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?!

I’m assuming those people are sending that much because of one or more of the following:

1. They have multiple teenagers, especially sons, who could eat that much on their own!
2. They are including all cleaning products, toilet rolls, etc
3. They have pets and it includes things they need for them
4. They are including alcohol on each shop
5. They don’t shop at a particularly cheap supermarket

My weekly shop is anywhere from £150-£200 a week. We have 2 teenage boys plus a 10 year old on a growth spurt who’s gone from eating nothing to always being hungry. He also has a friend round every single day that we end up feeding snacks to as well. Plus I buy Fruit Shoots purely for his friend, as his friend is autistic and it’s the only drink that he really likes (so I want to make sure he has something he likes here). We rarely buy alcohol, but have started getting it more frequently now the two teenagers are older (so maybe a tenner a week every so often). We get washing tablets & dishwasher tablets on Amazon subscribe and save, so that isn’t in the weekly cost.

i personally don’t eat breakfast or lunch. I don’t eat a main meal 2 or 3 evenings a week. You could get the “secret eaters” person here you are talking about and it wouldn’t make any difference to what we need to spend, and they wouldn’t reveal any secret eating!

Definitely agree with secret eaters and the above comment. I think people also must be buying a lot of ready meals.

I wish someone would start a food shop thread but we state our salaries because its a lot of money to be spending £300 a week on food. My God. I think some people must be well paid.

2 adults, 4yo and 16 month, 1 pet.

Budget £110 a week for all food Inc pack lunches and free from items that we need plus pet food etc and cleaning items.

Shop between Aldi and Asda looking for the cheapest items.

We were doing it for £70 a few months ago but prices increased and a dietary requirement made itself known 🙄 which costs a small fortune as naturally free from items are more expensive.

There are 5 of us; 2 adults, 15,13 & 4 yr old. We spend around £170-£200 pw.
The teens are bottomless and eat bigger portions than us adults.
A couple of meals a week are with meat, 1 with fish & rest are veggie. Our youngest is gluten & lactose free which pushes costs up. Also dh and ds feel very strongly about meat welfare so though that means we’ve cut down on meat, what we buy is high welfare/organic & that can be v pricey. But fresh veg isn’t cheap either! We don’t buy sweets / snacks or soft drinks / fruit juices so I must be buying too much wine…

And I’d say one meal per week is a ready meal - so this week we have pizzas, but majority of our meals are from scratch. Dd will throw in pot noodles when she can though!

We budget £1000 a month on food but that includes one takeaway a week, a crate of wine and all our food/toiletries/cleaning stuff, and it's for 2 adults, 2 children and one teenage boy.

We never buy ready meals or similar but do eat a reasonable amount of meat and aren't particularly frugal, so could almost certainly cut back if we needed to. Like everyone else we have noticed an increase in the cost of our food shopping recently.

About £100 a week but some weeks (usually 1 out of every 4) it’s a bit more (maybe £130-140) as I tend to buy extra things to freeze and also cleaning products

3 adults, one teen, about £70 a week which includes all toiletries, booze etc. No top up shops. Do it all on Tesco online so keep costs down that way. We eat pretty much all healthy vegetarian and vegan meals and certainly don't feel like we're scrimping.

Two adults, 5yo, 4yo, 20 month toddler & 7 month baby on formula

£150 a week but usually have to top up fruit & snacks so say £180ish

the formula alone is bloody £14 for about 5 days worth, can’t wait to get rid of that expense!

50 a week for 4 of us, we’re skint tho. I’d spend a bit more if I could

Do you mind me asking what meals you are making? I need to reduce to food shop to around this amount if I can. Thank you.

If you survived snd ate well on £50 I would stick to thst for food then each week buy one thing extra for the month, so one week washing tabs, next dishwasher, next week 2x 9 loo rolls etc

I just analysed my expenses for the last 9months and we spend on average £800 a month. I can’t really split food from cleaning product, cosmetics or cat food. I have added all supermarkets transactions. Family of four, two adults and two kids : 4 and 6years old. We’ve never really saved on food , eat what we want, a lot of fruits, veg, meat, fishes, plenty of snacks as well. Alcohol is usually paid separately by my husband. We are on ok-ish income but seeing £1100 in some months really scared me. What the h… did we eat these days? I think planning meals is the key to reduce the bills.

Oh too much. £200 a week but it always includes treats (alcohol, crisps, ready meals) two adults, two young DDss. BUT we never go on holiday, don’t buy loads of toys/clothes etc. we prioritise good food and heating and live in a small house 🎉

I budget £450 a month for two adults and one big dog (includes pet food, toiletries but not alcohol).
Breakfast, lunch and dinners. We definitely spend more than that if you take into account coffee and cake out but we do that from our own spending rather than the food budget.

I have non negotiables about sourcing my meat - it has to be free range as a minimum, but I usually aim for traditionally bred. I buy most online through Field&Flower who champion local and high welfare farmers.
I spend about £80 every other month but don't buy much red meat otherwise.
We get 2/3 boxes of Gousto a month (mostly veggie or fish meals because of the above)
Dairy and eggs are from our local dairy farm, around £40 a month.
I go to Lidl for most of the extras, and Sainsbury's/waitrose for anything Lidl doesn't do, like Yorkshire decaf tea.
So £37(gousto) X 3 = £111
£111+£40 (dairy)+£40(f&f monthly cost)= £191
+£65(dog food) = £256
Just shy of £200 (or £50 a week) to cover veggies, lunches, breakfast and cleaning stuff.

I’d say £130-170 a week. I meal plan but do buy extras and nice treats. Also this includes cleaning products, over priced cat food IMO (fussy cat) litter and few top ups during the week such as milk, bread fruit.

It’s ridiculous at the moment. I can’t seem to get it below around £120-160 per week - 2 adults (both wfh most of the time), 2 primary aged kids and one toddler. That’s without alcohol, nappies only about once a month (nighttime only) and not much meat. We used to spend half that!

About £150 on food and alcohol me and my 7 year old

A week that is

Don’t worry @user1487194234 we spend about £1,200 a month include takeaways and meals out for 4. Should come down but we seem to fail..