How much do you spend on a budget for 2 adults, one toddler?

[BertieBotts]

And what kind of things does that include please?

Want to get our food shopping down, DP seems to think we can do it on about £50 a week as that's what his parents spend, but I think we need to spend more than that. I don't want to just buy complete loads of crap, but not particularly keen on lentil soup etc either.

I'm allergic to cheese too which scuppers lots of cheap meals, though DS and DP can eat it. DS is pretty fussy and his diet at the moment consists of pizza, chicken dippers or fish fingers with veg, spaghetti bolognese, stir fry with noodles, chicken/sausages, tinned tomatoes & pasta, beans on toast, ham or marmite sandwiches, marmite on toast, cereal. Sometimes home made soups. And then snacks/accompaniments of cucumber, peppers, and various fruits. And he'll eat crisps and sometimes chips as well for a change.

DP is fucking irritating about food and refuses anything green or vaguely healthy because his mum makes it differently (ie with jars and packets). He lives off freezer food, anything fried, and student food ie pasta or toasted sandwiches. I am completely fed up with the limitedness of their diets so just cook quick things for myself, I can't be bothered to cook something which takes forever when I'm the only one eating it. DP is also on nights so a different time zone to the rest of us. I hate all this separate eating TBH so hoping this is temporary.

It's DP's diet that is costing you the most money. It's cheaper to buy a box of veg, a whole chicken, some rice, potatoes etc. You need to find things that all of you are willing to eat, only then will it cost you £50 a week. There's just ds (age 12 so eats like a grown up) and me, on a good week I can spend £50, on a bad one £65

Good week:
Organic veg and fruit box - £18
Organic chicken - £10
Milk - £2
Bread -£2
Bacon - £3
Some sort of fish - £5
Eggs - £2.50
Cheese - £3
Potatoes -£2.50

Pasta- have lots of it.

I can get 2-3 meals out of the chicken (roast and chicken sandwiches/chicken omelette/chickeny pasta). Bacon lasts 2 meals (omelette and sandwiches). Use veg to make a soup/roast veg.

Thing is it does and it doesn't. On a good week/month he will go to mcdonald's, order takeaways etc, but on a bad month he will go to his parents' and they will give him loads of stuff they have got from lidl. So it's free.

I suppose it just bugs me that he complains about the food budget if he thinks it's okay to get takeaways so often. Plus I feel a bit cheated as before he moved in he seemed to have a fairly healthy diet at home. And the constant takeaways, crap food etc was one thing I loved being free from when I first moved out of living with XP. But then I often don't have the energy to cook, and I don't see why it should be me making a meal that everyone can eat at different times. Why can't he make something which I can heat up the next day for me and DS? Maybe we just need to have a Big Chat.

Pay day week, I stock up on a lot and that shop normally costs around £75, including a couple of the Tesco 4 meats for £12 which I divide and stick in the freezer. The other weeks I just top up bread, milk, veg and other incidentals which come out at around £35-£40. I don't buy crisps, and rarely buy biscuits and other treats.

Lots of pasta, one massive 3kg (ish) bag lasts a couple of months. And lots of tinned tomatoes - I use them with carrots, onions, celery to make a basic sauce that I customise from the freezer to make pasta bake, chilli and bolognaise.

DH also doesn't really get to choose what he eats, IYSWIM. If he wants something specific, he can plan and buy it and cook it. I'm trying to stick to a budget, so I cook what I buy and he eats what I cook or he goes hungry.

x post there

Ah, a Big Chat. That sort of stuff would bug me too. Good luck

Take aways are expensive. A £20 chinese is just under half of your weekly budget. Write down all you buy and all you spend and talk to him. It helps to eat at the same time or to put his meal in the fridge so he can heat it up when he gets in. Ban the take a ways! You can make a pizza and wedges yourself for a couple of pounds.

Household of 2 (1 adult + 11yo) and we spend about £80/week on everything you get at a supermarket including wine, non-foods, cleaning products, laundry stuff. We don't eat out, get takeaways or use ready-made things more complicated than a can of beans. I like good food and would rather economise elsewhere than compromise what we eat. This week's meals have been things like Chicken Fried Rice, Meatloaf, Pepperoni Pizza, Spanish Omelette, Prawn Stir-Fry, Chorizo & Red Pepper Pasta, Chilli Con Carne, Sausage & Cannellini Bean Casserole. Breakfast are eggs, cereals or toast. Lunches tend to be soup or sandwiches.

Have made something in slow cooker today. I think starting to use that more should help a lot.

We're both ill now but have to go through money stuff later today anyway so hopefully can just sit down and see if we can sort it.

me & 2 ds here who eat alot for their age. weekly shopping around £30 depending how careful i am. but we hardly ever have meat, maybe a chicken once a month if that. most of the time its lentils, chickpeas, beans etc. we eat alot of veggies and fruit though but i shop around.
typical weeks meals
mon - jacket spuds, salad, cheese/beans or tuna for the boys
tues - lentil spag bol
wed - something on toast so cheese/egg/beans or all 3! or omlette
thur - bean chilli with rice/jacket and salad
fri - homemade soup
sat - enchillarders made with the left over chilli and salad
sun - sausage casserole made with veg sausages

We spend £10-30 a week at the supermarket and £10-30 at the fruit & veg market and a variable amount at the farm shop. We eat farm shop / reduced organic meat, some expensive lactose free cheese / oat milks etc, and then Basics bread, beans etc (and DS can't eat anything tomato based which limits our options). I make lots of my own snacks for DS.

In general I don't cook from jars and takeaways would definitely be out of our price range. We also eat veggie about 50% of the time as meat is so expensive.

Omelette & potato wedges
Risotto
Roast chicken with veg & potatoes
Beef casserole with veg & jacket potatoes
Beans on toast with cheese
Jacket potatoes, beans & cheese
Pasta & pesto
Tuna fish pie with white sauce & mash
Fish & wedges
Fish & cous cous
Stir fry with veg & rice
Rice with cooked chicken & vegetables
Occasional fish fingers

My DH is exactly the same as yours, always wants frozen processed rubbish, with fries, with the exception of spag bol/tuna pasta/chicken wraps/roast dinners - only carrots and peas on that .

I am on a diet for life now after losing a lot of weight and so have to eat healthily and can't overdo the carbs which means constant topping up of fruit/veg/salad etc and not enough cheap and cheerful carby dinners being served up. DD will eat most things, really into her casseroles/shepherds pies/spag bols/pasta dishes, and I love them too, but if DH spots a bit of veg in anything then he pushes it away or picks around it like a child. He once took an omelette back to the takeaway because it had onions in it ffs! So I usually end up cooking for me and DD and then cook him some frozen shite when he gets home from work at around 8pm.

I spend around £50-60pw for 2 adults and 2yo DD.

Forgot to mention, me and DD eat a lot of Quorn products, especially the mince. Cheaper, goes further, and she likes the softer texture a lot better than meat.