What would you expect to spend (groceries)

[xprincessxjanetx]

We are a family of 10 (2 adults, a 14 year old, 9 year old, 8 year old, 6 year old, 4 year old, 2 year old and twin 1 year olds)

We are also having to host my mum, dad and aunt at the moment due to their housing issues (thankfully we have a large enough house!)

My husband and I are in disagreement how much the weekly shop should cost. I think it's coming out OK and he thinks I'm spending too much and not economising enough. So, what would you expect a weekly grocery shop for 5 adults, a teenager, 4 children and 3 toddlers to cost? (Food only - not including toilet paper, nappies, washing tablets etc)

NB: My husband taking over the shopping would not be feasible. He is autistic and a big trigger is shopping as he gets himself in a muddle - and I do generally enjoy doing it myself anyway.

TIA

Food only, and assuming there's an attempt to cook most meals for the whole household and keep costs low (few luxuries, little or no prepared food) AND there are no special dietary restrictions: somewhere between £400-£600 seems reasonable. If you (or another potential shopper in your household) have loads of time and multiple cheap options nearby and can cook from scratch/bulk and freeze you may be able to get it down around £325ish.

It's not helpful for your husband to say the bill can be lowered if he has no experience grocery shopping and can't try. Does he want you to eliminate certain items he sees as luxuries, buy the same items but lower priced, sub cheaper foods (lentil loaf instead of meat loaf, eliminate all drinks but tap water, etc.), buy and eat smaller amounts, or some combo? Also, if he's not regularly doing at least some of the meal planning and the cooking for the household, he may have an unrealistic idea of what raw ingredients are needed to get through the week even if he could navigate the supermarkets.

Is he able to do a mock online shopping and see how he fares cutting the cost on everything needed for the week? Or go through the receipts with you and show you were he thinks things can be cut or swapped out?

Must admit, I did wonder.🤣🤣🤣

Got a stinking cold at the moment so your post gave me a good laugh.

We spend an average of £200 for a family of 4 so I would guess around £500 a week including non food household goods. I hope your other adults are contributing.

Forget the food bill, I want to know how many bedrooms you have!

I think I would spend around £400 a week - but we don't eat much meat. If I tried really hard to economise and eat a lot of cheap meals and bulk stuff out with pulses etc, I think I could get it to £300. If you gave people who want meat every day, I think it could be as high as £600.

I do think though that he doesn't get to criticise without coming up with a solution - doesn't have to be actually doing the shopping if that isn't possible for him but I don't see why he couldn't do a meal plan, shopping list if he thinks it can be done to help you..

What I would be interested to know op is what the food bills were like before the extended family moved in? With a house of 10 to feed it was never going to be cheap so add 3 more aduIts on ( who I presume are contributing? ) then it could easily be £500 plus.

we’re a household of 3 adults 1 teen who eats like an adult so pretty much 4 adults. Also got a 4yr old husky and then toiletries/cleaning products/laundry etc we spend easily £300 per week and for various reasons we’re home pretty much all the time which makes a huge increase.

hats off to you cooking for 13 people!

As long as it's not putting you in financial hardship and there isn't a lot of waste then what's his issue? I see he can't possibly do the shopping himself, but could he manage to help meal plan? If he feels that passionately about it without being in a position to do it himself and understand how much stuff costs then surely he can support elsewhere if it's that important to him.

I'd be aiming at £350-£400.

I don't envy you, having to cook for that number. You must have some really big pans and a HUGE fridge 😁

We are 4 adults and a teen so 5 adults really for food consumption. Our weekly food shop is £180ish plus eating out/take away once a week and only lunch at home 3 days a week.

I would imagine around £400 a week minimum for you.

It really does depend on so many variables such as where you shop, what kind of food you eat and if you batch cook etc.

There’s two adults, a 3 year old and a 2 year old in my house and we spend around £150 a week. For context we cook all our food from scratch but this will be a mixture of more budget meals like pasta baked or jacket potatoes, average costing meals like smashed patties or homemade kebabs and more expensive meals like a roast dinners, baked salmon, pulled pork etc.

So based on that, for us, I reckon for that many people it would be at least £450.

Somewhere like Costco would’ve good as you have so many people. We just use it for stocking up on non-perishables a couple of time a year, meat and fish for the freezer, and if we have any big parties. The fruit and vegetables come in large portions so a bit big for us, but perfect for you.

£400? We spend over £100 for 3 of us and that's 5 meals as we eat out in the weekends usually.

If we are including household/cleaning goods, that would push up the price significantly. I echo the person who said Home Bargains big shop every few weeks, just be disciplined not to be sidelined by their junk food/destined-for-landfill plastic crap. You have to be selective.

Ideally I would spend about 140 on myself (but you pay more as a single person) though don't because I can't afford to. Having said that, I'm vegetarian which saves money on meat which is very expensive.

Maybe £500+? 🤔 Edit: £600 with a lot of meat as someone pointed out above.

I think these figures of 200/300 are unrealistically low. Just think of the cost of loo paper alone for ten people!

£450+

We need more info. Are snacks an apple or a punnet of blueberries ? Anybody have allergies ? Do you eat organic? Do you drink ?

I’d expect a supermarket own brand level shop with no alcohol to be at least £300, over £400 wouldn’t surprise me.

Have you considered putting it in an online supermarket site to show him how much things cost and he can read it line by line ?

I usually plan £30 per (adult) person if being careful, £50 per person if not so careful
We have meat everyday and fish at least once a week.

In your case it would mean between £250 and £400 ish

£350 min. Easily could be up to £600.

Easily £400 with no luxuries or treats

13 people at 3 meals a day x 7 days = 273 meals a week.

That's a heck of a lot of food and is going to cost a lot of money.

I don't even want to imagine!
We are 2 adults, 1 teenager and 1 child, 1 cat, 1 dog and spend around £120 a week plus around £100 a month on pet food.
Mixture of Tesco & Aldi and some hello fresh/gousto boxes

£100 a month on pet food, i.e. a quarter of your human food budget? I had no idea it was this expensive to own pets. I hope they are doing their fair share of seeing off people walking past and mouse catching services 😁

I spend £250 on a family of 6 - so at least double that... plus more if your toddlers are on formula or lots of bottles.
You really need to ensure the additional 3 adults are pulling their weight with costs... tally up an average of food bills before they moved in and after and get them to pay the difference.

£500+

Well I spend around £70 per week for us (one adult and one hungry teenage boy) so I'd say between £300-£400 minumum.