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 thread needs to be read alongside the food snobs one.

We are three adults and I reckon we average £150 to 160 a week. That includes a couple of bottles of gin a month and probably three dozen beers a month; most toiletries and all cleaning stuff.

During the week we have what I consider quite good value meals (always with a side salad or veg) spag bol; burgers, chicken thighs, fish pie, pizza, chops, sausages, omolettes, etc., always good quality meat and eggs, etc. All working full time so time poor. We are having a barbecue tonight and steak tomorrow. I usually take leftovers to work for my lunch.

I am well aware we could cut out booze and I could save another 20% by shopping at Aldi or Lidl but I neither need nor want to. I shop at Sainsburys for convenience but do think Waitrose fresh meat and fish is worth the extra.

We prob spend £150 for 2 adults, toddler. That rarely includes toiletries or cat food as order most elsewhere separately

food is expensive. We aren’t in uk, so even uk basics like eggs, potatoes, veg are all expensive.
We don’t eat meat at every meal, but I try and make sure every meal has the simple basics of carb, protein of some sort and x2-3 veg.
We would eat something like cheese on toast with fruit as a basic quick meal, but not on a regular meal plan occurrence.

I popped to Sainsburys for bits this morning and spent £102 😳

I think it's good - £19 pp/pw is under £3 pd.

I spend more than that and it's just me.

We have been spending £300-£350 a week

for 3 adults and 6 children

trying to cut back but it’s really difficult managed to get it to £250 a week

Just went to Asda and spent £35 for 2 of us for the week, but I've already got 2 freezer meals that I am planning to take out and defrost so that's 2 dinners I already had. Plus DS's school dinners are an extra £11 and I'll need to pick up some milk/fresh fruit midweek.

Ditch the wine!!

I have found this post really interesting as I often wonder how much people spend on their weekly shop! When me and DH moved into our first house 15 years ago our weekly shop was £60 a week for the 2 of us - it is now £120 a week and we have two extra little mouths to feed so basically our weekly shop has doubled in price! I shop at Asda and mainly cook from scratch and my biggest expenses are definitely meat, veg and fruit - oh and coffee! Cleaning products, toiletries and drinks are also included in this price, but no alcohol. My DH says I spend too much each week and I am desperately trying to reduce our food bill so trying to cut back on a few bits like treats. I think the cost of your shop is about right to be fair - but yes the cost of food is such a worry!

It makes me sad to see people downgrading on the wrong items instead of cutting out their favourite brands/junk treats.

Tbh, when everything has got so expensive, some people are in the situation that they can't afford to go out, buy new clothes, put petrol in the car etc, eating a bit of junk in front of the telly might be the only joy left in life.

£39 to feed two people for a week is fine, I don't see how anyone can grumble at that. Particularly when you have enough disposable to buy a £10 bottle of wine.

Just how cheap do you want your food to be?! Do you realise that the people who produce your food have costs to pay themselves?

I agree that wages don't go far enough, that prices are rising and that we are all going to struggle. The cost of housing, transport, fuel and utilities in the UK is extortionate, and the tax burden is too high.

But in the UK, food is relatively inexpensive and has been for years.

I think it’s a tiny amount.
we are a family of 5 and I spend £220-£250 per week (one bottle of wine, vast amounts of fruit and veg)

My total for the next 7 days for 3 of us is now at £65 that is breakfast, crumpets, toast, porridge or croissants with apples or bananas, lunches jackets, paninis, soups, or eggs, teas curry, pasta bake, sausage dinner, burger fries fishcakes salad, tuna pasta, and a chicken dinner, and also stuff like crisps, more fruit, and I make cakes for packed lunches ect I always check to see what I have left over before shopping so saves some money that way

Maybe your DH should try and see how cheaply he can feed you all for a few weeks!

It would have to be a few weeks, so that included those expensive things you only buy now and again when you run out.

What’s difficult to understand? Some people spend more because they buy things that cost more. How hard is that to grasp?

We spend $250 or more per week for 2 adults and 3 dogs. Now we are in the US where food costs quite a lot more than the UK so that accounts for some of the difference but if you want to know what we buy, here’s some things we buy on top of the usual fruit and vegetables that are responsible for the amount we spend:

bison steaks, rib eye steaks, orange juice (freshly squeezed, not long-life stuff from concentrate), nice chocolate (I can’t stand Hershey), a side of salmon (wild caught, not farmed), duck eggs, mahi mahi, ahi tuna steaks, beer, nice thick yoghurts, etc.

I don’t buy bread or snack things. I make them all myself from scratch.

We have three dogs and make their food ourselves. We don’t feed them processed food. For this week’s food I had the beans, rice and peas already in the house but I had to get yams, a few pounds of carrots and 6 pounds of chicken for their food. I had Turkey already. We have a meat grinder/sausage maker and we grind the meat for the dogs ourselves. We also make our own sausages. Such things are more expensive than ready made but we prefer them.

Even at $1000 a month, we are still spending only 1/12th of my take-home income on food. So we can comfortably afford it and it suits us.

£170 average per week from Tesco, 2 adults and 2 teenagers.
Food has gone up in price astronomically. Two years ago the same shop (I know because 90% of my weekly shop is saved as a favourites list) cost £110 ish.

That's not including local shop for milk, bread etc when we run out.
No pet food or alcohol.

But this is Mumsnet after all where a spatchcock chicken will do 3 meals for a family of 6, with the leftovers for lunches and the bones making a pot of soup to feed 10.

You know what folks?
I have no idea how much I spend on food, weekly. We don't work on a weekly budget, more a monthly/ annual one. We allow around £90 for the weekly shop.

Two adults here. No mortgage, DH retired. Cook everything from scratch. Don't buy ready meals or have takeaways.

I shop twice a week on average at waitrose. The majority of my shop is for fruit and veg.

We have porridge, eggs or yoghurt for breakfast with lots of fruit.
Lunch is homemade soups or cheese etc.
Dinner is fish, chicken or a veggie meal. Bake all my own cakes and don't buy snacks like crisps, biscuits, etc. Booze if any is 1 bottle of red per week.

Each trip to the shop costs me around £50-£60, but that includes cleaning products, loo rolls, cling film, freezer bags, kitchen rolls, etc.

Are you the tory mp telling us all if we improve how we cook then we will be able to afford more…

I feed my family of 5 for 60-70 a week. We eat well with plenty of fruit and veg. Meat is much more expensive than fruit and veg, so we have vegetarian meals quite a lot.

Around 20 at the weekend.

Just gave tescos £108 for a weeks shopping.
Two adults, one small dog and just £15 on beer.

For instance tonight I'm having steak, with homemade potato salad and a salad - this cost me 10 pounds as needed to get all ingredients including dressing and bought a can of juice to have with it (can't drink incase daughter needs picked up). My daughter is at a sleepover so don't need to worry about her dinner.

Tomorrow we are going to have a roast chicken dinner and have calculated that will cost around a tenner for the two of us.

Well you can have a roast dinner, but save some chicken for sandwiches or use for a chicken curry. We use left over chicken with bacon in a pasta bake.

The rest of the bacon we use for a jacket potatoes and cheese.

You need to spread the meals out.

I am making Shepard’s pie this week and DS loves it, so I make extra - by adding more veg and potatoes so when we have fish (which he won’t eat) he can have that.

@Assistanttotheregionalmanager yes of course I am 😜On the other hand, maybe I am just another of the many posters here [maybe RTFT) who say they cook from scratch as it's healthier and can also be cheaper.

Can't actually see what you found to take issue with as I said we spent around £90 for 2 adults per week.

@uhohhereweego Excluding the veg in the roast dinner, a £10 chicken goes into 3 meals for us.

Not sure how you spend a tenner on a chicken roast for one adult and an 8 year old. A few spuds, carrots and a green veg (but then you don't like veg!) Those shouldn't come to £10.

Roast dinner (breasts), legs go into another meal, carcass is simmered for stock and it makes soup or risotto, or both.

@uhohhereweego why are you buying dressing? All you need is olive oil ( which I use almost daily) and a lemon (juice) or vinegar. Buying bottles of ready made dressing is so expensive. Whisk it all up and save yourself a fortune!