£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.

This is simply economically illiterate; and also full of the usual Reform party nonsense, flights of fancy and misinformation. It’s stupid stuff like this that has directly contributed to the economic situation we’re now in.

We drew a net benefit from the EU; and it’s normal to trade agricultural produce with your geographical neighbours and for them to be your biggest trading partners.

Come on; tell us all about the economic benefits we’ve had from Brexit? And maybe a bit more about how our biggest trading partners for food and agriculture should be countries thousands of miles away rather than the ones closest to us? Because fresh food travels so well, of course; and air freight is such a cheap method of transport and an all round good idea (I guess you don’t think climate change exists either, so why would you be bothered about air freight, I guess?)

Two adults , me on mounjaro and we spend £200 a week at m and s and have at least 2 takeouts a week, seems quite light to me. We also have subscriptions with amazon for the big stuff, loo roll washing powder, Regina blitz coffee amongst other things.

Bloody hell I salute you really I do. That all sounds exhausting! I am old though. Just me and DH at home now. I spend about £120 a week just on food at M&S. I pay for the two dogs food online about £100 a month plus extra on treats for them. I like to treat my adult DS from M&S. I sometimes might buy him a fillet steak or some fancy cheese. I get most household stuff from B&M. I used to like a weekly Charlie Bigham meal from Sainsburys but I only have a Tesco near me now. I think Charlie has fallen out with Tesco 😂. Not many of his meals available there now. Very interesting thread.

Just spent 76 quid on snacks for the weekend in waitrose they are doing very well to spend so little

I feed three adults, a small dog and a cat for between £60-£90 per week, including basic toiletries (soap, toothpaste, etc). We occasionally do a top-up shop, and spend more sometimes) but if I plan properly I can usually get everything we need for £80 per week. I shop at Tesco (if in person) or Waitrose (if delivered) or M&S (top-up shops).

I cook the majority of meals from scratch and try to eat vegetarian meals a couple of times a week and fish at least once. We have a good variety, interesting ingredients etc. I love cooking and eating. No-one goes hungry!

I’m not buying alcohol at the moment and snacks are very limited - partly because if they’re there, I’ll eat them! I keep a well stocked pantry.

Edited as posted twice!

I assume both your children are girls and the rest of you are quite slight!

I also cook from scratch, but we eat less meat - but only organic. But spend much more, three kids, but everyone is really tall > 99th centile. Except me, although I can imagine if everyone was me sized, we'd eat a lot less!

We spend that too, sometimes a bit more. Life is expensive now. X

Same for us too! Family of 4 plus one dog.DS at weekends. I think Family shop is misleading as it can mean 7 days of meat and 2 veg.or lunches breakfast breakfast whatever. To Inc laundry products and so on.or just supper dishes lunches out no breakfasts.so when people say they only spend 100 or so compared to our 200 it's not so clear cut really

I used to joke with DH when we were doing our weekly food shop after buying our house together in 2017 that it was physically impossible to spend over £100 in Aldi. That to spend that much you would have to buy all the stock in the shop.

Oh how I wish that was still the case now! Household of 2 adults and 3 DC (all under five). We exclusively shop in Aldi. No top
up shops unless absolutely necessary. Spend a minimum of £125 a week.

And we batch cooking in the slow cooker, eat meat sparingly, very few snacks for DH and I, no treats, DH doesn’t even eat breakfast, kids get porridge etc, big tubs of things like plain yoghurt. Cook most meals from scratch. And it STILL costs that much.

So yes I can totally understand how a family of four eating adult portions can be spending £200 a week on food. Considering I went to Tesco to get the following today and it cost me almost £20:

-Card for Christening (£2)
-Small gift of children’s book for christening (£7)
-Pasta and 4x tins of baked beans that DH forgot to buy in Aldi yesterday (he doesn’t normally forget stuff so we don’t normally get top up shops but as I was going to Tesco anyway I got them while I was there). Both from Tescos basics range.
-4x small tins of Heinz baked beans to replace the ones I took from my mums house last night when we didn’t have any and she kindly rescued me from a toddler meltdown over lack of beans 😂 and they were on a Clubcard deal so cost less than they “should” have done.

Wouldn't even have half filled a carrier bag and I only had a small amount of change from a £20 note.

I've been through the receipts for the last month and for 3 adults we've spent around £400. I think £50 pppw is a lot.

Statistics are not blanket statements, and you can see clearly in the data the skew towards older age groups. Everyone you know might have voted against Brexit; but many people clearly voted for. The vote wouldn’t have gone the way it did if only younger age groups had voted.

Pretending that we can’t talk about it is all a bit odd. MN has tons of threads like this with everyone bemoaning how expensive food and everything else has become, as if we don’t know exactly why that’s happened. It isn’t like it’s suddenly happening for no reason at all. Pretending that for some reason it’s “hateful” to notice that it was a deliberate choice by many voters to do this is very strange indeed.

Don’t you think it’s important that the people food inflation is hitting hardest are those with families? How do we stop it from getting worse? There are no economic indicators on the horizon that things are going to get any better, and all likelihood that things will get much worse.

Are we all supposed to sit here like frogs boiling in a pot, saying “gosh, it’s all got a bit hot recently, hasn’t it?”, but being chided for being “hateful” if we want to talk about why and how it got so warm, and how we could turn the heater off? Perhaps voters would make better choices next time if they were loudly confronted with the consequences of their votes.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/520954/brexit-votes-by-age/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/567922/brexit-votes-by-gender/

Please share your plan somewhere - we all need it! I can imagine it’s taken a lot of hard work but clearly it can be done!

No she’s with my dad and he does the shopping and cooking. To be fair they do shop at Aldi, and the butcher for meat and she just won’t know what things cost…because my dad goes. But they don’t eat a lot anyway and it tends to be simple things rather than let’s say steak. They don’t eat big amounts of meat / protein.

Me too. What with the huge dog, greedy cat, 5 foxes, garden birds and the crows on the common, not to mention a very hungry youngster and me.

We shop at Aldi and top up at Tesco and spend the same. Cost has just gone up since Covid.

We're a family of 4 with DC in their 20s and 2 pets. We don't spend that much - around £600 - £ 700 in a month. The DC do buy some of their own food though if they want something other than we've bought or a take away. We also don't eat a lot of meat - a few times a week but not everyday.

These threads are always look at me and my feed the world with one chicken. Or why don’t you stop eating meat and fill your plate with lentils. I only eat lentils in dhal. If you can afford the budget you have set for yourself and you are not hungry then you have done well. I spend £300 a week for 5 adults and 2 cats and more in tops ups or if I can’t be bothered to cook, a take away. I don’t make any apologies for this. We eat well and can afford it.

We're two adults and a teen and spend about 600 so that sounds about right. We don't eat meat every day but we do eat well - lots of fruit, (loads of berries which need their own budget!), I like good quality but butters and use a fair bit, nuts and seeds, greek yoghurt, proper butter, olive oil etc. I'll always have a 'just in case' pack of fish fingers in and I don't bake bread as I just don't have time, but I'd say 90% of what we eat is decent quality, fresh food.
I could get it down to £400 if I had to but we enjoy good food and at the moment can afford it.
Even a one bag top up is £60 at the moment!

Thank you! I’ll try this!

DH has finally agreed to have some meat free dinners so I’m hoping with that, and some changes similar to yours, we can bring it down quite a lot!

And your mushrooms on toast recipe sounds fantastic.

Can you tell me more about this approach? It sounds like good value actually for that number of people. Do you manage to get all meat and fresh dairy and fruit and veg for £80 a week? Or is some of that in the big shop?

We spend £160 on all food etc (not pets) a month for 2 adults who are very active - we eat well & healthily.

We shop seasonally, eat mainly veggie but still prioritise protein. I buy meat when reduced & freeze and buy what we use a lot of on offer. I know my prices / do my research and meal plan and batch cook.

Will make at least double of everything and bulk out stews / mince dishes with lentils, oats, veg, beans etc.

We're just finishing last year's blackberries and I have picked tonnes again to freeze. Also grow a little fruit & veg and take the neighbours gluts when offered.

We also use all the apps / deals / points / coupons (we both have the apps to maximise), take advantage of employee discount schemes and regularly use Farmfoods & Home Bargains. Mainly shop in Sainsbury's & Lidl.

Cats are mad, though! I used to buy mine all sorts of "treats" and she would turn up her pretty little nose, but put down the cheapest ASDA "tuna for cats" and she would purr "I know quality when I see it..." 😍

How, please? We are a family of 2 and I reckon it costs for everything, probably about £90 pw. Some cat food, toiletries, wine. We do eat meat. DD takes packed lunches which are predominantly fruit and salad with some protein.

Yes, I could give up wine but life is too short.

So true. I fell victim to a large pack of frozen cat food on special offer. One sachet eaten and the cat won't touch the rest. Meh. I have given it away now to someone with a more sensible cat.