To think my mother is delusional?

[itsthecircleoflife]

Because apparantly spending £60 on a "few days shopping" (im talking a few veg, bananas, net of satsumas, a roast chicken, 4 pork chops, a bottle of wine, a loaf, 6 pints of milk and some cleaning supplies) is a "real bargain"

Apparantly she finds it impossible to believe people have to live on less than half that for a week

I find it hard to believe as well, but then I don't live in the UK and am always surprised at how cheap your food is there.

I can easily spend that on very little in a supermarket.
Veg - around £20
Pork chops -£10
Chicken - £6
Wine - £6
Bread - £1
Milk - £2
Cleaning products - £8
That's £53 and I don't know if she buys organic or free range meat or how many cleaning supplies or fruit n veg. So it's not an unreasonable amount of money to spend.

That's not unreasonable if you are buying gold quality stuff, high quality meat etc.

Of course you are not wrong either, many do have to live on far less.

Good quality, not gold quality obviously.

Thats nearly 2 weeks if food from Aldi for us.

Why should she be concerned by what other people live on? She can spend what she wants surely?

I think 'bargain' is a relative term isn't it.

As long as you spend within your means, does it matter what you spend?

My mother in law can't believe we only spend 40-60 pounds a weeks on a food shop she often can spend that on a joint of meat for Sunday dinner

£40-60 for a joint of meat? How many people is she feeding?

It doesn't sound cheap or dear, just a normal amount?

You can easily spend that on a joint of meat where I am (Sweden.)

Food is really expensive here.

Actually everything is really expensive here... :(

What's the context? It's a very strange comment. Is she visiting the country and used to higher prices?

But, it's not hard to see how she spent this much. Not everyone wants to buy the economy chicken, saver cleaning products and a bottle of Blue Nun. Maybe she bought some nice shampoo and some dishwasher tabs.

Depends on the quality of food and the sorts of cleaning stuff she got. It could well be a bargain for her particular basket of goods. (if you get something that would normal cost you £1000 for £600, you'd call that a bargain, if you got something that would normal cost you £2 for £5 you've overpaid, its not the amount you spend, but what you got for it that matters when deciding what's a bargain...)

I wouldn't buy cheap/economy meat, so that does sound about right for her basket of goods, assuming the cleaning products was only 2-3 things. Wouldn't say 'bargain' unless she'd normally expect to spend closer to £80 on those products.

(the average weekly household spend on just food - no cleaning products or toiletaries etc is £88 - different sized households will have different levels of spending, but those spending more like £30 a week are the ones who's spending pattern is 'abnormal' - it's not delusional to think that most people's spending habits in supermarkets are closer to your mums than those spending only a fiver a day in total for a family of 4).

Not difficult to spend this much if you go to Waitrose or Tesco.

But yes, people do live on much less. We manage to do a weekly shop for six people for £60 in Lidl.

glass i'm with you on this one, i love lidl and i love the money i'm saving in a jar each week as a result for a much needed holiday, around £400 at present [since early nov ] since i stopped doing main shop at asda and get the bulk from lidls once a week.

Loving the typical MN reverse snobbery of feeding a family of 10 on one small chicken for a week again.

I'm shocked by how little people manage to spend on shopping. I just came back from aldi and only have enough to do me a few days as I don't drive and it cost 27 euro. All I got was a chicken, Brussels sprouts, grapes, bananas, pain au chocolat, milk, Lemon and lime drink, bottle of cheap wine, shampoo and shower gel. I tend to do all my shopping I'm bits and pieces due to varying shifts in work and lack of a car. It seems more expensive when reading threads on here but bulk buying wouldn't help me either as it's just me and my dd so things would go off