To have food shop guilt

[littleblackdress04]

Our monthly food shop for a family of 4 is about £200ish a month- I cook 90% from scratch, take food into work & kids have packed lunches 3 days a week/ school dinners the rest. We rarely eat out as a family - maybe a couple of times a year,

I mostly shop in Lidl during the month but do an Asda shop once a month to get stuff I can’t get in Lidl- nice tins of mixed beans etc. I am also a vegan & can’t get soya yoghurt etc in lidl.

I went to Sainsbury’s today & bought a load of nice vegan stuff as a treat- oatly milk, nice vegan butter, some lovely veg sausages that I can’t get elsewhere but felt REALLY guilty about being there- as if I was wasting my money when I could be getting stuff at Lidl.

Does anyone else get food guilt? I feel a constant pressure to budget, cook from scratch etc but sometimes I want a treat! I am aware that I could cut my food budget even more - it just amazed me how guilty I felt for ‘splashing out’ in Sainsbury’s

Aibu- does anyone else get this? I know I am lucky that I am not on a really tight budget- I get that- but I was surprised at my reaction to spending money on food. As it goes I spent £50 in Sainsbury’s on some nice bits but it somehow feels extravagant 😬

I wouldn’t worry - £200 a month sounds very minimal.
£50 per week is very frugal - I’m impressed.
For us though, we’d never manage that.
I roughly spend £130 per week for an online food shop, although lately, it’s more like £130 per week and a half.
Saying that, I also do little top up shops maybe twice weekly of about £20-30 so probs more like £150/60 a week - and that’s me trying to be frugal.

I think weekly shops all depend on what you as a family eat; whether you buy organic, whether you have pets, buy nappies etc. We might spend quite a lot on food shopping but never go out to a pub, as some people would do weekly. I don’t often buy new clothes unless I’m desperate and they’re falling apart etc. I don’t ‘dress’ the house with new furnishings regularly, just because. I used to, but material things don’t bother me at all anymore.

So from that perspective, our food shop might be high but our other outgoings are quite minimal.
Try not to feel guilty at treating yourself in Sainsbury’s once in a while!

M&S white bread is weirdly sweet.

I love Lidl for fresh veg for stews or soups (I eat a mostly veggie diet) and some of their ‘stuff in jars’ like roasted peppers. I also like their cleaning stuff.

£200 a month for a family of four sounds like a very tight budget to me, OP 😮

Yes indeed it does sound like a very tight budget. We are a family of 3 and our monthly bill is double that!! I think we need to cut back as we are supposed to be on a budget but having a tiny freezer doesn't help and we need to go out fairly often to top up shop. I watch those progs about shopping differently and wonder how do they manage it. They prob do it for so long then revert back to their old ways!

More importantly - are you wasting the food you buy? If not, and you can afford it, then why feel guilty? Feeding your family good quality healthy food and not chucking half of it out unused is way more important than days out etc in my opinion.

My kids are still quite small- 6 and 9 - so we haven’t hit the teen appetite thing yet. DD still gets the free KS1 meals so has those a couple of days a week but doesn’t like school dinners

I'm ashamed to tell you what ours is for 4 plus pets and we don't eat much meat - but it's a lot more than £200 - you're doing very well Op. It sounds as though you're in a saving mindset and any additional spending feels wrong in that mentality.

It’s made me think after reading this thread tho that maybe it’s time to spend a bit more!!

I think it’s more that I realised that I have got into a weird headspace with food- maybe a bit extreme!

start branching out slowly then... expand your comfort zone.

I can't know what your idea of a treat is, but I really like a decent jam, for exmaple.

OP I spend £600 a month on food for me and DP... he works from home but also enjoys the finer things 🥺 I have literally just been discussing this with my best mate and she said I’m disgusting! Ha!

I spend much more than that on three of us! I tend to buy bit by bit throughout the week though and don't meal plan very well. I know what you mean about guilt, though. On the rare occasion I do a big shop in one go, and it comes to over £100 I feel pannicky. Same with the Christmas shop.

OP I feel like you sometimes. After bringing up four kids and always budgeting I still find it hard to spend money on more expensive food. I do occasionally really enjoy it though. I would say buying something occasionally makes you appreciate it more.

User V I think that is pretty horrible. OP was asking a genuine question.

OP our daughter is vegan ( one son veggie) and she really learnt to budget when a student. She worked part time in a health food shop and learnt a lot. It also meant she got discount and was able to buy near date things.

We just had M&S plant kitchen Kiev’s for lunch. Marked down which is when I try new things. Very garlicky but rather nice. I couldn’t find the vegan pizza which I wanted to try. Have you tried the vegan cheese from the north east? We tried it at Glasgow vegan fest mmmmm.

That does sound like a tight budget. I spend about £100 a week on a family of 6 ( including nappies and baby milk and any top ups).
Do you not eat many snack type foods? And drink water? How do you do it?

Omg how do you do it. We budget 300 a month and there is 4 of us. 3 adults and a preschooler. I thought 300 was very reasonable and we sometimes go over if we buy luxuries.

I never feel guilty about the food shop. We all love food, it's not just fuel for us.

£200 a month is very little for a family of four!

We are a family if 8 and spend around £200 a week - I could spend less but tbh I don’t need to at the moment and everyone is happy so why worry about it?

What's interesting about the OP and PPs who do similar is that unless you're giving the money you've saved to food banks, where is the guilt relieved? I'm not being harsh I think it's admirable and sensible not to waste money on labels and junk, but curious as to how spending less is better given the state of the U.K. unless the money saved is donated?

I feel exactly the same as you.

Sorry for possibly dragging the thread off on a tangent, but have you ever had disordered eating? I have and I think this is linked to a deeper unconscious belief that I don't deserve to spend money on food. Or a sort of shame about 'wasting' money on something so gluttonous and greedy. My Mum and Dad are awful 'fat shamers' and I think I've internalised this at a very core level and it comes out with being ridiculous tight about food.

Was money tight in your family when you were growing up OP? It could stem from there emotionally. I am frugal, and cook etc, and £200 p/m is quite an achievement. I wonder of the guilt stems from childhood? Things were very tight when I was little and I often felt guilty about asking for a tiny treat, like a packet of crisps.

I don’t think £200 for a family of four is tight. I spend £90 a week family of ten but two babies so £390 a month.

That's a very tight budget for a family of 4, I'd say. We are a family of 4 I do a mix of Aldi and tesco. We're vegetarian and I spend about 350 a month on food, including stuff for packed lunches for all of us. . Some things I find are a false economy. I don't know if it was just my bad luck the one time I went into Lidl last week, I had to throw away a rotten orange out of a pack of 4, about 3 apples that were brown inside, (went to the guinea pigs, but still!) and half a pack of mouldy cherry tomatoes within about 2 days of buying them. I had to use half a massive pack of mature cheddar in a macaroni cheese and it was still tasteless. I don't have to use that much in Tesco's own brand or even Aldi so even though it was cheaper, it was not value for money. If the Sainsburys stuff was nice and you do it about once a month or something and you can afford it, whats the problem?

We are a family if 8 and spend around £200 a week - I could spend less but tbh I don’t need to at the moment and everyone is happy so why worry about it?
Do you have a mortgage @Makinganewthinghappen ? We do and over pay by £150 a week , £40 less than your food spend compared to ours. Because of this we are paying our morgage off in 7 years instead of 25.

OP, I think you're saving money really. If you spent less on groceries you'd have to buy lunches and that would be way more..

I'm with @TulipCat. Are you throwing much away because it's gone off? The only thing I feel guilt about is food waste, so I try to be organised and use everything up.

If you can afford it, enjoy it and don't feel guilty!

I think you do well to feed a family of 4 on 50 quid a week. If you can afford it, so what if you shop elsewhere and go above your normal budget from time to time. A change is as good as a rest and all that. And you're spending the extra money on nourishment for your family. not on fags and booze. Live a little and enjoy it OP, you deserve it don't you?

A tiny budget and a restrictive diet - sounds completely joyless.