spending on top of that varies (depends whether he's on the road, on meal allowances, just picking stuff up to heat in his accommodation etc)

Packed lunches all round. Dont really do takeaway coffees etc.

Not budgeting as such,but eating what we like with an eye in expenses.

You use Cook and Sainsbury's Local, that pretty much answers your question. Plus name brands like Alpen being eaten in full in one day.

I'd hazard a guess that most don't do that and therefore spend less. Aldi's large lasagne is around a fiver, you could get three of their own brand cereals for the same price as Alpen and they would last longer. The options aren't simply to cook everything from scratch or spend a fortune for convenience, I imagine most people are part of the middle ground where they pay a certain amount for convenience but regularly shop at cheaper places.

And I understand you and your husband work a lot but three teens are able to make their own packed lunches, I'd say that's much more standard than buying three lots of meal deals every day.

I think your pricing is off for how much it would cost you to cook. It's a lot less.

Yesterday there were three of us home (DS2 is 17 so an adult in terms of eating).

Breakfast cost about £5 in total but thats because we have chickens so if we didn't then we'd have bought eggs so say £7

Lunch was fairly cheap because we were busy - baguette, block of cheese, butter, coleslaw, crisps, apple, kit-kat - about £12ish

Dinner was roast chicken, potatoes, roasted tomatoes and peppers, sweetcorn
about £15

DS had some icecream - say £2

DS also had a large bag of popcorn whilst revising - £2 and probably other stuff which I haven't yet realised is gone!

So yesterday it was about £40 for three of us - at the weekend it would be more.

It’s not less if I buy 700g of mince, 3x mozerella balls, an onion, garlic, courgette, carrots, celery and Parmesan plus tinned tomatoes from Sainsbury’s local. I literally looked up each price using my lasagne recipe before posting that. I even rounded down and didn’t include the small things like the bit of olive oil, the lasagne sheets, the salt and pepper, stock cube and Worcestershire sauce. Obviously there are cheaper places to shop than Sainsburys so it could be less if I had more time or was more organised.

I have 3 teenagers too and we spend a bit less than you. I cook from scratch but mainly quick stuff and kids help. Lasagne I count as quick because it's mainly not hands on. I think the biggest difference is we make sandwiches/salads for lunch which saves a lot. We buy a bottle of wine a week but that's only £3. Buying from Cook is very expensive for a family!

I am not sure I can work it out exactly. A typical day for 4 of us (two active teens at peak energy consumption) is.

3 times cereal, milk, fruit, cup of tea
1 times a bagel with topping

2 times sandwich, crisp, cereal bar, fruit,
2 times omelette and salad

4 times homemade curry (chicken thighs, chickpea and vegetables side) bit of fruit.

10 cups of tea/coffee 8 squashes
2 extra bowls of cereal or crisps.
2 extra sandwiches with cheese and ham
Handful of nuts

My supermarket shop has us at a £17 a day average, but this includes toiletries/cleaning/pet stuff, but then doesn't cover odd meal out or top up at the village shop.

I am past those years but when we both worked FT and had teens our food habits were.

Dh and I each took a packed lunch, DS had school dinners or sandwiches. He also ran a small business cooking garlic bread and selling it at school which I didn’t know about for some time. Both DH and I would have a lunch or two each month paid for by our workplaces. He also travelled overseas quite a bit in those years so maybe a week a month he would not be on the food bill at all.

I shopped online and bought the majority of my food this way, I used to walk in to town on Saturdays and buy fresh veg from the market and nip to the butchers. I used to occasionally nip in to an M&S food shop in the city I worked in for some nice bits and bobs, those weekend offer meals with a bottle of wine on the way home. We also used to go out for lunch every weekend after DS football. We live in a medium size Northern mill town.

I could have afforded to shop like you but like value for money. We are Southerners who have lived up North for close to 30 years.

Family of 3 plus dog and we spend £120 per week on food but I prioritise cooking from scratch (both work full time in busy jobs) - normally have left overs for lunch. We also eat a lot of plant based meals which is much cheaper than meat/fish in most/ever meal. I would be unhappy to spend that much and wouldn't like all the processed food you are eating (both for taste and health reasons) but it's all a personal preference. If you can afford it and it's where you want to put that money (ie don't want to focus that money on other places in your life) then crack on.

Lasagne doesn't have mozzarella or courgettes in it, though? And parmesan is expensive but keeps for ages if you buy a block. Same for garlic. Maybe your local supermarket is particularly expensive?

I feel this is similar to us. It does not look extravagant at all but it all adds up so quickly. If you had 3 teens instead of one we would be spending similar. I agree we also spend more than I posted at the weekend because we might treat ourselves to soft fruits, or ice creams or whatever and DH and I might have a glass of wine etc. I think realistically we are spending £2000 a month on food for the five of us.

He also ran a small business cooking garlic bread and selling it at school which I didn’t know about for some time.
Love it! Kudos to your ds.

Well most people won't spend anywhere near that amount as they simply won't be able to afford it. They spend 'so little' because they have to stick to a smaller budget.

It would mean either not being able to afford other essentials, or at least not being able to afford anything fun or save for the future/emergencies/things like car replacement etc because all their money goes on feeding themselves in a very expensive way.

If you can afford to spend over £20k pa on food, then fine. But you could make changes if you wanted/needed to with little impact on time required. Eg get a supermarket delivery rather than shopping at the local convenience store. Buy cheaper cereal instead of branded. Perhaps buy in bulk once a month from a cheaper supermarket.

Teens all cook one dinner a week each and make their own lunches.

That’s a lot, but if you can afford it then it doesn’t matter does it?

There’s no way I’d spend £19 on a lasagne. If I needed a quick cheap meal I’d get a big bag of pasta, some stir in sauce and some garlic bread. Maybe fry up some veg with it to make it slightly healthier to add to the sauce. £5ish max.

I use mozerella melted with crème fraiche between each layer instead of bechamel as it’s easier and tastes much nicer. Then mozerella melted on top. Plus I hide courgettes in most meals as chopped small nobody notices and it adds bulk and fibre. But each to their own recipe. This was obviously just one illustrative recipe.

Meant to add - family of 4 here, dh and I and dc aged 21 and 12.

This isn’t a “how can I save money?” Thread . I know I could spend less. It’s more a “am I the only one that spends this as everyone else on here seems to spend so little.”

I think that's because of the cost of living crisis over the past few years there are many threads on how to feed a family well but for less money.

I don't think people spend so little for the fun of it.

I live alone and eat very well because I can afford to, but I know that many other single households can't afford to do this.

That's £30 a week on coffees at work, if you are both full-time. We are family of 4 and an expensive dinner for us is about £9 to £10, not £19. So I can see where it all adds up. If you can afford it I guess it doesn't matter. We haven't got that sort of budget though.