What would you say is a reasonable food budget for two adults and one child?

[Gotsomedebt]

I need to reduce my food bill. Currently I think we spend way too much but this can definitely be reduced through meal planning and budgeting.

So I'm wondering what a reasonable amount would be to allocate to food per week? Just food. Not including toiletries, cleaning stuff, pets, etc.

I was thinking of trying £40 a week but I'm not sure if this is too low really. I priced up breakfast and lunches (cheaply) and it works out as leaving only £3.61 for dinners on £40 per week.

What would you say is a reasonable amount for a family of three to spend on food per week?

I budget and spend £100pw at Sainsbury’s for 2 adults (husband is a big eater) and 2 young kids (2 and 4 in nursery most of the week) which appears to be a lot in comparison to those here but I’ve tried and can’t get it lower. That’s no alcohol but most other bits. Who has time to shop around though?

We are 2 adults and 2 children. We spend about £100 a week. We buy our meat online from https://www.bestmeat.co.uk/. We couldnt afford meat from the supermarket.

I think you can get it low for a few weeks by eating the forgotten stuff in freezer and pantry but at some point you need to replenish pantry supplies, the flour to thicken a sauce the herbs and spices the olive oil etc.
you can save if you can buy in bulk and store like 10-20kg of rice or lentils, my spend last year on average per month was about £435 for 3 food inflation is running at about 15% so this year I'll need £500 a month to buy roughly the same amount and quality. As february is a short month and 1 week is half term so no school lunches I hope to have about £70 spare to stock up pantry . I only stock up on things we like that I have room for and will not go off before being used.

This is interesting.

Gordon Brown has urged Jeremy Hunt to act on startling new research into Britain’s threadbare benefits system that showed that the poorest families must spend an average of 63p in each pound to meet basic food and energy needs.
The former prime minister said the paper was a “wake-up call” to the chancellor that “reveals the arithmetic of poverty”, and forces the UK to “face up to the fact that it is in the throes of a crisis”.

The study highlights how a couple on benefits with two children must spend nearly 50% more of their income on food and energy than they did in 2012, when the figure was 46p. This is due to the precipitous fall in real-terms value of benefits. The equivalent spend by the average UK family is roughly 20p in each pound earned, the report says.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/21/gordon-brown-urges-overhaul-benefits-system-study-crisis

Even with my recent pantry windfall, we're spending a fair bit more than 20p in each pound earned (mostly fuel). How is it working out for others?

I average £100 for 3 adults and a 17 year old ….but, I adult (ds1) doesn’t eat breakfast and buys his own lunch five days a week and ds3 (17) rarely eats breakfast, gets free school meals and buys his own lunch on Sundays and alternate Saturdays. I could do it for less but we don’t have takeaway or eat out so I do sometimes buy ready meals or a couple of fancy pizzas to have an easy night.

I allow £240pm for just me but that's including loo rolls, cleaning stuff and some toiletries
I could bring it down more but it's enough to be able to have the odd treat in that like fresh mango/branston pickle/berries are my treats

I spend approx £200 a month for me, hollow legged 5 year old and a picky cat. That's with free school lunches for her and before/after-school club 3 times a week. I take packed lunch to work and we often have things like baked beans on toast etc to keep costs down.
That also includes loo roll, basic toiletries etc. I buy store or value products as costs have risen so much.

2 adults and an 8 Yr old. Our budget is 500 a month, although I try and stick to around £100 a week.

I cook from scratch most days, and we get through a lot of fruit and veg.

It helps to have is a very well stocked store cupboard, so every couple of months I will do an additional shop (with the rolled over shopping budget) to stock up on tins, pasta, rice, and household cleaning items. It's amazing how much I've saved on cleaning supplies, e.g switching to white vinegar for rinse aid, window cleaner, de-scaler etc, using washing powder instead of liquids - there's loads of tips online.

We have 2 adults, 1 full time child and 1 child split 50/50 with other parents house. We usually spend £65-70 on week 1, then maybe £30 on week 2 (top up shop) then week 3 is the same as week 1 and week 4 is the same as week 2. We are fortunate in that my partner gets all our milk for free from work so we don't have to pay for that but both children take packed lunches and my partner and I take packed lunches too (partner buys his food for packed lunches separately from the groceries). We try and budget about £200 a month in total and while we are usually left with nothing left at the end of the month in groceries, the only time we tend to spend more is at Christmas. We do use some of our child benefit for things for my toddler as he has sensory issues and is still in nappies so usually around £30 of child benefit goes on fruit pouches, nappies, wipes and toddler bars but I also top that amount up by £30 again separate of groceries budget, however if you don't have sensory issues etc in the house it would probably allow for that amount to come down slightly and maybe budget an additional £10-15 per week for the groceries if need be.

We’re 6 people (2 adults, 2 late teens, 2 children) and spend £600/month. So I’d say £300/month would be doable. We’re careful and don’t waste food but we do have snacks and treats and lots of fresh food in that so we could get it a bit lower if we had to but I think I’d struggle for a prolonged period on less than that.

I don’t understand why you are separating food spending from the other household stuff you would buy at supermarket such as loo roll, washing up liquid, foil, bin liners etc.

I think your budget is far too tight and £85 would be more reasonable. More if you buy household stuff at supermarket like most people do.

How are you getting on @Gotsomedebt?

I’ve costed up our evening meals for the past couple of weeks and worked out that they average £1.50 per person per day. That includes some stuff like a curry paste and sour cream but not stuff like oil, herbs and spices, stock cubes, flour, soy sauce, condiments… Or any puddings.
There was also some crossover with lunch items eg I used a couple of tomatoes in dinners and a pepper and some left over chicken in lunches so it was hard to be exact but I think I worked it out fairly accurately.

£50-60 is usually manageable for us (two adults and a 2 year old) but if we’re buying laundry and cleaning stuff it would be more.

We budget £400 per month for groceries at the moment, it’s me, DH and our 7 year old. We spend around £100 in Lidl at the beginning of the month and stock up on meat/tins/eggs/other stock items. We then budget £40 for any top up shops and have a £17 per week fruit and vegetable box. We buy toiletries and cleaning stuff in bulk from Amazon so that’s around £60 every 3 months. Before the cost of living crisis we didn’t budget at all and put anything we fancied in our shopping trolley and got a weekly takeaway but realised we were dipping far too much into our overdraft just to keep up our previous modest lifestyle. Depressing times but I know we are very lucky to able to keep financially afloat by tightening our belts when there are many people who didn’t/don’t have any wiggle room.

We spend £600 a month and that’s on 2 adults and 1 child (7)