to think this is an ok amount to spend on the weekly food shop?

[minimaw]

Family of 3, ds aged 12, me and DH - £100 - £110 p/w
DH has been chatting to women in his work who only spend about £50 p/w for the same size of family and now he's starting to talk about Farmfoods and mass buying frozen chicken fillets (!) to save cash.
DH doesn't cook and doesn't understand the cost of food. I do buy good quality food and lots of good cuts of meat but he's jumped on some economy drive bandwagon for some reason and it's driving me nuts. Anyone else have a hubby who just doesn't understand the importance of the food budget?

We are a family of four - 2 kids, 2 adults.

We spend roughly £100 a week on food, although I can easily get it down to £60 if money is tight.

Mine is £130 upwards for 7 of us, I am trying to cut back. This amount includes toileteries. We don't have many convienience foods or junk food.

I only spend a couple of quid on household products a week as if you get them from wilkos they are really cheap.

It depends on a lot of things on food spends what you are putting in, whwther you waste food, whether as a family you are quite overweight whether you shop around or whether you buy food over other things.

We spend about £100 pw for 4 of us, that's mainly on our organic box scheme and Waitrose. We're all veggie. I think that's pretty good for a total of 84 quality meal portions (3 meals a day for the 4 of us) plus snacks over the course of the week.

I would like to put my two penneth in about own brands. I actually prefer them and it makes a huge difference. Baked beans, for years i just assumed it had to be heinz, same for sauces. Cereals, are often over a pound cheaper. I tend to buy decent cuts of meat and will only buy British Farmed meat too because welfare standards are not as good else where, but when it comes to tinned produce i go for the value packs all the time. At our local tesco for instance, their own brand tomatos are bloody expensive, something like a pound a tin so I go to the ethnic isle and buy them for 39p! Same as coconut milk Amoy £1.99, obscure pack in ethinic isle which actually tastes better 50p!!! My hubby suggested we shop at lidl but to be honest i dont buy enough tinned and prepared food to make it worth while. There are three of us and a dog, usually our shopping bill comes to between £60 and £80 soemtimes it comes to £100 and that offends me deeply!! Funnily enough it is when DP comes with me that the bill shoots up.

At least £200 for 6 of us and often a few extra friends.

I spend between £80-£100 most weeks but then will also have approx 1 week a month where it's around £60 as I always get the offers the other weeks which then leaves me stuff to use up.

There are 4 of us, me, DH, DD1 (12yr) and DD2 (4yr) and a cat. That price includes everything and a couple of bottles of wine a week and also packed lunch for youngest DD and DH (DD1 has school lunch and I am lucky that my work provides free lunch)

Thats for 126 meals! (as it looks alot)
£1.50 per head per meal blush

£1.58

"having meat for every meal is not a healthy diet
do you have evidence of this?"

It's not so much that having meat at every meal is unhealthy as making vegetables, fruits and other foods of plant origin a bigger percentage of the diet is very healthy. In many studies that look at modern diseases prevalent in affluent western societies such as Type II Diabetes, Heart Disease, certain cancers, gallbladder problems and obesity, the common denominator is that those who consume a higher proportion of foods of plant origin are generally at less risk than those who don't. A simple, commonsense way to achieve this is to eat a little less meat. The 'Meatless Monday' campaign is a good example.

The paleo/primal diet would not have been meat at every meal. In primitive hunting societies meat is gorged on when there has been a kill but there can be long periods between kills when no meat is consumed. Also, paleo/primal humans would have been far more active than the typical 21st century european. And finally, most didn't make it past 35 years of age - middle-age being when most of the problems associated with poor diet and lifestyle choices tend to catch up on us.

6 of us plus dog & cat avg weekly shop is £140-150 p/w thats with 5 lots of pack lunches 5 days a week

I spend about £200 each fortnight (normally £80 one week , £120 the following week). However, whilst I am careful to look for offers, I certainly don't scrimp and like nice food. I am either too lazy or too busy to go to Aldi, Poundland, Farmfoods etc to look for bargains. One tinternet shop a week with Tescos is all I can be bothered to do.

Oh, and we probably end up spending another £10-£20 a week on bits and bobs from the spar (extra milk, forgotten items) including DH's Lidl obsession .

Current hunter/gatherers in primitive societies actually eat very little meat. Their main foodsource is berries/fruit and roots and in some places fish. Because hunting for meat is time intensive and uses a lot of energy, meat was not the main source ofenergy.

there are four of us plus picky cat.

I spent about 80-90 per week and its only me, ds and dp who works away so he is only here at the weekends, if he is here all week that can be around £20 more. If he want to buy cheaper food then I suggest you buy cheaper ingredients (for him to eat) and let him taste the difference

Doesn't it depend hugely on what you count as 'food'? I couldn't separate the items in my sainsburys shop into 'food' and 'other' - are you including toiletries, magazines, school tights, shampoo, stationery, flowers for your mum etc etc? And if you shop at a big supermarket, does that include presents for the kids friends birthdays etc?

Including all that kind of stuff, my sainsburys shop is probably £200 per week fro 5 of us

I was talking about people who follow a paleo/primal diet nowadays .
I know many women who follow high protein, paleo etc who are looking and feeling better than they have in years. Meat isn't the enemy. I'm always amazed at people who think bread, potatoes and pasta are healthy. All far worse for you than meat and proteins.

at Worra.....that made me chuckle.

My £100 pw includes everything!! And I shop once a week....once it's gone it's gone!
I meal plan every day...so that's y meals aren't my problem....it's the pack lunches for 3 ds and all the snacks they eat when they come in from school...

We do 120 a week and that is all trips out and we go out quite a bit, meals out which we have at least once a fortnight, takeaways, food 15 quid a week petrol, presents, haircuts, toiletries, household products, booze and odds and sods.

Well i live by myself and i spend 10 -15 pounds and i think i eat really well. Meat most days , sandwiches for work , smoothies , good coffee that sort of thing. Can be more if im buying treats but i dont usually.

We do a big shop, delivered, for approx £180, farmers market for sausages and good quality cheap cuts (and the occasion steak) and gammon, £40 once a month then we top the fridge up at about £20ish a week. So that's £300 £320 ish a month. Family of four.

A few points occur:

He has no way of knowing that the 'women at work' he spoke to were actually telling him the truth. Plenty of people don't know how much they spend on groceries, and many who think they do wildly underestimate. Also, some will buy lunch out every day, and that's not included in how they calculate the grocery budget. Your lunches are.

If he does not cook the food, and does not shop for the food, and your family can afford the food you buy, and he is happy with the food you prepare.... he's creating a domestic dispute where one does not need exist. Surely every married person knows not to pick a pointless fight??

Tell him you're angry that he is lobbing criticism at how you manage 'your area' (food). BUT, also sit down with him and calmly go over how much you spend, and why. It may seem like a fog of pointless excess to him, so explain you reasoning. He should also understand why it's important to you that he either take responsibility for meals (buy and prepare them), or leave you to manage that as you see fit.

I could not make a meal for 4 people out of a single chicken breast, even if I made a curry.

Up to you, obviously. We spend £30 for the three of us, and that includes non-food items bought in the supermarket. I think this is a bit tight, but a necessity for us. I think it would all be a bit easier if I could spend anout £45, but anything more than that would be on food of a similar quality just more snobbily packaged :-)

paleo/primal diet?? Is that some of new faddy all protein diet like the atkins diet? Obviously based on the diets of cavemen, errr, that little useless appendage in our bowels, called an appendix has pretty much shrivelled away to nothing now because we no longer eat such a high protein diet.

I never fail to be at what new fad diet comes out next - a healthy diet is a balance of ALL food groups, be that carbs, fats and proteins. The problem with too much processed red meat is all the crap that has been pumped into the animals in the farming process and will no doubt prove to be the reason why its so bad for you. It is actually really bad for you to have a high protein diet and puts alot of pressure on your kidneys.