How much does your family of 4 food shop cost?

[Ginbutholdthetonic]

For context:
two adults, I’m on maternity so home all day, DP works so takes lunch everyday.

one 2.5 year old.

one 3 month old on formula.

We started seriously budgeting our money.. we did a £50 a week shop and it was seriously tight on the weeks we needed washing up tabs/toilet paper/kitchen roll/kitchen things(foil, parchment ect)

we’ve now gone ahead and sorted out our finances after selling our house, paying off our debt and buying our family home. Now our monthly outgoings are considerably lower we can afford to be less strict on the food shop budget.. but I also don’t want to go wild. So I’m looking for similar size families to tell us what you budget a month.

we currently have about £1000 left a month after bills, after maternity that will be +£800 so we don’t necessarily need to budget. But I know if we don’t there will be so much waste.. and we want to start savings for the kids, holiday and emergencies.

how much should we be spending on the food shop?!

[outshinethemorningsun]

I probably spend between 90-120ish per week for food and other groceries

[OnlyFoolsnMothers]

I'd say between £85-£100

[AmberGer]

My children are much older than yours, they eat more so it isn't a good comparison.
We spend around £150 per week including Hellofresh

[Ginbutholdthetonic]

Oh wow that’s a fair bit more than us then! I better start adding chocolate back on my list 😂

@AmberGer how do you find using hello fresh? I’ve thought about it a fair bit but never tried. Are the portion sizes good?

[Yodaisawally]

£100 delivery and another £50 on crap at weekends, school lunches on top £5.50 per day for two, dog food on top as special diet. Takeaway maybe once
Every couple of weeks, eat out once a month for a meal, grab coffee / cake / m and s picnic quite a lot at weekends.

We're not blaze with money, I meal plan and budget through the shop, our meals at home aren't extravagant and we do meat free a couple of days a week (which I don't find cheap once you add all the spices etc if you don't have them in).

Two adults two tweens. Mine and Dhs lunches come out of that initial shop.

[Dancingwithhyenas]

Mine are older and constantly hungry, but around £150 a week

[Peppapig7262662]

Two adults, a teenager and 1 year old here.

Around £100 a week at Tesco. That includes Nappies, Wipes washing powder etc.

When we dont need any of the above it's around 60/70.

[MrsBlondie]

£150 a week. One teenager who eats a lot an one 9 year old growing .

[Tayegete]

Two adults, two hungry teenagers and a fussy cat - we spend c. £175 a week on groceries including toiletries, cleaning products etc, around £150 a month on eating out, £30 a month on take away and £10 a week in DS’s school lunches. So all in all - just under £1000 a month. Far too much we need to cut back!

[user1487194234]

2 adults and 2 teens here
£200 a week

[Ginbutholdthetonic]

Gosh this is not what I expected at all, o expected people to say around £70 a week! Perhaps I’ll also do meal plans and buy everything for that week without a budget, and without buying loads of crap and see what it comes too.

[Afterfire]

We have four of us - dc aged 18 and 10 though- we spend about £140/160 a week. It’s ridiculous. I can’t get it much lower at the moment without seriously cutting out snacks etc which would be hell for us all (two dc are at home - dd home from university and Ds between specialist schools).

[OnaBegonia]

Why on these threads when OP is clearly on a budget do ppl say oh £200pw for 4ppl?
Which is clearly pretty lavish.

[1AngelicFruitCake]

2 adults, 2 primary children
used to be able to keep it £60ish but now price rises it’s more like £70 plus one takeaway and a top up shop of £5-10 in the week on chocolate, bread etc.

[nailsathome]

We have 2 adults and 4 primary children and I keep it to around £90 a week. Pet foods are an extra £20 a month. We do lots of home baking for treats and only buy own brand.

In response to your hello fresh question - the portion sizes are very generous. All 6 of us with leftovers for lunch from the meals for 4.

[ComDummings]

£130 a week.
That includes everything - household items etc as well as food.

[OxanaVorontsova]

4 adults here, £120-150 a week including cat & dog food and cleaning products, but not wine

[HelloMaryJane]

My bank app helpfully tells me that I've spent £654.68 in the last 30 days on groceries. That's 2 adults and 2 teenagers plus 3 cats. I'm trying to cut back but it's hellish difficult.

[Iamsodonewith2020]

Budget £660 a month, closer to £850 though. That’s a mixture of Aldi, Waitrose, Farmers market and Butchers.

[ifonly4]

Two here, but our budget is £50pw - I stick to it and we eat three proper meals a day and have good snacks and treats, so I'd say aim for max £100pw. The balance you have leftover will come in handy for unexpected expenses or household emergencies, ie a new boiler would cost you £3k+.

[InDubiousBattle]

£130-140 a week here, that's for more or less everything though (cleaning stuff, shampoo etc) and my dc are older (6&8). We also have family over at least once a week.

[user1487194234]

Sorry I spoke

[SmallestInTheClass]

About 100 for us including washing powder, cleaning stuff, cat food/litter and a bottle of wine or pack of beers.

[CaveMum]

It varies here (2 adults, 2 DC aged 8 & 5). I aim for £100 per week (main shop at Aldi and then top up items that I can’t find from Tesco), last week’s shop came to £120 but included washing tabs, dishwasher tabs and Vanish. This week’s shop was £94.

I rarely buy alcohol, lost the taste for it since having to get up early with DC!

[Moodycow78]

@Tayegete

Two adults, two hungry teenagers and a fussy cat - we spend c. £175 a week on groceries including toiletries, cleaning products etc, around £150 a month on eating out, £30 a month on take away and £10 a week in DS’s school lunches. So all in all - just under £1000 a month. Far too much we need to cut back!

Oh thank god we're not the only ones, I could have written this 🤣😂