5 adults in the household and the cost of food shopping

[GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat]

How much do you spend on your food shop per week?

We are about £120 at Aldi and a £40 Sainsbury's top up but are getting bored. I'd like to do it all at Sainsbury's but fear it would be closer to £300 / week.

Would be interesting to see what other all adult households spend?

3 adults for three meals a day, mostly from scratch, seven days a week. Our supermarket budget is €175 so for 4 would be €216. Just under the OP’s.

Breakfast is porridge or toast and marmalade. Good coffee.
Lunch is soup, pasta, rice, mixed salad, beans.
Dinner is protein and vegetables. Leftovers get reworked or reheated.
Meat is usually turkey or pork. Cheese is a garnish, not an ingredient. Yellow stickers if they’re a bargain and can be cooked that day.
Fresh fruit at lunch and dinner.
I make my own cakes, pastry, pasta sauces, 5-minute microwave jam and occasionally flatbread or soda bread.
We use EVO oil on salads, butter where it’s noticeable and sunflower oil where it isn’t.

We get a monthly freezer delivery of bulk vegetables, oven chips, convenience food and ice cream. Chocolate is an ongoing fixation- we try all the flavours.
Snack food is microwave popcorn or homemade herbed croutons.
No alcohol, fruit juice or fizzy drinks.

We don’t suffer!

Edited to add: I’ve tried to like Aldi but there’s been something not quite right with everything I’ve bought there except their Irish butter. I shop at LIDL or my local Coop.

OP I think it would probably work really well to alternate weeks - one week at Sainsburys and one at Aldi. Just to see how you get on. Being in a different supermarket will give you other meal ideas, but you can mix in with the more normal stuff every other week, and Sainsburys might give you some ideas you can then actually get in aldi but you’ve got so used to the same few things you don’t notice the options.

We spend about £150-£180 weekly for 4 (2 adults, 1 teen, 1 preschooler) with Sainsburys. Always at Sainsburys, with Tesco top-ups if needed or if I havent done the weekly shop. That includes a fair amount of lunchbox snack items which bumps up the price, along with fresh food for meals and toiletries/cleaning products.

Tbh, i far prefer sainsburys and tesco. I've tried Aldi, Lidl & asda in the past and cant say that i have found it a significant amount cheaper. Asda seemed cheaper but when I compared own brand prices eg tin of kidney beans, asda had less volume/weight, so overall weight vs weight it was the same (that was about 10 yrs ago though)

Aldi and lidl have some ok things, but for us its just not worth doing half a shop there to then go somewhere else as they dont have everything that I we need.

I do understand that not everyone has that choice.

Sainsburys do their Stanford street fruit and veg which is good for a budget and I personally think its better than aldi/lidl produce.

We also do our food shop online so less likely to pick up extra items that were not on the list.

Our cost does change and I can buy when there are offers on.
lunch tends to be leftovers which saves money.
I’m veggie so we mainly eat vegetarian meals with maybe only one meat dish a week (I cook so they get what they are given 🤣).

I love looking at different recipes though for inspiration.

I have tried to shop at aldi and lidl a few times in the past and not once have they had everything that was on my shopping list, at least half was missing. Ir if they did have something the quality wasn't great.

It was years ago though so I cant think of what is was off the top of my head.

I do like the meat though.

We've never had any issues with quality, although people on Mumsnet seems to have bad aldis or something.

For every day food they have pretty much everything, except organic meats etc and gluten free (although I know some Aldi do have GF sections now)

@TwinklyRoseTurtledo you believe everything on TikTok? Unless half of that family are small kids I don’t believe it.
Family of two and we spend £100/week easily. That would include £12 on cat food. I get it delivered from Tesco. I do shop at Lidls occasionally as they have Raku (own brand) rice bowls which I love, and their bakery section…
Im sure what you need is a cookbook, not a different supermarket or budget.

I feed 2 adults and 2 teens who eat adult sized portions for about £160-180 a week at Sainsbury’s, and that’s with branded snacks/cereals/sauces, so I think if you were happy to have lidls/aldis for some of those still then you’d def get by on under £200 for a family of 5 adults.

What is it you can't get at Aldi - I tend to go to Lidl and there are a couple of things that I can't get there - been a long time since they sold celeriac - but if you cook from scratch (which is the best way to save money) I'm not sure why other supermarkets are more exciting

I always cook from scratch. My regular supermarket is Lidl and I'm happy with that. But I also go to the Moroccan supermarket and I love it. Different brands etc. of course, but very nice choice of everything, fresh vegetables and fruit, and a great bjtchers! Cheaper than Lidl too. And if possible I go to the market, especially for fish!

I shop mainly in sainsburys, weekly delivery.
I also occasionally pop in to Aldi and Lidl for bits (Greek style yogurt, nuts) but actually don’t find them much cheaper than sainos.
You are right, there isn’t much choice!
Sign up to nectar and log in every week to save your Nectar prices and Nectar points to save money.
Their Aldi price match and Stamford Street are pretty good.
I find it easier doing an online weekly shop as I can search for discounted products; I like their own brand granola esp Taste the Difference but also look out for discounts on the branded stuff.
It does take a bit of time (which I do have!) but also they pop up in offers online.
If you shop with them for a while then it “learns” your shopping habits and discounts your “favourites” which makes it easier to find the discounts.
But yes it does get boring but very necessary these days when everything is so expensive.
Also don’t discount other shops like M&S which you might think is too £££ their sauces (tomato, brown, bbq, salad cream) are good value and very good quality, worth topping up if you are in there!

I used to use aldi but find that sainsburys with a nectar card is reasonable and better quality meat veg exc

In my family 2 parents and 3 late teen boys. The teens are always hungry as all do a lot of sports. I spend about £180 a week main shop and a couple of small shop top ups for fruit, bread, milk and fresh salad food. This costs maybe £50 a week. I don't generally buy takeaways so this covers 3 meals a day for 5 people. When teens at college I spend a bit less on shopping but put lunch money on their cards.

I meant the planning, I agree there is no point 5 people shopping individually but there is no reason you have to do everything.

I find sainsburys cheaper than aldi / lidl - their offers are very good and the personalised nectar offers help even more - the trick is to meal plan around the offers rather than buy the same thing every week eg whole chicken is currently £3.66, chicken thighs are £2 a kilo, chicken mince is £2 a pack, chicken drumsticks are £1.50 a kilo - you can make lots of meals or cook the drumsticks and strip the meat for sandwiches, curries etc

I think this was true years ago. They've really upped their game now. They compete well with the big supermarkets on "finest" ranges. You can buy free range meat, organic fruit and veg (I don't buy it but it's there). Theme weeks with international ingredients. Good bread.
I do an online shop at Sainsbury's and top up at Lidl or Aldi for fresh meat, veg etc.

Yes - when we’re planning the food shop we just ask - meal ideas for the week? Nice weekend idea/ easy week day meal suggestions? Stops us getting stuck on the same few things. Doesn’t take much longer than 5 mins to think of what to eat and the rest is just the shopping.

I find it hard to find things like semolina and other bits in Aldi too, and they also have basically no "free from" range either which is a pain.

I shop online with Sainsburys, 4 adults, one with food allergies, and I spend around £250 a week. This does include alcohol and cleaning products as needed, and cats wet food /licky licks for medication taking, but hers and the dogs food is bought separately. I usually get around 85/90 items per shop which helps me see clearer if it's an expensive shop (ie a 60 item shop for the price of a 90 item shop iyswim) and I'll edit the basket accordingly.

Same here. DH likes to cook his own. Adult kids are in and out eating at different times. I used to cook an evening meal but like you say it jist got left or...plate it up for me I'll have it later....