Aibu to be annoyed the food shop disappears so quickly

[toadstool32]

It drives me insane. Food shop arrives and within a day most cupboard snacks / fruit has been eaten. I’ve spoken to everyone on numerous occasions about making things last. Family of 5 plus a dog, spending anywhere between £100-£130 a week. How do you make things last?! (Obviously not fresh stuff with dates but the constant snacking).

edited to add: school lunches and snacks are all provided by school. I get lunch at work too. So this is just home food.

I have a lockbox (think it was about £20 on amazon which is where I keep the treats like chic bars etc. don't tell anyone else the code and either you dole them out or just leave out what you want them to have each day.

I leave fruit out and bread type snacks/ cereal etc so they won't starve but i got sick of people eating three kitkats a day and then moaning there was nothing for their lunchbox!

Who said it was ultraprocessed? We actually use a breadmaker and make our own pancakes - but not everyone has time. It's not the replace fruit - it's instead of biscuits and chocolate bars.

I spend about 160 pw family of 4 but feel like things finish super fast. Also noticed lots of snacks are more expensive but you are getting less in the pack then before which means it finishes quicker.
Snack boxes sound like a good shout too.

Gosh we spend almost 3x that a week (family of four, no pets). We’re not snackers really (me and my husband don’t snack, but the two kids do) and I find even spending this much, there’s not much left by the end of the week, though I don’t do top-up shops.

For a family of five, I think you’re running out as you’re not buying enough. I’d be adding melon, apples, plums, oranges, kiwis to that list of fruit, and cereal bars (x2 boxes), cheese snacks, mini bags of pop corn and a couple of multipacks of crisps or crackers. I also steer clear of ‘mini packs’ of anything like cookies as they’re mostly packaging with like 3 tiny cookies in: better to buy actual cookies!

I bake breakfast muffins and cake weekly for filling snacks the kids can grab quickly!

You haven't said how old your children are - that does make a difference to how much they go through snacks and how much you limit them. I don't think £100-£130 is low if you have three younger children - perhaps so if it's 3 teens and a big dog.
I spend a similar amount for 4 but would probably have to top up towards end of week. My teens like making a toastie/noodles for a snack so I make sure I have those ingredients in and they're quite cheap but also more filling than chocolate/crisps.

It's much cheaper to buy huge tubs of plain or Greek style yogurt than individual ones, and liven it up with a spoonful of frozen berries, jam or honey. You could decant some of it into small bowls to circumvent anyone having enormous helpings! And we always had fruit like strawberries, melon or pineapple as a pudding, so they could be divided out fairly.

I don't think anyone can really say what's a reasonable amount to spend on a family food shop - if you have a baby you'll spend more on nappies/milk, pet food if you have dog/cat, teens will eat same as adult if not more, you might spend more on alcohol or have a few lunches/dinners out so less on food shop. But certainly food prices have increased around 30-50% compared to a couple of years ago.

See we never have 'pudding' in our house - we just don't do that, so little things like that will make a difference to shopping habits. Not criticising anyone that does BTW, it's a perfectly nice thing to do but for us, having dessert is a very occasional thing or if we eat out, not everyday.

We didn't have pudding regularly either - the children could have an apple, banana or orange after supper during the week. Pudding was a treat at weekends - so either something like a crumble, or more expensive fruit when in season.

If you have gannets with hollow legs I find Weetabix are a reasonably filling snack for after school or before bed.

I’m sorry your feeling judged. I think when you are on a limited budget it’s really important that you shop to get the most value for money. I think little bento style snack boxes are good for this so you don’t buy the little wrapped bags of cookies buy a pack own brand and put in a cookie and some orange segments. Carrot sticks and houmous, apple slices and peanut butter type stuff and you’ll find your money goes further.

Those little gu pudding jars that breed in the cupboard are perfect for this.

But as an example - 6 bananas a week isn’t enough, I have to buy 12 per week for 2 kids. My boys get through one a day. And they’re not expensive. Make up some boxes of carrot sticks (60p a kilo for carrots) Same with apples, etc. doesn’t have to be the expensive snacks you buy more of.

And yes id have a rule that once the cookies are gone, they are gone. But fruit and veg are available.

Well I thought of you earlier because I was in Home Bargains, which is meant to be cheap, and Ive been caught out before in terms of prices there, checked the flour to see what it was, its £1 for 1.5kg!!!!

Thats like nearly 50% more than Aldi/Lidl/Tesco/Sainsburys etc

I mean its still cheap when you cvonsider what you can make with it compared to shop bought cakes, pastries and pies but thats a massive difference.

What supermarkets do you have your way then?

For a family that size, you're spending very little. Perhaps you need to up what you buy.

What do you buy as snacks? I don't buy snacky bits like crisps, biscuits, chocolate because they go so quickly and therefore aren't good value. Snacks in our house are fruit, yoghurt, toast, boiled eggs cheese, crackers, veggie sticks. Very dull but must save us about £20 p/w.

I'd make the snacks cheaper and less attractive. When I was a kid it was an apple, an orange or if you were desperate a piece of toast with butter and marmite or peanut butter. We had three good meals a day. How much more do they genuinely need?

Snacks I have bought this week = zero! We just don't do snacks at all and never have done. Much cheaper!

You can freeze yoghurt so you could get the 1kg tubs and put individual serving sizes in the freezer and get it out per day

Because not everyone is obsessed with the UPF mantra

Nothing wrong with slices of bread and in any case lots of people eat wholemeal bread, so it may not be white flour in it.

To me per person in a week that's not much food. Especially for teens or people who do manual jobs/plenty exercise.

Half a punnet of grapes
Half pack of strawbs
2 milky ways
Half a pack of biscuits
Half a pack rice cakes
2 Maryland packs
And idk how many yog you bought?

It's not that much. I could eat that in two or three days and I don't eat a lot.

I don't need help budgeting however my point is that huge swathes or rural/island/remote communities have much more limited access to supermarkets.
Some just have Coops, some just have Coop or Tesco, a few have Coop, Tesco and Lidl. A lucky few who live a bit nearer bigger settlements will more access to cheaper shops (eg B and M), but for many rural/island dwellers that's once ot twice a year, if at all (if going away by car), because it's simply not worth the travelling cost. This is also in areas where fuel (petrol/diesel) and electricity costs are significantly higher. Not getting at you, just making the general point that it's not always as simple as using cheaper supermarkets.

Family of 5 here , paying double that amount a week .
Not running out of things
The current cost of food and household products is astronomical
I can't do it on less than £250 a week
Food is our biggest expense

Should of said
All adults in 20s and 50s
So not like I'm feeding children portions
And no eating out ,all meals at home