How much do you spend a week/month on food?

[Badgoushk]

I'd be really interested to know how much people spend a week or month on food?

I'm on maternity leave and have a weaning baby and a toddler, plus a husband!

We get a weekly online shop that costs approximately £135 for food, £15 for toiletries, loo roll, nappies, etc. So £150 a week or £650 a month.

I cook everything from scratch and we have meat or fish every night, plus plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. We don't buy alcohol (can't afford it and I'm breastfeeding!) or any sweet treats.

I'm interested to know if this is a lot? (Ocado!) or whether others spend a lot more/less.

Thanks Smerlin. I'll check out Amazon and maybe buy a load in bulk.

I was a Pampers snob for a long time but DH persuaded that we should switch to Aldi nappies and they really were very good- never leaked. Can buy in massive boxes.

I buy Huggies night pull ups but make sure I top up at the shop that is doing them half price or 2 for £5.

Stillwishihadabs - good point about the persiltabs. Thanks.

I find that there always seem to be a remarkable number of people on here who live off minimal amounts leading the same lifestyle as us...bit baffling.

We are 2 adults, 5yr old, 1yr old.

Spend about £70-90 a week on food + household stuff at tesco (delivery) 'plus about £20 top up at waitrose round the corner. I know where i could make savings if it was needed but at present we are well within means so that is ok. I tend to make savings on buying in bulk when stuff is on offer and trying to get the cheaper fresh stuff (eg value bags of peppers), unbranded basics etc.

A year or so ago we sat dowb and made a list of which branded items we don't want to not buy cos we really like them, otherwise if available as suoermarket own brand we get it. e.g. I chose diet coke, dairy milk choc (2 addictions), DH chose ribena, babybels.

We spend about £475 pcm for a couple, a toddler and a weaning baby. That includes nappies for two! I often get Ocado deliveries, or otherwise Tesco. Tescos are cheaper, that's for sure. I do batch cook sometimes, and will do more of that once I have more freezer space.

2 adults, toddler and a baby. Toddler still in nappies and baby FF.

Shop at Ocado and Waitrose. Around £400 a month plus a £100 case of wine every couple of months. So £450 average. I just tallied the account for the last 3 months (mortgage application) so I know that's pretty accurate.

Cook mostly from scratch. Throw nothing away. Stretch meat quite a long way (so a chicken does at least 3 meals for us, 450g of mince would do 3 of us twice, and some veggie dinners - maybe twice a week). DP is SAHD and I'm on mat leave so that's every meal. We don't really scrimp, but we don't buy a lot of snack foods either. Takeaway once a month or so.

Thanks dairymilkmonster. We used to buy Babybel and Lil Moo cheeses but now I get a big slab of essential mild cheddar and have it in a tupperware box in the fridge and give my two bits off that now. I do miss the odd Babybel for myself though!!

Thanks everyone. I can see now that we're definitely spending too much!! I think I'll try to cut down by £10 each week for the next few weeks with the aim of spending a maximum of £100 a week on food.

Anyone here with large (and I mean large as in several HUGE teenage boys) families? I would be really interested to know what you spend.

Between £70-£80 a week, 2 adults a 10 year old and a 14 year old.
Either tesco or sainsburys.

You need to find your way to aldi or lidl. Their nappies are excellent, and everything is miles cheaper.

Best place for toiletries and household products are places like savers, Home Bargains etc. I can buy a giant box of wash powder for £12 which last months. Poundland is good for uk products with foreign labels - the possibly polish labelled stainless steel cleaner is a pound instead of £4, for example.

I think you need to go easy on yourself with two little ones. You could save a lot and give yourself a bit of a break if you cooked from frozen food every couple of days. For example tonight we had a supermarket extra special brand chicken Kiev - oven for 30mins, with jacket potato - microwaved for12 mins then bunged in oven for the rest with Keiv, along with a few frozen peas. Super easy and reasonably healthy.
Also, I love my double sized chest freezer, I inherited it with the house and wouldn't be without it.

About £60-£80 per week at tesco depending on whether we need expensive items (big box beers, dishwasher tabs, washing powder). Then maybe £20 at aldi or m&s for nappies or top up shop/luxuries. That's everything including toiletries, and we don't go without to save money, only buy free range eggs, finest ham etc. Key thing is batch cooking with lots of veg, which is how we prefer it anyway but just happens to be loads cheaper, eg a 400g mince would make 5 lasagnes serving 2 (posh weekend meal just for adults), or at least 10 portions of chilli. £3.50 pork fillet makes 8-10 portions of honey mustard pork to serve with rice or jacket. Meat doesn't form the bulk part of the meal, it's just an ingredient.

Thanks 2snugglets. Your freezer sounds amazing! We don't have much freezer space but I do have room for a big bag of winter casserole veg, which I bung in a casserole dish with chicken or beef once a week for a slow cooked, healthy and easy dinner.

Tfoot75 - I like how you stretch the meat out. I've been using 400g mince per meal or 6 chicken thighs per meal for example. Will definitely need to do that. Although my Mum looked a bit perturbed when she was given 1/5 of 400g beef in a casserole the other day as she thought I had shortchanged her!

I've tried all the wipes going and the best by far are aldi wipes! You can buy in packs of 4 for about £2.30
I used to only use huggies pure but prefer aldi now. I use their nappies too.

Don't use tabs, use cheap detergent (eg aldi) and if you like a nice smell on your laundry, get a good conditioner,

I buy Aldi wipes, I don't shop there so I buy three or so multi packs at a time, so I probably spend about a fiver a month of wipes, they're great, really easy to get out of the packet and I buy the sensitive ones so no irritations.

Have you tried Ocado own brand nappies? They're really good!

I think we probably spend about £500 a month on food and wine, I do the bulk of our shopping through Ocado and meal planning for each week. Before we had small child we used to eat out at least three times a week at nice restaurants, we don't do that now so I make up for it by cooking really nice food from scratch at home, I could be more frugal with our food shopping if I needed to but we enjoy what we eat.

OP, sorry, I didn't realise the £15 a month on toiletries included nappies for two children.

Having said that, I'm also a lover of Aldi nappies and wipes.

I buy a box of size 3 nappies (98 in a pack) for £5.99. They are absolutely no worse than Pampers. We've had the odd leak, but we did with Pampers too. During their baby events Aldi also do a box of 12 packs
of wipes for about a fiver.

I shop for me, dp, 2.6 year old ds and 11 month old dd and we spend about £100-120 a week on average. I either get a delivery from morissons or asda or do an aldi for supermarket stuff and buy bread/milk top ups at the local shop. I buy some meat from the butcher. That includes everything but I pick bits up at Home bargains if I see something I need.
I cook from scratch and only very occasionally drink at home. I don't really take any measures to save money and could probably cut back if we had to. I only buy free range eggs and meat and we get through huge amounts of fruit. Both dc are still in nappies, for dd I get either Asda or Morissons own brand and they're very good. Ds is in Pampers as he had an awful reaction to Aldi and other cheaper ones. I also use asda and morrisons own wipes and they're very good too.
I often do an extra shop if we have family over to stay or eat with us. My sister has three teenagers and until her eldest left to go to Uni she would routinely spend £180-200 a week in aldi They're bottomless pits!!

I think the key is a change in mindset about meat and fish. You don't need 1 x chicken breast per person or a full salmon fillet for example. I'd serve chicken or fish in chunks / pieces which seems to go further. If you have other good sources of protein you don't need large portions at dinner.

Food is our main expense (and pleasure) for food and non food items (alcohol, nappy liners, toiletries, cleaning products etc) we budget £400 and month and generally come in closer to £300. We are 2x adults with a breastfed baby mainly in reusable nappies. We could do it for £200 or less - it was £25 or less a week when just me. But we like to get fresh fish and shelfish from local market, duck etc so choose to save elsewhere in our monthly budget.

Our £3-400 includes about £30 for dog food too.

OP, there are easily changes you can make. Like others have said, even buying Aldi nappies and wipes would save you a fortune!

We were spending about £50 a week plus a takeaway but we're aiming to cut it back nearer £35-40 now I'm pregnant with number 2 and we need to start cutting back. That's for me, DH and 12mo DD. We've switched from Morrisons to Aldi (though I will go to Morrisons for certain bits Aldi don't have).

One thing we do that helps is that we don't shop weekly (as in, on the same day). We seem to be able to make the food last for 8 or 9 days.

£80-90 p/w on a tesco delivery.

Up to around £50 a week on top ups / treats / wine / beer

2 adults, 2 5 year olds and a dog. FInally have the second 5 year old out of pull ups so dont have to buy those anymore.

When i was on mat leave I as able to go to Aldi / Lidl and then to get what i get there in the tesco shop but I dont have time now to shop like that.

About £40 a week for 2.