How much do you spend on groceries? Family of four.

[KB197]

Hi all. Not really an aibu but hoping to find out what others spend.

Family of four and a dog. Two adults, two children and the dog.

We spend around £80-90 on a large shop and maybe a top up later in the week.

I get my shopping delivered with Tesco because they offer the best service.

Mil thinks this is too much and joked around that we should go on Eat Well For Less. She keeps saying that I have to shop at Lidl to save money. The nearest stores are a 30 minute drive away (live in the middle of nowhere) and I order to get my shopping delivered. I hate shopping and I have two DC with additional needs that also hate shopping.

I don’t think we over eat or anything. We don’t buy anything overly expensive or branded but we don’t use budget ranges either.

Is £80-£90 really that excessive? With the top up we may spend around £100-£110 a week?

What do other familes of four spend?

I’ve tried cutting down but we ended up not having enough for and needing to do another bit shop.

The summer holidays have also increased the spend slightly! £££

And I always used to save money shopping online too, it was easier to compare prices and pick the cheapest and I didn't get so easily distracted by stuff we didn't need.

£30 for a family of 4 for a week???

What kind of meals is this?

Christ..... We spend ALOT!

4 of us.. Easily £200 a week... Easily

I spend about that on two of us but I am gluten free so some things cost more and I also like to buy certain "nicer" foods. So I think you are fine for 4 of you.

Average cost for a family of 4 in the U.K. is just over £70

I think that figure is quite a bit below the latest data Derelict which is meant to be £30 per person per week, according to the government data I posted up thread. As others say, it depends on whether it is food only or includes alcohol, toiletries and cleaning products. I found an Office for National Statistics report too but that seems to show (without downloading the data) average household expenditure, which includes one and two person households.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/expenditure/bulletins/familyspendingintheuk/

As usual, ‘average’ conceals a lot!

We're 2 adults (I'm pregnant though so eat double!) Toddler and 2 cats. We have a budget of £80, we go to Lidl, the greengrocers and have milk delivered in glass bottles.

I'm struggling to keep it at £80 as I like cooking and eating lots of fresh fruit and veg, meat bumps it up a lot. I try to avoid any top up shops as that easily throws me way over budget.

I also remember when my boyfriend and I first moved in together in 2011 with no pets or children and our weekly shop was £30-40 in Asda! We didnt snack, ate pasta bake most of the time and strictly had a cheese sandwich and banana and apple for packed lunch every day!

I agree about spending less by doing an online shop stops me picking things up!

Have you tried putting it into my supermarket just to see if it's cheaper elsewhere?

Next time she says it, thank her for her offer and hand her a shopping list

On Eat Well for Less, they usually say that the average for a family of 4 is around £100 pw, so you're about spot on, maybe even slightly under, depending on how much the dog costs.

Sounds like you're doing OK, given your circumstances. Yes, you could spend less, but it's either going to take up time you don't have, cause a lot of stress and do you need to?

The people on EWFL are usually spending around twice what you are or even more. Has your MIL missed that?

We are a family of 4 (2 adults, 4yo, 2yo and one cat).
We’ve reduced our meat consumption over the last year or so which has obviously reduced our spend! The meat we do buy comes from an online butcher once a month where we spend around £35-£40.
Then usually £50-£60 a week in Aldi, depending on whether I’m buying toiletries/cleaning products.
I budget for £90 a week, but rarely spend that much! Then the left over money goes in a pot that’s used for little emergencies that crop up or is saved

Also meal planning helps massively! I’ve got a 5 week meal plan, and I write myshopping lists according to that plan. So I know exactly what I need and how much of things I need to make the meals on the plan

£200 per week, but our children our 18 & 16. No pets.

If I include everything on supermarket delivery as groceries (so including cat food and other non food stuff), we average out at around £100 per week for 2 adults and two 11 yr olds

2 adults , 1 adult dc , 1 teen and 1 cat . I spend £80-£100 per week with a top of of £10-£20 per week . This includes all food hardly ever get a take away or eat out and me and dh take our own lunch to work . I try and spend less buy frozen chicken & veg etc .

The people on EWFL are usually spending around twice what you are or even more. Has your MIL missed that?

Gregg telling KB197 that they have saved £6.97 a week would make great TV Hope you are going to use BarbaraofSeville’s reply next time MIL makes this comment!

Not a family of 4 consistently but there’s me my dp and his 2 kids every other weekend and soon to be a baby (mine) which I know will be on milk for the foreseeable.

We spend about £30/£40 a week on shopping. I do agree with you mil that £90 a week and then a top up is too much to spend.

Do you plans meals? I frequently do a stock take of the freezer and use all that up some weeks before doing the shopping or buy what I need to make meals. I try to avoid stuff like frozen bags of chicken because I just think they are naff but I do get a lot of frozen fish and fresh fish (to later freeze) might be worth getting the ole slow cooker out and start making meals from there. I think these quite cheap and no hassle to make and as it will be coming up to colder months it will be nice to come home to have the house smelling of hearty meals.

Your op shows that you could spend less, but you don't want to! That's fine, you say you don't eat budget range - if you can afford the mid range or top stuff, why not? I always used to eat the cheap stuff, but a family member of DH's cooks for us and other family members for celebrations, and one of the reasons her food tastes amazing not mediocre is that she always uses the ingredients she wants rather than the cheapest alternative. I still use mainly cheap stuff but splash out occasionally! Equally if dragging your kids round the shops is a major battle for you, and you can avoid it, why would you put yourself through it? You or DH could go after work when the other one is with the kids, but if it is worth a couple of quid to avoid that, why wouldn't you?
The oddest thing in this is how mil knows how much you spend!

@ThePolishWombat 5 week plan! That's super organised! Do you find it really helps much more than a one week plan?

DamnitCharlie I just did it as a 5 week plan purely so I don’t have to sit there once a week and think up a new one
We don’t stick to it as a regimented schedule of meals, but I’ll get it up on the laptop the night before grocery shopping day and say to DH “pick seven dinners off the plan”, and those ingredients will go on the shopping g list.
So it’s more of a list of meals that I know everyone will eat without complaining

We average £280 a month for 2 adults and an almost 10 year old. We are vegetarian but all very sporty so eat a lot.

We have a budget of £300 per month for 2 adults, a toddler and 2 cats. We used to spend more but I was sick of frittering money away on stuff we didn’t need and we both needed to lose weight. We could afford to spend a bit more but set ourselves a challenge to reduce it to £300, and we really haven’t missed it - it’s mainly crap / junk food / convenience food we’ve cut out.

We do a big Aldi shop once a month then do top up shops once or twice a week after the first week, and maybe another Aldi trip if we need things like nappies that would cost more locally.

The £300 includes all food, cleaning stuff, toiletries, stuff we buy in bulk on line (mainly cat food, litter and dishwasher tablets), nappies and the odd takeaway. DD does it at nursery 4 days per week, and if we buy lunch rather than taking it then that tends to come out of our own personal spending money. We are getting much better at being organised though. We meal plan right down to snacks most of the time (but we aren’t perfect at it) and do a shopping list from that.

Our diets are pretty healthy. We have plenty of fresh fruit, veg meat and fish (though we are trying to reduce the meat and fish) and don’t feel we are missing out at all. It’s things like biscuits, crisps, fizzy drinks that we’ve saved the most money on, but being more organised has definitely helped.

Thanks so much, youngsndfree. We eat mainly potatoes as naturally gluten free so that's about 5 times a week and costs about a tenner. The salmon sounds lovely - I used to do salmon a lot but I kind of stopped so I must go back to it. Only have pasta once a week as the cheaper ones seem to leave DS with an upset stomach. I have noticed rice works out at much better value than potatoes do and DS and I eat rice happily with anything but DH will only eat it with a curry or similar. DH is my biggest problem really, he's fussy and says he never feels full after rice, stuff like that. DS will eat anything e.g. rice with whatever we have left stir fry. I'll have a look at the Nigella recipe too, it also sounds really good. Also the prawns!

@KTCluck definitely I think ppl think that, crisps, chocolates, biscuits, juices etc are essential in a weekly shop.For me it’s about providing 3 good meals a day and fruits to snack on. I don’t buy random stuff that is not needed. I have a friend who buys the same stuff every week regardless, she throws half of it away and buys the same toilet cleaner every time too! She has about 4 toilet ducks beside each toilet 🙈 and then wonders where her money is 🤷‍♀️

We are 3 adults and a dog at home all week and probably 2 days with 2 extra adults and I spend about 90-100 per week purely on food . I shop in a mix of Tesco ( it’s 2 minutes from my house) and M and S . One of the full time adults is coeliac so that costs more for gf bread etc . The dog is not included in that money as he has his kibble from online and eats tins of Applaws ( very picky) which they don’t sell in supermarkets so he costs about £40-50 per month . I cook from scratch , we don’t eat any red meat and have fish a couple of times a week . My dd ( the coeliac) and I also lunch out a fair bit so we probably spend 60- 80 on that as well . I can’t shop in Aldi and Lidl because I just don’t find them a pleasant shopping experience , I like scan and shop . We go to Costco every 4/5 weeks and spend about £150-200 on a mix of food and cleaning stuff etc .

Two adults and one child and we spend bang on £50 or less per week on a shop.

I shop every day rather than a weekly shop. I shop for 2 adults, 3 teenage boys and 3 dogs. I spend around about £40 a day which includes EVERYTHING, from toiletries to wine to cleaning stuff, pet food, stationery, pant & socks etc and food. No "top up shops" or any other money spent elsewhere. Its about £300 a week all in, or just under.