To spend an average £125 on a weekly shop?

[SwordPlay]

We're a family of 4 - myself and DP, an 8yo and an 18mo. Pescatarians, so no meat, occasional fish/sea food. We try to eat healthy and on a budget - yet a typical shop bill comes to between £120-130 per week. However, that does include nappies, baby wipes, cleaning products, most toiletries, razors, occasional stationery.

Are we spending too much? We want to be able to save more so I'm wondering if our shopping bills are unreasonable.

What do you think? Thanks in advance xx

@SwordPlay

Feeling better about this already, thank you! We shop at Sainsbury's which isn't the cheapest but often buying non-brands or things on offer.

I read somewhere that an average UK food bill for a family of 4 is around £80 per week and was mortified..!

But that is average and for food. You buying nappies wipes cleaning

Do a analysis of what you actually buty by category
Use reusable wipes
Wash clothes less

@hibbledibble - no convenience foods at all, apart from occasional pizza.. I like to cook from scratch, with lots of fresh fruit & veg..

Family of 4 and we spend 130 a week in Asda which includes alcohol, toiletries and cleaning products. I have 2 boys (15 and 6) and I feel that I don't spend enough because it's always gone come food shop day!! I cook healthy food from scratch and batch cook. I have no idea how people spend as little as 80 for a large family! I am not a fan of Aldi or Lidl.

Aldi ownbrand do good veggie sausages etc.
Maybe go on veganuary and search recipes with lentil, chickpea base etc.

How many posts till we get the mythical MN chicken that feeds a family of 5 for a week?

I spend similar to you (family of four but one’s not weaned yet) and we eat well but it’s not caviar every night. I think it just all adds up and it’s not usually the food, like you say it’s nappies, cleaning products, toiletries etc. Also at the moment it’s school holidays so three meals a day and don’t even start me on the amount of fruit and snacks that gets consumed..

I genuinely have a friend though who feeds herself and her two kids for about £7.50 a week. She makes me feel so inadequate.

@Rabbitheadlights - your post made me laugh :D
Wow, a family of 9! That's amazing. How many children have you got if you don't mind me asking..?

Obviously it's your choice but I wouldn't try Aldi, we did not long ago and were thoroughly disappointed.

@Rabbitheadlights

OP you are going to bombarded with posts from Vera about how she feeds herself and husband and 26 kids on 50 pence a week. The reality is it's just expensive we are a family of 9 and spend around £320 per week. I don't think your spend is excessive at all.

I came looking for them actually 🙈

Op, I think you are in the great average. s some pps, we spend similar on two...

I spend more than that so don't think you're being a spendthrift.

7 @swordplay 15,12,8,5,4,3 and 2 glad to make you laugh, but seriously .. it's coming!

How many posts till we get the mythical MN chicken that feeds a family of 5 for a week?

@Starjammer ah, the legendary never ending mumsnet roast chicken. And don’t forget to keep the bones for a stock, that’ll keep you going for another fortnight 😂

I wouldn't recommend also for fresh stuff that's for sure. But they have a reasonable veggie frozen range and some refrigerator section stuff that's nice.

Ours is now £300 per week for seven of us.

I can't get it any lower without eating shit food.

Thank you all for your responses. I'm feeling reassured but definitely some food for thought (see what I did there).

Will look into more chickpea/lentil recipes as I love both - thanks @TheSlayer. Also, @Beachbabe1 - (love the username) I feel exactly like you!

Frugality is clearly a skill. But it's also an exercise in setting your priorities. One of my main ones is that everyone gets their 5 a day and enough protein and healthy fats. But I'm not fussy when it comes to branded items at all.

Once again, thank you all for contributing xx

We’re a family of five including a baby and two other little ones. We spend about this amount including nappies, formula etc. We don’ but alcohol but buy meat from a quality butcher and my husband eats a lot of shit (biscuits, crisps etc). Some weeks more, sometimes less -£100-150.
I struggle to see how we could spend less and eat the variety of foods that we do. I cook from scratch 90% of the time with the odd frozen pizza --when I can’t be arsed to cook--
I’ve just realised that this doesn’t take into account the 3 pints of milk the milkman brings each day...

@Rabbitheadlights - wow! Your house must be a fun place :) Honestly, I love the idea of a big family xx

I spend that on 2 of us and 2 cats. Good food is expensive and it continues to go up!

Family of 5, spend between £200-£250 a week at ocado and the butchers.
We eat well, meat and fish, not convenience meals but a lot of convenient snacks like cream cakes, sausage rolls etc for packed lunches, puddings, that kind of thing. Could easily cut back and would do if we needed to but at the moment we’re happy with it.

@swordplay fun, loud, busy, hectic, never dull, never lonely, always tired and always washing but I love it and them immensely.

If you can afford it, then why worry?

You probably can spend less if you want to, you definitely could spend more if you wanted to.

We spend about £80 a week on 5 of us, 3 adults and 2 teens, but I spent more when they were younger for two reasons. Nappies and things like that are very expensive, but also I was too tired to do too much cooking from scratch. Now dh is working from home there's 5 of us to do that, so cooking is actually cheaper. If ds (currently growing) is hungry he might eat an entire loaf of bread in a day, but we're talking cheap white, and he wouldn't do that every day, so perhaps £5 a week.
We do get the odd shop that's considerably more, but a lot of things like washing powder we buy when it's on offer and store until needed.

We were just having this discussion the other day, when we saw something saying the average family of 4 shop is £80 p/wk.

I can not compute this at all. That's £20 per person, for an entire week. Could you feed yourself three meals a day, for 7 days, plus all additional household bits, toiletries, for £20?? Technically yes, on value beans, noodles, freezer tapas. But for this to be the average??

We are 2 adults, 1 teen, 1.5yr twins. And easily £200+. We love Lidl, and do a main shop there for around £90. Then top up with butchers, sometimes meat/fish from Waitrose. Booze.

If I just do Lidl, I suppose it's around £160 for the week, the value is amazing. So I get everything I can from there, then pick up things they don't stock like mussels, fresh tuna from a more premium place, so we do have really lovely meals for the money.

If it wasn't for Lidl, we'd easily be £250 - £350. Gawd bless it!

Sounds fine op I spend more for less people

Just me and the cat here - I spend about £75.00 a week on me and £10 on her.

We spend more than this on two adults!