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

Woolly I don't normally disbelieve people but there is no way Sainsburysvia cheaper than Aldi!

I'm baffled by 50 a week on fruit and veg ...

Well a punnet of raspberries is £2.00, we eat one of those a day so that's £14.00 alone on raspberries..

Well there you go then, most of our fruit is apples pears bananas oranges kiwis etc, we might have strawberries or grapes once or twice a week

I'll buy all that usual stuff too, plus quite a few mangoes and blueberries, maybe a watermelon - can definitely see how £5@ can happen..

I suppose it depends on your income to start with.

I'd have to work nearly two hours to pay for so many raspberries.....

Even I wouldn't allow £14 on raspberries, but I do want the kids to eat them, so the waitrose frozen mix is about £2 and lasts 3 days or 3 portions

You buy what you can afford for sure. If our circumstances change then I would have to look at our excessive food shopping. It is excessive, I admit that.

Coming from different cultures/background drives the eating habit/thinking. For us, frozen especially fruits and veggies are a no no(even I now know that they give the same even better vitamins and minerals if the fresh ones werent stored properly. I dont eat frozen vegs/fruits except peas/sweetcorns. I love summer because we could get a bag of pea in the shell fresh, boiled for couple of mins and just eat it as a snack, it tastes heavenly miles better than any naked fresh peas and/or frozen. We unfortunately dont have a big garden and I manage to have a small veg patch and we grow pea/beans/tomatoes and they go straight to the tummy without a wash. If you living in the country side and having luxuries of fresh organic meat/eggs/fish at good price and veggies freshly picked from farm then to us you are living in a dream land. We went to cornwall once and already every thing is cheaper and tastes so much better than Waitrose here. I had couple of guests came for dinner yesterday, they brought drinks and dessert so we only have to worry about mains and sides. I got some wild salmon £20/kg for 1.5kg(6 adults, 3 children). Salads, vegg, wild mushroom, mashed(ready made because I still had to work so not much time to prepare). Some cheese and crackers, 1 box if blueberry, 2 boxes of cherry(£3.5/each). Total bill was £62. It felt great as had we have to go out then it could easily cost £150 in london for the quality of ingredient and with many of us.

Years ago when my husband was a trainee and I only started working and was pregnant with my first child, we were on the first mortgage and we only cared about quantity. As long as we could eat loads then its great and we spent 1/4 than now(although more in going out and handbags etc).
My point is many people like us who spend loads on weekly shopping not because we are lazy or we dont care about savings(we might earn the same or less as many others who choose to spend less). Its the lifestyle choice given certain circumstances and each stage of our life.

Do not judge!

Here's this fortnight's shopping list:

Delivery:
1 x Sainsbury's Madagascan Vanilla Extract, Taste the Difference 38ml - Total Price £1.50
1 x Green & Black's Organic Cocoa 125g - Total Price £2.20
2 x Sainsbury's Coconut Cream 250ml - Total Price £1.80
1 x Cadbury Bournville Dark Chocolate Bar 180g - Total Price £2.00
1.00 kg x Sainsbury's Loose Fairtrade Bananas - Total Price £0.68
1 x Sainsbury's Strawberries 700g - Total Price £2.75
1 x Sainsbury's Red Seedless Grapes 500g - Total Price £1.50
1 x Sainsbury's Fresh Packed Mint 28g - Total Price £0.80
1 x Sainsbury's White Potatoes 2.5kg - Total Price £1.50
1 x Sainsbury's Carrots, Basics 1kg - Total Price £0.50
1 x Andrex Toilet Tissue, Gentle Clean 9x190 Sheets - Total Price £3.75
1 x Sainsbury's Mixed Peppers (colours may vary) x3 - Total Price £0.90
2 x Sainsbury's Sardines in Spring Water 120g (90g*) - Total Price £0.80
1 x Sainsbury's Fish Pie Mix, Basics 350g - Total Price £2.50
1 x Sainsbury's Cold Water Prawns, Basics 250g - Total Price £2.50
2 x Sainsbury's Lager, Basics 4x440ml - Total Price £2.10
1 x Sainsbury's Biere Des Moulins 10x250ml - Total Price £3.50
1 x Sainsbury's Fairtrade Double Dark Blend Coffee 227g - Total Price £2.30
1 x Sainsbury's Vodka 1.5L - Total Price £21.00
Sainsbury's total: £55.58

Aldi:
Chocolate - £1.25
Paté - £0.89
Chorizo - £1.48
3 x Herbs - £1.47
Cat food - £0.39
Melon - £0.49
Apricots - £0.49
Lettuce - £0.49
Aldi total: £6.95

That's £62.53 so far. I'll need to buy a few more bits next week, maybe £10. I've still got most of the chicken, a pack of mince, eggs, cat litter and loads of frozen veg from the previous shops. This month works out at £41 per week, which is a bit low for me. I'll have run out of everything by the end of the fortnight, though, so will need a massive shop with no extravagances.

The Aldi apricots & melon are really good, by the way!

£50 fruit and veg is not all berries.

It's just regular food. But mainly organic yes.

Today :
Breakfast :4 bananas with breakfast -80p, mango £2. =£2.80

Lunch : spinach -£1.50, brocoli 90p, leeks £1.50 = £4.40

Dinner: will be mushrooms -£1.50, asparagus -£2.50, peas -50p. =£5

2.80+4.40+5 =£12.20 for one day of fruit and veg. I don't think that's an extravagant day either, just regular food, for 4 people.

Sorry dinner £4.50. So £11.70 total

We prob spend about £100 per week on food for 4 of us. Two adults, one teen (who eats more than me) and a tween. It includes weekly shop, top-up, and occasionally a takeaway, but not weekly. We eat meat once or twice a week. We both work so my choices prob aren't as healthy as they were when I was at home more!!

I can get 8 large bananas for less than a quid

Well that's marvellous. We don't, they are around 20p each. I wouldn't want to pay any less as that's the end cost, so even then the farmer is lucky to get 6p.

I wouldn't want to buy the cheapest of the cheap if I can afford not to though...

What on earth do some of you actually buy

£50 for a family of 5 for a week. That is £10 per person per week or about £1.50 per person per day or 50p per meal. I would wonder what exactly you are eating for that. Of course if you really have no money and are living on the cheapest possible out of necessity fine but otherwise no thanks.

And that also doesn't include cleaning stuff, toiletries, toothpaste etc which most people include with their weekly shop budget.

I agree Basic none of the posters on the smallest budgets have come back to say what they're buying, so am guessing they all eat lunch out / don't include takeaways or top up shops.

One poster did reply to that request actually but only for five days worth of food.

ANYWAY. This thread has got me thinking I do spend excessively so going to try and cut back by making everyone eat the same main meal (currently cook x2 dinners, one for dc and one for me and dh). So we'll see!

Slow cooker meals can be delicious. Tonight we had pulled pork baps with salad and potato salad on the side. Cooking from scratch here most nights broken up with the odd pizA/ batch cooked meal from the freezer/ oven meal e.g. kievs. Family of 4 + cat spending £80 ish per week, could spend more but enjoy family meals out so try to economise and cut food waste, minimise snacking etc at home so we can have lunch out twice a month. Everyone has different priorities. I also like reduced section at supermarket late at night :)

I watched it the other day. I couldn't believe what people spend. I thought £88 was alot but I needed to get a few storage things for the kitchen this week. I don't feel so bad now after watching that!!

Garlic: there's not an awful lot of food in that list 😕 No bread, milk cheese, cereal? Not a tremendous amount of meals either that I can see? Looks like 4: fish pie, jacket potatoes, curry, something else with fish (am veggie so wouldn't know what this could be! 😄)

There is zero chance that would feed us for a week! 5 of us but DC and dh are big eaters. I spend about 100-150 a week for all meals for 4 (dh has lunch at work) we can afford it but obviously I don't want to waste money! Veggie so not even a meat cost.. I buy some ready made snacks (cracker packs, baby bels, nakd bars etc) which add cost but are convenient for days out with the DC. Basic range pasta / beans / chopped toms etc.
I genuinely don't see how some people are managing to feed a family all their meals with some of these lists.

I'm £12 a week just in newspapers - so that's nearly £50 a month before an egg is bought.

I would not trust a 12 years old with my dog