Budget weekly shop

[Nikkz]

How much do you spend each week on your groceries? Specifically those as a family of four-six if possible please.

We have two adults, both working but take lunches out to work or eat at home beforehand. Also a 14-year-old boy, a 12-year-old and 7-year-old girl who take packed lunches to school.

Also two cats.

@Minimalistmamaoftwo my husband and 18 year old protein mad son would happily eat allll the chicken too. But I've found cutting it up, or shredding it works. Husband also won't eat meat on the bone, so if I'm feeling poor I make me and the kids thighs and him a breast. I've tried to persuade him, but 20 years in and I know my battles!

Typically we would have a roast type of meal on Sunday, depending on what meat I've bought.
Monday will be veggie. I'm a lazy cook, so I would roast some veg on Sunday to make a sauce, and any veg that needs using up will be made it soup. I will add kebtils and beans to the soup before whizzing it, meaning it's more filling.
Tuesday I might make a chicken curry, use a curry paste, add onions, peppers, any other veg you like. A couple of tins of tomatoes. Make extra for wraps/lunches. Stick it in the oven along with a tray of rice, onion, garlic, ginger, stock. Cover and bake. Pop some spinach in at the end of cooking (either in curry or rice). Add some coriander, some mini naans.

Wednesday beef bolognese with pasta

Thursday chicken with noodles.

Friday paneer curry, reat of the curry paste, but with coconut milk this time.

Saturday left overs made into wraps.

Lunches are salads, sandwiches, soups, egg bases dishes
Snacks are greek yogurt, fruit, toast, cereal.

Breakfasts same as Snacks really. Might make pancakes at the weekend.

Hope that helps. We can't afford organic or wild, but I so buy sourdough from the bakery and try to use my farmshop once a week. I may only spend £5 in each, but I like to at least try help.support local.

2 adults 1 dog - about £150 a week

It just checked ours it is now £250-300 per week for 2 adults and 2 kids, was £200 last year, it really has gone up without realising. We dont really have a budget, but I do compare prices and buy products on sale if possible.

@Seaside3 thank you that’s really helpful, will definitely give this a go!

I spend £60-£70 a week for 2 adults and teen DS who eats more than us. All but 1 meal a week is cooked from scratch, packed lunch for us all and no one eats breakfast! Snacks are homemade cakes & flapjack, tinned fruit and yogurt or breadsticks and home made hummus as examples. This weeks meal plan includes,
Bean chilli with sweet baked potato
Chinese honey chicken
Creamy sausage pasta
Chicken and chick pea tagine
Sausage and mash
Lasagna

I always cook enough for 5 and then DH and I will have the left overs for lunch the next day. I will only buy one multipack bag of crisps for DS's packed lunch a week as they are extortionate. He takes a mixture of rolls, sandwiches and pasta, crisps, flapjack, cucumber & carrot sticks, hummus and a piece of fruit (apple or banana). Unfortunately can't afford to buy organic or from local farm shops as this would make it all unaffordable.

£100 a week family of 3 and a cat

I was also wondering this . There is only two of us and I can't get anywhere near this amount .

We spend £250 a week. We eat regular meals nothing fancy, no expensive high value snacks or £5 avocados! so I don’t know why we seem to spend so much
Two adults, 3 children at primary school. No pets. We cooks everything from scratch, no ready meals. But we have one child with various food issues. We take packed lunch to work every day. Kids each school meals most days which cost £2.90 per day for oldest kid , going up in September when child 2 goes into year 3. We need to get our shopping down big time. After our mortgage it’s our biggest expense. We shop at Tesco and or Morrisons.

How can you feed that many people on £100 a week . Hats off to you if it’s good quality food and not just baked beans and sausage .

Agreed .

Two adults, one teenager, one younger child, a dog and a cat.

• £180 to £200 per week Tesco delivery
• £15 per week top up (fruit, bread and milk)

Kids have McDonald’s or Dominos on a Friday. We WFH so don’t buy lunches out or visit coffee shops. Main shop includes alcohol, dog food, cleaning products, most toiletries. Cat food is bought separately.

@Citytocountry1 what do you eat on a regular week? Maybe people who spend less can suggest alternatives.

£100-120 per week, from Tesco. That's for 2 adults and 2 kids (7 and 6). Includes all cleaning stuff and toiletries. Me and husband eat lunch at home or take it with us everyday, kids have school dinners. Kids eat out 2 nights a week and we have takeaway probably 2 nights a month.

£160 week . 4 adults 1dog . Could prob spend a lot more to be honest . Plus takeaway once a week costing about £30

2 adults and one 2YO who survives off good vibes and solar energy - £100 p/w Ocado. This includes unnecessary canned diet cokes (I just love them) some fruits and veg, cat food, but no alcohol.

Hattie and denim I’ve provided an example of what we have in a typical week , why would you say we eat dust? Pretty insulting to be honest? If you read the full thread you wouldn’t be saying that. Proper budgeting and meal planning means you don’t need to spend a fortune . I refuse to pay greedy supermarkets my very hard earned cash . When I shopped at Asda /morrisons and Sainsbury’s I was well over £100 per week , shopping at Lidl saves me so much more money . I find the meat a lot better quality as I’ve had rancid chicken and mince a few times from Sainsbury’s

About 5 years ago, we spent between £70-£130 a week (big fluctuations due to buying some things like cleaning and laundry products and pet food in big packs), so average £100.

I think it is double that now.

The cat’s food just on its own costs at least £1 per day.

I budget €175 per week for 3 meals a day, toiletries and cleaning supplies (3 adults). So that would be €233 for a family of four adults. GB£187.

One Lidl stock up per month and the rest from our nearest supermarket (Italian Co-op) taking advantage of all the members’ offers and yellow stickers.

We eat well, use the freezer, have meat and fish regularly and I’m constantly filling the fruit bowl. I meal plan and cook from scratch but don’t batch cook. Convenience food if home alone. Cakes are home made but basic. We don’t drink alcohol.

Breakfast is coffee and toast or porridge in the Winter
Lunch is soup, salad, pasta, sandwiches or leftovers.
Dinner is a “named” dish like roast pork, chicken curry etc.

Ours is typically £100-130 a week depending on what we need in terms of toilet roll, nappies, cleaning products, toothpaste etc.
If I was just budgeting for food we cook with rather than all that other stuff it would probably be more like £70-100, but I have CMPA, so we have to spend £12-15 a week on Alpro Growing Up Milk which was £1.20 a few years ago and now is £2.10 a litre but I need the nutrients that aren't available in other soya milks. We also don't eat pork which puts the meat shop up as other meats tend to cost more, but we have 1-3 days a week where we eat vegetarian so it's swings and roundabouts. No alcohol though.
We've tried getting it lower at Aldi/Lidl and it works out about the same as at Ocado/Waitrose for what we buy, some of our stuff isn't available at Aldi/Lidl (Growing Up Milk), and the nice snacks at the latter are more enjoyable.
Family of 4.

We spend about £200 a week on average for food/toiletries/cleaning products. 2 adults, one teen at home, one at uni so only here sometimes. We buy almost all organic, combination of veg boxes, Ocado and a big order from Suma every couple of months. We eat fish and a little meat but have a lot of vegetarian meals and cook from scratch mainly. We don't eat out but like to allocate a decent budget so we can eat well at home. I very rarely drink so DH buys his own beer separately for himself.

In essence it's 7 x breakfasts, lunches & dinners.

Breakfasts are very cheap. Lunches can be sandwiches or leftovers. Dinners cook from scratch, batch cook & freeze excess.

Eat less meat & take advantage of reduced goods & your freezer. Use stores like Home Bargains and Farmfoods.

Take advantage of all the loyalty schemes and use any employer discount schemes you have.

For example, Lidl have just had free fruit spin & win for 2 weeks. Our free veg for a £50 monthly spend was a 7.5kg bag of £4.09 potatoes. We used them to have different dishes with mash, made a massive cottage pie (little mince, but added grated carrot / oats / pearl barley / red lentils) and froze one. Then cooked one massive batch of jackets to eat / freeze or make into wedges.

Meal planning etc, knowing your prices and nor buying everything in one place.

We spend aut £120 a week for 3 people (child eats lunch at school though which is free, and I buy lunch out once/twice a week)

I'm surprised how everyone is noting cleaning products separately. I probably spend a fiver a year on those so the cost is negligible. Loo roll comes in separately though.

We shop at Aldi. 5 adults & 1 7 year old. We spend approx £150-£175 per week. This doesn't include laundry stuff, toilet rolls or toiletries as I get them elsewhere. I can't do it any cheaper unless we just eat processed freezer foods which I don't want to do.

Washing powder is a huge swindle IMO, it can easily be a fiver a box. Not to mention dishwasher tabs…

I’ve recently switched to Nancy Birtwhistle’s DIY eco cleaning products:
washing liquid (soap slivers, washing soda and hot water, whisked up to a gloop with a hand blender),
vinegar/alcohol spray cleaner and
limescale remover (diluted citric acid)
which work better than commercial products, are multitasking and a quarter of the price.

I used to wash tiled floors with diluted ammonia but when DDog arrived that had to stop! Now I just use the washing liquid.

My dishwasher is an older smaller model built for powder not tabs. I buy own-brand powder and scrimp on the dosage but that’s getting harder to find.

1 adult and 2 kids - I spend about £70 on my main shop and another £15-20 on top up shops