To wonder if people actually spend 200+ on a weekly shop

[pleasemothermay1]

Watching eat well for less and I just can't believe people actually spend 200+ a week on a food shop

One lady was giving a teen 20 a week to get chips and chicken 😟

We have 6 in our family

One baby
One toddler
One teen
Me and hubby
And a cat

I spend £65 a week including nappies and toiletries

This gose up to £90 during holidays and the teen is eating at home not collage

It's mad what are these people feeding there kids

My children have breakfast lunch and dinner I don't encourage grazing all day they can have fruit in between meals and I cook from sctrach pretty much 5 days a week junk on a Saturday then roast on a Sunday

Okay, here goes, typical weekly shopping list (there will be some things I don't remember)

Bread x 2
Bag of Brioche
Pitta bread
Pack Belvita
Hummous
Salad stuff (lettuce, toms, peppers, cu, avocado)
Herbs (parsley, mint)
Veg - broccoli, chantenay carrots, green beans, new pots, ord pots, etc.
A joint (beef, lamb, chicken)
butter
onions
milk (2l)
cereal
yoghurts
eggs
tea bags
fizzy water
8 Stella
2 bottle wine
Elderflower cordial
Orange juice 2l
Cat food (he only like the really nice stuff)
Chicken thighs
Mince
Pasta
Gammon steaks
Crème fraiche
crackers
cheddar
parmesan
stir fry
2 rump steaks
pesto
2 salmon steaks
Indian meal pack for two with an extra curry and chicken tikka pieces
ham
salami/prosciutto
Fruit (nectarines, bananas, grapes, berries)
frozen chips
frozen spinach
bag of lemons
washing up liquid
fabric conditioner
shower gel
shampoo
anti-perspirant
quiche
bacon
olive oil
tommy k
smoked salmon
yoghurt
packet of trifles
tin of tomatoes
tin of beans
Cpl tins of Heinz soup
4 cod fillets
Cpl packs of barbecue stuff
feta
cous cous

The DC are at home for the summer at present, DS making sandwiches and DD picking about.

So what do you get for your "extra" £2000 pa which is worth more to you than a (nothin perhaps)family holiday ? Really interested as I have a bit of a disconnect here

They probably go on holiday too, it's not either/or if you have money is it.

Four days into the holidays and I reckon we will be up to £200 soon. The kids have not stopped eating. Have stocked up on snacks, crisps, biscuits, cheese and fruit : I go to Heron, Poundland and Iceland as they have crisps etc very cheap.

I suppose like how people can't get the 'Waitrose love' I can't understand the 'Asda love' 'lidl love' or 'aldi love'.

I buy my food from Waitrose because of the quality, the service, and because I can.

Family of five here, three (starving) teens, me and DH. I probably spend up to £200 every 10 days but that's with no top ups of milk or bread or cat food. And it includes a fair amount of beer..

No ready meals, everything cooked from scratch, just the look of horror on teens faces if I get the slow cooker out. A few years ago I did a test of trying to feed us all on £10 a day, I'd walk to Asda every day, do a shop and spend hours cooking so I was usually two meals ahead. It worked and I'd be £10-£15 pounds up at the end of the week but I'd need milk/bread top ups.

Everyone is different.

As a pp poster said it's all about outgoing. We also don't have 150k a year. But we have very little outgoings. Also we still have our family holidays and other nice things, dh only gets a certain amount of time off work so even if we wanted another family holiday we couldn't have one.

What it buys us is me not having a nervous breakdown, the children not smashing up the house or screaming constantly while i am in the kitchen, me being able to give more care and attention to grieving FIL with dementia, DH and i not arguing all the time and getting divorced. All these things are worth more than 1 extra week at Eurocamp, which is pretty much what 2k would get us.

Four of us plus a dog.

Kids are toddlers. I spend about 130 in the super market, 40 in the butchers and maybe another 20/30 on shit round the shops or to top up veg.

Dp works away so I send his meals with him which is basically a dozen healthy breakfast muffins (egg and veg) a salad box that has enough varied salad in to last 5 lunches. A vegetable box to serve three nights of stir fry 8 tins of mackerel, 8 chicken breasts and a pack of fresh salmon. He has been following this diet for the past year and has lost 5 stones which he desperately needed to so it has pushed the food budget up slightly.

I'm on slimming world which is lots of veg salad and fruit

The children eat what I eat with some extra bit's breakfast stuff which goes in the bin every bloody morning and whatever I think might entice them to actually eat alot of this is experimental at the moment but we've had some wins.

Then the rest is made up with a few tins, pasta, freezer stuff cleaning stuff dog food and treats and nappies wipes etc.

Also due to dp working away mon to Fri have to keep him stockrf in the other daft bits like shampoo cling film etc

I probably waste money although I don't have much food waste except what the children won't eat.

This is a recent development. Until dp started working away I was on a 30 a week budget to do the same and it was hard. Very hard. So I guess at the moment I'm. Enjoying not having to worry about it. Probably a bit silly but the last year is the first time in my adult life I haven't had to go round the supermarket with a calculator.

Oh and I'm a SAHM I cook evertrying from scratch and have one takeaway a week and the children have a freezer tea that night. We can't go out together for child care reasons so that's my night off and our couple time. A chicken kebab and a movie!

£200 PER WEEK?!!!!
If went spent £200 per week on groceries alone, that would be three quarters of our entire monthly income gone on food alone
There's 3 of us (DH, me and 15mo Dd) and a cat.
We do a big meat shop from an online butcher at the start of the month which costs about £55, but sets us up with all the meat we will need for the month.
Then we spend £35-40 on everything else in Aldi or Lidle every week, including nappies.
And then £20-£25 in Morrisons on the branded things I won't compromise on, ie Heinz beans and ketchup, and the cat's wet food because she refuses to eat the cheap stuff from aldi
So we probably spend around £80-£85 per week (that's including the £55 meat spend divided by 4).
Do these £200 either have a gigantic brood of children or eat fillet steak and champagne everyday?!!

Spending a lot on food doesn't always equate to buying loads of ready prepared stuff

Spot on

I don't buy ready prepared food and my food bill is still high because we eat very well. I'm with the previous poster on the fish pie.

And what about portion size? That also has a lot to do with the overall cost of a meal. Some people eat like sparrows and can get a couple of meals out of a chicken whilst others have bigger appetites and would have nothing left of one at the end of a meal. It all adds up

No it's not about having cavier or champagne every day but if you shop in Waitrose then your food bill will be more expensive. I buy organic everything and any meat I buy will be the best, responsibly sourced meat I can find - that all pushes the price up.

Food and cleaning stuff and wine and the odd replacement dustpan and brush or a casserole dish or cafeteria... yes sadly I usually spend around £200 a week ( there's only three of us - but we often have up to 6 more, staying visitors over the weekends ) and no - it's not all pre made foods either !

We go through 300 a week in food for two adults and one child plus two DSC at weekends. But I buy organic high welfare meat and mostly organic fruit and veg. The quality of food we eat matter a lot to us and I'm willing/able to pay for it. Our dinners are 90% from scratch and aren't anything special. The quality of the ingredients is the cost driver.

I'm not sure what we spend as we buy from farmers markets and the fish quay, then we need to buy ds2 his specialist foods (allergies) and then wend our shop.

On average of say we spend roughly about £80 to £100 pw, and everything is cooked from scratch, including breads etc...

Easily spent over 200 per week on shop when DH 3 teenagers with us. They eat vast amounts. Also on top of that lunches at work. Extra for booze. I don't buy cheap chicken either.

Now two of us and cat and probably 80 a week.

I've never heard of an online butcher. Is it good stuff?

If I had the money, I could probably spend that. We probably eat too much meat, but if I could, I'd buy organic meat and veg. I do buy free-range whenever I can. I think if you can afford it, you have a responsibility to buy the highest welfare meat and dairy that you can.

2 adults and a 15 month old baby here.

I spend about £80pw on a tesco delivery, then a further £15 a week on top up bread, milk, fruit etc at my local co-op.

The £80pw includes formula, nappies, wipes, teething gel and calpol etc, cleaning and laundry products, toiletries, a few beers for DH... everything really!

I do used pre chopped veg bags and salad pots, but I like the variety in them and we get less wastage by using them. Everything else is cooked from scratch. I buy a range of products, e.g. value chopped tomatoes, but tesco finest chipolata sausages (they're the lowest salt content sausage with a high percentage of meat in, so the best choice for our sausage loving baby!). We buy what's right for us.

My spaghetti bol recipe:
750g 10% fat lean beef mince
2 x tins value tinned tomatoes
1 big red onion
green pepper
pack of mushrooms
3 carrots
2-3 sticks of celery
garlic clove, crushed
chopped olives
2 bay leaves
1 low salt stock cube
3 courgettes
pack of cherry tomatoes
a few chili flakes (more if baby isn't eating it!)
sometimes a tin of cannelloni beans.

It does 6 adult meals, but normally 4 adult meals and a lot of baby meals for the freezer! I know that's an excessive amount of veg for some, but it means I don't snack in the evening so it's a good choice for me. 7 years ago, my budget meant that after household bills I had £50 a month for food, petrol and entertainment. I walked to work, watched freeview tv and ate frugally. I don't miss it.

What shocked me on that second programme was not so much the amount spent but that the father was cooking meals from scratch that the kids weren't eating. They were filling up on huge amounts of junk not to mention the teenage boy eating out every night.

I wonder if everyone is comparing like with like. I wouldn't be clear about how much I spend on food alone a week as our supermarket bill would include non food items like cleaning products. We don't spend £200 a week (even with a once a week takeaway) but we are only 2 adults and a toddler.

Also incomes are relative to your location/ situation. We earn around £40k jointly. If we paid London prices on housing and childcare I am sure I would have to be a lot more frugal than I am.

I get it. Ours is less than half of that with two adults and two small DC, and we buy lots of fresh fruit, meat, fish, bagged salad etc. Also nappies. But if you have 3 or more kids, if they're older, if you go somewhere like Sainsbos or dearer, if you've a couple of pets and some nice wine, I can see how you'd do that easily. And premade food often makes it dearer. I believe posters on here have worked out that at the absolute lowest income end, cooking from scratch is more expensive, but at the level we tend to spend, it's a saving.

And where you shop makes such a difference. We're primarily Aldi, though get our milk from the corner shop to support them (I fully appreciate having this kind of choice is a luxury) and might stock up on butcher's meat especially when offers are on. Asda top up once a month for things Aldi don't do. So like 75% Aldi. My weekly Aldi shop is about £70, but elsewhere would be closer to £100. Throw in pets, imagine the kids are teenagers with hollow legs, imagine we liked expensive alcohol, that would be closer to £200 than £100 in Tesco or similar.

Pigeon I guess that's the crux of it really isn't it?
If the family income allows for a more luxurious lifestyle, and that's how people choose to spend their money, then why not?
I think it just sounds extravagant to me because there's no way in hell we could afford it - our budget forces us to shop in Aldi and Lidl (which is fine! I've actually found some things in there that I prefer to the more expensive, branded equivalents!).....but if we had the money to do our whole shop in Morrisons or Tescos rather than go to two, sometimes three different supermarkets in the name of saving money, I would!!
I started a thread a few weeks ago about how shocked I was about Asda prices! Our car broke down, and I couldn't get to Aldi or Lidl, so had to do an online Asda shop and get it delivered. I put all the things I would normally buy in Aldi/Lidl in my basket, and I shit you not, the total was around £30 more than I would usually pay for the same items!!

We are a family of 4 and we spend about 150 a week which we can just about afford. We shop at Sainsbury's. We don't eat ready meals or jars but I think are bills are high because that includes ..

toiletries and nappies
Greetings cards
Occasional kids clothes
All adult lunches
Lots of baking ingredients and equipment eg new cake tin today, as I bake regularly and give to friends / nursery etc
Twice monthly we have family to stay for weekend and we have nice food then eg quality fish or meat, wine

We don't eat out much as the dc are picky and restless in restaurants.

I can well understand how people can spend more than us! It's easily done as there is a range of tempting premium food in the shops!

I spend about £130-£150 and there are two parents, two hulking teenagers, and a primary school aged person.

If you're used to living a certain way of life, or you have to live on a certain budget it must seem absurd to spend £250 a week on shopping because you know you can do it for XYZ amount.

I do take responsibility for the fact that me that much money is absurd though

I still just don't get how people spend so much. Family of four here with a hungry cat and often feeding the ILs, DSCs and friends too - £70 is an extravagant week, and we usually manage on £50. I don't think we go without, either.

I get bulk buys of toiletries from Superdrug or Poundland, a specially butchered lamb and a side of pork from the butcher for my freezer every few months, and I also buy orders from Approved Food.