How much is your weekly shop for a family of four?

[Anonymouskitty]

Hi all,

I know this thread has probably been done to death, but I was wondering what your weekly 'big food shop' cost is?

I'm trying really hard to keep costs down as we've moved house and got two lots of nursery fees to pay for and it all feels a bit stressful. Our current spend is approx £120 per week with a few more quid in the week for another loaf of bread/milk.

That's for us 2 adults, a 4 and a 1 year old. Oh and a dog. Food costs just seem to be going up and up 🥲🥲

Ours is ridiculous, about £250 a week!!

I could cut down if I wanted to and I can get away some weeks with it being half that but it really depends what I need and how flashy I'm feeling.

We spend a lot on food but we don't have a particularly extravagant lifestyle elsewhere so it's something I'm personally willing to pay and partly why I don't want to buy a bigger house and make our repayments much bigger unless we get pay rises.

I know it's insane and I'm not entirely sure where it all goes apart from kids branded snacks and my wine but it is what it is.

If I could get the kids eating less branded processed snacks and more things like toast, crumpets, eggs then that would help a lot.

However I've just done a shop for a BBQ tomorrow and it's £60 which will feed me and 2 kids with a few meat bits to freeze. I did put a bottle of gin on there though which is £20 plus the tonic and some beers so that's close to £30. Non of it is the cheapest option and a BBQ isn't essential and the alcohol definitely not but since we don't have an extravagant lifestyle elsewhere I'm like ok let's just buy whatever food and drinks we want.

About £80

We do a lot of slow cooking. Probably works out at £10 a day for all the humans, and £10 per week for the animals

2 adults, 2 children, 2 cats and a dog

Also to add - we buy 6L of milk at a time that lasts about 4 days. £1.05 Lidl pancakes and 44p Lidl bread.

None of us are big eaters - I haven’t eaten breakfast since I inhabited the womb.

For 1 adult and a hollow legged 6' teen, I spend £55 a week, no top up shops.

Obviously I don't need nappies or formula or any other baby stuff, which is expensive.

I shop in Tesco, cook from scratch, make my own bread, and watch every penny. I don't buy alcohol either.

So £120 for your household including nappies and dog food sounds about right.

We tried switching to daily shops, partly to take advantage of yellow stickers and partly to avoid waste, but we found we were spending far more and eating more convenience food.

My bank app tells me I spent £950 pm for the last 2 months. Family of 4, mid-late teens, one dairy free, one 6ft4 and still growing. I do a fair bit of exercise and dp has a manual job, we have large-ish meals otherwise just end up snacking.

I think good size meals and planning for seven days of meals is the way to go. If it’s all planned and bought you don’t get tempted into things.

This is pretty much me too. I don’t smoke or go out, well hardly ever. Takeaways are rare except for birthdays/special occasions. I do spend on wine and a silly amount on my kids (both young adults) but we also haven’t had a family holiday for two years so far and don’t do weekends away really. Very few and far between if we do.

That's a good idea I might try that

That's fantastic I wish I could be as good as this. I don't gave enough freezer room to really batch cook unfortunately

That's mainly the fruit we get. And a watermelon for a treat as the boys love it

Yes I spend roughly the same for two adults and two children (12 and 3.)

Around £110 on the weekly big shop then probably another £10-£20 of top ups of bread, milk fruit etc - it’s crazy how it’s crept up on us.

Pre Covid we spent £80 a week max.

It might be worth investing in a chest freezer, they pay for themselves generally. In one house we had it in the dining room covered with a tablecloth in the corner 🤣

About £160-£180 for 2 adults, 3 kids and 3 dogs.

I truly find the cost of living utterly miserable

That sounds reasonable, I can easily spend £60 for 1 adult if it’s a week when I need more meat and fish. But that’s everything - breakfast, lunches, dinners, snacks, wine, don’t do takeaways or buy lunch at work etc which is often the case when people claim they have a lower weekly food bill!