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?

We spend about 120 Euro on a family of 6-it can be done but it's a bit miserable tbh!! We do Aldi and get e.g. waffles, ham and a few other bits from tesco. It's always possible to cut down, the thing is if you really want to, 140 pound sounds fine to me. When we went to the money advice agency here they said the recommended spend is at least 5euro per person per day and told us we were doing well but to remember to live

I've read the thread and I suppose it depends how much money you have and how much tome and effort you want to spend shopping and meal planning. I'm fully aware some people need to do this. I used to work with people in deprived communities. I've also had to do this as a student and in low paid jobs. But neither me or my partner go to work to have to weigh out out veg stew portions. I'd suggest your dh Foss food planning and shopping for a while before you look at changing your habits.

I also don't see how £3.99 worth of beef could feed 2 adults for 3 meals. Not unless. It was on a half price offer and there was a ton of veg as well.

@aderyn there is plenty of veg and we aren't huge eaters. We'll have something like potato or dumplings too with it. The beef is mainly there for taste, we don't like loads of meat.

I'm envious. My family all have big appetites.

Family of five, 2 adults and then 11,7&6 year olds plus a dog. We spend about £60 a week including toiletries and cleaning.

We don’t eat meat or dairy or replacements (apparent from soy milk and butter)
I make cleaning sprays (vinegar and water)
We use bars of soap instead of shower gels
Meal plan
Shop in Lidl
Generally only drink water
Don’t drink alcohol
Make a lot of my own snacks

For me it’s keeping the shopping cost down and not wasting food, putting delicious nutritious food on plates all at the same time.

For me I’d rather spend the money saved on other stuff - but don’t want to compromise on taste & nutrition

Family of 5. 2 school pack lunches and I have all meals at home as I pop home in my lunch break. We spend around £70 a week for everything. We meal plan and are veggie.

I do a big shop every two weeks of about £80-£90 and top up extra bread milk fruit and veg in between but not spending more than about £20 on the in between week. There's four of us my boys are 3 and 6. We don't eat very much meat and we don't buy alcohol. I also buy laundry detergent from the pound shop as being only a pound it's way cheaper than the supermarkets own. I shop at Aldi and find it's so much cheaper than Sainsbury's who I shopped with until a year ago.

£100 for four people is around £3.50 per day ppn. It's not a huge amount.

Frozen veg is very cheap 900g of green beans £1 or 5 for £4 in Iceland includes a large range of veg too. So for £4 I could get 900g baby carrots, 900g green beans, 900g of spinach, 1kg pack of casserole veg and 180g of tenderstem broccoli.

Reading all these posts make me feel quite ashamed of my spending. For 7 months a year it’s just DH and I and we spend £150 to £180 and we eat out a fair bit. When our 2 DC are back from uni (so 3 adult males and me) it’s more like £250 plus.

I have a 15 and a 16 year old and the amount of food they need is incredible. They seem to have insatiable appetites.
My weekly food spend is nothing like it was when they were younger. They arnt interested in meat free meals so this makes things more expensive. I think the OP is doing really well. £20 for all food and toiletries is very good and not much at all.

Family of 3 adults and 1 older teen.

I'd estimate that we spend around £40 every 10 days on veg & fruit alone!

We probably get through 12 pints of milk most weeks, mainly due to the teens & friends!

I don't actually know for certain anymore, but reckon we spend, in total, about £500/month for everything, including all toiletries and all household stuff, etc.

I make everything from scratch though and we don't eat many processed/simple carbs, so rely on veg and meat/fish. We only buy free range eggs, and mostly buy high welfare meat, which costs more.

I also make all my own bread/wraps, etc, although I do occasionally buy crumpets.

Everyone takes a packed lunch 5 days per week (eg, tuna, avocado tomato salad, or homemade grilled chicken wraps, konjac noodle stir fry, etc).

Breakfast is generally Greek yogurt with berries/fruit/nuts, porridge with similar or egg muffins/omelette/poached egg, etc.

Every week I'll make granola bars, or something similar, for snacks or a breakfast/lunch on the go.

We have meat/fish probably at least once a day, maybe in the form of tuna salad for lunch, then a veggie dinner, but sometimes both lunch and dinner will have meat/fish in. That's one thing I am trying to cut back on.

In the colder weather we have homemade soup for dinner on a weekly basis, and this is usually veggie based. Eg:

Today's menu was:

Breakfast: overnight oats with fruit & chia seeds

Lunch: grilled lamb, h/m wrap, salad, and mayo.

Dinner: roasted veg soup (aubergine, courgette, carrot, leek, red pepper and roasted smoked garlic), served with h/m rolls.

I meal plan every week, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and shop accordingly. Once a week, dinner will be leftovers from the previous day's meals.

I'm careful, and try to avoid waste. Eg, on Monday, I made a soup from leftover veg that would often be thrown away....some asparagus ends (the woody bits) and broccoli and cauliflower stalks/leaves. It was really tasty and very cheap to make. That made 6 portions, and was used for lunches.

I don't buy many treats (crisps, etc) as I prefer to make my own.
I rarely buy branded products, and in the main I do my shopping in Morrisons, Aldi and a local butchers. We do buy top ups from Tesco express or Asda when needed. This usually consists of mainly milk and deli ham/deli chicken.

I'm sure I could shop & spend less.
2-3 years ago I used to spend around £280 on everything, but we ate more pasta, rice, bread, etc, all of which are quite cheap, and we ate much less varied fruit and veg (the basics only, eg, potatoes, apples, bananas, grapes, salad tomatoes, etc). We also used supermarket red tractor label meat, rather than free range/local.

I suppose it comes down to whether or not you need to spend less, but I think it's always a good idea to re-evaluate things on a regular basis.
One change we are trying to make is to have some completely meat free days. We have also upped our intake of beans/lentils, etc.

Wow, sorry that was so long!

That doesn't include alcohol, as it's not something we buy regularly.

I tend to buy a lot of snacks for after school as the older 2 are always so hungry so I buy things to grab and take with me more for convenience than anything else!! I could however, reduce this by making something myself instead.* I think that's why many people's budgets are high. Snacks for children are so expensive. Everyone says they're handy and they're individually wrapped, no one has time to make snacks etc. I say bananas to that! Literally! Individually packaged with no plastic, very cheap and no effort! If it's just an afterschool snack it's fine! Fruit wise I buy bananas, apples, oranges because grapes and berries are just too expensive.

You can eat well on a low budget but our society is used to having everything we want all year round. Seasonally as much as you can is the best way and cheapest. I'm in my 20s but was brought up like that, strawberries only in summer etc.

I buy supermarkets own nappies and sensitive wipes for the baby. As good as expensive brands imo. And we don't eat much meat due to costs. Meat and fish are so expensive and you caneat nutritionally well without them. Maybe have it once a week, sometimes twice.

DP likes beer but I don't buy alcohol for me as I like to keep costs down. I also have Coeliac disease but I don't buy gluten free bread at three quid per loaf!!! I make or buy omelettes/soups/rice or corn crackers instead for lunches. That's if I eat lunch, i often don't as I have a 10 week old and I'm trying to lose weight (breastfeeding isn't helping me lose weight at all!)

Try and view it as trying some new foods recipes! Or trying a new way of eating!

Haven't read any of the thread, but the government benefits are based on allowing £2.65 per person per day for food (they now round up to £21per person per week), and £3pppw for toiletries and household goods. So for 5 people, the government base the "minimum reasonable figure" as £120pw.

So £140ish per week isn't so bad really.

2 adults/2 kids/2 cats, and I spend between 80-100 each week - and that does include some booze, and enough meat that there's generally some meat element in most meals (although not always a lot - eg, roast chicken becomes sandwiches and curry the next day, but the curry is mainly lentils/veg). I mealplan a little, but also work with what's looking good, mainly Lidl, although a Tescos every now and then for cat food, generally not brands or expensive showergel/shampoo etc.

TBH at the moment it's more like 60, because I realised I have a freezer full of part-packets and leftovers that we're trying to eat our way through.

most evening meals. Breakfast not at all, and lunch perhaps as a sandwich filler (or pasty if I've been cooking)

2 adults, one teen, one 9yo, two cats. My weekly Sainsbury's delivery is around £90-120 including toiletries, pet food and litter, cleaning products, booze, and often some random household bit (this week a roasting tin and a large pack of batteries). It also covers school and work lunches, except Fridays. I also do a top up for fresh bread, fruit and salad mid week at £10-30. We are not massively extravagant, but equally I don't feel under pressure to get the cheapest of everything.

I really don't know how some of you spend £40 A WEEK. I spend that amount on fruit only. Dh is home 3/4 days a week so we always make a nice lunch, 1 kid takes hot packed lunch. we do drink, have fish or chicken for most meals, ours is about £160-180.

We buy a bag of oranges, bag of apples and a bunch of bananas a week. It’s about £4.
You cut your cloth to fit.
My budget is max £50, and that would be pushing it and probably have to come out of a different weeks budget.
£6 a week on quorn, tenner on veg.

Fruit a week we buy Apples, Oranges, Bananas, Grapes and a pack of berries (strawberries, Raspberries or blueberries usually)
Vegetables we always have a mixture of peppers, baby plum toms, all salad things, corn on the cob, and then different bags of frozen veg (brocolli, cauli, carrots, peas)
Still stay under £70 a week for all meals.