To spend this much

[Cookeveryday]

DH wants to spend appx 6% of our household income on groceries (2 adults, 1 toddler & BF baby). It's really tight. I'd prefer to spend 10%. That would make meal planning, shopping & cooking everyday so much easier.

AIBU?

And, if you don't mind sharing, appx what % of household income do you spend on groceries?

I've just done a quick calculation and our spend is appx 6-7% but our monthly income is much higher than yours and we're fairly savvy shoppers or we were before covid-19

Depends what 10% is. We easily spend that in Aldi of all places, and we've got a decent household income.

DH quite shocked to see that much coming out but I'm really not going over board. All normal food, fruit, veg etc most extravagant thing is multipack of McCoy's lunch bottle of spirits.

If he's that shocked to see it, he might want to pop down and do a few weekly shops himself - he's only shocked because he has nothing to do with it.

Tell him it's not reasonable to scrimp and save on food unless you really have to, and let that be the end of it.

I generally spend around £60-80 per week for a family of 2 adults and 2 teens, but am currently spending more like £130-150 per week.

I think that your DH needs to be understand that it's not normal times at the moment.

I've seen your update, I think 400 a month is very reasonable, especially at the minute if you're not able to shop around like you previously would have done.
Nappies alone are a fortune.

I spend around 10%

We are a family of 2 adults and 2 kids (13 & 15) we spend £75 a week on all food, booze and toiletries. That covers 3 meals a day each plus snacks. I am a good cook and can make a meal out of nothing, don't buy much-processed food as I prefer to cook.

I’d suggest that he can do the shopping for a few weeks then, and see how far he gets on keeping to his target. Make sure he gives up all the things he sees as ‘essentials’ first, or downgrades all his favourites, before he scrimps and saves on things for everyone else.

Sainsbury’s will be far more expensive all round, plus many more things to impulsively pick up compared to Aldi so you’ll spend twice as much simply by virtue of going there (as you know).

For reference we ordinarily spend at least £100pw but try to keep it from going too much higher than that. That’s for two adults and includes food, alcohol and treats plus household and cleaning. During lockdown we’re probably spending about 25% more than we normally would.

DP is self employed and his weekly pay varies drastically but my weekly shop is usually £80 for 5 of us. 2 adults, 5yr old, 3yr old and 2yr old that includes toiletries and cleaning products.

@Thelittleweasel
As exdh was so clueless about our family finances I had to fill in his form E for him. So yes, I did!

If there is spare money left over for savings or having fun then it makes way more sense to be spending that on decent food for your family- £400/month is not at all extravagant.

If it’s not feasible for him to try to do the actual shopping, get him to do a pretend shop online of what he thinks you need for a week. Then add the stuff like loo roll he will inevitable forget and let him recoil in horror at the total amount and start being grateful you are good at budgeting

£240 would be an impossibility if it includes nappies. £400 seems reasonable.

I read something once about how in the UK we spend the lowest % of our income in food of all of Europe. It really made me think.
I used to budget down to make sure I spent as little as possible on groceries then had more left for other stuff and I think that's wrong.

I don't know what % I spend now but it's higher than it used to be

Go to aldi. We spent 75 per week 2 adults 2 kids

I spend what it takes to keep us happy and sane in these difficult times.

Why impose weird rules?

I've never thought of it as a percentage. Roughly 15% I guess

It depends entirely on your income! 6% of a large income would be fine but on an average income can be tight. However, some people manage with that as thats all they have available. We spent just under 10 percent before corona virus and probably a bit more now. Never thought of it that way, we usually go whether we can cut down our shopping by reducing brands/changing shops and if we want to.

Interesting! We probably spend about 9%

I would give Sainsbury’s a swerve- bloody rip off!!!
If there are things you can only get at Sainsbury’s- go there and buy a couple of them so you don’t need to go every wk and risk buying more from there than you need

There is only 2 of us and we spent around £500 to £600 a month on groceries, less in normal circumstance but thats because we would spent a fair amount on lunches and meals out/takeaway. So to me £400 seems very good.

Two adults and a toddler here and trying to stick to £100 pw on a click and collect order, plus one takeaway a week.

Could probably cut a few things from the shopping list if needed, but some treats are necessary at the moment!!

There's only one answer to this. If he's so adamant that he can feed you all and get nappies/baby supplies for £60 a week, let him crack on.

Challenge him to prove that it can be done, and make him go and do the shopping.

I have no idea on percentages. I don't even know how much we spent a week as we didn't do one big shop, just shopped each day for what we fancied that day, or ate out/got a takeaway. Between that and the alcohol we probably did about £200 a week maybe. Maybe less. That's for two adults and two homemade food dogs.

We're spending around 600 a month including takeaways once a week. 2 adults 2 kids.

Feels like we spend most of our money on food! You sound like a very organised couple...

I wouldn't choose to spend only £240, especially on lockdown when we're all at home more and it's harder to shop around for bargains. If you have to you have to, and you make the best of it. But given the choice, no.

By all means meet somewhere in the middle if you need to belt tighten, but do make sure the responsibility for that doesn't fall solely on you. If he wants to spend less, that means he foregoes treats at the same rate as the rest of the household, he makes an equal contribution to meal planning and he at least takes a share in the cooking.