To ask how much you spend each month on food, toiletries & household items?

[NeedSleepNow]

I am a sahm and my husband puts £300 a month into the joint account for me to use to do the shopping. This is to cover all food, toiletries, loo roll, cleaning products etc. for a family of 5. I am massively struggling with this budget, even more so at Christmas and other holidays when everyone is home so I was wondered am I just spending too much or is it a wildly unrealistic budget for 5 people.

What do you spend each month on food, toiletries, cleaning products etc.?

We spend about £120 a week for 2 adults 1 14 years old and a 5 and 3 year old.

We shop at sainsburys for food and then I get cleaning products etc at Wilko.

It’s nice to see some realistic budgets/amounts on here. Normally mumsnet reckons they feed families of 6 on £40 a week!!!

Family of 5 I can do it on £50 a week at aldi but it's tight stressful and takes alot of organisation and not wasting anything. I need to be aware of exactly what I use and how much of everything is left at or I end up missing meals (my DCs never have and never will go without)
I've just had to do my first big shop in 2 months it cost £80 between aldi and Tesco I think that's a much more reasonable amount but can't afford it at the moment!

£300 per month works out at £10 per day for 5 people for 3 meals, so £2 per person per day or 66p per meal for each family member.

I guess porridge for breakfast
Making bread, everything homemade, including the beans on the toast. Mostly meat free meals and it could stretch, but it’s not a great deal to manage with 66p per meal

£200/month for two adults here. We recently put it up after spending 4 months saving ALL receipts and working out the real spend each month. In December we spent a lot more!

Family of 3 (2yo DC) and 2 dogs - don't have a fixed budget per month but I'd estimate we easily spend £500 and that's not including lunches bought out during the week for work.

We are a family of 4.5 as DSS lives here but goes to his mum's every other weekend.

DS 8 and DSS 15 eat so much food i just can't believe it. They are both skinny as anything and both never stop eating

I seem to spend about £120 a week in Morrison's and often have to do a top up shop in the. Co op of about £15.

That doesn't include alcohol as we get that separately and we get a takeaway once a week.

I clearly doing something wrong. My new years resolution will be to spend less on shopping.

£200 a week for everything. There is 3 of us

Oh bless you no wonder you are struggling! We are a family of 5 and I spend anything from £150-180 a week depending on if we need stuff like washing powder etc. If I budgeted I could prob get that down to £100 so yes think £400 is much more reasonable but if there is a possibility of more I would take it.

About £100 a week, 3 of us and some guinea pigs. We are mainly meat free, I buy 1 pack of bacon a week but that's all. I think your budget is tight definitely.

I really struggle with this and I have 2teen DD’s and myself. £300 would get me nowhere

DD2 has a chronic skin condition and is allergic to most normal cheap products, this means searching for everything shower gel shampoo etc is sooo expensive but worth it so it doesn’t set it off. The poor kid ends up being gifted shower gel for Xmas because it’s expensive!

Then all 3 of us have periods a month which can cost £30 odd. Deodorant for 3, shampoo for them with long hair, they eat adult sized portions of food now. I am constantly buying new pairs of tights.

I don’t buy any food that is branded though. DD’s eat at school which costs money too

Family of 7 (5 dc aged 12, 10, 7, 5 and 4)
120-130 a week in the supermarket
£15 a week online on nappies
£15 a week on dc1's school dinners
£25 a week on dc2 and dc3 school dinners (youngest 2 are free)

I think that's it, oh and £45 every 4 weeks for sanpro for me.

If you only drink water and eat instant noodles, it's doable.....which is crazy. We're also a family of 5. £300 imo is SUCH a restricted amount for the whole month. We spend about £400 alone on food.

We were spending £350 for a family of 4. The children are very little. This is usually under £300 now we shop at aldi. I don't think £300 for a family of 5 is enough.

£45 a month on sanpro ? That’s colossally expensive ! How come ?

Famy of 4, including 2 teens and pets. Spend approx £125 per week on food, cleaning stuff etc. This includes a bottle of wine or two.

I have ridiculously heavy periods so soak through industrial strength pads every hour. I still leak a lot even then so use tena pull ups as well which I change every 2-3 hours.

Before I had a uterine ablation and a mirena back in I was on my period for 12 days at a time, I had to wear Tena, went through a ton of vanish, pain meds, tranexamic acid and even barrier creams to stop the chafing it also cost a fortune to have a period

£300 a month is tight, but doable. Whether or not it's reasonable depends on whether or not there's any spare money left after all the essential bills are paid. If you only have one earner, and a largish family, then unless he earns a really good wage, it's likely that you will have to stick to quite a tight budget. That's not financial abuse, it's a fact of life.

About £450 for four, dc 5 and 8. You really need to believe that family money is family money- all earned money into a common pot, all shared expenses out of the pot.

I budget £500 per month for a family of 6, one in nappies, and a massive dog.

ellie I'd consider getting a mirena in your position and save £500 odd per year!

You haven’t said how much he earns and what is left after this £300 you imply it isn’t very much. So you need to sit down with all your statements and work out your exact income and then do a budget. We have a giant spreadsheet going back many years it’s unfortunately out of date and we are going to update this ASAP. We did our own list but Money saving expert is a site with loads of tips and also lots of lists so check them out.

We are a family of three and spend around £400 a month but our income bracket means it’s fine. Until you do the budget you won’t know if he is being tight fisted or that’s just all there is.
I

Family of 5/6 here.
4/5 adults portions and a child plus pack ups x 15-20 a week plus two dogs
We eat from the slow cooker a lot purely due to work schedules etc.

My aim is always to spend about £400 per month which is what the main weekly food shops add up to however we probably spend another £100 a month on little top ups or extras if having a big Sunday lunch etc etc.

Going to try and scale it down again now for a while as it's getting ridiculous but i can sensibly do it all for £400 a month

we are a family of 4 and in all honestly it averages out around £600, and I make everything from scratch also, our most costly food/products is ds2 food due to multiple allergies

OP, you must be a fantastic manager to keep 5 of you on £300. We don't spend much less than that for 2 of us, and a (small) dog. I'd be perpetually anxious about running out of money if the margins were that tight, and not being able to buy something vital like toilet roll.

I think you need to have a serious chat with your DH about money. A month where you run out of lots of cleaning stuff or toiletries would be really hard to manage.