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 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

Well how nice for you that you have a much larger than average food budget and can afford to buy so much and can afford as many 'nice lunches' as you like. Many people don't and have to make do with beans or egg on toast, or soup made out of lentils and cheap veg for lunch.

£40 a week on fruit is extremely generous and a luxury. The recommendation for however many portions of fruit and veg should be mostly veg, and fruit can be things like bananas or canned pineapple, which would provide a fruit portion for pennies, no need at all to spend anywhere near £40 pw.

Fish and chicken for most meals is a very expensive way to eat too especially if the fish is fresh and chicken free range/organic. Again, there are much cheaper ways to provide the same nutrition and protein content at a fraction of the cost - eg frozen or canned fish, chicken thighs, cheaper cuts of meat that can be cooked in a slow cooker, or beans or eggs for the main protein component.

I probably spend £160 a week. Some weeks more if we have guests etc.
If I shop in Aldi I'm probably a 1/3 less a month but I cant always get there so online shop quite a bit.

BarbaraofSeville meow

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

I spent 70 yesterday for shopping that will last 9 days (or more)as we are so busy I had to do it all in one. That includes nice lunches
The Dc brought in leftover chicken and pasta bake as part of their lunch.
I brought in a chicken Caesar salad with sundries tomato’s, stuffed peppers, olives, mini mozzarella balls and everything else that goes on a Caesar salad. And I do something to that effect most days!
No need to spend so much to achieve “nice lunches and warm packed lunches AT ALL!! That’s just bad budgeting imo!!

I really don't know how some of you spend £40 A WEEK. I spend that amount on fruit only I really dont know how you spend almost £6/day, every day, on fruit. That's a lot of fruit.

lalafafa she (assuming she!) isn’t being catty. Literally there are people in this country starving, eating nothing for their lunch, going without so their kids can have the last stale piece of bread and you don’t understand how people don’t all spend £40 a week on fruit and that’s what they have for ALL week?

You are living in a bubble.

2 adults, 7 children, (1,3,7,8,11,12,19) no pets, we spend about £250/month so yours seems pretty reasonable

Just do them peanut butter on toast for their after school snack. It doesn't have to be a specific snack product.

fixthebone is that a week or month? I know you’ve written monthly, but that’s really low. The op is weekly, £140.

With just the two of us now we spend £30-40 a week including toiletries and cleaning products.

When the kids were still at home (we have 2) obviously it was more, but less than double due to economies of scale, so maybe the equivalent of £60-70 a week.

That covers all meals bar the occasional, maybe once a month, take away or meal out. I do the bulk of my shopping in Tesco, with oddments from Lidl, Iceland, Farmfoods, potatoes by the sack from a local farm, and home grown vegetables in summer, plus some fruit gathering.

2 adults 2 children. DS eats like a horse. Both eat at school.

We spend between £150 to £200 a week including wine and all toiletries, washing liquid etc. I only buy free range chicken and all meat and chicken from local farm butcher.

Every now and then we have a freezer week and I spend more like £80 on fruit veg and essentials and eat everything else from the freezer.

I meal plan religiously and do not waste a thing.

About £110/£120 a week for 3 adults and a cat here. I meal plan, I buy extras of our most used things when they're on offer, especially the more expensive things like laundry pods, the shampoo that me and DD like, or the big bags of the purina dried cat food. Instant coffee I buy 500g catering size tins of Azera from Amazon for around £12 or £13, as we all drink a fair bit of it and this was the cheapest way I've found to get nice instant (the small tins of azera are 60 and 100g, to give an idea how cheap that works out) . Coffee beans I buy whatever is on offer, but I'm the only one that bothers with that so don't get through as much.

I use the electric pressure cooker thing quite often (makes a lovely casserole very quickly and with minimal fuss), which means that I can use the less pricy cuts of meat. I buy big sacks of rice and use a rice cooker. Lentils, beans and pulses make everything go further, taste nice and fill you up more (DD is 19 and DS20, and both are active and have big appetites). I'm also at home during the day, and I tend to either have leftovers from the night before, or something like an omelette with whatever is in the fridge in it. I do drink too much coke though, and am starting to cut down on that.

We saved money by switching to aldi and I just buy the cheapest option of it.

I also stopped buying snack things. If my dd1 is hungry between meals I'll let her have a piece of fruit but we try to stick to just three main meals and no snacks.

Spend about £70-80 for family of 2 adults 2 kids, 10 & 13, and one dog. This includes household items like cleaning stuff and a case of beer. We shop lidls, we shopped at Morrisons before and equivalent shop would be £100-£110.
Cant get everything I need there but I now know whit items they are and even now get them in a separate small amount shop at the likes of b&m but it ll Comes under the cheaper amount

We are a family of 5, three children 2, 5, 9 (none in nappies) - I spend about £100 a week.
5 & 9 year olds have school lunches.
However I'm also a childminder so that includes an extra 4 children for breakfast and tea and 2 extra toddlers for lunch every day in the week.

We eat pretty well/healthily and the things that make a difference for me are:
Meal planning - I plan Monday-Friday and we eat leftovers at the weekend. Sometimes we eat out/takeaway which I don't include in the £100.
Little meat
Own brand products only
Online ordering
I only buy frozen veg so we have almost zero food waste
I don't buy any packaged snacks and little processed food
Very little alcohol - occasional £7 bottle of wine but not every week