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?

We spend between 300-400 a month family of five with mid primary school aged kids. I don't know how other families spend so much? We eat all meals at home at the moment. Everything homemade. Breakfast = eggs, toast and choice of cereals & porridge. Lunch = sandwich, piece of fruit & sweet (cake/chocolate bar/flapjack) dinner = homemade meal followed by yoghurt & fruit. Snack in afternoon is usually ice cream lolly. We drink wine & beer. We buy cleaning stuff. What do people buy that's costs more that I don't buy? Maybe organic? Maybe sushi? Fresh fish?

Perhaps look at the sorts of meals you eat? I think you and husband can meet in the middle?

Who does the shopping and cooking? Sorry i find this controlling.

I have no idea how much I spend. As little as possible though, cos we have no money coming in. Never get take-aways. I just optimistically go to the cash-machine and hope it gives me some. And use my debit card. It's worked okay so far.

We also have an income in the region of £4K, but between groceries (£500), eating out / takeaways (£350) and my work canteen (£100), spend nearly a quarter of it on food. It's our vice...

Thinking of it as a percentage may be useful to your individual budget but isn't particularly useful when comparing to others as incomes vary so widely and likewise with fixed outgoings (rent/mortgage etc).

We also try keep it reasonable whilst also allowing for small luxuries where food is concerned. However, we rarely ever eat out because we love cooking and generally prefer our own food.

You need to be looking at it in terms of what you can afford, especially considering how incomes may be affected right now

I spend what i need. No one checks. No one counts. We live in a country with an abundance of food and the freedom to buy what we want.
Who the fuck is trying to control you that much.

I've just worked out my supermarket spend for the last three months (2 adults, 2 children):
Feb - £323
Mar - £412
Apr - £515

Bloody hell, that is some increase 😨. And I consider myself to be fairly careful - e.g. one bottle of wine a week, no fillet steak, but neither do we have Smart Price pizzas.

I'm not going shopping again until the freezer's empty.

£240 is really low to me, I would only go that low if I was really struggling and I'd need to shop around to get the best prices. During lockdown, we're sticking to just one supermarket for everything - more expensive than our usual mix of Aldi and other places but saves multiple trips and queues.

Definitely put him in charge of the food shop for a few weeks.

What does he suggest you should stop buying?

You could possibly do £55 pw if you had to, excluding nappies / cleaning products etc, but it wouldn’t be much fun.

The UK is a comparatively expensive country anyway. Prices have gone up a lot over the last few years, and at the moment the bargains and special offers just aren’t around.

Get him to agree a shopping list and then send him shopping. If he doesn’t get it quickly, you have a DH problem, in which case you can start crunching some other numbers.

Spoiler alert: he won’t like them.

We spend about 25% of our income on groceries (including cleaning stuff, toiletries, nappies etc). Sounds a lot but is a spend of about £500 so not a high income. Second highest outgoing, only just less than our mortgage.

But more to the point, DH would NEVER tell me how much to spend on groceries. He knows he'd be doing the shopping and cooking for the next three months while I checked the receipts to make sure he hadn't overspent his arbitrary budget.

On a more serious note, are you having money problems which mean you do actually need to be cutting back in some areas?

We are 2 adults and two female teens. Husband is very active, one daughter is a high performance athlete other is quite active. So big eaters. We eat meat everyday. No take aways. Our supermarket spend is about £600/month. This includes cleaning products and toiletries. We buy very little wine/beer. (Maybe drink twice a month)

There are two ways that I could get the spend down:

1. Less meat, more carbs
2. Fewer processed treats (this I wouldn't mind but my husband would howl and since he is in great shape, I can't argue.)

We spend around 10% but there are only two of us and we have a good income - we like our food and drink!

We spend what your husband is proposing for 5 of us but we're poor! If we earned 4k a month we could buy all the food we wanted! Why scrimp on food when you can afford not to!

Two adults. I spend around 2.5% on food.

I spend 20%.

I spend 30% on groceries.
27% on mortgage.
33% on all other bills inc gas, electric, phones etc and car and car costs.
10% left for other.

£240 is really tight per month! There are two adults, a FF 9month old and a dog and we spend more than that. We average around £100 per week which covers food, a takeaway a week and all things such as formula, nappies, wipes, dog food and treats and our toiletries. We don't shop exclusively at one place either which I think brings our bill down a tad

Surely just buy enough food to feed your family you both sound well tight.

God I cant believe how much ppl spend on food we spend 190 a month including beer cleaning and toiletries

Oh 3 of us too

Just rtft.
You spend 240pm! And have 4k! I spend 300 per month on groceries and I have 1k per month income.

That would make meal planning, shopping & cooking everyday so much easier.

Do you both earn and share chores equally? Who ends up with the extra work required to live off his budget?

Thought so.