£800 pm on groceries for a family

[popsickle555]

recently had a conversation with my DM (lighthearted) but I explained our weekly shop is now around £200 for a family of 2 adults and two teenage children during summer school holidays. She said she thought me ‘overspending’.

Anyway here’s what we spend:

£150 ish weekly shop (has to be weekly during the holidays as they eat so much)
£50 on top up shops fruit and veg and occasional extras eg wash powder and such things. This also includes cat food (1 cat on cheap food).

this includes lunches for me and DH (wfh) and also packed lunch stuff for DC’s who have been on a drama camp.

AIBU to think it’s actually quite hard to eat reasonably well (I do cook most days and I am buying decent ish ingredients but also plenty of ‘basic’ range options) for less than this sort of price now for 4 full portion people eating 3 meals a day? We hardly ever eat out unless on holiday.

For reference my DM hardly eats a lot now she’s older and when she does it’s really simple and generally quite boring stuff eg omelette, jacket potato etc. My DH and DCs needs more protein than that as are all very active.

I just came away feeling like I’m wasting money but genuinely can’t see how I can do it for much less without really scrimping on ingredients and protein.

I think you are doing well. I feed 4 adults - DS25 who still lives at home, DM85 who eats with us every night as she can’t cook for herself now, DH and myself. I also have 3 very fussy cats. I’m spending around £1100 per month now. It’s insane!

Saying what you’ve posted is nonsense is not attacking you. It is nonsense — it’s simply not factually true and what you say doesn’t make sense either economically or politically.

More people coming out with this nonsense should have been loudly told it was nonsense in the first place. Brexit has been the single most disastrous economic decision for decades, and trying to come out with the tired old stuff about red tape is straight from 2016. Didn’t you reconsider when even Boris said he made all of the red tape stuff up? Do you still believe in the Brexit bus, too? It was all arrant nonsense made up to pander to voters who had no idea about any of it.

The amount of red tape generated by Brexit is far more than in the EU by an astonishing amount. Years and years of civil service time were and still are taken up by “delivering Brexit”.

Tell me: where are those Brexit benefits? Is our NHS fantastic now we’ve left the EU? Trade booming with the US who Farage told us would be great trading partners? How is exporting jam to India working out for us? The UK’s the envy of the world, after all! India can only dream of potholes like ours!

I haven’t been discussing food price increases
I have no idea why you are sounding this out and tagging me

Its irrelevant to my posts.

You’re posting on a whole thread about food price increases, so my post answers you directly and also reflects on the whole thread.

Did you vote for Brexit? If not, why are you so sensitive about it? Everyone’s struggling with rising inflation, but somehow it’s “hatred” to point out why that is? How will voters make better choices if nobody points out lots of them got it badly wrong?

“Hatred” is not saying that a majority of voters in older age brackets voted for Brexit: that’s just fact. Perhaps the real “hatred” was the people who were more concerned with alarmist nonsense about “our borders” (as directly exemplified in posts on this thread), rather than on whether they were making a sensible economic decision.

I know but... just once in a while it would be nice to buy a non own brand, just in case I'm missing out :-)

I’m sensitive about discrimination and people trying to blame others ie people’s parents so obviously the elderly in sweeping statements

The rest of the diatribe is irrelevant to me as I haven’t been speaking of food price increases

Youre clearly desperate to whip up a frenzy of blame on this thread. It’s unsavoury and as such I won’t be replying to all this again

Agree and veg and fruit prices have risen because of our hot weather

That'll be global warming
Im guessing Mariabelle doesnt use a car, washes by hand and keeps the house at a max of 12c. Oh and grows her own food
Or are broccoli prices high because of the elderly and Brexit too

Oh ok thanks for the heads up
Right wing
That makes sense

I’m talking there about the content of your post. You aren’t your posts, or even your opinions. But if you post things that are fact-free nonsense (and no-one with the faintest understanding of economic policy, or a decent newspaper, would seriously make those statements); then yes, they are the exact ones that circulated around social media around the time of Brexit and they were nonsense then.
To be honest, I’d personally feel pretty embarrassed to be recycling them ten years later, when we’ve all seen that the new magical sunlit Brexit uplands of extra millions for the NHS and great economic trade prosperity never materialised, but were all just the stupid lies they always were.

Remember how Tory politicians confidently said we would be offered a great deal like Switzerland and Norway, because we were so important to the EU that they would never let us “crash out” in a “no-deal Brexit”? (How we laughed as we plummeted out of the EU with zero deal!) Remember the German car manufacturers who apparently needed us more than we needed them? (Good times!) The £350 extra million for the NHS! The great trade deals we’d make with American chicken companies!

This is like revisiting 2015 again, only with all of the bitter hindsight of how crappy it would all turn out to be, and how “project fear” was just our actual path to decades of grinding economic stagnation. In five years’ time we’ll all still be saying “my Sainsbury’s shop is now £450 a week!” while enjoying all of those wonderful benefits of Brexit you are promising us, @the5thgoldengirl.

No I think it was all down to just you 🤣🤣
and this guy

Agree and veg and fruit prices have risen because of our hot weather

Don’t make me laugh. It really is embarrassing now to listen to this Faragist nonsense. Why would fruit and veg prices rise because of the hot weather? It would logically be the opposite - since many U.K. fruit and veg crops have been much better this year because of the weather, prices should go down. Not up!

Still, it’s been a blast revisiting the absolute bilge about red tape and “securing our borders” Brexiters used to come out with, and presumably will carry on doing, no matter how none of the supposed Brexit benefits ever arrive.

This is all just flimflam and manufactured outrage designed to prevent us from being able to say: yes, if you voted for Brexit, you have caused ongoing economic hardship to ordinary people in the U.K.; and that includes 65% of older voters who voted for Brexit, whereas younger voters and those with families are the ones feeling the worst effects of it.

Sorry that you don’t like the truth. (Brexit voters never did like the truth.) But nobody is being victimised or “hated” by pointing this out. It’s simply the consequences of poor decisions.

Different casseroles shouldn't taste 'the same', but any similar meal eaten repeatedly will start to get dull for most people....eventually.

@HansHolbein I would lovee to see a pic of your trolley or list I am choosing to shop in m and s more and more but I really don’t think I’d be able to get everything for that price. 3 kids 2 adults do you get toiletries / washing powder from there ?

Duck legs are £2.40 for 2 in Tesco this week. They often do a loss leader, half price meat or fish. I always buy it. I did duck confit with dauphinoise potatoes broccoli and honey roast carrots.

Thank you for the heads up about duck legs @Toastandbutterand ! I’ve just added a few to my cart! 🦆

Bulk buy. We eat very well, most meals are steak, salmon, king prawns etc which I buy from Costco for the month and freeze in individual bags, meal plan weekly and get them out freezer day before and put into fridge. Buy big bags rice and pasta. Lots of fresh fruit and veg including berries, avocados and fresh coffee. It’s probably that you are not meal planning and wasting food, if you try to meal plan for 7 days and reduce food waste see if that helps.

Sounds like we have similar food priorities but I was wondering where you draw your “organic line” so to speak! We also get organic milk and eggs (we’re veggie so no meat) but I’ve been wondering if I should also be buying organic cheese/yoghurt? If organic milk is important then surely also organic milk products? Or maybe you’ve done a bit more research than me and can share a reason why you think it’s not as important (and I really hope you have one because the amount of cheddar we get through in our house is unholy and the thought of buying that organic makes me want to quietly weep)

It’s closer to a grand here, 4 adults, a dog and a cat.

It is absolutely obscene.

I think we are heading back to a time when strict budgeting and meal planning is the way.
However no doubt this will be yet another burden on women
I agree that food waste is shocking and we have vast numbers of people on WLI which is odd when food prices are escalating.

I meal plan, batch cook and try to eat as much fruit and veg in season.
No to berries and yes to seasonal apples and plums .

So some weeks you are only spending 50? Can you share some example recipes please because that’s very impressive.

Your meals are quite carby whereas ours are very fruit, veg and protein heavy. I think this is what I need to change to cut the budget down.