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Original poster

How much do you spend on weekly shop. Please be honest this is causing relationship stress!

172 replies

bundlebelly · 27/10/2010 07:57

I am trying very hard to keep to our strict budget of £90 a week, this is for the entire supermarket shop, food, cleaning products, and nappies, milk, etc etc.
I plan the meals, only buy what I need, hardly ever any treats,mostly own brands and it is tough. I am told by SIL that she spends £70. But I don't understand how. She goes to Waitrose! And buys those posh packets of smoothies, and organic babywipes, wine, etc etc. DH says if she can do it so can I. This is causing a lot of stress. We have a family of four. How much do you spend per week? Not in an ideal world, I mean really and honestly.

OP posts:
Ishtar2410 · 27/10/2010 08:57

I spend between £80 and £100 per week. That's for everything: nappies, toiletries, food, cleaning products and alcohol - I don't go anywhere else to buy things, but I do have a veggie box delivered once a fortnight (£12 ish). There are 4 of us - 2 adults, DD (5) and DS (19 months).

I don't think I do too badly TBH.

Have you done a comparison on mysupermarket.co.uk? That might give your OH something to think about.

BerryLellooooooooooow · 27/10/2010 08:57

Is she close enough that you could go shopping with her one week, get exactly what she does (within reason) and then tell your DP that you have everything you need to live on? Then watch as he moans that you haven't got anything niced to eat/ the shower gel he likes/any beers in?

ruddynorah · 27/10/2010 09:05

60 a week for 4 of us. One in nappies but they come from lidl. We don't eat meat and rarely buy alcohol.

TheDeadlyLampshade · 27/10/2010 09:06

About £100 a week for a family of 5. No nappies but wipes needed plus an allergy diet.

Its about to go up. Our High Street greengrocer was killed by Tesco this week Sad

craftynclothy · 27/10/2010 09:13

We are a family of four: dh, me, dd1 is 3.5 and dd2 is just over 1. We use cloth nappies and washable wipes.

We shop at Ocado and we budget £300 per month, however we come in under budget every month really. We spend about £45 a week on our online shop (give or take a £1 or 2 to account for the actual fish weight, offers, etc.). We then usually buy a pint or 2 of milk the day before our delivery (don't know why but for some reason however much milk I order we run out the day before Hmm).

Then at the end of the month I see how much is left over from our budget and stock up on meat from either the big market in Leeds or our local market & morrisons.

MrsTittleMouse · 27/10/2010 09:17

I should probably point out here that I only get the shopping down so low because I have a very understanding DH who knows how much food costs and would never demand his "meat and two veg" for every meal. He is happy to have lentil dahl and the cheapest tinned pineapple for pudding, because it means that we have money to overpay the mortgage (live in dread of interest rates going up!).

He actually compliments me often about the way that I can provide us with varied tasty food on not a lot of money. But then he often comes shopping with us, so he knows how easy it would be to overspend massively.

Definitely agree that he needs to do the shopping for a couple of weeks and see how HE does!

Gory09 · 27/10/2010 09:20

Family of 6, we spend arround £400 per month for shopping (a big £200 to start with for essentials, about £30/£40 for meat at a butcher's and the rest in top ups for fresh fruit and veg/bread/eggs throughout the month). We have meat once or twice a week and do not buy alcohol at all.(Includes essentials like shampoo and cleaning stuff, as I suppose everyone does).

I think it would be rally difficult to feed/wash us all for less.

I think prices have gone up a lot as we used to be 0k with arround £300 arround 2/3 years ago when we had to still buy nappies.

wonderstuff · 27/10/2010 09:27

I did think that we were spending about £50 a week - then I totted up how much we spent at the local co-op in a month - £230! so actually we were spending about £100 - Things are really tight atm with me on mat leave so we have cut out most of the wine and are eating vegetarian about 3 times a week - got it down to about £65 a week on line plus about £10 co-op top ups - three of us eating. We menu plan, online shop, dh batch cooks for the freezer on the weekend.

activate · 27/10/2010 09:28

between £120 and £200 a week

family of 6 with 2 teens and an almost teen

but then am not budgeting tbh

wonderstuff · 27/10/2010 09:36

weegiemum you know getting Tesco to deliver would be cheaper than your taxi? I'm a total convert to online shopping - I hate trapsing round Tesco.

Original poster
bundlebelly · 27/10/2010 09:38

Thanks for all replies everyone.

OP posts:
MaudOHara · 27/10/2010 09:43

Your DH and SIL are having a laugh. Agree with the others you need to see her receipt and buy the same / send DH shopping.

We spend £150 a week for a family of 4 - no nappies but as DS eats like an adult and we have multiple allergies to cater for it does bump it up a bit.

I don't think we could really cut it down much more as DH is so limited as to what he can eat.

ComeWhineWithMe · 27/10/2010 09:44

140.00 a week but I do have 6 dc,a DP and a dog plus a hungry brother who is here with his nose in the cupboards most days Hmm.

I also live about 2 minutes from a small supermarket so end up in there a lot during the week finding all the reduced stuff.

weegiemum · 27/10/2010 09:47

wonderstuff I know it would be cheaper to deliver but I like Blush going to Tesco and snurfling around for an hour, finding reduced stuff and looking at the magazines Blush.

Also I detest the substitutions - after the time I got Paracetamol instead of an antihisthamine I decided to go myself!!

madhairday · 27/10/2010 09:57

Not sure why you all think the sil is making it up, unless Waitrose is significantly more expensive than other supermarkets (don't have one round here.)

We are a family of four and spend about £60 per week, sometimes £50 and sometimes £70. I do all my shopping online at Tesco and don't top up in the week as no local shop - the only time I would is if we have people over and then would pop over to Sainsbos. I think we do it cheaply because we eat mainly veggie, hardly any meat at all. Included in this shop is all toiletries, cleaning stuff and about a bottle of wine a week. No nappies though.

LacksDaisies · 27/10/2010 09:58

DH spends around £70 on our weekly shop, and I top up as necessary through the week and can get through another £70 on a bad week, £30 on a good week. It depends on how much I have to buy for myself of gluten free cereal and pasta as they are £££. I also realised recently that we are spending around £15 a week on butter and milk alone, never mind the rest of it.

We are a family of five, with youngest still in nappies.

Meal planning is the way forward, as when we do this, we spend much less. I also find that if we don't take the list the spending runs away from us as well.

I think your SIL is probably underestimating how much she spends. Perhaps you should challenge her to a wee competition and both of you keep ALL receipts (even from the corner shop) for a week and compare at the end of it? And your DH is being a bit of a git insensitive comparing you to your SIL Shock

Iwishiwasalive · 27/10/2010 10:08

I shop at lidl for most things and tesco for the rest and spend about ?130. There are 4 of us and no nappies.

Get DH to do a couple of online shops and see how much he spends.

If SIL really does only spend £70[hhmm], could you share her tips with us all please.

BadPoet · 27/10/2010 10:10

About £100 pw including milk delivery for a family of four (2 children don't have massive appetites yet). I could get it lower if we had to but I don't yet and I enjoy that feeling of knowing where I'd make cuts if it came to it - this allows treats but has to be watched carefully, easy to go over this. I meal plan and shop online at tesco. No allergies or pets.

Also surprised at £70 pw! It's all the posh bits (smoothies, pre packaged packed lunch things, wine etc etc) that bump ours up and I remove if we are over budget. I only buy them on offer.

domesticsluttery · 27/10/2010 10:11

Family of 5, no nappies. We spend around £70 a week in total including cleaning materials, top ups etc.

Roshin · 27/10/2010 10:15

If I were lying I would say £70 per week.

It's actually £150. and we don't even drink alcohol. Thats for 2 adults and 2 small children Blush

bamboobutton · 27/10/2010 10:18

family of 4 with dc aged 2.9 and 4mo.

£120ish, sometimes more if i have run out of store cupboard stuff like rice, flour etc. or toiletries.

that usually includes books and bits of clothing for dc too.

herbietea · 27/10/2010 10:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

thereisalightanditnevergoesout · 27/10/2010 12:20

get your SIL to your shopping then - then you'll find out if she's telling fibs and it might stop your DH complaining.

Miggsie · 27/10/2010 12:24

Do you SIL and DH often club together to prove you are incompetent? They sound a bit nasty to me.

Tell your DH that he can do the shopping from now on and ask your SIL for an itemised receipt.

I spen £60 a week on an organic delivery and £200 every six weeks or so at Ocado and I'll bet your SIL is fudging the truth, before the Organic delivery I was spending £££££ at Ocado.

thereisalightanditnevergoesout · 27/10/2010 12:25

Actually, I need to have a major overhaul of our shopping budget. There are 2 adults and 3 kids (aged 5 and under) and if I do an online shop it's always over £70 and really basic.

I am terribly disorganised and really need to sort it out, so have vowed to plan for the week and see if it can be a bit better. I tend to pop into Waitrose becaus eI've run out of bread/milk/juice and never seem to leave spending less that £30 which we simply don't have (and I do this more than once a week, so I always run out of money).

So I'm changing my ways and will do an online shop in a minute and I'm going to top up with trips to Lidl and Aldi instead.

As an aside, our DS is still in nappies - has anyone used Lidl nappies? Are they any good? And what about their washing powder?