To spend 50 quid a week on fruit and veg

[Lalunya85]

Two adults and two kids under 3 in our house. It seems that 50 pounds is waaaay too much just for fruit and and veg and I wonder how much others spend?

I get a weekly veg box which is about 30 pounds. That sees us through the week but there isn't anything left over by the end of it. Except maybe the red cabbage.

Then I spend around 20 pounds on fruit at the local market once a week (regular, not a farmers market or anything like that). I buy around
12 apples (some for crumble),
6 pears,
10 Mandarines,
6 bananas
6 Oranges
6 plums
Maybe some grapes, a pineapple, or some other exotic fruit
I don't buy things that are overpriced and out of season (punnets of blueberries on December anyone?).

I then spend another probably 60 quid on all other groceries: some meat (we eat meat once a week), fresh fish every other week, pasta, rice, bread, dairy and eggs, baking ingredients, chocolate, breakfast cereal (unbranded) etc... I buy all of that at Morrisons (no Waitrose or ocado ever in his house). Don't buy ready meals or frozen stuff (like fish fingers or pizzas which would be expensive) and we always cook from scratch so no takeaways or restaurant meals ever.

How does all of that compare to others? It sounds ridiculously much to me!

It sounds quite expensive but when you itemised all the fruit, not unreasonable imo.

And of course, you're next door to vegetarians so naturally your fruit/veg purchases will be on the high side.

Reading your list made me feel hungry.

30 pound on veg sounds a lot, what are you actually getting for that?

Fruit is generally more expensive and easy to spend more especially if buying exotic/out of season stuff.

Clearly you eat a lot of fruit and veg! We do as well but usually buy quite a bit of frozen veg as otherwise we get wasteful. Our budget is round £60 a week all in. It's a lot but not ridiculous imo.

As with a lot of threads, I wonder what prompts you to think it's unreasonable. Did someone you know say it was? Are you throwing a lot of it away before it gets eaten? Can you not really afford it?

If you can afford it, there are IMO very few things that are less of a waste of money than nice food that's also healthy, and which is supporting ethical or local producers, as the veg box must be. I think it sounds like quite a lot to spend, but it's not something I'd want to be critical about. The only thing is that with that budget for just fruit and veg I'd probably be getting almost everything local, or organic, or from farm shops and farmers markets.

It sounds like everyone must be getting way more than 5 a day in your house!

We do. Food bill around £140

£60 fruit and veg
£40 fish and meat
£20 dairy
£20 anything else

Have you tried finding a greengrocer style shop rather than a market and doing a full fruit and veg shop there once a week? Just as a comparison?

We usually get our fruit and veg from the local grocer or from the 49/69p selection at Aldi.

You could get the contents of the veg box for £8 at Aldi but you clearly value it being organic and local which is why it costs what it does.

I reckon the fruit you've listed would cost me £12 absolute max

£30 for a veg box sounds huge. How much veg do you get in that?

If there's an Aldi near you, you'd get the fruit and veg for the fraction of that price.

The £20 you spend at the market seems a lot for what you are getting especially as it's more bog standard fruit and I don't mean that in a nasty way. If you can afford it what's the problem? but that fruit at a market by me would cost about £6 - 7

You will be able to get the same quantity of veg for cheaper if you have a local greengrocer/Aldi/Lidl - but it won't be organic or local, as others have pointed out. If those things are important to you (I agree, btw) then it costs more.

That said, when I lived in a city and had a fabby wee greengrocers at the top of the road I would have balked at what I spend on fruit and veg now. But where I live, it's either ££ at Tesco or ££££ for local/organic. There's no £ option, if you see what I mean.

It's just because of the veg box I guess, it usually works out quite expensive I thought? I get basics of most veg and a lot of it is frozen - partly for convenience (I am disabled so peeling/chopping is exhausting) but it's also a lot cheaper, less waste and apparently more nutrient rich if it's frozen quickly. Doesn't taste as nice, TBH, but needs must :)

That said if I had more money I would easily spend a lot more on fruit and veg. DD and I have expensive taste when it comes to fruit.

Blimey! Our entire food shop for the week is around £60!

My organic veg box just arrived - it's a delivery service on the canal by another boat couple so we pay a bit more for the ease ... It's 24 quid and we got today:

Celeriac
A pumpkin
3 big leeks
5 potatoes
A dozen plums
Half a dozen apples
A cauliflower
Half a dozen rainbow carrots
A couple of long beetroot
Half a dozen clementines
A mango
Sprout tops

But we also spend another 20 quid a week on grapes, exotic fruit etc. And then probably another 80 quid a week on meat, fish, cheese and store-cupboard - £120 a week on food for two of us

That doesn't include my lunch out 2-4 times a week (I take myself out for lunch at a local coffee shop with the baby so I make sure I'm out ) or wine ...

So we spend a LOT for a couple - but it's pretty much our most extravagant thing. And we both value really good - I'll admit sometimes needlessly posho - food.

The veg box is the biggest they do, and the seasonal and local part of me is the one that matters.
It's also the convenience of having all that heavy veg delivered! I work full time and tend to do any additional shopping with my two kids in a double buggy, in a town 20 minutes walk from our house. It can be stressful and heavy. I do shop at lidl for some things every week (some cheese, kids yogurt, bread etc).

We can afford a bit extra on nice veg and fruit because we never go out these days because the kids are so young.

The reason I though it is unreasonable is that there have been threads on here where families similar to ours have a weekly food bill of 60 quid! Presumably that includes fruit and veg from cheaper sources, but still!

Our total weekly food (and alcohol) bill is around 110 in London.

*for me, not of me!

Well, it sounds a HUGE amount to me. However, if you've got lots of money, why worry ?

£20 a week for normal fruit bowl stuff?! You're being royally done over. The stuff you're getting at the market isn't local so why are you paying such ridiculously inflated prices for it? Even Tesco, king of removing your eyes via your wallet, would cost around half that for what you've listed.

Sounds loads to me! I was intrigued so just added up what I spent on veg and fruit last week and it was only £5!! That was for:
Celery
Carrots
Mushrooms
Courgette
Sweet potato
Bananas
Broccoli
Frozen peas

I had potato's left over from previous week so £2 potato's last us two weeks. I had apples left over from previous week too but that's unusual so would usually also buy apples and maybe also grapes but even so probably wouldn't spend more than £10 on fruit and veg a week. We all week at least one piece of fruit a day and have 2-3 portions of veg with dinner...that's two adults and one toddler so not as many people but still a lot less. I always think veg is the cheapest part of my shop and I buy lots.

I guess it depends what is in your veg box maybe it is more fancy stuff or maybe you just eat way healthier than we do!

You definitely could get it down to that level but it takes time, energy and having reasonable shops nearby. As I said above, when I lived in a city I spent much less... I just spunked £120 on a Waitrose order earlier which will do us for two weeks, plus my veg box is another £25, and that doesn't include wine. We don't eat a lot of fruit either...

Your market sounds very expensive. If I shopped at our market (which I don't often because the two of us wouldn't eat that much fruit in a year) I would expect to pay £8-10 for that lot. Also veg boxes are expensive. I stopped ours because market/supermarket was cheaper. And I was always left with red cabbage - I hate red cabbage , the devil of the cabbage world.

We live in SE London and our market isn't great, but seems cheaper than yours. They tend to sell things in plastic bowls at £1 a bowl. As the day wears on and the pressure to empty the stall builds, the bowls get fuller. So at the start of the day a £1 bowl of oranges might contain 6 fruit - at 2.30 the bowl might have 8, at 3.30 you might get 12 in the bowl. Or they might have sold out and you don't get any oranges. I quite like the uncertainty. It's greengrocery 'how low can you go'.

8 avos for a QUID! Where are you hesterton?

£110 a week on food isn't excessive I never worry about what I spend on food and I don't even know what my food bill is as I just buy what I fancy cooking but it's pointless to compare yourself to other families as we all have different circumstances so if it's fine for you don't worry about what you spend as long as you enjoy what you eat