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

we are about 40 odd pints of milk a week.

I can get 2 meals for 4 from am standard pack of mince, but it is bulked up with grated carrot as that's the only way I can get teenagers to eat veg and they like a lot of pasta to not too much sauce. we have it with spag one day and the next I mix it through macaroni and make it more of a bake than a saucy bolognaise. There is literally nothing left after that though. Friend makes hers the same way (as she liked mine :) ) but only gets one meal from it and a small extra portion for the freezer as they are not that big on the pasta element so eat more of the sauce in a meal.

A medium chicken does us one meal. Make stock from the bones but that doesn't count as a meal

Humans of all ages need approx 0.8g of protein per kg body weight. That's grams of protein, not the food it's in. A 70kg person would need 56g protein a day.

100g of 20% fat beef mince contains 17g
1 egg contains 13g
100g chicken breast has 31g
100g tinned sardines contain 25g
100g cheddar cheese contains 25g
100g average ham has 16g
100g baked beans: 6g
Average chip shop fish: 23g
McD's quarter pounder with cheese: 31g

If you're watching your weight, it's better to front-load your day with protein & fibre, as it will take a while to process and you're less likely to feel starving later on. There's a lot to be said for having your main meal - complete with all the veg and pudding if you want it - at breakfast.

Mince padded out with loads of veg makes for a delicious sauce, but it's more than possible you aren't getting enough protein unless another of your meals contains a big wodge of meat or fish.

I know, - Northern Italian family, we eat too much lots of pasta. I'm only saying is it isn't bolognaise with lentils etc, for sure it sounds tasty pasta sauce but not bolognaise.

Sorry, that was answering teacher

Those of you who work full time who say they haven't got time to cook themselves a proper, ie not a pre prepared supermarket meal or high end conveinience meal are talking crap! Both me and my dh work long hours yet we still find time to feed our family healthy, fresh meals. This is down to two things, organisation and batch cooking. We are a family of five who eat meat, fish, lean poultry, pulses, plenty of fruit and veg etc yet my shopping bill rarely goes above £135-£140 per week. I don't fall for all this I have the money so I can buy what I want rubbish it's simply down to laziness and that you would rather pre prepared high end foods than actually cool yourselves and your family a fresh home cooked meal. Just admit it.

Mince padded out with loads of veg makes for a delicious sauce, but it's more than possible you aren't getting enough protein unless another of your meals contains a big wodge of meat or fish.

This is something we are very conscious off as DH and I are both post 50 and need a higher protein diet and teenagers are, well teenagers...

So although we pad out our mince - because that's how we like it - we do eat protein rich meals at other times. Eggs, beans, tinned fish and cheese in particular.

I'm going to experiment this week with moving teenagers onto vegetarian sausages as a healthier alternative. They love sausages and they are a convenient lunch for them to make since they are off school at the moment but I'm not ken on them having them too often. We'll see how it goes :o

We are Asians and we never eat already cooked food, its the quality of ingredients and shopping conveniences that are costly

NowUseeMe Well aren't you just brilliant?

You really have no idea what other people's specific family schedules are like, only your own. Or what people's jobs/energy levels after work are like. Someone who has a job on their feet all day may not be motivated to stand and prepare a meal on their feet for another half hour after getting home. They may need to be at some activity with a child within an hour of getting home or whatever.

Great if you can do it, but that doesn't mean that every one who can't is just lazy.

For those asking how you eat well without spending much I have just done my weekly shop in Lidl. For 6 people (although dh away until Thursday) I have spent £55. Meals to be cooked as follows:
Veg sausage and veg casserole
Thai prawn and pineapple curry
Fig and Serrano ham pizza
Jacket potatoes beans and cheese (kids only, I have friends over)
Cous cous salad with halloumi
Pearl barley and steak salad
For lunches there will be omelette, sandwiches. I make my own bread which is

I think this is where it's easy to see why some of us spend a lot more or a lot less on meals.

The above sample menu looks great, very tasty, I love halloumi and cous cous salad, but I looked at the list and thought there's nothing there for dinner except perhaps the Thai Curry. This is a lunch menu. And it's interesting that the op said her husbands away because a lot of what's on the list is what I'd call the kind of meal female friends eat when they go out for lunch or get together at someone's house.

Omelettes? That's a breakfast dish or a quick snack.

Sandwiches? Again, theyre a quick snack.

Fig and Serrano ham pizza? I think I'm going to have a go at that.

Food does not have a gender! That is funny.
What is male food?

Organic blueberries X 3= £10.50
Organic strawberries X 2 = £8
Organic apples X 3 packs = £9
Organic pears X 1 pack = £3.50
Organic bananas £1.80
Pineapple = £2
Mango = £2
Broccoli X 2 = £4
Sweet corn cobs = £2
Organic carrots X 2 bag = £2
Asparagus X 1 = £2
Organic red peppers = £2

So that's my weekly fruit and veg bill. £48.80

Now, add in organic meat, organic salmon, cleaning materials, snacks, bottle of wine etc.

If you're not on a budget, it really is very easy to hit £150 plus per week.

This is for two adults, three year and 5 year old.

NowUseeMe - i don't even work at all and i still don't have the time or energy to cook full meals!

Also, if you have people who wont eat certain foods then a lot of cheap cooking is out. My son has ASD and has a very restricted diet, so i obviously try to get the very best of the few things he will eat. Salmon fishcakes are one of them and I buy them for 2.50 fresh from sainsburys. He also eats sausages so i buy the very best ones i can, mayonnaise too - best organic ketchup etc. These things add up. I would be very happy if he would eat a spag bol.

That's interesting ohdear as I would consider those meals to be dinners and so would my DH who has a big appetite. We would happily eat an omelette for lunch too. Would you really consider a casserole lunch?

Veg sausage and veg casserole
Thai prawn and pineapple curry
Fig and Serrano ham pizza
Jacket potatoes beans and cheese (kids only, I have friends over)
Cous cous salad with halloumi
Pearl barley and steak salad

That's great for you but not us. 3 teens, me and DH that's at least four pizzas, the veg sausage casserole would have DH begging to take me out for a meal and the cost of prawns for a family of 5 kind of outweighs the price. I'm also anal so would have to check and devein every one. The salads do sound lovely but wouldn't fill my lot up.

I haven't RTFT but I find it much easier to understand how people can spend £200+ than feed a family of 6 well on £65 including nappies and toiletries.

But then I guess that legendary MN chicken lasts all week.

Even if non organic, we will all 4 of us eat an apple a day, that's 28 apples or 4-6 packs at roughly £2 a pack so average a tenner a week - just on apples, not even expensive apples and that's still only one portion of our 5 a day.

As DSs are not big on veg, they eat a lot of fruit - fruit is expensive.

Nightandthelight

Yes. We often have a casserole for lunch.

And anyway there is a fine line between casserole/stew and chunky soup....

Why wouldn't you have casserole for lunch? How very odd.

Different folks different strokes clearly :) I would consider casserole/stew very different to soup though as would put dumplings or sausages in a casserole rather than just veg as in a soup :)

I agree that a lot of the meals on KittyKrap's list sound like lunch rather than dinner. Anyway, as the spaghetti bolognese example shows, there is little point in giving examples of what "meals" you eat because different people have different interpretations of those meals.

I've just roughly added up the cost of our food for today and we are at about £25.

That's for:
Poached eggs on toast for breakfast
Tuna rolls with salad for lunch
Chinese spiced chicken breasts with vegetable stir fry noodles for dinner (Home made)
Raspberries with yoghurt for dessert

4 adult portions

Add in the milk, fruit juice, squash, tea, coffee and the odd pack of crisps, snacking fruit and/or biscuit and it all adds up.

Looking at Garlic's list, I suppose the point is that other foods, even if not seen as 'main protein sources', have a bit of protein.

Wheat, for example, has around 15g protein per 100g. The lentils in the lentil salad to go with the sliced chicken 9g per 100g. 2g per 100g in potatoes. 4%ish in 100g of milk. 5g in 100g peas. Kidney beans are 22% protein.

So while my lasagne may not contain all that much protein in the form of meat, there will be protein in the milk, the cheese, the pasta. Equally the chilli served with wraps will contain protein in the wraps, the yoghurt, the beans. There may not be huge chunks of meat on the plate for a roast dinner, but there will be protein in the potatoes, the peas, the broccoli etc.

It's about looking at whether the 'diet as a whole' contains enough of the different nutrients, not whether there is 'enough meat to make up the full protein requirement in a single meal'.

People choose to spend over £200 on shopping each week. They don't have to. If they only had £80 to spend they would manage because they have to.
It's buying things you want rather than need. If you have the money then it's up to you what you spend it on.
I think it's wasteful but not everyone does.

Those of you who work full time who say they haven't got time to cook themselves a proper, ie not a pre prepared supermarket meal or high end conveinience meal are talking crap! Both me and my dh work long hours yet we still find time to feed our family healthy, fresh meals.

You say this as though you think what you and DH do proves anything about what might be possible for anyone else. What gives you this idea?

We don't waste it, though.

I had no idea that people even thought about the grams of this and that! I have no idea how much the weight of the mince I am using tonight is...