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?

This included two bottles of wine (£10) and two cat foods (£8)

Er, of course it's not!

I get what you're saying. I used to spend about £50 a week for me and my husband and that was eating well and buying from Tesco and M and S. But that was pre-pandemic and sadly our shop is now about £90 a week and not as many treats or alcohol. I think the price has just gone up a lot in the last 2 years.

So it's £40 plus whatever you buy at a weekend. So £8 a day for food Monday-Friday.

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

You need to try to give you and your DD more veg and fruit. Beans on toast and cheese on toast are snacks, not full meals. I know beans and mushrooms are on your list, but apart from that it seems you are eating practically no fruit and veg.

I'm not sure how cucumber qualifies as a snack! Orios? Are they sweets?

You need to read the OP’s posts!

That amount does not include her extra food shopping at the weekend.

We spend around that but we also spend the same on meals out (still working on that one!). We eat clean. Any treats will be made by my own fair hands. I will buy the odd top up item and amazon bulk buys on subscription alongside this. I will never resort to cheap, additive ridden or basically revolting foods in a bid to save money. Last week, I saw that they had halved the butter section at the supermarket and doubled the size of the lard section. It makes me sad to see people downgrading on the wrong items instead of cutting out their favourite brands/junk treats.

With two bottles of wine in there? Not expensive at all.

That's really low I think. We spend about £150-90 for three of us.

I’ll never understand those who spend £150-200 on half the family I have - genuinely HOW do you spend that much, what do you buy?

I spent £200 in Tesco this week, £15 of that was on stationery for teen DS who’s lost everything at school again. 🙄 But that’s two week’s dinners, and a week’s fresh fruit, milk etc. I’ll top up bread, milk, fruit next week but I’ll not spend more than about £20 in Lidl for that.

We’re a family of 6, DC aged 15,14,10,8, so not tiny toddlers.

Gaah, posted too soon! That said, OP, I don’t think £39 for two seems reasonable enough.

Just me and 8 Yr old ds, ours would be the same without the wine and the cat food . I think it is not overly expensive

I think that's incredibly cheap.

I have noticed the price of our shopping going up lately and I now struggle to keep it under £100 (2 adults, 2 kids (1 in nappies), plus pet food. No alcohol).

I like Aldi / Lidl but unfortunately don't have one anywhere near us so it's rare I can do a full shop there. Tesco is the only supermarket near us, which I do like but it is getting more expensive (as is everywhere).

I don't think you you could get your shopping much lower, well done.

Maybe it's the shops you're going to? Lidl is cheaper than others. It's just me, DP and toddler DD and a proper full week shop often adds up to about £100 at Sainsbury's, often a bit over.

We don't buy anything unusual.

Pet food is obviously eating into many people's budgets. Cheffy pet foods can cost more than meals for humans.
I really hope it does not generate a situation where thousands of pets are abandoned or handed back to charities. I fear it will become like those places in the Med where you see them wandering about in large groups.

Oops, I wasn't saying that about the OP's pets! I was just digressing a bit.

@TheAbbotOfUnreason : not just boys as a slim DD eats like a horse too!!
Food is probably our biggest monthly expense with the amount that fuels their sport.

I’ll never understand those who spend £150-200 on half the family I have - genuinely HOW do you spend that much, what do you buy?

it depends what you eat surely. My porridge has five different types of seeds on it, some nuts and blueberries. DS and DH snack on nuts a lot. We eat 5-10 portions of fruit and veg a day. Some people will but legs of lamb and beef roasting joints, other people will just have cheap mince or tins of pulses.

It’s also really hard to quantify it per week. In the OP example she says one of the meals is pasta plus mozzarella. I doubt they are eating half a bag of pasta each in one meal so that pasta will last more than one week.
we probably spend about £150 for 3 but if it came to it I could probably live off
my freezer and store cupboard for a good week or two before we completely ran out of food. We’d just run out of fresh fruit and veg and eventually frozen veg and fruit.

I think thats good, its only me and my daughter at home and i spend about £100 a week

Beans on toast is a snack?

I don’t understand you buying 2 bottles of wine for 1 week just for yourself, but cutting the food shop to the bone for your daughter.

About the same I spend for me and DD 7yrs in Tesco/Sainsbury. No meat as veggie. Sometimes a bit more if needing to restock nuts, seeds, jam, baking stuff, etc. Sometimes a lot less if I’m using up freezer stuff, have surplus veg from previous week, etc.

I think I could probably spend a little less if I wanted to, but rarely eat out/get takeaways so I tend to treat us to nice food to have at home.

I think that’s remarkably cheap if there’s fresh food, meat, fish etc.

If it’s basic frozen pizza and potato waffles etc, it’s about right.

FFS, just wrong a huge reply, pressed post and it lost it all 🤦🏼‍♀️

@aSofaNearYou I agree, but Tesco isn’t our usual, I was experimenting with the Clubcard plus discount this month. Isn’t worth it - don’t bother. We usually use Sainsbury’s and Lidl is our top up purely because it’s closest, it’s not a economic choice tbh.

@JS87 Absolutely see how some choices affect cost, but it still baffles me how 2 adults and a baby spend £150 regularly. We have a lot of nice food too, dried fruits, fresh fruit and veg, it’s not all value by any stretch and we eat meat every day. I’m genuinely interested because maybe some people are trying nice things I haven’t thought of, so I’d like to nick their ideas ! But I also recognise that with larger families we also benefit from economy of scale in some ways.

Apologies, I didn't realise you meant the OP, I thought you meant that other posters were making the OP feel like they were spending too much.

I just get frustrated as you do get posters on every thread suggesting that if your food budget is low then you are forgetting that you did top up shops or bought takeaways.

Excluding the 2 bottles of wine and cat food, that's less than £20 per person per week for 3 meals daily, snacks and includes fresh fruit and avocados (which aren't cheap)

Sheesh that's very cheap. That's be £40 even in Aldis

Saying it was £56 for a weekly shop when you have two £10 bottles of wine and expensive cat food, is a misleading title ...

It's just me and 17yo DD.

I wish I could manage a week's shop including wine and cat food for £56!!!

It's nearer £80 for us...although that includes food and (cheap) litter for 2 indoor cats, and DD is a gym bunny so has fairly substantial lunches.