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

Family of 5, 2 adults, 2 secondary school kids & 1 ks2 age child.
2 dogs & cats.
On disability benefits, kids have SN and continence issues.

Shop at Lidl, Iceland and Morrisons.

Food, cleaning products and nappies £90-£110 a week
Pet food £16 a week

I really warmed to them as the programme progressed and wondered if the two older children were shy teenage boys just like mine :)

I always love that the children seem open to eating the vegetables and are generally enthusiastic about the meals.

They were all a bit "meh" about the home made curry which all of a sudden seemed to turn into them never having a takeaway again to be calculated into the savings - I somehow don't think that will happen for every week :) I do enjoy the programme but how helpful and honest it is is debateable. But maybe we all pick up little bits and pieces that we try. I think I'll try the microwaved egg muffin things from last weeks as a change from cereal for my boys but in order to do those I'd probably buy grated cheese as its a bit of a rush getting everything done and everyone out in the morning.

I have to say though that her cakes looked delicious.

It's water content of cheaper meat stuff that worries me, I've never had to buy it so I don't know for a fact but that's what I've heard. The welfare aspect isn't great either but is it even worth buying at all if the quality is poor ?

I think I'll try the microwaved egg muffin things from last weeks as a change from cereal for my boys but in order to do those I'd probably buy grated cheese

I've had these three or four times since watching the show - they're fab! No need to bother with grated cheese. I just slice off one small piece (a few CM), chuck it in, and it melts fine.

I do wonder if they pick out mainly women who have some kind of issues affecting their food choices. The woman last week must have also had some kind of issues surrounding her kids, as she fed them loads of rubbish and couldn't say no either. I suppose to completely ignore the mountains of healthy eating advice out there and eat diets that poor with no money issues to affect it you must have some kind of food issues. My kids eat loads of crap and I'm incredibly lazy but I do force feed them vegetables with every meal and ration their treats!

They will be looking for "good television" it would be pretty boring putting my nan on there she could whip up a banquet on a quid

Thanks Hummus

I've not even tried then yet but recommended it to my elderly Mum who struggles sometimes to be bothered cooking herself anything :( She is partial to an omelette which I make for her when we visit as it's a decent thing for her to have for her lunch but I don't think she bothers with eggs too much as she feels it's too much of a faff for her. She cant stand too long without support and if she uses her trolly thing to sit on then she doesn't want to be moving about too much once she's got herself sorted. Anyway, I digress but I thought it looked like a quick easy way for her to get something decent into her rather than her constantly heating up tins of soup or micro meals (even if they are ones that family have made and popped in the freezer).

Can you remind me, it is a little melted butter, an egg beaten in the cup with a splash of milk and a bit of cheese and microwaved for how long? 1 or 2 minutes? Seasoned afterwards?

Can you remind me, it is a little melted butter, an egg beaten in the cup with a splash of milk and a bit of cheese and microwaved for how long? 1 or 2 minutes? Seasoned afterwards?

Yes - a small amount of butter (I use something about the size of my little fingertip), splash of milk, egg, bit of cheese, beat together, microwave on full power for about a minute - you'll see it "rising" a bit as it's ready. I haven't seasoned mine after - I usually have them with beans, which is flavour enough - but I guess you can season to taste.

As a bonus, the mug is very quick to clean after (presumably because the butter prevents sticking).

Perfect Hummus you're a .

I'm a bit odd in that I don't like egg and beans or any tomato type food touching (or egg and onion together)...and I wonder why my children have fussy food ishoos... :o

Looking forward to my lunch now...

Thats true pisssedoff but surely they could find a bit of variety? It would probably be less dramatic having a programme about people who already buy value products and fruit and veg, but two out of the three programmes have shown women who have clear food issues while their partners have waited to go on telly to say they thought it was unreasonable all along.

Yup, £180 easily a week for us (family of four). Gazillions of fruit and veg including "posh" stuff like blackberries and cherries. Meat and vino. I happily spend on food

I guess in the majority of households it will be the woman dictating and doing the shopping and cooking so that will be the most common scenario, but yes, variety would be good and I'm sure previous series have had different scenarios - we'll see what next week brings...

And just out of interest, does anyone irl go and do the weekly shop as a couple?

is it even worth buying [meat] at all if the quality is poor ?

Yes. I used to have all high-welfare, organic foods but these days am truly grateful for "less happy" meat and factory mince. I'm equally grateful for our food laws, and rather worried about what'll happen post-EU. American mass produced foods are more adulterated and more cruelly farmed than ours - currently I don't need to worry too much about how the animal was reared and there aren't any hidden ingredients.

Cheap foods rarely taste as good as the perfectly made ones, but they're as nutritious. And herbs & spices compensate for flavour :)

It's a continuum, isn't it?

From shedloads of high welfare / free range / organic meat in prime cuts; less of the same meat; similar welfare but cheaper cuts; similar welfare, cheaper cuts and less of it; 'less happy' in reasonable amounts; 'less happy' in cheaper cuts and in small amounts.

Where you place yourself on that continuum depends on income, cooking skill (and access to cooking equipment fr a length period, as making cheaper cuts taste good tends to require time) and preferences.

(There is also the level of cooking skill / income / lack of time that dictates buying no 'just meat' at all, but only meat in already-processed items or meals)

Spot on, teacher :) I've never forgotten a video someone posted here once, showing a young mum with 2 kids and 2 jobs, who lived in what was basically a bedsit up two flights of steps. There was no way she could approach buying hand-picked fresh ingredients and cooking them all from scratch in a miniature kitchen. She did incredibly well under the circs - I'd have given up the first time I had to wrangle toddler, baby, buggy & shopping up the steps in between work/childminder and DCs' bedtime!

family of four - two full-time working parents and two teenagers. We spend about £70-90 a week. DH is a foodie and tends to do the cooking - all done from scratch/batch-cooked. We needed to cut costs after redundancy and we stopped having the occasional takeaway/microwave meal/organic this and that, but the major saving was from moving from Sainsbury's to Lidl for the main shop. This cut food costs by about a third to half. We still do the occasional top-up shop at Sainsbury's as it's within walking distance and Lidl is a few bus stops away, so not as convenient. I think we eat very well.

I would say when I bought meat from the nice freerange butchers, it wasn't that much more expensive, but the meat didn't shrink as much, so we used less. 2 rashers of bacon for example, instead of 4 that shrank away to nothing, mince that we could use for 2 meals etc. We've moved house now, and I haven't been to the butchers near me yet. Its not freerange, I don't think. Just an ordinary butchers. I havent bought chicken breasts for years though and buy cheaper cuts of meat, but you are right, you do need to know how to cook, have the resources and time. The people on the programme so far have had the time and money to go shopping several times a week, so could have spent that time and money cooking something, as was shown.

Would never economise on food. No idea how much I spend as varies from week to week depending on which teens are home, the odd dinner partiy and most Sunday deli and takeaways but if I had to guess on average £250 for 2 adults and 2 teens.

To me spending 200 or 250 a week on shopping sounds insane

Family of 5 at the moment with baby due in October. Some weeks I only spend £50, this week I've spent about £80

What on earth do some of you actually buy

Just going back to the OP for a minute, not sure if it's been mentioned as I can't remember and can't be bothered to scroll through again, but she spends £65 a week including nappies and toiletries for 5 of them but it jumps to £90 when teen son isn't at college. So, it costs £5 a day to give him lunch for 5 days. So if we take a tenner off for the other 2 lunches then her bill for the rest of them and teens son's meals apart from lunch is £55 including toiletries and nappies. I smell a rat.

Afresh - family of 4 here, we spend £50 a week on just fruit and veg.

We need 20 portions of fruit and veg a day just to give everyone their min 5 a day. More ideally

That sounds an insane amount of fruit and veg, is it all fresh and organic?

We're a family of 4 including a baby - probably spend £120-150 a week. Could easily spend less but I like to buy organic meat (cook from scratch) and the baby had ready made formula as it's easier.

I don't need to budget more than that and I like my lifestyle how it is