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

Real question is what % of your income is spent on food? ... poorer people spend a much higher % of their income on food.

How very true.

My groceries spend is 50% of my benefits.
90% of my rent is paid and 75% of my council tax.
So the supermarkets get roughly 30% of the total after tax (I'm below the threshold anyway!)
Once I've topped up my rent & council tax, groceries are 60% of my disposable income.

I manage to smoke roll-ups by taking a hard line on fuel & phone bills, and never spending on anything else. I do my own hair, never go out or away, have no car, etc.

The amount I'd save by eating worse food would not be enough to compensate: it'd buy one round a week at the pub, the fare to a nearby city or half a pair of shoes. When I frantically need something extra, I have to cut back on both food and smoking.

Losing the tobacco would make a big difference, but not to my overall standard of living tbh. It would simply mean I could save a rainy day fund.

It's all about personal situation at any given time, and not being judgemental about folk who're on a different chapter.

I love this, Tatty :) That way lies mental health!!

I spend about £85 a month for me, my partner and my daughter and then another £25 every 2 weeks on cat food, he is very fussy and will only eat Applaws.

I spend about £85 a month for me, my partner and my daughter

Bloody hell, how do you do that?! My 'cupboard ingredients' would be down to zero after 2 months on your budget, and I'd have no foil & clingfilm, etc.

I spend about £85 a month for me, my partner and my daughter and then another £25 every 2 weeks on cat food, he is very fussy and will only eat Applaws.

Marymoosmum14 if that is true you spend £28 per person per month on food and £50 per cat per month . That is true cat worship. Maybe your cat should apply to go on 'Eat Well for Less' ?

A month? That's roughly a pound per person per day. Unless you are mostly self sufficient, that's impossible.

don'tlikeja have you never heard of the feed yourself for £1 a day challenge?

it is possible.

although, i don't entirely believe that someone would spend nearly double the amount on cat food than human food!

But, I reckon a type and she meant £85 a week.

Sustainably? Over a long period? Nope.

I spend about £85 a month for me, my partner and my daughter.

Is that because you are on a strict budget or do you genuinely feel you are buying enough of the sort of food you like to eat for £85 a month?

As has been said (a million times ) on this thread, there is a huge difference between people who prioritise food, enjoy cooking, drink wine, like 'premium range, organic stuff' etc etc and those who just 'see food as fuel' and don't see what all the fuss is about shopping, cooking and eating.

I am very happy to spend a significant amount of our income on eating well, but I don't spend on clothes, 'entertainment', technology, hair dressers, expensive hobbies, holidays, cars etc etc

For me, 3 kids (1 teen ) , I can honestly say my average spend is no less than 300 per week - and I could easily spend more . I can also honestly say that to cut back a bit would make no significant difference to what and how we eat and can only deduce that I do waste a bit of money? However, I can afford it. If the time ever came when I couldn't , I would still know how to "eat well for less !"

Found Aldi too expensive. I work full time and want cooking to be simple. And fast. I now shop in sainsburys. Food shop is £30 a week. With wine its £50. Family of 3.

I can honestly say my average spend is no less than 300 per week - and I could easily spend more . I can also honestly say that to cut back a bit would make no significant difference to what and how we eat and can only deduce that I do waste a bit of money? However, I can afford it.

It's not just your money, it's everyone's resources. If you could cut back and make no significant difference to how you eat, then please share them out a bit.

I'd expect the % people spend on food to go down quite a bit with income though. Basic utilities etc too. Mortgage I'd expect to be a more steady proportion. If we halved our income, we'd have to cut our mortgage. If we doubled our income, I'd increase our mortgage substantially. But in neither case would our weekly food bill change much (though eating out probably would)

Blimey in comparison to aldi I feel like I've been mugged on the occasions I've shopped in Sainsbury's!

I agree Dame. how anyone can find Sainsburys cheaper than Aldi. Sainsburys fruit and veg at least is much more expensive.

Aldi is the only shop that I can go round picking up everything I want without looking at prices. I don't have that luxury in other supermarkets even Lidl because I buy all the DeLuxe range stuff.

As has been said (a million times grin) on this thread, there is a huge difference between people who prioritise food, enjoy cooking, drink wine, like 'premium range, organic stuff' etc etc and those who just 'see food as fuel' and don't see what all the fuss is about shopping, cooking and eating

There are also people that prioritise food, and enjoy food and drink and see food as much more than fuel but simply don't have the budget to spend twice the national average on organic everything from one of the the most expensive supermarkets there is.

This week the DC's have been away and I've spent £4 on milk. And that's it.

We won't know ourselves when they move out, should have at least another £5,000 a year disposable income.

5 of us int he house. I spend £200 a week:
Meat
lots of fruit / veg
ham
cheese
yoghurt
milk
pull ups x 2
wipes x 4
bread x 5
school lunches including crisps
2 x choc digestives
3 x fun size chocolates
2 bottles of wine
Not particularly extravagant. And yes, it's Aldi.

"As has been said (a million times ) on this thread, there is a huge difference between people who prioritise food, enjoy cooking, drink wine, like 'premium range, organic stuff' etc etc and those who just 'see food as fuel' and don't see what all the fuss is about shopping, cooking and eating"

I honestly think that this is a false dichotomy, because it ignores the 'budget' dimension.

It is possible to be a person who spends an awful lot on food, but just sees food as fuel, and doesn't understand the fuss about shopping and eating. Their food bill may be high because of lots of convenience food / ready meals / eating out / takeaways; buying brands through lack of knowledge; lack of time / interest in searching out cheaper alternatives or cooking from scratch.

Equally, it is possible to be a person who spends a lot on food because they buy 'the best of everything' and eat a lot of expensive cuts of meat and fish, buy lots of out of season fruit etc etc.

Or you can be a person who spends very little on food but just sees food as fuel, and doesn't understand the fuss about shopping and eating. In that case the spend may be on cheap basics (ready prepared or tinned / packaged), a fairly limited range of foods etc.

Or you can be a person who prioritises food, enjoy cooking, drink wine, likes 'premium range, organic stuff' but still has a low budget, so buys those things in more limited quantities and in cheaper forms - cheaper cuts of good meat, added to casseroles or stews or sauces with lots of other cheaper items to 'stretch' them, more use of non-meat or cheaper alternatives such as pulses or vegetables or eggs, purchases items from discount stores or in bulk (rice in sacks and spices from Asian supermarkets, sacks of potatoes, that kind of thing) etc.

It really isn't a simple 'spends lots because they buy good food / spends a little because they don't care' dichotomy.

Forgot to mention the 'seasonal' dimension. We're eating masses of nectarines, apricots, plums etc because they are 49p for a big punnet of 8 at the moment. In the autumn, we eat apples; in the winter, oranges / satsumas and bananas become our staples. Our meat is 'stretched' with courgettes and peppers at the moment; in the winter it is stretched with root vegetables and things like cabbage.

Aldi courgettes@89p(iirc) or Sainsbury's@£2!!

Can people stop saying that they stretch or pad out meat with vegetables, pulses etc as it implies that it isn't normal to put vegetables and pulses into casserole/stew type dishes and it is only something you would do if you couldn't afford to make the whole meal out of meat.

I do otherwise agree with you about your other points teacher there are many people on this thread that illustrate the huge disconnect about what is financially 'average for Mumsnet' and the country as a whole.

Can people stop saying that they stretch or pad out meat with vegetables, pulses etc as it implies that it isn't normal to put vegetables and pulses into casserole/stew type dishes and it is only something you would do if you couldn't afford to make the whole meal out of meat

But it isn't, for some people! A friend saw me cooking recently and was really surprised at me putting vegetables in bolognese type sauce. Hers has onions and mince, and a tomato sauce. Ditto curry, meat and sauce, no veg. Thats not unusual.
Casseroles tend to specify the inclusion of vegetables as standard, but thats not the same thing as padding out meat for a curry, cottage pie, chilli, bolognese etc with veg or lentils, to stretch the meat. Plenty of people really do just use a large amount of meat and not much else in the dish.

Barbara, apologies. I suppose the point I was making (badly) was that while one person might buy 4 organic steaks and eat them as pieces of meat, another would buy a piece of organic stewing steak the size of 1 of the steaks and feed 4 people on the resulting stew, not that some stews contain only meat?

I agree Freedom and if you are making a dish stretch for whatever reason you do bung in extra veggies and pulses.

My bolognaise is meat based as that's how I was brought up in Greece to make it,seems very odd to me to add veggies.