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.

Same here Titsalina when we were absolutely skint we had a very tight food budget and I found it hard.

I'm feeling a bit better about what I spend now then! This week kids have had for evening meals: salmon, rice and homemade veg sauce, chicken and veg stir fry with rice, beef casserole with rice and veg, cottage pie with veg, ham, cucumber and cheese wraps.

They wouldn't normally have rice so often!!

Agreeing with you too writing, we have probably 3 pieces/portions of fruit a day, so that's 12-ish a day so 80-90 portions a week- fair enough my kids are little so a pineapple goes a long way but that's before we've had any veg, meat, fish etc. Maybe we just eat a lot? I do have friends and family over fairly regularly but tend to do an extra shop for that.

I feel bad about how much we spent.

Its just me and DP and we spent about £80 - £100 a week.

I could do our weekly shop for £40 if I wanted to but we are a bit lazy...

I don't think we eat a lot Nicky but like you we each eat 3 portions of fruit and mostly 5 -6 portions of veg (counting salad in there too)

For instance, while i am very grateful that we have good food available to eat, I don't think we ate excessively luxuriously today:

Breakfast: DH & I had porridge made with low fat milk & water, blueberries and raspberries, drizzle of honey, small glass of orange juice, fresh coffee with hot low fat milk.
DD (11) had cheerios with full fat organic milk, and juice

Lunch: we were using up stuff in the fridge before shopping tomorrow so I had 2 x slices of toasted rye bread with butter and 2 (free range organic) poached eggs.

Dh had 2 x slices of rye bread with tomato,cheese, salami and coleslaw.

DD had some frozen pizza, cucumber and cherry tomatoes (this is rare - she would usually have cheese on toast / bread roll and banana / soup and brown bread etc)

After lunch we had a real coffee and a biscuit

DD had some christmas chocolate and some watermelon

Dinner: roast (free-range)chicken, roast potatoes, broccoli, peas and sweet potato mash, gravy

sparkling water to drink throughout the day

This is a typical day for us and there is NO way I could do this for £50 or less per week

writinghome that doesn't look excessive or luxurious to me- only thing is I guess berries aren't in season but maybe you are using frozen ones? My kids like them too and I am guilty of buying them out of season. Fizzy water I suppose could be considered a luxury but I drink it too, but buy the most basic/inexpensive one I can find...

Also is your DD not back at school or is she always home for lunch?

You are right, I buy fresh fruit (and mostly from M&S) so I guess that is a luxury! Fizzy water is from Aldi and it for nothing - can't rem the exact price but about £2 for 6 1.5ltr bottles so we buy a lot of that.

We are not in the UK so dd not back to school yet and when she is she takes a packed lunch (which she rarely eats - too busy!) and so I make her lunch with ours when we all get home at 2.50pm each day.

4 here and I spend £60, including cleaning stuff, shampoos etc

I am always amazed at these threads too.

I spend well over £1,000 per month quite easily. But I buy all organic and from Ocado and I buy convenience foods too like oak smoked salmon packs, prepared prawns in coriander. Bottled water, wine, pecans, strawberries (out of season I know but I have a picky eater)

I have thought of trying to do £40 a week based on what people share here but I've never done it.

3 DC & 2 adults no pets

£30 - £50 a month for two teenagers & one adult. Luckily I have Tesco/Aldi/Lidl/pound land & M&S food hall very very nearby so i meal plan and buy bits from each shop but 90% at Aldi. Since h and I split it's been much easier to cook veggie meals such as Mexican bean soup or baked potatoes etc.

£30 a £50 A MONTH?

googlebabe so a minimum of £50 per person per week would mean a spend here of £250 per week for my family of 5!!! That's just crazy. Utterly crazy.

I don't think people are lying - people have different perceptions of 'the norm'. I grew up with "meat & 2 veg" every day. 1 pork chop / chicken breast / salmon fillet per person. Its taken me a long time to get used to the fact that you dont have to have meat every day, and when you do, you don't have to have 5 × chicken breasts for a family of 5, 4 might stretch etc et . For example, I make a gorgeous broad bean and lemon risotto, very healthy, works out about £3 for 5 of us. It just takes imagination (and effort)!

I honestly can't see how people spend so much. Our £120 for 6 is spent at the local farm shop on high quality meat and veg, local free range eggs and fresh fish. The rest is spent in Tesco, and not really on value brands either. I buy premium yoghurts and milk and lots of lactofree stuff for half of the family.

I cook from scratch, including all lunches. Wonder if that makes the difference? This next five days this week we have
Homemade pizza
Meatballs and pasta
Goats cheese and beetroot tart, baked potatoes, homemade coleslaw
Morrocan lamb and cous cous
Homemade turkey burgers, wedgies, salad

Thanks for posting that Tinkly
Do you all eat breakfast / lunch at home?
Does everyone always eat the same thing?
Do you have snacks etc?

I am very curious about how others manage this.

Honey do you mean per week or per month???

I should admit too that DD, DS and DH eat at school/work every weekday. So £125-£150 is basically for breakfast for 4 of us 7 times a week, lunch for 4 twice a week and for one 7 times a week and dinner for 4 of us 7 times a week unless we have a meal out.

I have to say also that I love waitrose/ocado and probably wouldn't change unless something drastic happened financially. I tried sainsburys once or twice and it seemed more expensive?! I do ocassionally pop into M&S but try not to too often as you can easily end up spending a fortune there.

I am both lucky and unlucky that my kids are amazing eaters and love stuff like fish, roast meat, all fruit and veg etc but don't like freezer food like fish fingers, nuggets, waffles and so on. (I'm not saying this to be an annoying, smug mother, they're no Angels!) but they just don't like food like that.

About £300-400 a month including cleaning stuff
Me and DP eat everything fresh from scratch and our shop includes a lot or meat veg and fruit and stuff like oil (£10) a jar and spices and seasonings

Tinkly wedgies or wedges?!

I'm that so many people seem to know to the penny how much they spend on food

2 adults and 2 12-year-olds here. After bills and extra-curricular expenses for the kids, our budget works out at about £130 per week - that is for food, alcohol, birthday presents, fun activities, household essentials, postage, emergencies and everything else.

It's tight, but it works for us. We eat good quality food on the whole (organic milk; free range eggs; traceable meat). A ridiculous proportion of the budget goes on booze, frankly.

When you're counting the pennies, aroundtheworld , you tend to...

A typical day here:

DD had organic natural yogurt with fresh fruit for breakfast, and organic milk.
DS had a bagel with butter, a satsumas, grapes and raspberries.
DH had cereal (waitrose essential) and milk
Lunch was at school/work

DD takes a snack to school as she is in juniors- today it was strawberries

After school DD was at a Playdate, DS had a satsuma, raw pepper strips and 2 nairns choc chip biscuits (they're much lower sugar than most biscuits) for his snack.

Dinner DD was at a Playdate, DS had wraps with ham, cheese, cucumber, then raspberries and grapes and something from his 'treat box'

DH came in late so had leftover cottage pie from yesterday, tomato soup (heinz) and cheese.

Aroundtheworld, you should know approximately at least what your budget is for everything, all the time. I couldn't cope without checking my online bank accounts at least once a day, more often twice or three times.

My DH eats out every day and DCs all eat at school as well so I spend even more during breaks.

I know how much I spend as I am obsessive about tracking our spend - even cash spend. I use accounting software to post every transaction and reconcile them monthly. I enjoy knowing where the money is going, seeing historical spending patterns, etc. I guess it's sort of a hobby. (Albeit a geeky one)

£30 - £50 a month for two teenagers & one adult.*

So £2.50 on food a week for an adult? Nope, not believing it.

Maybe per week. Still, £10 per for an adult is not a lot. That's less than 50p per meal which if you're not mass catering can't be a healthy meal.