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.

Scabbersley- adding an unhealthy dressing doesn’t diminsh the healthfulness of the vegetables in the salad though do they? They’re just as healthy and nutrient rich as they were without the dressing.

*OliviaStabler

There is no intelligence or skill involved

I beg to differ. Cooking is a skill*

Olivia - riding a bike is a skill. Not one that’s particularly impressive or accomplished. If you want to consider cooking a skill I’d put it in that sort of category

You don't appear to actually want to spend less?

If you have £280 and you're happier spending that amount, and spending it the way you're spending it instead of replacing the takeaway salads with more fillet steak or whatever, crack on. If you do want to spend less, there is some very obvious fat to trim here. But there's no set amount that people 'ought' to spend.

It's easily done. We spend £150 at m&s on meals for a family of 5 then an another £120 on wine, washing, cleaning, toddler meals and Gluten-Free food for my coeliac dd. It's mainly for convince.

If you cut your shopping bill by £100 a week, you could have a fuck off amazing holiday. But thats up to you OP

I don't get this much per week and yet I still manage to feed three of us adequately.

We spend about £120 at ASDA for a family of four including free range chicken, plenty of fruit but not expensive fruit (mainly apples and satsumas), vegetables and some alcohol but not loads. We eat chicken, pork, beef or eggs most days. Lunch is a basic sandwich with fruit, crisps and/or cake for DH and the kids but I take a home made bistro-box packed lunch or soup or leftovers. Breakfast is cheap (muesli or supermarket own brand cereals). So we may be spending similar to you on evening meals (although I probably wouldn't serve goats cheese, olives AND walnuts with salmon...) but we don't buy lunches out and our other meals are more frugal and basic. ASDA smart price muesli for example is quite low sugar, and DH likes it. Kids like the ASDA versions of rice krispies and shredded.

I don't hold back on my shopping, but would find that a lot.. who cares if you are happy with it though

I mean it seems insane to me. We're just a family of 2 (me and young DS) but I spend less than that per month on food. Between £30-£50 per week and that includes toiletries and cleaning items. We have meat or fish and fresh fruit/veg every day, DS has free school meals and I make my own lunches for work. Shop at Asda.

It's all relative though. If you can afford it comfortably and don't want to change your eating habits then there's no issue. You could definitely cut back somewhere though if you wanted to.

Seems like a silly amount to me, and I say that as someone who shops at Waitrose. We spend £70 a week on two adults, two under 5s.

We don’t really spend money on coffees/takeaway lunches during the week. We do eat out lunch Saturday, and Sunday though which equates to about £100 over the weekend.

I also get free lunch at school, school dinners aren’t the best but they are filling, relatively healthy and did I mention free?

She doesn’t want to spend less. She just wants to know if it’s unusual to spend as much as she does

Sprinkles, I said it isn't hard if you have the inclination. It's certainly a skill though to do it well and have a large repertoire of foods you would consider cooking without recourse to books or the internet.

Essentially what I'm saying is that if necessary I could quite easily feed my family on £50 a week, and it would be interesting, varied and delicious.

But that's because I have the skills and knowledge to know how to deal with dried beans and pulses, cheap cuts, seasonal fruit and veg, and know lots of ways to deal with leftovers or glut.

So yes, it's a skill!

Scab
Would love a link to an organic family meat box for £45?

I'd prefer to pay off the mortgage, have university funds for the kids and have some savings than waste money like this.

Sprinklesinmyelbow
Somone asked me what an avocado taste like in Tesco 3 weeks ago
Cooking is a lost art
I seen people buy taco kits when it almost half the price to buy the same things separately
I had people ask me what mutton is
Black people eat this a lot I am black before anyone has kittens

I know people who buy micro rice because they can’t cook rice ffs and don’t get me started on them to who buy frozen filled jackets

And just watch programmes like eatwell for less it’s like

I've not rtt but we are a family of five and we spend a similar amount, but we do drink a lot of wine.

If I spent as much money as the OP and no food went to waste, I'd be seriously over weight.

It's not us it about the money, it's about eating the right number of calories and type of calories.

Metoo i dont know how to cook. V working class but educated. My kids have never eaten avocados.
I buy micro rice as i cant cook rice.
I shop cheaply but my food tastes shit indont know how to cook anything

ILikeyourHairyHands

This o have pretty much no convince foods in my home and I know many would struggle to make a meal as they simply would not be familiar with the ingredients
My spice cupboard alone is two draws deep

I don't get why threads like this even exist obviously everyones eating habits are different so the prices vary its not rocket science. I spend more than that per week on just me and DH because we eat large portions of healthy foods

How is it a skill to look up recipes centred around cheap food? Or buy a cookbook aimed at those on a budget?

No offence but knowing lentils and beans are cheap, or observing which cuts of meat are sold for the cheapest price in the shop, then planning meals around those items really isn’t much to shout about. It’s basic stuff people do without thinking.

What's the actual issue here OP?
I'm lost.

Eatwellforless is a tv programme with an aim- to attract judgey people to revel in how much more together their lives are than that weeks subject.

I think it all depends on your life style and priorities. For me food isn’t my main priority, I would rather spend less on it giving more to spend on other things (holidays, trips out, Christmas).

My kids have a cooked meal at school so they don’t need much for dinner, though dd2 likes another cooked meal. We probably have a take away once every couple of weeks.

If you can afford to spend that amount on food then there’s no problem with it, if you can afford to shop in m&s or Waitrose that’s fine, though I think even if I was better off I would stick to Lidl or Aldi .

If you’ve got the money to spend that a week, great, don’t stress about what others are doing. yes it’s quite a substantial amount to be spending on food a week but why not if you can afford it.

My grocery budget I struggle to bring in under £120 that’s with one in nappies, one cat and 6 people, who ever posted on page 1 about having 5ppl in the week and 7 at weekends and doing it for £70- I can only assume there’s something you’re not mentioning like all your kids get free school meals or something, otherwise I cannot fathom how on earth you feed 5-7 people on £70 a week??!

I spend more than that per week on just me and DH

Absolute LOL