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.

Not unusual at all, but not many will admit it. I could easily spend that amount, but try to rein it in. If I had the cash I would.

You choose to eat expensively OP.

You must spend £40-50 on lunches.

Then the evening meal you des robe is expensive - salmon for 6 will be £12-15, and artichokes, olives, goats cheese are also expensive.

Lunches of deli meats, dips, prepped salads etc with all the “nice bits” aren’t economical.

And if I shop in Sainsbury’s I spend at least 20% more per shop.

You can eat well on less -you could knock off £80 easily from your bill (even including spending on lunches) if you ate less meat or ate meat that was less expensive (pork not lamb, whole roast chicken or chicken thighs not chicken breasts, turkey steaks not chicken), or eat meat as a “side” or “component” instead of the main event - last night we had risotto primavera with LOADS of veg, and a side salad, with a bit of turkey as we had 1 steak leftover that needed using up so I served it in strips - the risotto didn’t really need it but it was economical to grill it & chuck it on top.

I think over £1K on food per month is a lot when you think long-term and what else you can do with that money. It’s not a case of baked beans & sausages vs salmon & salad. There is a middle ground.

I think this has been done to death. OP, have you just come on here t brag about what you eat? Or do you want advice to get your food bill down?

I think your selection of for every meal is your problem, in my house there’s no selection of dips, salads or side dishes, every one gets a meal on a plate. No posh cereal in my house, no fancy granola, chia or nuts, we eat weetabix or toast.

Your meals sound a bit boring and for what your spending out each week it’s not exactly special.

I spent £60 a week for 3 of us, we eat a wide range of things but we buy own brands and/or shop in Lidl.

To me it seems like a silly waste of money but it's your choice!
I buy Ocado + fresh vegs and it's approx 70pounds a week for 4 of us (well 2 adults and 3 children but the children are little lol). I'll buy fresh fish once in a while (a tenner or so). I buy some nice frozen fish from ocado or Costco which is v easy to cook and tastes fab. I wouldn't have fish every day tho it's not needed. And we don't eat meat. We'll take lunches to work. Breakfast varies, can be cereals, fruits, eggs etc. We're not on a budget but I wouldn't feel comfortable spending 200+ really. It's not about affordability. It's just wasteful in my view.

Op

If you can afford sounds fine

I grew up like this. Very wealthy family, money no issue. It was a fab!!

oblada

Why “wasteful” if a) the food is being consumed and enjoyed
b) they can afford it

Has someone suggested cooking a chicken and eeking it out for a week to feed eight people yet? Apparently this is possible in the world of Mumsnet. We spend £120 a week for two of us, most weeks this doesn't include alcohol,, shop is split between m and s and Aldi a for most fruit veg, milk etc. Rarely buy work lunches out unless I'm away for work and I can claim them back, we can afford our spending. Sorry if you have a smaller budget than that but everyone chooses how to spend their money. It's like reverse snobbery if you don't feed a family of ten on a budget of £40....

If you can afford it, fine. If you can't, cut back.

I get it if you're including work lunches. It's surprisingly easy to spend £15 a day per person on lunches/coffees.

Question is are you happy with that and/or can you afford it? If so, I don't see the problem. We're time poor/cash rich and it's totally worth it to us to spend a lot of money on lunch.

I don't get op's like this.

Isn't it absolutely bleeding obvious how to spend less?

Buy less expensive things.

If you want fish, you buy cod from the freezer section, not organic salmon fillets.
If you want fruit, you buy bananas, not organic blue berries.

Rocket science it isn't.

People that cook from scratch and save money that way are eating more healthily than people who buy lots of pre prepared stuff.

Make your own muesli, once a week and store.
A selection of salads not bought in packs. Buy whole ingredients and make your own.
Visit a fishmonger and butcher (support local business).
Make dips. (One tiny tub of shop bought feeds two at most).
Artichoke hearts, goats cheese, olives are lovely. For six, it punishes a budget.
There is no time?
You have choice, you can't have time and a smaller budget.
You did ask tho

6 adults in this house.. we spent about £150 a week including wine and cat food, with bread/milk/salad top up mid week.

We only eat meat once a week, DH loves fish tho so he often has salmon fillets or similar with salad for dinner. I make my own salad for work every day..it takes literally 5 mins tops and is nicer than shop bought ones as I can put what I like best in it... and is so much more cost effective as a jar of olives will last a week, spinach leaves.rocket, tomatoes etc half the week. I just can't imagine paying ££ every day for lunch or coffees!
Plenty of healthy food as we tend to eat lots of salad and jacket potatoes, roast on a sunday or a family fave like spag bol.

We are neither on the breadline nor well off, but I shopping at Aldi, or popping to Morrisons at about 8pm when food is reduced amazingly, really helps keep the budget down. I bought 4 Kievs for 40p yesterday! Frozen on day of purchase...a very cheap dinner !

We spend about £150 a week for a family of 5 and the children are teenagers (and greedy). That includes a few stubby beers for DH and a bottle of wine for me. I'm a real foodie and could easily spend the amount you do on all kinds of lovely things but it's possible not to and still eat well.

Meats and cheeses are expensive. Try boiled eggs and pickled gherkins if you want a famous five lunch.

If you can afford it and it's not leaving you skint, then all well and good.

Family of 4 here and we allocate £240 per month for the weekly grocery shop but we pay for any takeaways/ meals out from a different pot so in reality spend a higher total on food every week than we actually 'allocate' iyswim.

We have a family of 4 and eat similarly to yourselves. The coffee and eating out will account for a lot. We also found that buying cooked meat for the salads was expensive, so we buy a large chicken, roast it for Sunday lunch then use the rest on the salad, then buy feta or goats cheese for the remainder of the week.

Shopping at Aldi helps loads and we spen around £120 a week, that’s includes a bit of booze, washing powder, toilet roll etc too

I suppose if you don't want to cook or can't cook then openjng a lot of expensive packets is a way of doing it.

People that cook from scratch and save money that way are eating more healthily than people who buy lots of pre prepared stuff.

Not necessarily. It depends what you buy/cook.

We spend no more than £120 per week and that includes lunches for two adults and school dinners for two lunking great big teens. It also includes a constant supply of reasonably healthy snackage for the aforementioned teens, who can empty a fridge in the blink of a eye.
I cook a lot from scratch and batch cook and freeze.

It would be nice to have your budget, and do a bit of stealth bragging, but if I had your budget I'd stop indulging myself quite so much and put the money towards a holiday.

To answer your question OP I don’t think it’s an unusual amount to spend on food- probably the reason you think others spend very little is that people who aren’t budgeting don’t really need to talk about how much they spend

Your food is expensive unless you make it all from scratch. Do you cook the chicken and meats yourself? Dips? Are your salad egetsbles pre sliced?

Things like chia seeds and other faddy foods cost a lot too.

You can eat very well for a lot less money than what you are spending. But it sounds like you enjoy the convenience.

As others have said what's the problem if you can afford it?

We buy nice bread have an organic veg box delivered every week, oof meat Fr the butcher, nice cheese and chocolate every now and then. We spend about 120 on a family of 4, which is more than average and we never buy lunches or have takeaway.

Stabbersly, I shop at Aldi and cook everything from scratch and I would still like to know where you shop, if salad, dips, chia, deli meats and cheeses etc cost next to nothing.
Inthe rare occasion I have done a lunch like that, I have spent at least £12-£15 for the four of us, which to me is an extortionate amount of money to spend on an ordinary lunch.

£200 per week. 5 adults. That is breakfast, lunch and dinner for everyone and includes one take away per week for everyone but no alcohol.

I shop in Lidl and Tesco.

Very little processed food.

Eggs or porridge for breakfast.
Sandwich / soup for lunches.
Meat two veg for dinner.
Full roast dinner every Sunday.