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

[Czerny88]

I haven't seen the programme, but I wouldn't imagine that these gourmands who claim to like "good food" are talking about supermarket pizza, own brand or otherwise.

[Shizzlestix]

I quite easily spend this. The DH gets decent meat delivered and likes steak. I think we're at the stage where we think we're not going to scrimp and we might go shopping multiple times a week, it all adds up. He does occasionally stock up on booze, too, so it lasts him months.

[CakeNinja]

jelly I'm with you on the slow cooker.
Everything comes our tasting the same with a horrible texture and gloopy sauce.
You can't underestimate the flavour that comes from slowly browning onions and whatever that you don't get when everything's essentially boiled altogether from raw

[beardedladydragon]

We are a family of 6. I probably spend £80 a week at Lidl and then an extra £30 on top ups/pet food. I meal plan and shop to a budget, I will only buy British meat, I cook from scratch most days and don't buy much. I can get it lower than that but it takes a lot of effort.
If I could spend £200 per week on food without it compromising anything else then I would. We can't afford to have fish very often. I love browsing in Waitrose but at the moment it is out of our league.

[VeryBitchyRestingFace]

Why is it hard to believe some people would spend £200 on a weekly shop?

I can't afford that, but if I could, it would be £££ @ Whole Foods/M&S/Waitrose all the way.

I can't believe what some people spend on their cars/home entertainment system/beautifying regime.

But different strokes for different folks. And it's certainly no skin off my nose.

[tonystolemylemon]

Does this amount per week include wine and beer? Asking for a friend.

[UnikittyInHerBusinessSuit]

There tends to be some reverse snobbery about people who spend a lot of food, assuming that they're all twits who don't know how to cook and are spending money on brand names for the hell of it. But if you do know how to cook but happen to fancy fresh blueberries and pomegranate seeds on your Bircher muesli every morning, and fresh asparagus with your sea bream when it's in season and split a decent bottle of wine (ie one where most of the price goes to the winemaker rather than the taxman and the advertising executive) a couple of times a week then the bill racks up very quickly. High quality meat and fruit from supermarkets if you don't happen to have a cheap market are the big costs. I tend to keep an eye on costs because I'm frugal by nature but it seems a reasonable enough thing to spend money on if you've got it and you're that way inclined.

[CakeNinja]

Also, for us as a family of 5, even though one of dcs lunch is paid for separately and dp often buys lunch at work, it's just about £1 per meal per person (based on a £200 weekly spend) which is hardly extravagant.

[JemimaMuddledUp]

I find it actually works the other way round - I spend more cooking from scratch than I would if we ate frozen pizzas and oven chips every night. Convenience food is much cheaper than proper ingredients.

[TheHuntingOfTheSarky]

What is "excessive" is all relative though. We Are fortunate to have a good income and I might spend £200+ per week in the supermarket but I would never spend more than £40 on an item of clothing (well, maybe on a winter coat). I would never go on a holiday costing thousands, we do two weeks in the UK each year and that's that. There's plenty of stuff I wouldn't spend money on that other people do, but I don't judge them and think it's obscene. They can do what they like with their own money!

[TheFairyCaravan]

I hate the idea of chucking mince in a slow cooker and boiling it in tinned tomatoes without having skimmed the fat off. 😷😷😷

DH takes packed lunches. He takes sandwiches or salads or homemade soups. I'm at home so I'm ok, DS1 fixes his own lunch at camp and DS2 makes a packed lunch to take to uni or placement.

[Onsera3]

I could easily spend that much. We are two adults, 3yo and baby. I work hard to keep it to £150. Meal plans and cooking from scratch. I stock up on offers.

I watch the show too. I never buy stuff like the quick cook rice and I use every bit of a chicken!

We do eat organic dairy and high welfare animal products. Some organic fruits and vegetables. And we eat loads vege and restricted amount of grains.

I often see a weekly total on here that is around what I spend on produce alone.

[tonystolemylemon]

I don't know how much we spend a week but as we can afford it I do get meat from the butchers and only buy proper nice free range eggs. Those things bump up the cost a bit. I still make everything from scratch. You do have to plan things very precisely I'd you don't want waste though which not everyone has time for.

[KittensWithWeapons]

'I have been very poor. I have no wish to live my entire life as if I still was'. Yes, exactly what MrsDeVere said (could I just get a t-shirt printed that has that written on it? ).

We've been really, really skint. Like after buying lunch bits (a loaf of bread and giant pack of Aldi processed turkey, that we continued even after they were past their best) we fed ourselves for a tenner for the week. No drinks but water. Five packs of Maggi dried noodles for €1.50. The cheapest tins of spaghetti hoops and beans. Disgusting 'chicken' nuggets. It was unpleasant and unhealthy but we did what we had to do.

Now we don't have to do that. So we spend a lot on groceries. High welfare meat (which we still only eat a couple of times a week), decent orange juice, eggs and milk and potatoes from a farm. Some diet coke, some wine or Prosecco. Nice coffee pods. The absolute best of food we can get for the cats. The occasional meal out. Having lived on the breadline, I'm not going to self-impose that misery. We contribute to the local economy, and spend the money that we have eating well. And we enjoy doing it!

[Huesofblue]

2 adults, 2 dc (9 and 4) with another on the way. We easily spend £200 a week on the grocery shop, not including the top up shops, school dinners (once or twice a week), weekly takeaway and restaurant meals on a weekend. I'm a SAHM so cook from scratch as much as possible and have just spent the afternoon batch cooking and freezing. We could spend less but choose not to. It's all relative I suppose.

[tonystolemylemon]

I bought some chopped tomatoes from lidl the other day and they were watery and minging, some things are worth paying extra for.

[WhooooAmI24601]

Family of four here and we generally spend about £140/150 on Ocado and pop to the local butchers for bits and bobs. It's not impacting on our ability to pay the other bills, and we don't go without though, so I fail to see who it's hurting.

There have been times I've spent less, times I've spent more. I'm a bit of a food snob though, and love spending a long time cooking and baking so I see it as a hobby.

[BoGrainger]

Am loving the tinned tomato snobbery. I'm someone who uses a jar of bolognese sauce so never buy tinned tomatoes. What are the mc alternatives?

[PNGirl]

I reckon we spend around 70 every 10 days for 2 adults and then another 50ish a week on top ups as we live about 100 yards from Sainsburys so often swoop in for reduced stuff on the way home from work.

For me, frankly, I don't want the kind of food every night that you cook in large batches otherwise all we would ever eat is chili, lasagne, tomato pasta sauce and other similar basic dishes. I make a mean tagine but it takes hours and is not going to happen on an average Wednesday!

I like to be able to have nice butchers burgers with avocado one night, curry the next, carbonara the next and a fresh "finest" pizza after that. This means spending money.

[Fomalhaut]

We live within our means and frankly it's up to us how we spend our money.
I know people who spend hundreds every month on getting their nails done every week, their hair done regularly. Or out boozing or clubbing. That's up to them. Or people who spend every spare bit of cash on hobbies. Or insist on designer clothes for their kids.
We don't all have the same priorities and that's fine. I don't want to spend three grand on a road bike but I accept others might.
I've not seen the program but assume it's teaching people to cook on a budget? That's a useful skill. I've had times I've had minescule food budgets - not fun at all.

[yumyumpoppycat]

Agree with sarky we all probably have different priorities about how we spend our money...and areas where we know we could make savings but dont want to. I dont have a cleaner although dp would be happy to get one because I want to save money but I buy coffee shop lattes almost daily which prob would contribute a lot to the cost of a cleaner. A lot of the people on that tv show seem to be able to afford what they spend on groceries but for instance they end up not going on holiday so it balances out.

[AndNowItsSeven]

£200 is ridiculous , my shopping budget has recently gone up as my dx are getting older. I still spend approx £90 a week and that's for dh and I and 7 dc.
The amounts some people spend are shocking I don't see how it's possible tbh.

[Floralnomad]

There are 4 of us dh ,me , adult DS and dd (17) , I don't have a budget but working it out I spend about £100 per week in supermarkets / M&S but also spend at least £80 on eating out . That includes toiletries but not cleaning stuff , no alcohol ( we are all non drinkers) and GF stuff for dd . I do buy lots of fruit , at the moment I spend about £25 per week on cherries and red gooseberries from a local farm shop but it's a short season so you have to make the most of it .

[kbbeanie]

We are a family of 4. A 4 yr old and a baby and 2 adults. We spend £220 A MONTH on shopping. This is all food including meat...trips to shop throughout the month for fresh top ups on fruit milk bread etc nappies, wipes and formula milk and all toiletries and household stuff included in this. This covers absolutely everything we buy for shopping throughout the month but doesnt include takeaways or eating out (happens very rarely)
The way we seem to get it cheap is shop around dont just go to the one supermarker. We do a monthly shop instead of weekly and just top up in the local shop as and when we need to. Bulk buy. We buy meat from a wholesale butchers and freeze....also batch cook and freeze meals. We spend about £10 a month in iceland and that is the only ready made frozen junk food we buy. We dont buy ready meals ...they are overpriced...much much much cheaper and nicer to make your own and it doesnt take that much extra time. We both work full time. Oh works 2 jobs and we still find the time to cook meals to freeze. We shop around for nappies and wipes and again buy in bulk when they are on a decent offer such as tescos this month had buy 1 get one free so we bought loads and we wont need to buy anymore now until a good offer comes around. Amazon can be cheaper for nappies and wipes as well at times. We dont buy any branded products really. Coca cola is the exception to this rule ! Lol. Buy snacks etc in lidl or poundland much cheaper than the big supermarkets and meal plan !