Sick to death of grocery costs (1k/ month)

[Icannotbudget]

Our grocery bill has slowly increased and is now around 1k per month. This is for two adults, two very active teenage boys, and two dogs. This includes everything you would get from a supermarket eg personal care and laundry/ cleaning stuff.
Both kids are neurodivergent one in particular is very fussy and would rather go hungry than eat ‘cheap’ food. The older one just seems to need constant protein.
I am vege and pretty unfussy but don’t like freezer food. No alcohol and i shop at Aldi as much as poss but do use other supermarkets too.
DH works long hours and Ive just gone back full time and really struggling its impossible to cook from scratch every night.
Not sure if I want sympathy or strategies to be honest, its crippling me and im feeling really down.

If they can't handle the taste or texture, they just won't eat. It's not a case of "they won't know about Lurpack so they'd just eat what's on offer" - it's a case of "they won't eat what's on offer and as there's no alternative they'll just go without".

Please show me the facts you’re basing this on. I’m curious how you know what ND kids in poor countries do.

Surely the human instinct when faced with an actual famine would be to eat whatever they get to survive?

@ColBoulter that's a perfect example. Fair enough (to an extent) with meat, grains, vegetables etc. if there is genuine hunger, but nobody needs chocolate and snacks. So teenage boys should absolutely be expected to control their greed just like anybody else.

Surely the human instinct when faced with an actual famine would be to eat whatever they get to survive?

Not in the case of ARFID or extreme aversion to certain foods and textures, no.

People with these conditions often end up in hospital on drips and feeding tubes because they simply refuse to eat anything that isn't their "safe" food. If medical intervention didn't exist, they would die - likely as "failure to thrive" so they wouldn't even make it to childhood, sadly.

Nothing but perhaps you haven't read my earlier comments in context
Teenage boys demanding the diet of elite athletes, eating 3 packets of ham, chicken and cheese in one day , eating all the ingredients for meals and all the snacks bought for the rest of the family themselves.

I actually told my DS who cycled to work
You are not Chris bloody Hoy so pack it in😂

He was then given a weekly allowance for his own lunches ( doesn't eat breakfast and ate dinner with us) and it worked well
He learnt how much food is and how to budget.
Lives on his own now and gives me tips on budgeting 😉

So poverty where families can't afford enough, decent food, is okay because.... it'll stop men being sexist?? Some posters on here are a Tory wet dream.

https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/arfid.html

@AllProperTeaIsThefti only really buy Tesco own brand and then shop the offers.. but honestly I don’t find any difference. Aldi has no offers, just a fixed price each week.

I guess I just prefer to shop at an all-round cheaper supermarket and buy whatever I fancy, than to go to one where I have to keep an eye on brands and price matches and choose what I eat according to what's on offer. I meal plan because I like to be organised and don't want to waste food, but I don't look at prices when I'm planning what to cook for the week. Just going to Aldi keeps the price reasonable, plus we are eating less meat lately (for other reasons) which helps too.

If you genuinely cannot see an issue with women stressing over having enough food to feed their families, spending additional time and resource on constantly looking for cheaper alternatives and batch cooking etc. and in some cases going without themselves and eating less meat (if they eat meat) just so their teenage sons can have unlimited access to excess food, treats and snacks then you are a part of the problem.

Women need to value themselves, their time and their efforts a lot more than this.

Imagine being so deep in your man hating that you're advocating for mother's to deny their sons "excess food" (as arbitrarily defined by you).

Active teenage boys can need 3200 calories per day, which is 60% more than adult women.

Just another thing
Rates of cancer in young people are rocketing, particularly bowel cancer due to huge consumption of high fat, UPF and drinks (no not the rare actual athlete sons)

All those doing the "My son has hollow legs,tinkly laugh" might want to have another think .

Imagine needing to project your issues onto other posters.
Love my boys 🤗

Yes, and active teenage girls can need up to 2600 calories a day. So an active teenage girl can have a higher calorie need than an adult man. How many posts about teenage girls having hollow legs have you ever seen?

So taking it further, an active teenage boy's calorie needs are only 600 more than an active teenage girl's. So the equivalent of a decent bowl of pasta. Not packs and packs of ham/cheese/meat/pints and pints of milk/chocolate/sweets/pastries etc etc. The difference is only 600 calories. And that is if he is active. You are not feeding The Hulk, please get some perspective.

Precisely @PamPamPamPam

Interestingly in the press recently studies have shown that after 1965 health outcomes deteriorate due to many factors, diet being one of them

Off to check on my poor boys that they are OK and not starving to death, being fully launched independent adults,due to my man hating and neglect.
Of course this is nothing to do with their DF who also cooks and gasp sometimes does the shopping
😂

Agree. They’re not elite athletes, they don’t need to consume a whole roast chicken and 5 pork chops every day. My brother’s ‘snacks’ were peanut butter on toast, scrambled egg and baked beans and he grew to 6’4. I rarely finished a meal, barely snacked and I’m 5’9.

It’s sexist nonsense and another way of making boys and men feel special and catered to because they’re above the girls.

It’s also massively unhealthy - colon cancer in young people is through the roof and red meat is a massive risk factor.

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-guidelines-and-food-labels/red-meat-and-the-risk-of-bowel-cancer/#:~:text=But%20eating%20a%20lot%20of,your%20risk%20of%20bowel%20cancer.

And looking at the teen boys in our town many of them seem far from active and have dad bods at the age of 17.

Yeah if you want to eat like Michael Phelps you need to train like Michael Phelps!

Buy cheap beans. Keep a empty tin of heinz. Pour the cheap into the heinz tin and deliberately leave o the side while cooking.
Keep an empty of lurpack, transfer cheaper spread in
Transfer new cheaper cereal into empty brand box
Etc....

I really think it is not the brand v budget taste that is always the issue. Its a mental problem that brands are perceived as better.
You will be able to whittle down the genuine from percieved preferences

I mean the advent of gaming has surely reduced boys food ‘needs’, they all seem to spend hours sitting down every day where before they would’ve been out on bikes or playing football.

You do see it a lot on here - teen boys eating loads and loads. so unnecessary! And if their mums dare to complain about it on here they get told to “just buy more”…like everyone has the endless cash to do that!!

Maybe I’m old fashioned in my early 30s but there’s no way my parents would’ve even gone to this kind of effort, let alone buying me Lurpak because it’s all I would ‘accept’. It wouldn’t even have been a conversation. I didn’t have a say in the food shop, I didn’t get to insist on anything.

We ate what was there or what we were offered, not much red meat but a lot of pulses, rice, veg and fish. All of us as tall slim adults with good body shapes, even if I indulge over Christmas I don’t gain weight.

I honestly think what we eat as children and teens lays the foundations for how your body shape will be as an adult, and stuffing kids full of cheap red meat and freezer food is really detrimental.

It's really awful, yes. Women shouldn't be having to do any of this. But my point is, that rather than working class (and "middle class", because they work) people turning on each other - in this case their sons / husbands / brothers - everyone in every family should have enough to eat. Without anyone going without, male or female.

I grew up in a tesco value household
I have taken that into adulthood with my kids and I can't think of anything we have that is branded particularly.

Maybe we are missing out- wouldn't know.

That’s an interesting piece…what stood out for me though is the first statement is saying it’s a relatively recent disorder….does this mean it’s only relatively recently that it’s been RECOGNISED as a disorder and as such it can be treated/managed, whereas in the past the issues were just seen as kids being fussy or picky and left to get on with it…or not ?

I do and less eggs, less milk, less meat. It is a constant cause of arguments and stress when he is at home. He says everyone eats like this, he hates being rationed. I do make a batch of brownies each week which helps......

I think they mean that it's only recently been classified as an actual eating disorder in it's own right.

The BEAT website is quite helpful and goes into a bit more detail about what ARFID actually is and how it's commonly seen in people with Autism and other types of neurodivergence.