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.

Poor choice of words, I don’t think there is much gobbling up with such a limited amount,

this is for five people.

2 punnets of grapes, 2 x strawberries, 6 bananas, 2 x four milky ways, triple pack of biscuits, 2 x packs of rice cakes, 2 x packs of mini marylands, yoghurts, specific snacks for the toddler

sp over the course of 7 days they have a third of a punnet of grapes, a third of a punnet of strawberries. That’s it, the total fruit they can have,

fir snacks they get 1 and a half milky ways every seven days, 2 rice cakes each per week, , a few mini marylands, and some yoghurt. It’s a very small amount of food, and that’s why it’s running out, they are on rations. I mean a third of a punnet of grapes a week, what’s that 5 grapes a day?

Hmm interesting so many think I’m under spending. I can only really raise my budget to £150/£160 max and that’s including cleaning products etc too. I work full time so don’t have time to make homemade snacks.

So stop buying expensive fruit and snacks and buy the cheaper stuff?

1000% this.

Snack boxes & “when it’s gone it’s gone” are good for if you have issues with greed & overeating.

That isn’t what is happening here- OP just isn’t actually buying enough food to feed the amount of people in the house. There’s not even enough fruit for every person to hit 2 a day nevermind 5 a day.

It’s hard. But that’s actually really not a lot of snacks.

Would they eat veggie sticks instead of fruit? It’s cheaper to have carrot sticks and cucumber sticks rather than a punnet of berries. You can also very cheaply and quickly make things like crispy cakes/marshamllow crispy treats snd flapjacks etc. They really don’t take long and will keep for a week in a sealed jar. I also have a freezer drawer filled with various burritos; you can batch make two dozen and it’s a great snack after school for growing teens. Works out cheaper than chocolate bars etc.

Depends. What happens when the locusts have eaten all the snacks in a couple of days? You go out and get more or they wait patiently for the next lot?

If it's the latter then I don't see any issue.

I think I’d buy more of less interesting snacks - apples, bananas, toast with jam/butter, basic bourbon biscuits and so on. And do one simple baking activity with the kids a week so you have vanilla muffins or whatever.

Have a look at the rest of your budget to see if one or two of the meals can be swapped for something cheaper.

Maybe try a fruit delivery box delivered a few days after your big shop? We use Oddbox and get our fruit that way. You can switch the contents around and get things like mini cucumbers and cherry tomatoes too. My DDs like snacking on that stuff.

I spend way more, with only three, and always need a top up, and there is never anything left by day 5. Basically we eat nothing on day 5 and 6 with a weekly shop 😅

In your shoes I would buy the same amount of 'crap' snacks like crisps, but buy more fruit or yoghurts or whatever.

I hide them in this house too, but I do buy way more stuff!

i agree, I have a banana every day, so 6 bananas for a family op’s size isn’t much at all.

Find a hiding place and ration them out through the week

I agree. I rarely buy us dedicated "snacks" as such- there is always fruit (that the DC usually don't touch despite asking for it 🙄), one large bag of crisps for DS1's lunches, and oat cakes.

If they want to snack, there's always bread for toast, the oat cakes, or I usually have frozen berries and/ or stewed fruit (they'll eat that all right!), and they can have that with muesli and yogurt (I buy kilo tubs of Greek yogurt from Lidl).

Sometimes DS2 wants to bake, and then we have cake. DS1 makes pancakes a lot.

If I were you I'd massively up the bananas, scratch the expensive punnets and buy a load of apples too. Buy an extra loaf and they can have toast for snacks. If they're of an age to bake, get the ingredients for flapjacks in, and point them out when they moan for snacks.

I agree its not enough food for 5 people, although bar mentioning the toddler you haven't said how old the kids are? My son would happily have a banana a day just to himself. The chocolate bars are going to fly out the cupboard when there is only enough for everyone to have 1 and then fight over the remaining. Fine if your happy to have a 'when its gone its gone' attitude but you seem to be genuinely confused why 1 and a half chocolate bars doesn't last a week. Personally don't see an issue with a chocolate bar being a once a week treat.

You can bulk out with apples, take out the strawberries, they are crap over winter anyway, maybe buy some frozen berries for porridge. Do your family like veggies? cucumber and carrot, I like to snack on baby plum tomatoes. Buy big tubs of yoghurt and add honey instead of expensive branded ones. Make sure there is bread/bagels etc with cream cheese, peanut butter etc

You don't have to make homemade snacks but you also don't need to buy Maryland cookies, strawberries and Milky Ways.

Bananas, apples and oranges are much cheaper ways to get fruit into them and last much longer. You can also buy cucumbers and carrots for them to snack on.

For biscuits, just get the cheap supermarket Bourbons or Custard Creams. Even the Tesco own brand chocolate chip cookies taste fine - there's no need to buy the branded stuff. Same for chocolate bars. Milky Ways are tiny and don't make much sense financially.

I massively cut our food shop to save money. Result is that our food lasts about four days and after that it's a bit grim. There's meal food but no snacks or treats. That's because we have eaten them. I have tried exert self control, with very limited success. I hate cooking but have resorted to cake baking to fill the snack gap 🙂

It really isn't with the price of everything now

Yeah it’s not enough. We are a family of four but children are very young and snack wise we would have
12 apples
4 x bunch bananas (6-8 on each)
4 x pears
1 x grapes
1 x blueberries
1 x melon
16 individual Greek yogurts
2 x pack of rice cakes
family pack of oat bars
this would generally last the week but my children will regularly eat 3 bananas each a day 🙄

It would help if you give an indication of what/how much you buy - then it might be easier to make suggestions of hiding some/buying more/buying different.

Berries are expensive, I tend to just buy frozen ones, and make them into coulis to eat with plain yoghurt, sort of like a much cheaper and bigger version of Muller fruit corners.
Bananas, apples, pears and oranges are cheap and much more filling.
Also carrot, celery and cucumber sticks are nice served with a dip.

Try to get them eating wholemeal toast instead of biscuits, with cheese , egg or homemade houmous for a bit of protein. Or make banana pancakes with maple syrup (a little goes a long way!).

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I’d buy some oats and dried fruit and tray bake some oatie squares once a week. More filling. cheaper. Add peanut butter and honey. It takes ten minutes. Make snacks more sustaining, and cheaper. Some weeks add chocolate chips and vanilla flavouring. Sometimes add blueberries and cinnamon. Honestly, it takes ten minutes.

It's not huge but it's also not miserly, based on the other info OP has provided.

Agreed- I get through this amount easily, plus apples and satsumas, in a week with just me and 5 year old!

Frozen fruit/cakes/bread - all mean an extra step so they last a bit longer.

You can buy box of biscuits packaged up into 3 biscuit packets - they are often on offer - you could buy one and bring out a week worth at a time.