to bring up food budgets again?

[meladeso]

I know this has been done to death

I just would like
straw poll on what is a reasonable, sensible, healthy (fresh fruit aplenty) but not OTT extravagant weekly grocery spend please

I've never properly budgeted before, but expect I could have been more careful and doubtless saved money

We're 2 adults, 2 DC of 4 and just under 1

Is £60 about right? £80? Or less? Wdyt?

2 adults 2 kids - £120 per week. That's Sainsbury's and Lidl, meat from butcher and fish from fish van. Do online shop for Sainsbury's and top up from lidl through the week. All from scratch, we might have a take away once every few weeks. I could do it cheaper but don't need to, but there is definitely fat on the bones!

2 adults, 2 kids aged 7&9 probably averaging £90 a week

2 adults and 2dc, 3 and 5..we spend 100 a week. That includes toiletries nappies etc.

We could spend less but enjoy nice food and don't eat out much. I also do a lot of baking and have people over.

I do a big supermarket shop about every 3 or 4 weeks & spend £110 ish, but i do local shop on the way to school/back from work about 4X per week spending £10-15 a time.
We are 3 adults (inc teenager) & 2 dcs 3.5 & 6.
I could budget a lot more than this, although i do find smaller shops reduces waste & i spend less than when i did a weekly shop (even though the products are more expensive)

Does everyone on this thread have families where you all eat the same thing for every meal? Like packed lunches and teas? Just wondering because there's just me, DH and DD (8) and we are spending £600 ish every month on food shopping 😩 I'm trying to get on top of it and think I need a better idea of what's normal. We don't always have the same meals as I'm vegetarian so maybe that's pushing up the cost?! 🤔

I have no idea where to start with getting it down!

2 adults, 2DC, 1 greedy cat! Around £250 a week, sometimes more.

Cool everything from scratch, but do like to cook very varied meals, cooking (and eating) is a hobby for me so I think that bumps it up. Just got an online delivery of fresh seafood for tomorrow, live clams, oysters and lobster and some langoustines and prawns which was £78, but you could easily spend that on a not very good meal out so I see it as being good value.

Food's really important to me.

april we all have the same evening meal, I just don't have the time or inclination to cook separate meals. Breakfast we all have different, Ds is in reception so has free school lunch but when he's home we'll generally have the same type of meal. For example I would do a sandwich for me, a hot meal for ds - we'd both either have the same cooked meal or a choice of sandwich iyswim

April that does sound high even though as i say i couldn't tell you properly what we spend.

Are you including making all meals and lunches? That ups the food shopping total of course.

Here: School lunches are £10 per week. My husband uses a (subsidised) canteen and spends about £10 per week. We spend about £15 on a weekend cafe lunch. So thats £35 per week. Over £140 per month before incidentals.

We're at 20 per week for fruit and veg and a big 90 quid shop every 2-3 weeks and that's for the 5 of us. Top up shops are about 50 a month.

I think that's means we average about 60 a week including formula

No that figure doesn't include meals out and takeaways. DD has a packed lunch as does DH but they have different things. I work from home so eat here.

I honestly don't know what I'm missing - I know there is clearly something! - but I don't feel like we eat things that are unusually expensive.

For breakfast we will have for example low sugar cheerios and fruit with almond milk or crumpets with fruit - we normally have a couple of cereals on the go.

For lunches, this week for example DD has have a pitta bread with chicken and red pepper, two falafel, a Nakd bar and some cherry tomatoes and cucumber. DH takes a packed lunch but will have chicken, bacon and avocado with banana and nakd bar. I'll have the same but quorn instead or something.

And then teas are something like hunters chicken or chorizo pasta for DH and for me and DD maybe cheese linguine with garlic bread or quesadillas?

This is just normal eating, isn't it? Not thrifty sure but not that extravagant? Clearly I am getting something really wrong to be spending so much but I'm struggling to see what it is! 🤔

April I should say I do use things like savers shopped tomatoes etc. Also dh takes leftovers for his lunch and the kids either usually have soup or sandwiches for lunch. Dd still on formula so that's a lot of money and ds1 is at school and still gets free lunches. Ds2 will be starting after the summer aswell.

Have you tried meal planning? I tend to make batches of things like cottage pie, spag bol, stew, pulled pork etc and freeze them. Pulled pork becomes crispy hoisin pork the next day and leftover veg is puréed for when dd starts on solids. Do you buy a lot of branded stuff?

Time to get your itemised shopping bill and have a good look through maybe.

Two lots of pack lunches (one for an adult) are bound to add to your food shopping bill compared with mine for example.

Thank you both for your advice. I do meal plan but not very good at doing much with leftovers - do need to improve on that.

We do buy quite a bit of branded stuff like Pepsi and Vimto. I'm clearly going wrong somewhere as I've just been wondering about all of this and I wander past the bread bin which contains a normal loaf of bread as well as wraps, crumpets and Pitta breads - that's clearly unnecessary but I clearly thought it was logical!

Yes time to sit down and have a proper look 😐

2 adults, 2DC 11 & 8 between £50 and £80 depending on what's on the menu for the week, includes cleaning products, DC have school lunch most of the week, DH doesn't work at the moment due to illness and I have lunch at home everyday

Flippant comment on a quick look at your list: Can you bulk buy your Nakd bars cheaper?! They are nice but i tend to hide them away here.

My brother swears by Costco, if you have one nearby and cupboard capacity for the multi packs.

Sorry that was to AprilLudgate.

April - I'm like you - we spend something like £150 a week. That includes cleaning stuff and toiletries (except my skincare stuff).

We cook from scratch, my husband is a massive foodie and we have a extremely varied diet.

It's still excessive though and I need to sort this out - I'm sure I could make massive savings by shopping at Lidl more frequently.

April it sounds to me like your family has expensive tastes...not a judgement, just an observation. £600 a month seems really high.

Do you cook from scratch or rely on ready meals?

Are there any meals that you all can eat together? Even a couple of nights a week if you made a vegetarian meal, and then grilled some chicken or something if DH insists on meat, it would cost less than making two separate meals.

The various types of bread aren't necessarily illogical. I prefer to eat wraps or pittas because the rest of the family will only eat white bread and I don't like it. But I buy tesco own brand pittas which are only 50p for 6, or their own brand wraps which are 90p for 8.

The only branded stuff my family now insists on is HP sauce (I recently converted them from Heinz Ketchup to own brand). Other than that we buy almost entirely own brand.

Trying to give DH and DD similar lunches should also save money and cut down on waste.

April do the kids drink squash? Ours just drink water and I only get my Diet Coke where it's on offer.

We do have a really varied diet so it's definitely something you can achieve for less. I love to cook and love trying new recipes. I find doing my big shop online with a list helps aswell, stops me picking up anything we don't really need. I use home bargains for cleaning stuff cause it's a lot cheaper there.

When we were spending too much before we tried to do a 'brand step down' so if we got own brand of something we used the savers range and branded items go to the own brand iyswim. Apart from mayo and Diet Coke we buy pretty much everything own brand or savers, there's really very little difference

2 adults, 2 teens and about £90-£100 pw. That doesn't include weekday lunches for the kids as they both have school dinners.

Cook from scratch the majority of the time.

We cook from scratch but I can see that it probably is more the food and meals we choose! Will have to discuss with DH where we can cut back.

DD just drinks water, the occasion glass of Vimto and I drink some Pepsi too.

Sounds like we're in the same boat moany as that sounds just like us!

Family of 2 adults, 2 dc (12 & 10)
Budget covers food, toiletries, cleaning stuff, booze, packed lunches for 1 adult & 1 dc, lunches at home for me.
I mainly food shop at Lidl / Aldi, home bargains for cleaning stuff & toiletries.
I cook most of our meals from scratch and don't buy ready made sauces, pre prepared veg, ready meals.
We spend an average of £75 week.

Where do you shop April? Nakd bars are quite expensive sadly. A kitkat from a multi pack would be much less.

It could be that you are just buying the most expensive version of standard products

Eg normal chicken £5, organic one from Waitrose £12?

Iceberg lettuce 50 p, bag of mixed salad leaves £2

Lots of differences like that and its easy to see how you spend £150 pw and others eating a very similar diet do it for much less. It is also the case that things like cleaning products are much cheaper in Wilkinson or home bargains than waitrose or Sainsburys.

A fish pie would be another example. Someone on here once said that a fish pie for a family cost £28 to make, which could be possible if you shop at the waitrose fish counter or a naice fishmonger.

But if you buy the same amount and mix of fish frozen from Aldi, it would probably be a quarter to a third of that price.

This is something I have just recently taken control of as I was sure that we were spending up to £200 a week some weeks then £150ish the rest.

We don't drink or eat expensive meat/fish. Our problem was that we didn't plan AT ALL and would visit the supermarket 4 times a week, each time buying more "offers"

This Sunday I wrote a list, including meal plans and shopped on line. I spent £95 and have probably topped up milk and fruit about £12.

2 adults, 3 DC (10 ,9 & 18mnth) The toddler is in nappies but a big pack lasts a month so doesn't add much to the list. The kids are school dinners and DH usually takes a simple pack up.