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?

Bit odd to make a big deal out of the price when £10 is wine and £8 is cat food.

It's less than £20 each on food per week and you think that's expensive?
But you spend £10 on wine.

You only spend double the amount on your full meals for yourself for the week than you do on the wine.
And your cat costs almost half what it costs to feed a person.

I spend about 200 a week for 4 of us but one is a teenage boy so doesn’t stop eating. £68 seems about right but bear in mind that grocery prices have increased recently.

Not when it includes catfood and 2 bottles of wine no.

Leaving out the cost of the wine, if you can afford it, then it's not too much. Eating well is a sound investment into your long term health and wellbeing.

We're one of those £250 for 3 adults and a man sized teen families. The boys eat a lot of meat (both autistic and inflexible with their diets). The adults in the house eat a lot of salad and veg. Our shopping bill is up by about 30% on pre-pandemic. We do a good chunk of our shopping at a nearby markses, who were kind enough to remind me what I buy.

Take out the wine and cat food, and that's £39 for 5 days for 2 people. Break it down, and its 50p each for breakfast (£5), £2 per lunch for you (£10) and £2.50 each for dinner (£25). That's not a huge amount really, I'd say pretty thrifty.

Wine to me is a luxury though, if I was worried about spending I'd ditch that to allow for more filling calories.

This. I spend about £50 on food for two, (retired). Are you counting only the food items?

I think that's quite cheap. we spend way more than that but it varies on what we need each week but usually always over £100. but I do feed 4 of us. plus always popping out to buy milk, bread etc during the week.

We spend £100 for 4 people, no alcohol. So I think it's pretty reasonable.

For me, teen ds, and two dcats I spend £60-80 depending on which shop and if I’m needing cleaning products, so to me you’re on the lower end of average, especially if you discount that you bought alcohol, which I rarely do.

That seems too cheap. What are you eating?

Eggs, avocado and toast for bfast.

Tomato soup for lunch.

Dinners - mince and tatties, pizza, stuffed mushrooms, beans and toast, cheese on toast, pasta with mozzarella

Snacks - cucumber, Oreo's, strawberries

That does sound remarkably cheap. I used to spend about £30 a week on food just for myself. But that was when I was a student, and shopping at Aldi. And it was 20 odd years ago!

Also, bear in mind that the price of groceries has rocketed in the last couple of years. So even if you're buying exactly the same stuff, it's going to add up to more. At a guess I'm spending around 30% more on the weekly shop than I was pre pandemic. I think some of it is supermarkets profiteering. I usually shop at Asda too, and I've noticed that a lot of the better value stuff has either been dropped or massively increased in price. I'd make the most of promotions by stocking up when certain things were on offer. But the better offers seem to have dried up.

I don't understand the point of this thread 😕but at that amount it doesn't sound like enough food for a growing child or a healthy balanced diet.

Not sure why you're asking: if you think it's too much you can always ditch the booze.

Last week for us 2 adults 1 child, £63 at heron and £53 this week in sainsbury's thats 21 breakfasts lunches and teas i cant really go much lower so I think you are quite low i also find asda more expensive then sainsbury's

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

So it's for five days, not a week, if you buy separately for the weekend. I would be interested to know how much you spend for the weekend?

I think that is incredibly low. I spend well more than that for 2 adults (although mine does include prodigious amounts of gin)

I would love our weekly shop to be that cheap again.

It’s very cheap. How much would you like to pay ?

It's cheap. 20% of your food budget on wine is unnecessary and extravagant. Two bottles a week is a lot to get through for one person.

Your dinners don't sound very substantial. Cheese on toast? Beans on toast?

Why do you say you don’t eat much then go on to list a pretty average menu? It’s cheap, you know it’s cheap especially given the price rises. It’s also not a week shop if you’re not including two days worth of food.

Seems remarkably cheap, but beans on toast/cheese on toast seems more like a light lunch or snack to me than a dinner really. Well, not so much me, but I don't think I could feed my teens on the menu you've given.

I think if you take away wine that is very reasonable for 10 days meals.

It’s not a question of whether it’s too much. It’s about whether it’s too much for you. I spend more than that each week on my dogs. For 2 adults and 3 dogs I spend over $250 a week. But we can comfortably afford it. And we enjoy the food that we buy. So it may be too much for someone else, but it’s not too much for us.