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.

Thanks @fieldsofbutterflies , fortunately it’s not something I’ve had to deal with, but it’s always good to know more about these issues for others

@UPALLNIGHTMNETTING there are a number of different issues at play here.

Firstly, I find the narrative of "people are not able to nourish themselves" when used in the context of just pure greed very insulting. There is a huge difference between families struggling to feed their children (which is a serious issue and needs to be tackled), and parents struggling to keep their greedy teenage sons in excess food, snacks and treats. Some of the examples on here of instances where a poster's son has demolished entire packs of meat and cheese and loaves of bread with no thought for anyone else are shocking. If that had happened in my house the person who did it would be expected to replace it.

Secondly, even in the cases of there being a genuine struggle to feed the family, it is not just the woman's problem to solve. And some of the posts here about the woman doing lots of shopping around and batch cooking and in a couple of examples reducing the quality of the food she eats or bulking it out with cheaper options is disturbing to me.

Thirdly, we have to get away from the idea that men are a special category and women must make allowances. These women are raising boys that will in all likelihood one day be husbands and fathers. And if Mumsnet has taught us anything, the entitlement that becomes engrained in the formative years seeps into every other aspect of their lives.

A good 50% of the posts on this forum centre around some form of male entitlement. Whether that is to more food, more leisure time, more sleep, access to more sex, fewer chores etc etc etc. It seeps in.

This is not just about food. It is about whose needs and wants are more important. And some of the examples on this thread show me that we have a hell of a long way to go.

@Neurodiversitydoctor you say when your son is at home, so I'm assuming he is an adult who either works away or is at university? In either case, what you should be doing is calculating how much more his food costs you when he is there and billing him accordingly. He is clearly perfectly capable of paying for his own food when he is away so why should it be any different when he is home?

@PamPamPamPam nail on head. And this greedy behaviour continues once they’re grown men. Women slaving away to make a roast dinner only for the man to carve the meat and give himself the biggest and best piece. Then go into the kitchen and demolish whatever is left of the carcass afterwards. Men being given the biggest portion, dominating bbqs while the woman is inside doing the sides and waiting on everybody.

The ironic thing is women need more iron and are more likely to be anaemic because we have periods. We need the meat more yet the men feel entitled to it 🤷🏼‍♀️

We freeze a lot and have a lot of soup and homemade bread for lunch.
Today for example we have having chili con carme for lunch £5 for decent mince, spices and flavouring from cupboard, two large onions, two cans of tomatoes, two cans of kidney beans. Rice, will do us today for large lunch and tomorrow for large evening meal. We used to have our own chickens but we bulk buy eggs from a farm. We will have an evening meal of homemade bread and scrambled egg etc or an omelette made with onions, cheese, ham and tomato. Any offers bulk carrots I peel blanch and freeze same with anything really. Pick our own blackberries. We have community larder and often them are begging people to take cauliflowers or broccoli or whatever. If I can freeze them I do. Huge bags of fish fillets locally for £5, I got 6 salmon steaks on their due before date for £1.99 and froze them immediately. Cheese I buy in bulk and freeze, same with chicken breasts or chickens etc we do eat and bulk bulk rice and pasta etc but I got 4 bags of carrots in Aldi for 19 p and yes it was hard, took them home and peeled them and blanched them. But I just can’t afford it otherwise.

No we don’t have takeaways a Chinese is £30-40 I can’t afford it.

Yep! And wasn't there even a recent study that showed that women actually need more sleep than men? So we need more iron and more sleep. And that's before we even get into the additional needs women have when pregnant, breastfeeding and during menopause.

But we mustn't upset our special little soldiers...

Yes we do this, we support him at University it is factored in that we spend more when he is at home. He is allocated £50 pw for this, he often comes to the supermarket with me, things definitely go more smoothly when he does.

I often wonder if there’s an element of fear to it. Posters on here seem far more comfortable saying no to their teen girls than their teen boys, who seem to be endlessly waited upon despite entitlement, rudeness and vile attitudes.

You're conflating two separate issues. Boys and men (or anyone really), taking more than is fair is one issue. I haven't seen any data on so-called "penis portions", but could believe it happens.

Families struggling with the cost of food bills is a separate, and imo much bigger issue. If families could afford enough food, women wouldn't feel the need to go with out. Of course most parents choose to go without, for their children. What if the OP had two hungry teenage daughters? But the point is, no-one should have to ho without.

I feel that to put the crisis where people can't afford to eat, vaguely down to "sexism", derails the argument and misdirects the anger. It would be interesting to know, how many posts there were about parents eating less or worse food, so that there children could eat properly, five years ago. Presumably it should still be loads, if the issues are just down to "men". But I bet there are fewer.

This is not quite correct.
Some children, with specific needs, can make themselves very unwell by not eating.

@UPALLNIGHTMNETTING I wouldn't care if I was a millionaire, I would still have a problem with a member of my family showing the level of greed and disregard for the needs of others that have been presented by some of the posters on this thread.

A ND person needing specific foods is one issue.

A family not having enough money to nourish themselves is another issue.

And boys and men feeling entitled to eat whatever they want whenever they want because they have been brought up to expect to be pandered to is a completely separate issue from the two above. You will never be able to convince me that an ordinary man working an ordinary job living an ordinary life needs to eat six eggs or whatever else in one sitting.

Women slaving away to make a roast dinner only for the man to carve the meat and give himself the biggest and best piece. Then go into the kitchen and demolish whatever is left of the carcass afterwards

If men can't control themselves the MN chicken will definitely stay a mythical beast!

@UPALLNIGHTMNETTING
It was the Op who stated her sons will only eat premium brands and the discussion evolved including CoL,ND, ED and plain male entitlement.
It's one factor in why the Op has such large bills

😂

Hear hear. And IME there is a direct correlation between teenage fussy eaters and mothers who bent over backwards to accommodate all kinds, vs those whose mothers gave them a metaphorical clip round the ear and told them not to be so bloody stupid when they tried shite like “I only eat lurpack”…

Absolutely!

This is such an extreme example and is a serious mental illness that requires serious intervention and therapy to deal with, much like any other eating disorder. It is rare however and the OP has already said her son does not have this condition. Unless your child has an actual eating disorder such this they will absolutely eat what you give them if they are hungry enough, especially if you teach this value when they are very little.

Branded, ultra processed crap is not “decent food”.

Exactly. You can bulk up the diet with pasta, rice, beans, tuna, sardines etc all cheap and healthy.

If anyone is reading this and struggling to find cheap and healthy food options for hungry boys and girls in the UK I’d recommend:

Kippers/smoked mackerel -so cheap and easy to make
Chapatis/flat breads: flour, water and salt no yeast required and very easy to make
fruit in season - in the UK this means lots of apples, pears and plums and berries in season
canned fruit
savoury oats - a cheap quick and delicious comfort food is simply oats cooked with water with olive oil or butter and grated cheese added along with salt and pepper. If you want something a bit more filling bung a fried egg on top!

That's super impressive! Given me some ideas so thank you for replying

What percentage of kids has actually been diagnosed with this?

As pp have said I do think fridge grazing, or razing is a big issue. It isn't fair having an extra snack of xyz which is actually a portion of the next meal. I remember feeling starving as a teen (i was in no way literally starving) but the only thing that was a free for all was fruit. Sweets, crisps, fizzy drinks would definitely have come out of pocket money.

Exactly! She already had the dogs before the COL crisis hit. You keep your dogs and don’t get rid of them unless there is absolutely no alternative. She said she can afford to keep them, she’d just be happier if her food bill was less.