Larger than average families, is anyone getting there food bill below £80?

[PinkyU]

We’re a family of 5 (3 adults, 2 children. 2 are dairy free, adult child is full time student with no income, small student loan goes on running a car as we’re semi rural), I used to be able to get a weekly shop for around £55-70 (depending on if cleaning supplies needed). I’m now massively struggling to get it below £80-85 with no cleaning or hygiene products (3 women/girl using san pro, small amount of reusable pads but not enough for all) at all.

This isn’t sustainable for our situation, is anyone managing to get their shop more reasonably and would pass on some tips?

We meal plan, shop between Aldi and Asda as a necessity for dietary needs. Everyone takes a multivitamin as we’ve already had to compromise on nutrition (less fruit and veg), we eat red meat once a week, can’t afford fish at the minute, we eat vegan the rest.

Adding as much info so as not to drip feed.

You arw doing great.
my tios would be
lentil shepherds pie
lentil spag bol
lentil chilli
lentil dhal
as base cheap meals
combined
with egg and chios
egg on toast / beans on toast
pasta with homemade sauce with fozen spinach
hallomi n peppers on toast
baked pots
veg tray bakes wirh cheap coconut milk and chick peas

its boring! But it does the trick !
also batch cook some of the above which further saves on bills.

It's only 20th of January and I already spent £340 for two adults. I budgeted £270. It's getting unmanageable. Went to lidl this week and left 73 quid there. I am hoping no more shopping until the end of this month except some odd salad, apples or pasta. We don't go to restaurants, no takeaways, we have to eat something FFS. Meat once a week, no alcohol, no branded products. I don't want to deprive my husband of camembert or myself of dark chocolate (which I buy maybe twice a month), it's not like we buy the most expensive ham and champagne, and still pay more than I was expecting.

1 adult and 2 children (one in nappies) and I’m lucky if I can get it under 90.00 a week then there are the food top ups during the week of fruit, veg, bread and milk. My shopping bill has almost doubled and we are buying the just essentials range and really cutting back where we can. On top of the gas and electric prices and the huge increase in rent to pay. I’ve had to visit a food bank this month. They worked out I have a deficit of 200.00 every week. Scrimping and scraping by seems to be the way forward. I’m trying to cook more from scratch and meal plan and batch cook but some of the rubbish foods work out cheaper as they are always on offer.

Family of 13 (15 when DH kids are here),
Ours is around £150 a week not including toiletries.
Where are you inthe UK? Scotland has free sanitary products for all of you register for the scheme, sanitary towels and tampons get delivered once a month.

I've cut my food bill by getting a fruit and veg box delivered. We've been eating a LOT of vegetables, lentils and chickpeas/beans.

You are doing 3 meals a day for 13/15 people for £150 week?! Please do share your shopping list and meal ideas, would be helpful, i spend around that for a family of four.

reusable pads/period pants.
initial outlay but more economic in the ling term.

student dc can take on a job to 'pay keep'

think of meat as a flavour rather than main ingredient. veg are healthier anyway.
l

@TheGoodEnoughWife sorry that should have been £250 😫
I was typing while breastfeeding the twinnies.
Really it should be 11/13 people as the twins are only 3 months old.
I have tried to get it below this but can't. If anything it's gone up from £180/190 a week to £250.
I cook mostly from scratch, and 75% vegetarian and vegan meals to cut costs.
We have lots of veggie chilli, lentil bolognese, bean pie etc but do always have a meat roast dinner on a Sunday.
I found frozen veg is just as good as fresh and keeps way better.
Apart from my 3 in secondary school, my kids are the age group for free school meals so we save a bit there.
dH and I eat leftovers for lunches bulked out with veggies and pasta/ bread etc.
most days for my lunch I have a wrap or pitta bread filled with leftovers and salad. I don't mind it at all.
We buy cheese in blocks to save money and a lot of our shop is the value/ basics range.
Jack monroe recipes are fantastic to reduce shopping costs.

Some of the suggestions on this thread will pretty seriously compromise nutrition- I think you have to look at either upping your income, or asking your adult DD for a contribution.

Unless you are very high earners (in which case why are you scrimping so much on food?) she should be getting £4000+ maintenance loan even living at home. It doesn't cost that much to run a car even if she is commuting a long way to uni. Even if you asked her for, say £100 a month, that would go some way towards mitigating the increase in your food costs.

If she's an adult, you need to have a very honest conversation with her about this- that you need her to help out a bit financially and perhaps cover some more of her own costs e.g. SanPro etc.

Surely that's preferable to having to eat a really restrictive diet due to finances?

"reusable pads/period pants.
initial outlay but more economic in the ling term."

I buy asda pads, they're 50p, quality of expensive ones though. Can't see the point of buying period pants (unless we look at environmental side of things).