to spend £280 a week to feed a family of 5?

[TempleOfBlooms]

I spend about £280 a week on food. This includes my work lunches which tend to be salads from places like Leon plus coffees etc. The rest is food eaten at home.

Breakfast for all five of us tends to be things like Bircher muesli or chia based stuff with fruits and nuts. Fresh juice too.

Lunches in summer are usually a selection of dips and cheese and meats and salads.

Dinner is usually fish or chicken with a selection of salads and grilled veg.

So fresh food but not caviar or ridiculous indulgences.

It seems like everyone else on here can feed a family of four on tiny amounts. How? We certainly could eat more cheaply but that would mean fewer veg, fewer fruits, less fish etc.

Is it really so unusual to spend so much on food? I never see anyone else admit to it.

Disingenuous- who knew ( crap 80's Comprenhensive)

Blimey we spend that in a month! Not week! (Family of 4 with 2 boys that eat for England!)

Nobody is saying they don’t understand that. As I’ve said, I like to feed my family a variety of fruits and veggies, as I like to EAT a variety of fruit and veggies.

I don’t want to eat carrots and sweet corn with a roast chicken one day and then the same veggies in with a noodle soup the next. I’m quite chuffed with making a chicken last two/three meals (it actually lasts three because the boys don’t love it like we do and tend to have a frozen baked spud halved as well that day)

In the menu posted the roast is with roast carrots, roast potatoes and broccoli the corn is just for the soup. We do eat onions, carrots and tinned tomatoes several times each week in different dishes. Tbh I thought everyone did. Also doesn't chicken noodle soup need carrots ? In most of the recipes I've googled.

Sprinklesinmyelbow
Yes she could maybe afford both, but I just don't get why you wouldnt cut £100 a week of your shopping budget to have another holiday.
And we may have different ideas on a fuck off holiday, but £5200 is loads. I don't ever go through travel agents and have priced up Florida and Jamaica with flights and accommodation ( wedding, not mine) and its way less than that. Also toured Europe for 3 weeks for 4 of us, and it cost us just over £2k.

We send c £600 pcm for 5 people.

I’ll admit I like expensive food!

We all eat different meals to cater for tastes/ dietary requirements so that adds it up too.

Breakfast is bagels or porridge.

DC1 has school dinners so c £2.50pd.

Everyone else gets packed lunches. But things like chicken (only free range/organic) smoked salmon etc.

We don’t really eat things from packets/tins/frozen.

We snack on a lot of fruit so that’s £30 pwk at least.

We almost never have pasta or rice, dinners are fish/ chicken/ steak plus veg.

We have alcohol with dinner most days too.

I know this is a lot compared to other but then I see people getting their hair done every six weeks and I think I’d never spend money like that!

A free range chicken is £5. Potatoes £2, carrots 49p, broccoli 52p total £8. Next day soup carrots would be left over (or another 50p) noodles 50p-£1,can of corn -50, soy sauce 79p ( would use all of it), spring onions 49p, loaf of bread £1. Total 1£12-14 . Am I missing something ?

No.

STILL
I haven’t posted any recipes. I just pointed out that even weeks where I do a 3-days-from-a-chicken, its going to cost me more than £50 to feed my family of four.

How other people make chicken noodle soup is really not my concern.

I’m not a fan of carrots in soup. We do have them with a roast but that’s not a midweek dish here

When I do a midweek roast chicken here, it’s a lemon and garlic roast chicken, served with Mediterranean roasted veggies, rice and cashew nuts

I think people do count their food spend differently. I’ve been horrified by ours compared to some of the figures on here but it includes meals out, takeaway, coffee capsules etc. socialising costs as well. We did a bbq for 20 last weekend and Itcost a fortune. It’s things like that or going out for meals or drinks that kill our budget.

I also think there is a general trend that if you’re releatively cash rich and time poor you spend a lot of money on food without it necessarily being much better for you. When I went back to work after maternity leave my food bills went up hugely because everything is tight timing wise and I’m always tired so turn to short cuts.

Pre kids I’d take in porridge sachets to have at work for breakfast. Now I go to pret and get a breakfast and a coffee as I’m knackered (going in earlier so I can leave early to collect from nursery ) and don’t have time to make breakfast at work. That alone has gone from costing me about 20p to about £4 a day. I think it is things like this that contribute to higher budgets.

Your average of £56 pppw seems quite high!! I think you’d be a good candidate for that TV program “Eat well for less?” I’d love to see a receipt from that weekly spend and see where that money is going.

Cantankerous you said you didn't understand how one could eat fresh healthy food on less than £80 pw for 4. I was just showing it was possible. Of course if you will eat air freighted baby veg (will anyone think of the planet?!?) , eat chicken and cashews in the same meal and have mad arbitrary rules such as no carrots in soup or midweek then no you can't. But most people don't do those things.

“Our biggest extravagance is cauliflower rice, which my husband brings to work and eats for dinner too. It's $3/pack and my husband eats 4/day and me 1-2/day.“

$15-18 a DAY on cauliflower!

STILL

apples are £1.60 pack here (for six)
Pears are slightly cheaper
Punnet of strawberries £2
Grapes £2
Bananas are much cheaper £1

All of that has to be at least doubled for everyone to get some of them.

I spend £30ish just on fruit a week. Even if you cut that in half, it’s still a massive portion of a £50 budget.

Something HAS to compromise if you’re only willing to spend £10 per person on breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Whether you eat cashews with chicken (amazing together btw) is neither here nor there.

User14714 very sensible post. If you are rushing around and getting a baby to nursery before work then of course you want a breakfast from Pret. Life is for enjoying.

I don’t know about anyone else but I would really rather not eat than eat something past it’s best from the bottom of the fridge like a previous poster. I hate lentils, pulses and beans with a passion. I only drink filter coffee and good tea and buy organic milk, as if you buy one think organic it should be milk. Chicken lasts one meal round here with maybe an evening sandwich for one.

Apples are expensive because it is may £1 a kilo (or mostly free round here ) in August/September/October. Melon can be good value this time of year, also rhubarb,satsumas. I only buy British strawberries anyway and for us they are a seasonal treat not a staple. I would dream of buying grapes for general consumption (where do they come from btw?)

User, I’m with you. I only really make meals that will last two days, if it’s becsuse they’re super yummy and can be turned into something different, like making a big batch of spag Bol and doing a lasagne on day 2 or something. That’s more a winters thing though

STILL

Like I said, if you’re feeding your family on less than £10 a day pp, you’re sacrificing variety and things they enjoy.

Like I said, if you’re feeding your family on less than £10 a day pp, you’re sacrificing variety and things they enjoy.

Really? £10 pp per day for a family of 4 = £280, the amount the OP is spending. It’s well above twice the national average. Of course everyone makes choices, but I don’t think “sacrificing variety” is right, and you just have the “things you might enjoy” less often, surely?

Wouldn't grapes are a treat.( picnics , dinner parties, Christmas). Not for everyday.

See I think it's quite good for us all to eat reasonably seasonally and not always exactly what we fancy. There was an awful lot less obesity when everyone ate that way.

Sorry I got confused then! £10 per week

Which would be £40 so actually £20 per week per person I would say is the absolute minimum

It is achool run and maths aren’t my strong point

IMO strawberries are sweeter if you wait till June rather than eat them all year round. ( early this year)

Kids generally have a variety of fruits and veggies every day

So lunch is

Pepper, cucumber, lettuce, spring onion in a salad with either salmon, good quality ham, or cooked chicken. Along with that they have an apple each, a handful of grapes and a oaty/granola bar

So yes we buy grapes and apples for every day and no, I don’t think it will contribute to them being obese.

Actually all evidence points to low incomes causing obesity, not the other way round.

Strawberries, blueberries and raspberries we buy from around May until around September. Lovely with yogurt