AIBU Weekly shopping spend

[Thebig3]

Hello, I currently spend £140 a week on shopping for a family of 5 (3 kids, one still in nappies). I think this is an ok amount but my husband thinks it could be reduced further.

In that £140 it includes all household things not just food, so washing powder, shower gel, shampoo etc. I am also a sahm so I obviously eat all my meals at home. My husband also takes a pack lunch every day as does my daughter so this is covered in the food I buy for.

I often hear people say they spend a lot less each week and wonder how they do it!! Do they only include food in that weekly figure and toiletries etc is classed under a different spend? Do they only cater for breakfast and dinner each day??

Can someone help? Is it too much each week and how do I reduce if it is?

I think you're all a very thrifty lot.

We spend £60-80 a week for 2 of us and a dog. That's for everything though: toiletries, skincare, household cleaning stuff etc. It sometimes includes a book or a new saucepan, too. And chocolate, DP is a chocaholic.

We could cut down, but we love our food, eat meat or fish virtually every day and have expensive tastes. We shop at an odd combination of Aldi/Lidl, Tesco, Sainsburys and Waitrose. Shopping at Waitrose has actually saved us money. A lot of their "essentials" range is better and cheaper than Tesco "Finest" (notably cheese, bacon and sausages). Their "essential" fish fingers are the nicest I've ever had, and far cheaper than Bird's Eye cod ones which are the only other ones DP will eat.

I agree it depends what you are buying. Snacks mount up, so if you buy them stop, the same with cordial, water is best. Instead of throwing fruit and veg away freeze it. Buy oats and weetabix, no fancy cereals.

Without knowing what you buy it's impossible to say whether you could save money.

Comparisons with other people are meaningless. If you want to know if you can get your specific list cheaper use something like mysupermarket.

If your DH thinks you can spend less presumably he's explained how, what were his suggestions?

We spend about £100 a week for a family of 4, so I reckon you could probably cut it down a bit. Meal planning has definitely helped me so we only buy what we need, and I try to look out for offers etc and will buy cheaper own-brand versions where they taste okay (for example I find Tesco own brand pasta sauces fine, but their baked beans taste crap compared to Heinz so for that I stick to the branded version). I also try and limit 'choice' on a week by week basis as it's easy to get carried away and buy lots of choices but it often really adds up (e.g, I'll buy 2 sandwich filling options for the week, rather than 4-5).

I was going to say, I'm very impressed with how cheap people can get their shopping.
We budget £70 a week for the 2 of us plus the cat (and the baby but he's not quite due yet). And we generally stick under that, usually 65 ish per week.
I'd love to shop at Aldi or Lidl but I've no way of getting to either at the moment, so we do Tesco.

We average an £80 for 2 adults and a 10 month old. Our shop includes household items but we do sometimes get things from Poundland like kitchen foil, freezer bags etc...
We shop mainly at Asda... And we will get reduced items like sausages, meat and stick in freezer for another time.

OP, we are similar. Family of four and a small dog. I spend around £90-£100 on a big shop and a £30/£40 top up. I’m desperate to cut it but can’t see where we go wrong. We don’t eat overly expensive food, don’t over eat. I also meal plan and both DC have school dinners (DD an infant so free but pay for DS).

Jizzle, what do you actually eat for no more than £40 a week for 3 people? Is that for all meals, shampoo, washing stuff, cleaning products etc?

I don't think you're doing too bad op. I do a £100 shop once a month/6 weeks to stock up non perishables,then spend around £70-80 a week for 4 of us (dc have school dinners though). That include a bit of booze, cleaning products and usually some flowers. I won't buy crap meat and I meal plan and cook from scratch.

Do you drink a lot? £140 seems a bit steep with young children.

Same family set up here 2 adults, 3 kids with 1 in nappies and another is a teen.

That's a ridiculously large amount to spend imo. I spend around 40-50 in Aldi a week then 10-15 in Asda to pick up bits Aldi don't stock. I make pack lunches from this for the middle child and all meals for myself and the littlest.

My big Xmas shop last year was only £93 and that last nearly 2 weeks (we didn't do Xmas dinner here though so was just purely food for over the period to avoid having to go to the shops and treats)

Weekly shop I do online with sainsburys which is £60 (2 adults, 1 child, 2 cats) but the only way I can do that is by also doing a big monthly shop in Lidl where we stock up on meat, frozen items, housekeeping items in bulk etc. That's usually about £100, so on average I guess it's £85 per week.

We spend £60-70 for a family of four. That's pack ups and breakfasts but the kids eat at school / nursery for free. Every so often I do a brand shop at Tesco and buy the stuff I can't get at Aldi and it's closer to £150 so probably £100-120 per week on average including a takeaway or meal out every so often

We spend about £120 a week, me dh, ds7 and ds2. Typically includes ds’s packed lunches and some lunches for dh and I but we both also eat out at work 1-2 a week. We also typically have a lunch out and or take away a week, this is a new treat that we never used to do. We eat well, a lot of fish and fruit that costs abit ie berries. We don’t but alcohol at home and we don’t buy sweet stuff really. We shop in Sainsburys and Asda. Once a month we go to Asda for cupboard stuff and cleaning materials. Then weekly top up shops at Sainsburys. We eat fresh food but don’t always cook from scratch. So we might eat smoked salmon and scrambled eggs in the week (very short of time).
I managed to cut it a lot last year when on mat leave but I don’t have time to shop around now.

I online shop for 5 and a cat, and spend around 70-80. But with top ups of bread/crisps, probably £120. No alcohol or tobacco.

I don't eat meat.. i live off pasta, pizza and eggs. So I'm quite cheap but i like my snacks.

DC are 1, 6 and 7.
DH has meat with every meal.
I make packed lunch for DH and DS.
I don't usually eat breakfast or lunch.

I could easily cut down as we do buy a lot of branded things.

We are 2 adults and 2 kids, 11 and 7. Husband buys lunch every day at work, both kids have school dinners. I alternate between buying lunch at work (cheap- as in under £2) or taking my own. When I’m being organised and prepared, and meal plan, and waste nothing we spend £125 a week including all toiletries, cleaning products etc. This past few months I’ve been less organised as work has got busier and I’ve ended up buying ‘as I go’ from more expensive shops and it’s been a lot more. From January I’ll be strictly reinstating my budget and cutting out all the unnecessary stuff. I also don’t give my kids meat or fish every night- no way. Probably only 3-4 times a week.

I think £20 per day is not an unreasonable amount to spend, so long as you are not struggling financially.
Yes you probably could cut it down a bit but it depends on whether you consider the saving to be worth giving up certain things.
I spend a lot on food. I have 3 teens at home and a 12 year old. Plus me and DH. I try to use up food rather than throw it out and I try to buy sensibly, but I can't meal plan one dinner per day that everyone will eat - I envy people whose kids will all eat the same food

Family of 5, three children aged 5 and under.
Spend about £80 a week, I've tried to spend more and actually struggle to find things to buy!

I am an Aldi/Lidl shopper. I totally object to paying the prices in the big 4 for stuff. I start in Aldi/Lidls and spend around £60-70. That's for 3 adults, and we eat well. Usually casseroles, Spag Bol, etc. Also fresh fruit and veg although we often buy frozen veg. DH is medically retired so he is at home all day. I usually make a pot of soup every couple of days.
I occasionally wander into Morrisons to get Branded cereal as that's the only thing DH won't eat out of Aldi's ( tried several times, but he hates them).
Hardly buy alcohol.
I have also found Savers and B and M great for cleaning stuff, and Stardrops 4 in 1 Pine spray cleans everything or Pink Stuff. Lasts for ages and don't need to buy it every week.

A question to the people doing their food shop cheaply, do you buy any alcohol?

@charm8ed no alcohol

No, we don’t buy any alcohol.

@charm8ed no alcohol here, we have plenty in already

@charm8ed No I don't drink, and if DH wants some he buys it himself.

We do buy alcohol but normally get it from amazon. Whitley Neil gin normally only £20 a bottle and lasts a while as we don't drink often. Maybe get a new one every month as we finish one flavour to replace it.

No alcohol here either. We don't really drink unless we have guests or are going out.

I'm feeling very guilty about the environment lately so have cut down lots on things like cleaning wipes/baby wipes/things in individual teeny packs.