How much do you spend on this?

[CrownMe]

How much is a reasonable monthly budget for a family of four (two adults and two children under five) for food (including meals at work), household items, and toiletries? Not-so-DH and I don't see eye-to-eye on expenditures. I'm curious to know what you spend on this and the size of your family.

Family of 5..... we spend about £150 a week

Used to be £80 a week pre covid and we arent buying anything different

At least £600 a month for 2 adults, 1 child and a few pets. That's just for groceries/Tesco shop. Probably £800-£1000 in my household if I'm honest.

We are a family of 5. We spend about £850 in supermarkets a month. We cook from scratch and all take prepared food to school and work. We eat a lot of vegetables, meat and fruit. My food shopping has gone up loads of the last year or so. I used to manage on about £150 a week.

I think realistically you would need £800 unless you are going to budget carefully which you could do. I think you'd still need about £600.

I could probably manage with £700 per month (for your children's ages), including toiletries/laundry detergent etc. and if I made all packed lunches. Doubt it would include many treats though. Does he think you should spend less than you are? Does he know about the huge increases in the last couple of years?

About £100 a week for all three meals a day and toiletries, but that includes beer and wine purchases as well.

£700 a month that's for 2 adults and 2 kids under 4

The aim is £500. It’s becoming much much harder to stay within this budget though. Some months it’s closer to £575.

We are 2 adults, 2 children, 1 dog. We spend Approx £200 a week at the moment.,

At least £950 per month for us, family of four, free range meat eaters

2 adults.

I do 2 shops a week.

1. Tesco click and collect fee is £2 - food for Mon-Fri plus toiletries and cleaning products = £65

2. M&S - food for Sat-Sun dinners only (we eat out for lunch at weekend) = £20

£1000 per month, for H, me, 5 year old and a hungry cat. That includes all cleaning/household materials, most alcohol, but not lunches for non-wfh days.

Wife and I only. I do the shopping. I struggle to break 60 a week and to be honest, a tenner of that is high protein shakes for me and cider for her, which we don't really need.

Family of 4 myself, Dh, ds6 and ds 10 mo, £600 a month (includes, cleaning products, toiletries, nappies, formula etc)

Family of four with two under five (one in nappies) and two cats. We spend around £130 a week on the main shop plus around £10 on a milk/bread top up mid-week. Everything has gone up so much.

I don’t really keep track but in my mind it was about £100 a week. I’ve just checked and it ranges from £100 to £600 depending on the month. Me and 3 kids age 14, 11 and 9. I wfh so eat all meals at home and packed lunch for one child. Though they eat at their dads twice a week. I’m not particularly careful, mostly shop at Aldi but Sainsbury’s a fair amount and top ups from co op.

Around £350 a month. Family of 4 (2 adults, 3yo, 7mo). Includes toiletries and cleaning things and both kids in nappies also included. DH often buys lunch at work so that's generally the only extra food.
I meal plan every week before the shop which massively helps.

2 adults 2 teens here. Food only budget is £375 a month. I buy cleaning products separately from a different budget as I buy in bulk online from eco friendly website. Ditto cat food, bought online and from different budget.

£375 a month is just for the food we use to make meals and snacks. DH is sober (in recovery) so we don't buy alcohol or have it in the house.

Dh buys his lunch for work (school, so 5x days a week for 39 weeks) - averages out to £50pcm across 12 months

I wfh so I tend to just scramble a couple of eggs and put some bread in the toaster, apart from a Friday when I take a morning walk for a coffee and get myself a sandwich at Greggs, across those same 39 weeks - all in, averages at £30pcm across 12 months

During the same term time, dh and I get Hello Fresh for Monday-Friday again for 39 weeks. Averages £140pcm across 12 months

During term time we spend another £40 per week on fridge/freezer/cupboard stuff. This feeds the 2x primary age kids dinner each evening and dh and I dinner on Sunday evening. Saturday is takeaway £100pcm.

School dinners for the kids (school does free breakfast club) for 39 weeks - £80pcm for 12 months.

During the school holidays we drop school dinners/dh shop lunches/my Friday lunch/hello fresh and we switch to a weeks shop for all family breakfasts lunches and dinner. In theory this isn't the 13 remaining weeks of the year, more like 10 as we do trips away etc. So that them averages £85pcm for 12 months.

Toiletries shop is around a tenner a week, so about £45pcm.

Total pcm (I've split costs above to average pcm across the year) £600pcm.

It sounds mental. But we do a lot of short cuts which cost. Eg hello fresh, paying for school lunches instead of packed lunches etc during those 39 weeks of the term time. Holidays very much back to basics. But term time with me and dh both working full time and kids on the go etc, we are paying for convenience.

Not sure exactly, but I'd guess £150-£200 a week.

We manage about £500 a month but we both WFH so aren't buying food out. That includes laundry and toiletries. We shop at Aldi, which has shaved about £20-30 a week off our shopping, and means we can get week's shop for around £100 for four of us.

Around £800pm for family of 5, no pets

Roughly 400 per month for me DH and DD12.
However DH and DD both have autism, which is a nightmare as rhey simply won't eat certain stuff and a lot of their safe foods are expensive. They also have different safe foods, so I end up buying more.
I'm also diabetic and low carb so cant eat a lotnof their safe foods, so I'm shopping for 3 different diets.
I buy budget brands whenever possible but in these cases it isn't always an option.
I'm in East London for reference.

We budget about £150 a week for a family of 4. That includes food, take outs, toiletries, food at work etc

Excuse pulling errors. Typing on my phone and I'm tired so I'm making more mistakes than normal.