£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.

One thing I notice is often people who spend a lot often buy a lot of fruit. We rarely buy fruit and if we do it's cheaper stuff like apples/bananas/satsumas. I never buy berries or exotic fruit.

We pick blackberries in the summer and can pick enough to freeze for eating over the winter.

This is a reasonable amount if you want to buy healthy goods. I spend more for my family.

We don't really drink much.
No pets.
We do get through a staggering amount of loo roll though 🤔
We eat meat and fish.
I bake - the price of basic making ingredients has also risen.
We buy a lot of sparkling water, apple juice and milk.
We like ground coffee but buy supermarket own brand.
I get the main shop from ocado, with top ups from aldi, lidl or the co-op.
I like lidl and the co-op more than aldi...I tend to just get cleaning products/loo roll etc from aldi.

It's really really not it's less than 50 quid per person a week. 5 years ago absolutely yes it would be ridiculous these days unless you live under a rock it's pretty hard to not notice everything has got more expensive and therefore that will include the price of the weekly food shop.

We’re a family of 5, eldest a teen who eats like an adult and we easily spend £350 a week on food. We don’t eat out / have takeaways / drink or smoke, so food is really our only “luxury”. The cost to eat well is honestly insane and it’s just going up!

3 adults as two adult sons living with me and about £600 for everything. I do once monthly ocado, the rest aldi, asda and local butcher but I know my prices, this is easy as I'm in my late 60s and retired .........when younger, working full time with three kids it would have been harder to stick to budget so i think your doing fine👏 Agree with another poster who said M & S is sometimes cheaper these days for basics, I get these from ocado. I cook from scratch including bread and homemade pizzas and no ready meals or takeaways, includes packed lunches for workers as I don't want sons wasting their money, which they are more than happy with🤣

Yeah I’d say we spend about the same for 2 adults and a 12yo and 8yo. But I suppose we don’t skimp, and that also includes skincare etc.

Think it’s very much the norm

About the same here OP for 2 adults and 2 teen boys. All the grandparents in our family are totally out of touch too

We eat well and cook from scratch and we are about £150 for 2 adults, a 5 year old and 1 year old. It is very hard to get it down without reducing quality or fruit and veg.

We spend about this for two adults and three large "children" but eating well is our priority and we eat mostly organic for that. Pretty much all homemade. That means it saves on things like bread - home made a fraction of like for like sourdough prices - but works out a bit more for things like organic fruit Vs inorganic (?) fruit. Balances out I think.

I was looking through my emails recently and comparing 2019 amounts with current prices.

Some examples, all identical brand/amount from Tesco.

500g 5% beef mince, same brand: 2019: £3.30; 2025: £5.29

950g chicken breast fillets: 2019: £4.75, 2025: £6.50

4 pints semi-skimmed milk: 2019: £1.10, 2025: £1.65

4 x tins Tesco chopped tomatoes: 2019: £1.39, 2025: £1.80

Clover Light, 2019: £1.85, 2025: £2.60

And so it goes on.

Interesting (and depressing!) to look through

No, not if you like quality food and you have teenagers at home. Food prices have shot up since Brexit. Some of us don't want to live on baked beans.

We don’t spend much (£385pcm 4adults) and we do buy masses of fruit
atm
its grapes bananas
plums nectarines ( which are amazing this year ) kiwis melons strawberries

We make smoothies so buy frozen too ie mixed summer fruits, blueberries and mangoes and pineapple

We’re veggies so the trolley is packed with veg too

I spend about £800 a month for 6 of us, 2 adults plus 4 kids but one eats like an adult due to age. I also work for a supermarket so I get my discount too, it's shocking! We don't eat extravagantly either, food is just really expensive now

I won't buy cheap meat - I want to know that what I eat has had a higher welfare life - that makes a big difference in cost. I do tend to not buy meat in my big shop and pick it up as and when - either from the butchers or M&S (got to love their yellow stickers...). If you are buying good quality meat and fish then it is going to be expensive as you will be spending £5-10 a meal on that alone. The only way to save then is to eat less of it and that is tricky if you have men demanding protein and not recognising other sources.

Ways to cut down are basically using pulses to cut the meat and keep the protein up. So

Lamb curry plus dhal plus rice plus curried roasted cauliflower rather than meat curry and rice.

Veggie Chilli rather than meat chilli (I usually add a dollop of marmite to increase the beefiness. Cookie and Kate has a good recipe on their website.

Mushroom and lentil ragu instead of bolognese sometimes - good in a lasagne where the sauce isn't so important.

Ham egg chips plus baked beans using a boiled gammon joint that produces loads of stock for soup/risotto another day.

I'll buy a large salmon tail fillet rather than 4 fillets - then serve up the same amount as 4 fillets in one meal and a salmon spinach and broccoli frittata using the remains of the salmon for another meal. Usually costs the same as say 6 fillets but I get 2 full meals out of it that way.

Soup maker that I can load with lots of back of the fridge veg - produces soup for lunch in 20 minutes.

But if you can afford it carry on - scrimping on food is miserable.

5 adults here + 11yr old who is with us 50% of the time. I do one big £350/400 shop at the start of the month to refill freezer, store cupboard, cereals etc and then we top up at around £75/80 per week. My lot are all snackers, have packed lunches for work and are in and out at different times due to work patterns. I could reduce it down but I don’t - everyone being fed and enjoying their food is high on my list of priorities. My family looking forward to their favourite meal gives me joy. You aren’t struggling you say, the price of food you enjoy is what it is, we are all in the same boat. I am grateful I can afford to feed my family when lots can’t

Agree with this. The tone on these threads are usually set early on and I too was very surprised by the amount of people agreeing with the original post! For what it's worth, I spend £650/700per month. Two adults two teens and this includes toiletries. I can completely understand spending more if your family appreciates food - ours doesn't really and it is fast healthy fuel ie baked potatoes, slow cooker chillis, mince based meals, bread etc.

Two adults here and off the top off my head we probably spend around £350 a month for everything. So not that out of line with what you spend. Food has really gone up in price over the last few years. We are now spending around £75-100 a week more than we were five years ago.

I meal plan, batch cook, one of us is vegan, only one drinks and not that much. No cat either.

Excuse me.

Im 61. I voted remain. So did all my friends same age,

Dont tar everyone with the same brush. Try putting it another way. The metropolitan cities voted Remain, the towns voted leave.

Brexit was a vote of education level( l was involved in research on this) The older population were less educated.

Pretty much bang on what we spend - family of 4 with 2 primary aged DC.

I completely get how you spend that much on grocery and household. The only way you could bring that down is if you buy Aldi own brand for most things and even then you’d only bring it down a tiny bit. I have nothing against shopping in Aldi etc but the quality of the plain label items isn’t great. My MIL shops around so she will go to savers for some stuff, see an offer in Asda then go there for a couple of things and then see an offer for others in Tesco and go there but she is retired and has the time on her hands so…

Same here two adults two 6 year olds. £200 is quite a cheap week 😅