To think £56 for a food shop for a week is expensive?

[uhohhereweego]

It's just me and my 8 year old daughter. I've been trying to save money and usually shop daily so decided tonight to do an online shop at Asda for Monday. The total came to just under £57 for the week, that's for 10 breakfasts, 5 lunches (for me as daughter at school) and 10 dinners and some snacks. This included two bottles of wine (£10) and two cat foods (£8) so I suppose these could be ignored.

However, I still think it's an excessive amount for the amount just the two of us. Is that a lot or pretty average?

£39 for 25 meals plus snacks? I don't think that's bad. Obviously it depends what you're eating - if its steak or fresh seafood every night then it's really good, if the 'meals' are cans of soup its a bit extortionate.

That is absolutely fine… I usually spend around £100 a week and that’s for me and my daughter, just the 2 of us too…

How is that even possible?

That seems fine!

Would your Dd uplift for free school meals and maybe look into this? Could save you a lot of £ if she as eligible.

Have you seen how much food two teenage boys and a grown man can get through?

Honestly... no. Teens have empty legs though, yes?

£56 (really £40) is cheap as chips! I can't even fathom that being possible unless you eat no fruit or veg.......

No I don't think it is at alll

Don't eat much if I'm honest

It’d be good to know what you got for your money! We are two primary DC and two adults closer to £150 a week! I mean if we are having salmon and veg one night which is about £10 for the salmon then the following night we’ll have chickpeas.

plus DH gets food when he goes to the office. Starting to worry we spend a lot!

Snap. Doesn't feel like luxury shopping either. You're doing well OP to get it that low.

But that’s £40~ if you leave out the wine which is the first thing people cut out when they’re feeling the pinch.

That's 25 meals and some snacks for £38, which isn't too bad really.

Although seeing this I don’t know?

I spend between £90-£130 a week normally on groceries and cleaning stuff for a family of five. £100 for two is masses.

I think it's about average. But you'll probably get a lot more for your money from Aldi.

What do you eat for the other two days a week because your meal plan only covers 5 days?

We will be a bit more relaxed at the weekend and eat what we fancy, will go to shops on day and decide.

Oh yes. They open the fridge door, bathe in the light and then claim there’s nothing to eat.

Yes, that’s because I filled the fridge full to the gunwhales yesterday and you’ve eaten the entire lot.

I think this is a lot more realistic than thinking under £40 to feed two for a week is a lot.

37 meals (14 breakfast + 9 lunch + 14 dinner) and snacks for £39 is about £1 pp per meal.
Do you eat meat and fish?
Does this include a big batch of something you'll get a few meals from?
It seems very cheap to me. I spend about double that for me and DS13 but I am not on a strict budget. I cook from fresh most days, we have tonnes of fruit and salad (more expensive than veg) and eat beef and salmon which aren't cheap. No alcohol.

i don’t understand this thread because presumably you were prompted to write it because you’re feeling the pinch but on the other hand would you be spending 15% of your budget on booze if you were worrying about money?

Yes. For several years we had 3 teens in the house.
At various point, once young adult dc have had partners living here, we've had up to 7 of us, but I've never spent anything like £250 a week.

To eat a healthy diet the rowntree foundation says something like £42 per week for an adult

So 36 for 2 sounds too little

I’ve always worked on equivalent ( in todays money ) of £50 per week per person including all food, booze, cleaning stuff etc. we budgeted the kids the equivalent amount when they went to uni as part of their maintenance which I know they “saved” on ( well actually think they just spent more on booze🤣🤦‍♀️) Seems a reasonable sum ( expensive for some people granted) but I do like cooking/eating and buy fancy ingredients at times to make interesting dishes . This is for 7 days all meals bar one takeout or eat out. Don’t buy ready meals, and it’s a lot of veg, quite a bit of fish, a couple of meat days. I do batch cook so can get economies of scale as there is just me. But I find things like dishwasher tabs, washing powder etc make it expensive and there always seems to be an item like that to buy. I always plan meals, shop to a list. Shop in Lidl for basics and then Morrisons for more specialised ingredients, Booths occasionally if want something more weird/special or a farm shop.

so I think you’re doing very well.

I think that's pretty decent to be honest. I'm on around 90 a week for 4 and a few trips to the supermarket in between