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

[pleasemothermay1]

poster JemimaMuddledUp Yes it did have meat

[PoppyAmex]

I totally agree, Jemima.

Digital pressure cookers on the other hand are amazing; preserve all the flavours and nutrients, are super speedy and make food taste seriously good.

[molyholy]

Doesn't anyone make themselves lunches for work? I make sure in our big shop that I include stuff for sandwiches for dh. I have salads so buy enough ingredients to make a big salad and take some out each day. dh will also have pesto pasta, Leftovers from dinner etc. Not meaning to sound all 'aren't we great' in any way at all, but it must cost an awful lot.

[FaFoutis]

5 of us and I think we spend over £200 a week. Both have full time jobs and buy good quality food without shopping around. I could half it at least if I didn't work.

[TheFairyCaravan]

When it's DH and I we can eat quite cheaply. I bloody hate my slowcooker, nothing tastes right coming out of it. It's so much nicer to bung a casserole on a low heat in the oven. I often make a meal and we have it two nights. We have a soup night in the Winter and DH takes it for lunches. I wouldn't be without my soupmaker.

From the week after next we've got both 21yo soldier DS1 and 19yo DS2 home. You wouldn't be able to feed them for £65 a week. They don't snack on junk, they snack on eggs, Greek yoghurt, fruit etc.

[Muskateersmummy]

moly we do now. I was travelling a lot with work before so taking lunch was never a viable option, buying something everyday was ridiculously expensive! We now take a home made salad or left overs each day (I have moved to an office job) and get myself a lovely deli salad once a week as a treat! It's saved us a small fortune!

[Fomalhaut]

Yes we do. Two adults and a toddler.
We don't live in the uk. Food is at least 3x the price here (food in the uk is incredibly cheap... Possibly too cheap for some things but that's a point for another day.)
Here things like steak are about 30 quid a kg for example.

When I lived in the uk and was skint I've lived off tiny food budgets. We don't consciously splurge but we don't scrimp either. Obviously if we had to we would.

[AppleJac]

Theres me and dh and one 3 year old.

We spend £140 a week but we do shop at M&S so thats probably why.

We used to shop at Asda and that was £85 a week

[marriedapple]

moly yes I think making yourself lunch for work saves you a tremendous amount of money!

[limon]

That's almost a full months food shopping for us - two adults and a 4 year old. We shop at Aldi and Asda

[stonecircle]

Probably spend £300-400 per week. At least a couple of shops in marks at around £100 a go. Probably a morrisons/asda/sainsburys shop for about the same. Plus all the trips for more milk/fresh bread etc.

Flame me if you like, but I really don't care. Yes I could cook from scratch and cut out the 'luxuries' .... but I don't want to. I've done my time counting the pennies and we're now in the happy situation of having paid off our mortgage and the money I earn working part time isn't needed for essentials. There are 5 of us in the house - me, DH and a 17, 19 and 21 year old, plus 3 dogs and 2 cats (and shopping includes pet food and treats). Amount reduces when ds2 is away at uni.

But if I want to splash out on nice food then that's up to me.

[DownstairsMixUp]

Since youngest ds eats like we do, we easily do 80-120 a week. Two adults, two kids.

[JemimaMuddledUp]

Ah OK, thanks please. I just wondered as you didn't list it with the other ingredients.

Actually one of the things that puts me off using mine is browning the meat before putting it on in the morning. The smell of meat cooking at 7am turns on me!

[Ragwort]

I could happily spend £200 a week in Waitrose - decent meat, fish, a variety of nice fruit and veg, good coffee and lots of wine etc . I don't because our income wouldn't stretch to it.

What amazes me is how much people will spend on eating out - my DB & family are frequently complaining about being 'skint' yet regularly eat out without thinking 2-3 times a week yet buy crap value brands when eating at home. ,

Just goes to show we all have different priorities.

[AppleJac]

Stone

Same here!

[Chewbecca]

We don't have the famous MN chicken but we do now have the 1 pack of mince lasting 3 meals for 4 adults (or nearly adults).

[TheRealAdaLovelace]

" Urgh, powdered garlic and tinned tomatoes is not a bloody bolognese! I wouldn't feed that to my dog. "

I agree that sounds rank...if I put that in front of my children they would not eat it....

[CakeNinja]

We spend that easily, sometimes a lot more on a family of five.
And it does depend on if it's a week where we need a bit toiletry shop, or have run out of washing/dishwasher/ kettle filters and stuff and need to get all that aswell.
I buy organic meat, we eat a lot of meat.
I buy a lot of fresh fish.
Berries and other imported fruits.
We eat lots, and buy booze aswell.
I have had to buy the cheapest of everything and although people say you can't taste the difference, cheap pasta, bread, cheese and meat are frankly horrible, and I can taste the difference.
I would buy them if we were desperately skint again, at the end of the day, you do what you can to feed your family.

But a friend of mine buys the cheapest of the cheap even though she could afford not to - she wants to save as much money as possible. That's fair enough too, she would prefer to scrimp and save and puts the cash towards her dds private schooling.
Personally, the idea of voluntarily eating those foods daily out of choice does not appeal to me so I am happy to spend more.

I know how and where I could cut back. I really wouldn't need a tv show to point out the obvious.

[Chewbecca]

Nope, we don't do packed lunches because none of us particularly enjoy them.
DS likes school dinners, DH likes goodness knows what & I like to have something from ITSU for my lunch. But, again, we are not on a tight budget, we are all different.

[Ragwort]

Chew - please explain how you get 12 meals out of one pack of mince - what size of pack?

[GruffaloPants]

I meal plan, which makes a big difference, reduces waste and means we are more adventurous and varied in what we have.

We spend £80 to £100 per week on all groceries and extras (e.g. a takeaway, shop bought sandwiches some days). That's for 3 of us. 1 day a week I tend to cook something quite different with more expensive or unusual ingredients. The big saving is not buying loads of ready meals.

I think it is pretty rude for people to come on here and say "urgh" at what others can afford to eat. A bit "let them eat cake".

Nothing wrong with tinned tomatoes anyway!

[CatNip2]

I never scrimp on food, ever. I rarely spend more than 110 a week for four adults and three cats and wine. Today, the kids being away, I shopped at Sainsburys instead of Asda and bought loads of ready made stuff, several bottles of wine, lots of not cheap meat and fish and nibbles and stuff for a party including all our food for this week, toiletries, laundry stuff, etc £129. I do have a well stocked larder and freezer and cook from scratch most of the time but £200??? We have a combined income of 153k and I think 200 a week for a small family is excessive.

[Chewbecca]

It was teacherwith2kids who is the mince stretcher, not me

[ExitPursuedByABear]

I have no idea how much I spend on food each week.