How much does your family of 4 food shop cost?

[Ginbutholdthetonic]

For context:
two adults, I’m on maternity so home all day, DP works so takes lunch everyday.

one 2.5 year old.

one 3 month old on formula.

We started seriously budgeting our money.. we did a £50 a week shop and it was seriously tight on the weeks we needed washing up tabs/toilet paper/kitchen roll/kitchen things(foil, parchment ect)

we’ve now gone ahead and sorted out our finances after selling our house, paying off our debt and buying our family home. Now our monthly outgoings are considerably lower we can afford to be less strict on the food shop budget.. but I also don’t want to go wild. So I’m looking for similar size families to tell us what you budget a month.

we currently have about £1000 left a month after bills, after maternity that will be +£800 so we don’t necessarily need to budget. But I know if we don’t there will be so much waste.. and we want to start savings for the kids, holiday and emergencies.

how much should we be spending on the food shop?!

2 adults, 3 teens Inc 1 pescatarian so different meals most days - we spend between 130 and 150 a week which usually includes a case of beer.

I don't meal plan but do cook from scratch so buy very little processed stuff.

I also spend about 50 quid every 2 MTHS at the Asian grocers.

3 adults (DS is 18) and a sporty 15yo here. For ages I kept it below £100 pw. Not since Covid- it's more like £140.
That doesn't include booze, 2 out of 4 are veggi we do try for low food miles and I try to limit processed foods. I tend to make snacks (flap jacks, brownies etc). We do have some expensive habits (mountain coffee, local honey).

We have 2 adults, 4 year old and 10 month old. We used to manage on £100 a week easy, including alcohol, toiletries, cleaning stuff, takeaways. That was pre covid.

Since the COL crisis, we have had to increase the budget to £150 a week. Much less alcohol and fewer takeaways!

2 adults, 2 young children
About £70 a week.
Shop at Aldi for everything!

2 adults (me - sahm, DH - takes a packed lunch to work) and a 4 and 3 year old. I budget £100 a week, sometimes I spend less. More often now I spend more. Although I do buy non food things as I shop at a large Tesco so for example this week I bought a new doormat.

We send £80ish one a delivery every other week then a little more to top up fresh fruit, milk and bread in between (veg lasts fine in our fridge). We also get something when out and about maybe twice a month, but not a full dinner usually, maybe a nibble at an event, ice cream or coffee and cake etc. Over the month roughly £250-300, depending on what we've been doing. We find Tesco to be the cheapest for what we buy.

You have 4 in the house ? Are they tinnies ?

We stretch things out a fair bit by using plenty of veg and bulking them out, like in bolognaise etc. Oh and we do also have two ducks so we have free eggs, which does help.

Used to be £70 a week but noticed in the last month it's gone up to £100+ even though we've not changed or bought anything significantly more 🙁

2 adults and 2 teens. Usually about £80 to £100 Waitrose delivery weekly topped up with bread / juice/ milk during the week.

2 adults, 3 teens = about £160 a wek. They eat so much! Luckily my favourite wine is only €2.50 a bottle. Fruit and veg is probably about £40 of that.

2 adults on the large side. 1 six year old who eats like a teenager (has lunches at school) and 1 fussy 3 year old (has lunch at nursery 3 days a week).

I eat lunch at home, my partner doesn't take any lunch but doesn't eat out either. We don't drink alcohol or smoke and I cook from scratch pretty much every day.

We budgeted for £85-£90 per week but that has been creeping up due to price increases. That covers everything (laundry products, nighttime pull-ups, cleaning stuff). Normally shop at Aldi.

There's just 3 of us, DH me and DD10. I spend £65 a week.

Two adults, 3 kids, £200-£250 a week

I spend about £100-120/week for 3 adults and 1 teen (including one veggie). Not much alcohol and no red meat so that helps keeps cost down.

Love these threads but I'm aghast at the same time!

We need the woman from secret eaters or something I also would like to know your budget for food along with your occupation.

£800+ a month on food! What are you eating?

I've just done the food shop today at Aldi and things at Tesco we couldn't get in aldi. No means any extravagant items. Roughly weeks worth aside from stuff like bread and milk which we will need to top up. 2 adults 1 2 year old. It was £100. I couldn't believe it.

Then needed fuel in the car another £100.

That's the spare month for the month. Gone.

It's scary

£110 a week.
Family of 4 (2 teens).
This is divided between the green grocers, supermarket and my fav eco refill shop.
I try and cook and bake from scratch as 1 family member has allergies. I think that makes it cheaper and we still get to eat decent meals.

Two adults one child and I spend around £100 -£120 per week, that's without lunches as these are extra

2 adults, 1 toddler in nappies and an older child and we spend around £120 a week.

Bank app says this MONTH £204 on groceries including loo roll, nappies, cleaning etc. so £50 a week.

me, spouse, both working FT, a 6 yo and a 2 yo.

I am if I may say so v good (!) at groceries budgeting. I also suspect that the fact that our meals decentralise meat is to do with it. We use a lot of eggs, frozen fish, frozen poultry in the form of rice or pasta based recipes.

@Moodycow78 I’m glad you are the same! I always feel bad when I read these threads and people say they feed 4 people on a tiny budget. We don’t stint on food and love eating out. Like a lot of others with prices going up we do need to cut back. DS is super fussy and permanently starving though.

Budget is £80 but we usually spend closer to £100 a week. 2 adults, 5yo, 1.5yo

Me, my partner, 5 year old and nearly 3 year old.
We spend £85 - £105 a week. Depends on what we need. We eat really well, have treats etc. We do tend to have a takeaway once a week too which is £20 - £30 depending on what we have.

About £50pw

I keep it low by buying meat reduced. The farm shop have a freezer full of meat past sell by, 50% off and our local coop reduces everything to about 75% off at 6pm so I go and stock up. So our "big" shop is just fruit/veg and ambient stuff like breakfast cereal and snacks. I often struggle to get it over the £40 minimum for delivery.

But my older daughter (5) gets free school meals so that's 5 lunches a week i don't make, and my youngest (2) has a tiny appetite so probably eats about half of most kids her age. I'm sure when she's older it will cost us more.