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?!

Me and a 7 yr old - I spend about £200 a week! Not budgeting though

2 adults plus a dog here! It works out at around £50 pw which includes veg box delivery, Costco which we go to roughly every 8 weeks to buy in bulk for meat , cereal, washing power, pet food, store cupboard essentials and tinned goods

We grow our own salad and some veg which helps and we only eat seasonal fruit and veg from the veg shop box which gets delivered and is about £15 pw every other week depending what we need oh and we buy a huge sack of new season potatoes in august from them which last us months ( if you store them correctly) and I think we pay around £8.00 for that so definitely look at local independents as they can be cheaper than supermarkets. We rarely use the mainstream supermarkets anymore except for bread, milk, wine and cake and we generally find there is a difference in price

Should add we don’t eat takeaways as we live rurally and same for eating out! So we both cook from scratch every friggin day 🤦‍♀️

I don't understand how anyone manages to get a weekly shop for less than £150 for a family of four. That's what I seem to spend every week and don't buy anything frivolous or branded anymore. That figure includes toiletries, nappies, etc. but not school lunches.

If I only buy food for meals it's quiet easy. So just ingredients for meals and fruit / yogurts for snacks.

If you dont have £150 pw for food in the first place you'd be amazed what you can cut out. I dont have £150 pw so I dont spend it. I cook 6/7 from scratch.

£60-70 for almost same family ages.
BF so no formula costs luckily
Also buy whole foods mainly, very little processed food other than weetabix (own brand!), bread and pittas. Frozen vegetables are really cheap and reduce our food waste, eg fine beans, peas, brocoli florets. Limit meat to a few meals a week too, usually 1 fish dinner with frozen plain fillets.

OP you need to chill out. £50 a week for a family of four is insane. I don't understand how you're managing that.

@IncessantNameChanger I cook everything from scratch too, and I'm not buying extravagant cuts of meat, etc. We really need to cut down our spending as I can't really afford £150/week just on groceries but even with cutting back it's not helping.

Two adults, two teens - about £200 a week.

My God £800 a month in groceries for 1 adult and 1 child. Where are you shopping Harrods?

We’re only a family of 3, 2 adults and DS8 and a dog and spend around £80-£100 pw at Tesco, depending if we need eg dog food, laundry stuff, coffee. Me and DP take our own lunch to work and DS is on school lunch (£13 a week.)

I think it’s far too much money but maybe not reading here! I try to cut back some weeks but we end up spending more on a top up shop mid week so it makes no difference. We probably also spend around £50 a week on takeaways which is terrible but finishing work after a long week on a Friday you won’t catch me getting pans out 😂

Between £50 to £70 for two of us. The bulk of this is in Waitrose because I really value their ethics and approach to animal welfare. This includes meat and fish, not a lot of booze plus cat food and cleaning stuff. I don't stint but we don't eat takeaways and rarely eat out.

I'm aghast at some of the figures on here!

We seem to be spending around £130 a week for a family of four (me and DH plus two hungry teens). That includes toiletries and cleaning products but doesn’t include pet food which I buy separately and which costs a fair whack because we have two cats and a dog, all of which have to have fairly pricey special food for various reasons.

We get the Waitrose codes and use online, there are usually some if you google. I have had £20 off £100 recently. Saving £80 a month

Around £80pw, 2 adults, one 14 year old with a massive appetite, one 12 year old. 50/50 custody. I plan and cook from scratch most days, next to no waste, at least half our meals are veggie x

2 adults 3 kids. Roughly £100 pw. I dont find it hard to keep it at £100.

We are a family of five and our shop is usually around £100. I don't feel like we are scrimping.

We're a family of 5, 1 teen & 2 older primary dc. We have a couple of guinea pigs and a hamster too. We're vegetarian and cook absolutely everything from scratch apart from 1 take away a month. Food for us and pets, plus cleaning stuff etc and our monthly take away costs £110 a week on average. I feel we eat well but it can be time consuming.

We sound similar financially OP- 4 of us (kids 5 and 2), and have about £1800pcm left pcm after all bills and mortgage etc to cover food petrol and spends. It sounds a lot but it goes quickly with the rising prices! I aim to spend £100 per week on a ‘big shop’ then maybe £20 more on the odd extra milk, midweek bottles of wine etc… I work to £100 per week food, £50 per week petrol £150 per week spends (this is meant to also cover extras just as car issues, my yearly registration fees etc). Things are tight and we shop at aldi and meal plan but it’s doable!

About £100-£140 per week for two adults and two teens (the higher end is when we have to top up irregular purchases). This doesn't include paying for school meals but does include alcohol.

Most weeks I cook a full-on Sunday roast; the leftovers get chopped and put into a big baking dish with some extra veggies and white sauce, Jus-Rol pastry on top, and hey presto! Another couple of meals.

I budget £65 a week for myself, 2 primary school and one secondary school child, but their dad gives them dinner one evening a week and has them every other weekend. The two youngest both have lunch at school, without these factors I think £90 a week would be more realistic.

It’s £65-70 a week for us including top ups and detergent, toilet roll etc. and that also includes cat food (£4.50 because he’s a fussy git) and treats for us. 2 adults and 1 DC (primary age)

it is hard and doing the weekly shop online sometimes stresses me out so much. Especially when Sainsburys or Tesco turn around and say “sorry this item isn’t available” and they automatically replace it with the most expensive alternative (before checking out stage)

Super annoying!

@DuarPorte thanks for the tips. I found a recipe for rajma chawal and we've just it for dinner. All store cupboard stuff and it was so easy and delicious. I chucked in some frozen spinach too. Enough left over for dd's lunch flask tomorrow. Will definitely make that again.

I did my usual weekly shop including toiletries, toilet roll and cat food and it came in at £70!

so happy and that’s via Sainsburys (cheap Click and Collect too!)

yes it takes a bit of planning but I include treats (sweets, choc chips for baking, hot chocolate and crisps too)

around £130-£140pw atm, my kids (12&14) are always “starving” on a school day and I’ve recently had to step up the portion sizes, loads of carbs (they would eat 2 burgers and buns with chips, 1/4 of a large chicken with a huge jacket spud, massive bowl of spag Bol with garlic bread etc), as otherwise they will graze all evening which ends up costing more. I realise it’s only going to get worse as they keep on growing taller. I don’t buy beef apart from burgers or any lamb, so that keeps the prices down a bit.