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

trafalgargal, the Aldi close to me is mad busy on a Friday night or Saturday morning so shopping there would be a nightmare. I can't shop any other evening as by the time I'm in from work and collected all the kids, it's just too late as we'd have no time for homework and cooking.
Plus, and I'll admit I've only been twice, I struggled to find a good range of organic meat and quality fish. They also didn't seem to stock organic milk. Maybe the one close to me was just badly stocked. I also didn't find it much cheaper.

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.

Maybe they're having enough "family holidays" as is?

There's only so many family holidays one can have with school aged children.

If, for instance, you're already having 3 foreign holidays a year then foregoing number 4 in favour of Waitrose/M&S food isn't going to be a biggie.

No real idea what we spend but guessing it's over. £200 a week for 3 teen boys and 2 adults. Soon adds up if you have steak, free range organic chicken etc. I don't eat meat but an fussy about animal welfare so try and buy better for that reason.

I think the show is more about opening people's eyes to trying new things and not being stuck in the rut of sticking to familiar brands. It's not practical for everyone to traipse through 6 supermarkets a week athough it may be for some - within 10 minutes drive we have asda, tesco, waitrose, co-op and lidl, little but further we have sainsburys and aldi. You could shop smart and alternate where you go every week, stocking up on your frozen chips from Tesco and your cheese from Aldi if you wanted to.

I still think it's more about encouraging people to try different items though and planning their meals more efficiently.

If I traisped to 6 different shops, whatever I saved in food would be spent again on fuel!

Trafalgar, I like Aldi but I have to dit my shop - go there first and then Asda or Morrisons for the stuff I can't get. Off the top of my head things I couldnt get in Aldi this week:
Paella rice (only stocked on special)
Risotto rice
Weightwatchers yoghurts
Golden caster sugar
Ready to roll fondant
Decent ready to slice bread
Rice wine vinegar

Most of what I buy is organic, there's very little of a normal weekly shop that I could buy in Aldi (love their nappies though!).

I find Waitrose actually the cheapest for the food I usually buy. Things like Persil I tend to bulk buy when they're on offer at asda or Tesco.

Also, someone mentioned Whole Foods up thread - a weekly shop there would be very expensive, but their organic / free range meat is usually one of the cheapest and excellent quality. It's all the other stuff I pop in the trolley in there that adds up!

I guess we're like this - I estimate we spend £250/week on groceries for our small family (not including dog food but a little too much alcohol) - most being at Waitrose (closest supermarket) and the butchers.

It is our main household expense by far (no mortgage, no school fees) my only defence is that our household income higher than average too and it is easily affordable.

I don't buy ready prepped veg (apart from frozen) but we do waste food - often have three different evening meals (timings around preferences/work/clubs) and sometimes rely on ready meals. I will be the first to admit it is crap.

I wouldn't mind the cost if we were all eating really well - lovely tasty well balanced meals and well organised around it but we're not. DH is very fussy (more so than the DC) and very resistant to changing the current situation. Sorting it out is on my 'to do' list...

As Queen of the reduced to clear counter I get my bargains that way - we haven't bought full price meat or fish for months. Have the kids well trained to scour the reduced shelves in all the local supermarkets. Waitrose is one of the better ones - lots of reductions on good quality items which can be frozen and used later. Things like packs of good quality sausages originally at £3.60 reduced to 60p. Kids also like those sandwich thin things for their packed lunch, was in the supermarket one evening last week on an emergency chocolate run and they had packs reduced to 10p each - got 10 packs, stuck them in the freezer and that will do packed lunches for ages when they're back to school.

We don't NEED to spend as little as possible, but I do like getting bargains.

Trafargargal, you obviously have more time. Do you work f/t? Because in my house, with 2 of us working f/t long hours, DH often away and 4 children to organise and feed, the path of least resistance is by far a better option that the cheapest one.
I try not to feed them crap so I try to ensure that any bung in the oven stuff is the best quality I can buy. There's a fishmonger next door to dd's nursery who do large hand made fish fingers. They cost me about 3 times the price of s frozen pack but as I don't have the time to make them it's worth paying. Other people may agree re the quality but have time to make their own. I simply don't. When I've picked them all up and we've trundled in at 6pm, I have a small window to feed, assist with homework and then get DD in the bath. I simply don't have time to spend chopping and cutting and preparing good quality stuff so I throw money at it.

Yesterday's Ocado shop was about 160 quid, I'll probably do a couple of top up shops in Tesco during the week. And we usually have a takeaway once a week too.

We can afford it though, if we couldn't I'd cut back.

God I'd love a cook

I'd love someone to come in every morning, tidy up, put away all the clean laundry (I hate that too), iron, make a lovely casserole and cake and leave it for us for when we get in from school.

I think the key bit in the OP's situation is the small DC. All very well limiting snacks etc, but big (and growing) DC need food. DS is 10 and eats adult portions: thin as a rake, but shooting up and up

TBH I don't think 200 for three meals a day for four people over seven days is extravagant - it's £2.38 pp per meal

Luna agree about the Waitrose reduced stuff, whenever I go in after work, I always look at the reduced counter, sometimes there are really good bargains to be had, and it's really good quality, much better than Asda's which always looks a bit past its best

I'm also amazed at the thought of £200 a week ... but each to their own. We could afford to spend that but I wouldn't. Probably spend £60 a week here, two of us, mostly cooking from scratch (I love my slow cooker), no takeaways, very little booze.

I don't think I spend £200 but I would feel pretty miserable if I was only spending £65. That isn't much at all if you have teenagers and there is no way I would do it unless I was on a strict budget.
The families that go on "Eat well for less" aren't getting good value for money which is why they are picked for the program. I think it gives a false impression though as probably most of the time, those that spend more are actually just buying nicer food than those who spend less.

Gingham, my £200 a week is for 6 of us. You spend £60 for 2. We go through a 9 pack of loo roll a wk during school hols. It lasts 2wks during term time. I need to do at least 2, sometimes washes a day. That's a lot of washing powder. It all adds up.

That should say, sometimes 3 washes a week.

One of my best swaps was to change from Ariel to Aldi washing detergent- it's the same as far as I can tell, wouldn't be at all surprised if it's off the same line just in a different box.

I use Fairy. I've tried supermarket own brands that claim to be for sensitive skin and it was awful for ds3. Fairy is all he seems able to tolerate.

I could quite easily spend £200 a week on food but I don't. We are a family of 4 and probably spend around £100-120 a week including cat food and cleaning products. I shop at Sainsburys or Waitrose.

Today I'm doing a shop at Aldi. It's the school holidays and the kids rampage through the kitchen so I anticipate the weekly shop will be around this week. I don't buy meat or fish from Aldi as don't like it.

I dont have any issue with people spending hundreds on food a week. For some people it's one of their priorities to have branded / luxury foods and they want to just pick up whatever they fancy.

Yes do people include alcohol in these sums?
I buy about 10 bottles of wine/ champagne a month , so that's about £20-25 a week.

My Aldi is open til 10pm and is empty after 9pm ......so it's a quick trip on days I'm not working til 11pm (which is 4days a week). I wouldn't visit any supermarket on a Friday night or a Saturday simply not time efficient when they are open if not 24 hours than to 10 or 11pm.
My Aldi has organic milk and I buy rice vinegar when needed not weekly but I'm pretty sure they stock it.

My MIL spent very little on food, scrimping and saving everywhere. Stretching a cake for four round five, including three teenagers, and cutting the sixth slice into five for seconds. She even counted potatoes and sprouts and to this day counts food at the table. "DH has only got two potatoes, but you have taken three".

Her DC remember being hungry, two live on a different continent and visit rarely (twice in 25 years), DH has no memories of favourite child hood dinners or looking forward to treats on shopping days or finding something nice in the cupboard.

Had they lived in poverty I could understand it. They didn't - when FIL died there was a million in the bank. That's what I don't understand - and it went alongside mean spiritedness too.