Do you think £400 a month for groceries is too much

[emodi]

We are a family of four, two adults and a 14 and 11 year old . Since the lock down our grocery and household bills have increased to approx £400 a month. I have tried to explain to my hubby that the kids are not eating in school so it’s 3 meals , snacks no restaurants or takeaways and he thinks I’m being extravagant. I think this is perfectly reasonable as this includes all food plus cleaning products etc . Is this reasonable or am I being hopelessly extravagant?

Of course you could do it cheaper but it would be pretty joyless. I spend £70-80 pw for one adult, one child and a cat. I don't drink much and we are vegetarian/vegan. I could cut £20 off by making it more austere but I don't care to. I think £100pw for 4 people is perfectly fine.

Tell him to do the shopping,meal planning and all the cooking.

Just doing the shopping lets him off the hook too much. Make him use his planning, organisational, economic and practical skills!!

And,no,you're not spending too much.

Ours is almost double that for two adults and two under 10’s. I can afford not to fuss too much about it though. And of course we are all home for every meal, whereas usually we eat out for lunch, some breakfasts and at least one dinner a week.

Prices have increased and their are fewer offers. I am seeing them creep back in though.

Wish I was spending that! Last week spent £250 for family of 4 .

I think that's very low! Tell you husband to calculate how much that is per person, per day when it includes breakfast, lunch, diner and a couple of snacks.

Kids - and adults - need healthy food, not surviving on minimum rations.

If you are managing a month's shop for 4 people for £400, id say you were doing really well. We are averaging £150 a week and then wine and beer on top.

Ours is nearly £600!!

Before covid when I could go out. I would shop at Aldi, home bargains with Waitrose for the odd top up of luxury ingredients. I'm a cook, so quality matters not brand names.

But now I'm relying on shielding and have to have my shopping either delivered or put straight into my automatic boot.

Supermarkets are sooooo expensive, it's not noticeable on a few items. But it is when every single item is 20-50p more.

They only up side is we are isolated so minimal petrol used. Our £350 a month on petrol is now £30. So it all balances out.

It's nothing! He's not thinking it through. That's £25 per week per person, which equates to about £3.50pp per day. If you keep breakfast really simple (one cup of coffee, two slices of toast, butter and jam or one bowl of cereal and a small glass of juice, you could keep that within 50p each. Then £1 for lunch barely covers a home made sandwich with a piece of fruit or a bowl of home made soup and a slice of bread. That leaves £2 each for an evening meal and snacks. Ensuring everyone gets at least 5-a day and good protein on that budget is really tight. Ask him to meal plan for a week for four people - 3 meals a day, then write down the shopping list and do it himself. He's being hopelessly ignorant.

I’m spending about £120 a week plus top ups so I’m spending over £500 a month in total - family of four here too. I’m sure the shops have put their prices up.

I have a friend - she had a family of 4 and she spends barely £50 a week. How on earth? 🤣 maybe we just eat too much!

We spend that on two of us and a toddler. We could get it down I suppose but we don't need to.

Surely the savings on school dinners, restaurants and take aways must outweigh the extra you are spending on food, which isn't excessive anyway.

If your children get free school meals you will be getting shopping vouchers I think so overall are you spending more?

Is he stressed about money, worried about his job?

Ours is also well over £100 per week in lockdown. Used to be around £70. Mainly because we’re shopping at Tesco rather than Aldi now just for easiness.

We do £80 a week for 3 people so it's not bad at all

FWIW, I spend about £160-180 per week on the four of us. That includes cat food, bath and cleaning products and wine which DH likes a glass or two of every night, but it's often almost double your budget.

Our weekly grocery bill is c.£115 at the moment which is much higher than our usual £70 (2xadults, 1x7yo, 1x2yo) but when I factor in 5 x school lunches (usually free), £10-15 each for DH and me for lunch/coffee etc, probably £20 just-pop-to-the-shops, plus the approx 18,000 snacks per day the children seem to need, it doesn't seem so bad.

I think you must be budgeting pretty well to keep the average shopping bill that low. Does that include top-up shopping as well?
Some people have suggested getting DH to do the shopping so that he can see how hard it is to keep to that figure. I wouldn't do it as a one-off, because that doesn't necessarily factor in things like replacements of large tubs of washing tablets, stocking up freezer, and other things that you don't buy so frequently.Get him to do it for a month if you do it at all.
But I do think food prices have gone up rceently, no matter where you shop.
We are 4 adults now, and I reckon we must be spending 150+ pw.

I'm so glad to find this thread. I seem to be spending around £100 a week on me, DH and DS (18 months) and was wondering why it's so much. But I feel better seeing it's a bit more usual.

I agree to the pp who said it's seeing it all in one go, rather than a shop and then little spends on lunch or takeaways etc., that makes it surprising.

I do wish I could get it down to around £200 a month, though. We don't have much extra cash after mortgage and bills. Our nearest Aldi/Lidl is about 15 minutes drive but I might try it later this week and see if I can spend less than in Tesco.

Let him have a crack at it and see how he gets on...

Ours is about £100 a week for 2 adults & 3 DC (11, 9 & 7) also 2 dogs & 2 cats.

We shop mostly at Aldi but some bits from Tesco.

I use ocado or waitrose delivery mainly, and did before lockdown. Food prices have gone up a lot since lockdown. Far fewer discounts.
I've been spending over £100 even on my cheap weeks. I reckon it's £600-£700 a month at the moment.

The difference is now the grocery delivery includes all of everyone's food. I was the only one who took packed lunches before. Teens had school meals and husband ate from a work canteen or pret type shop depending on where he was working. So we suspect it's not changed in total but now we can see how much it is!

I'd be very happy with that as a family of 4. There are 2 of us plus toddler DS and we're spending around £550 a month; although we do have two large dogs to feed which accounts for £100 of that.

That’s very reasonable. We’re a family of 6 and in normal times ours is around £150/week. At the moment it’s ridiculously high and I’m not really sure why, we’re not buying any more food and I feel like we’re eating more frugally than usual!

Don't get him to do it for a week. Anyone could make a shop cheap for one week. It's the ongoing nature that makes it pricy. If you are anything like us, the supermarket shop is everything, including stuff I used to get from cheap shops on my dinner break. Hair bobbles for DD. Everyone's shampoo, toothbrushes, stationary supplies, snacks they would have bought with their own cash, vitamins, cleaning stuff, hand San. Not just breakfast cereal and dinner ingredients.
I think the question is, can you afford it. If you used to eat out a couple of times a month, you're better off. I'm personally saving a fortune in petrol. If you can't afford it, you'll all need to look at cutbacks.

6 of us 3 adults one teen 2 kids
320 per Month and son gives me. £50
But I have no more and I’ve tried to cut that down so £80 per week but I’m just really careful and cook from scratch a lot

We spend between £80 and £120 a week at the supermarket for a family of 3 (two adults and a 3 year old, so not feeding a teen!) at the moment. This includes cleaning products, and tolietries but no alcohol. I think £100 a week for a family of 4 is very reasonable.

We also spend about £15-£20 per fortnight on a takeaway of some discription.