What's a reasonable monthly food spend

[MissMole]

Or rather food and miscellaneous for one adult, three children and two cats.
I'm trying to organise my budget and rather than just spend what's left over after rent and bills, set an amount to limit myself to and try and save each month.
Children are 10, 8 and 15. They spend weekends with their father.
Cats are 9 and eat like horses

We spend about £100 per week for 2 adults and 2 teens.
£40 per month on raw meat for the dog.
£40 per month on school dinner card.
We mostly shop at Aldi and ocado.

£150 a week for me, DH and 2 year old. Includes too much wine, treats and nappies. Could do it for less if I needed to

About £80pw for 2 adults and 2 dcs who are getting infant school meals. Includes beers, crisps, chocolate and baileys (offset by cheaper choices! )

£200 per month for 2 adult, 2 dcs (2and7) and a cat! We shop at asda, I honestly don't understand how people can spend a lot more than this on food, we always have fresh fruit, veg etc and eat well.We are veggie though so don't know if that's why?

Averaging about £150 a week for me, DH and two teens. Alcohol bought in bulk so not included in £150. We have a dog and her food is bought in bulk separately too.

DS1 gets lunch money for college, DS2 has pack up three days a week and
DH and I do pack ups/salads 5 days.

I wish it was less, but the boys have hollow legs.

I tend to do a lot of my own baking, so don't buy many biscuits etc.

I'm sure your bills are cheaper because you're not buying meat, Metalgoddess. Meat is the most expensive thing I buy (we don't drink alcohol).

My budget is £60 per week for 2 adults and 2 kids (6 and 3). I split my shop between Lidl and Sainsburys (Sainsburys for the few particular things we can't get at Lidl). We've been on an economy drive for the last year and have saved so much money on groceries - prior to this I suspect we were spending around £150 per week

We'll be able to loosen our belts a bit from next spring and I reckon we'll be very comfortable spending £70-75 per week. It does mean a bit of meal planning and mostly home cooking but I've got used to that now and I'm being much more savvy with what we buy and eat - we're wasting so much less food than we used to. I'm also a total Lidl convert and will continue to shop there even once our budget constraints are lifted.

How do you guys do this? We are a very, very small household. Food bills come to around £80 a week, and that's excluding meals out and so forth.

We are 2 adults and a toddler.we spend around £70 a week. I stay at home and make litres of soup for my lunches and cook in bulk. If I worked I would have to spend twice as much for convenience.

One pack of mince will do 2 chilli teas. One with baked potatoes one with wraps grilled to make burritos. Bag of stir fry veg and handful of prawns or leftover chicken meat in a noodle stir fry.

The toddler eats odd concoctions of lentils, spinach, leftover veg curried in a big pot, home made hummus, sandwiches, bits of our frozen leftovers. I realise that this unfussiness is unlikely to last forever. Aldi nappies, toiletries and wipes are brilliant and very cheap.

MillieV. The reduced budgets are done with meal planning, down grading brands, really checking there's no waste. Some use less meat add pulses which can keep costs down
I can spend £100 a week 3 people, but really speaking that's too much.
If i write a menu think whats in the store cupboard be creative I can do it for £50 with meat everyday, plus packed lunch for 2.

Agree with annie. Downgrading brands is a good place to start - for example Sainsburys Basics fishfingers cost less than half the price of Sainsb's regular ones, they're made of pollock rather than cod but taste delicious.

I've cut down on the meat we eat - previously I'd think that a chicken dish for me & my husband would have to contain 2 chicken breasts. Now I stretch one chicken breast (or actually several frozen chicken fillets - cheaper than fresh) and bulk it out with veg - it's fine.

I make all our bread with a breadmaker - a big outlay admittedly but the bread is so much cheaper and so much nicer than shop-bought bread. Great for homemade pizza, too; another huge saving. We used to buy Waitrose pizzas as a treat (£4.25 per person), now we make our own with homemade pizza dough (costs pennies), basics grated mozzarella, Lidl pasta sauce and whatever toppings take our fancy. SO much cheaper and genuinely tastier.