How much do you spend weekly on food? AIBU to spend?

[early30smum]

Just that, really? For how many people and does that include cleaning stuff/toiletries? Just stuff bought in supermarkets/online/small shops etc not including any meals out/coffees etc. We seem to spend a lot and I'm beginning to think IABU about the amount... Interested to hear what everyone roughly spends.

Kilimir I do the best I can with the money I have, my dc do not go hunger and are a normal weight.

ihaveatoiletbrush at that age my dcs would not have eaten any more than that either.

£85 for a family of 5. That includes nappies and toiletries.
I only spent £60 this week and have meat every day, veg, fruit, salad, naice ham etc. Shopping in Morrisons. When I do shop in aldi I can easily do the shop for £45.

I think that's fine for young children, IHave. I used to work in a Nursery and often had to support and supervise their lunch club. Most of the parents sent FARM too much food for their children; some of them sent more than my DS, who was in upper primary at the time, had. The sheer amount of food was overwhelming for most of the children. Don't get me started on the chocolate, crisps, biscuits and cakes too!

Eek. Far*

£30-40. Week for 2 adults and toddler

Last time £40 and then this time around £60 but I went a bit over the top with the £1 offers. I've started going to co op as I find Sainsbury's and other supermarket's set of my anxiety. I manage to spend less then half an hour and have more time to do other things

Just back from Lidl now spent £57. I have just counted and we have : 6 pears (59p- on offer), 20 carrots (2 kg-42p/kg), 8 bananas (80p), 16 apples (2kg £2:49), 1 pomegranate (70p), 2 heads of lettuce (99p), 2 punnet cherry tomatoes (62p each), 1 Cucumber (42p), 1 head of celery (42p) and 2 packets of green beans (99p each). I make that under £10 and 4 of us will easily get our 5 day, with some tinned tomatoes, oh we also have some clementines left from Xmas. Fresh fruit and veg isn't always expensive.

Don't really keep tabs but if I included every trip to the shop etc then around £100 a week I guess. Might be more. Family of 3

Just done the maths that's 86 portions of F&V (assuming 3 portions in a 250g punnet of cherry toms/ packet green beans, 1/4 of a Cucumber, and 1/4 head of lettuce = 1 portion)

Don't think your BU OP. I agree with you that it's up to you what to spend, and it's not intrinsically better or worse to spend more on cooking from scratch than it would be to eat more beans on toast and spend the extra on more trips out or whatever. But equally there is likely to be room to cut down in there if that is what you want to do.

Like you we are a family of four, two adults and two small children in our case. I spend an average of about £60 a week in Aldi, which is the whole shop not just food. Includes nappies. Or sometimes I will get fruit and veg from the market instead, if I'm passing, which works out around the same, and get everything else from Aldi. Then I usually get bread and/or milk top up at some point, so about £4 a week. Perhaps every two months I will also get a Tesco or Asda shop for things I can't get from Aldi, which will be about £40. We also spend about £40 every couple of months at the local butcher. They do very good deals magic chickens.

So the average is around £80 a week I think, for the full shop. One child has school meals. It's pretty much all my lunches, DH buys his maybe once or twice a week. We also have the odd takeaway and eat out occasionally, and I would spend more if we have guests coming of course. This figure includes a little bit of alcohol, cleaning stuff and 'basic' toiletries iyswim. The purely food shop is about £73ish.

Forgot about lunches, they are about £3.50 a day at high school so about £20 a week per child.

I think that lunch sounds fine IHave especially if the dc have a good breakfast, an after school snack and then a dinner. I think a LOT of children overeat.

For those saying it is not enough - what do you put in your dc lunchboxes? Especially if you are on a strict budget?

We are not on a super tight food budget, though may look at it this month to free up some cash, maybe.

DD 11yrs is not good at eating lunch in school, never has been. It is just not a priority for her. Hot dinners are not an option in her school. I give her a good breakfast of readybrek or weetbix or shreddies, with small glass of juice. Eggs are not an option as there is no way she would entertain them before school.

I work on the basis that ANYTHING she eats in school is better than nothing so I give her things she likes - this could be a small part-baked roll (baked that morning) or a small croissant or mini philadelphia with breadsticks. Some slices of cheese. Slices of cucumber. Some fruit - cherries or satsuma or strawberries, a frube or mini yoghurt and a bottle of water

She might eat one or none of this. When she comes home at 2.45 pm I make her lunch with ours and she will have soup and brown bread / scrambled egg on toast / beans on toast / bacon roll etc at that stage.

we eat dinner at 7ish.

I really need to work on this. It's just me, teenage vegan DS, and happycat.

I spend about £120 per week. Take packed lunches to work/college. Shop mostly at Tesco.

Maybe I should look at my local Aldi and see if they stock all the vegan food DS eats.

Aldi is not really a good place for specialist stuff. They have vegan ingredients in there obviously, so you could make yourself and DS a nice Thai veg curry from scratch from their stock. But if you're looking for eg quorn patties or tofu you're likely to do better at somewhere bigger. I also don't think I've seen a lot of lentils or chickpeas in there. I get them from elsewhere.

Thanks silent

I get DS specialist vegan cookies/flapjacks etc, plus vegan spicy beanburgers, tofu, we do eat veg stir fry at least once a week. I don't know why I am spending so much. I think I will keep my receipts for a few weeks and analyse the results.

Although I can afford what I spend on food, I would rather spend money on holidays tbh

We do it bi-weekly and spend around £400pm for 2 adults, two 16yo kids, four dogs and three cats.

You might find this helpful, happy!

😳 I spend £100 a week for two people!! Oh dear!! I go to Lidl, it's not always that much but very close!

Hmm, I am pretty sure you couldn't get those in Aldi. I mean, some things in their own brand ranges probably are vegan, but they don't have deliberate marketed vegan ranges iyswim. You could get the ingredients to make a lot of that stuff from scratch. So for example they do beans, onions and oil for spicy beanburgers. They do oats for flapjacks, not actually sure on the syrup front. They do, erm, veg for veg stir fry. But then you'd have to start factoring in the extra time cost too.

Thinking on the things they stock that I know are vegan, the juices are good and cheaper than most other supermarkets if you like those. People complain a lot about the fruit and veg. I find it fine but it seems to vary a lot by local stores. Tinned beans, tinned tomatoes, tinned fruit, frozen veg and flour are all cheaper too. But I reckon if I were having to do many vegan meals from Aldi, it would primarily involve soup!

About £60 a week for 4 adults, don't buy brand names unless they are cheaper than own label

how !!! We do 170 plus weekend top ups . That's including petrol and wine though

And we are not especially luxe either

That is brilliant multivac I never would have realised Oreos are vegan!!!

Cool, isn't it! Also some Pot Noodles: Beef & Tomato (brown), Bombay Bad Boy (black), Sweet & Sour (light blue) and Southern Fried Chicken (red).

Adory that's what I spent on DH & I 16 years ago - I really don't think that's unreasonable at all. (£100 per week for 2)