Stupid food bills

[sheard]

I'm a family of three plus animals struggling to do food shop on less that hundred per week it's killing me!!!

Three adult appetites? Is that £100 also covering school lunches?

I spend £40 a week on 1 adult and 1 10yo.

We eat easy food -fish fingers, sausages, basic pizza 3 nights a week, and home cooked the rest - pasta carbonara, shepherds pie, pork chops etc. I don’t buy wine and few brands.

With plenty of veg & fruit, it adds up.

Ages? How many animals? Hat type of animals?

How much are you spending each on humans and pets?

Where do you shop? I find big supermarkets way more expensive. Do you do top up shops? They eat up the money too.

I’ve had same conversation in my house recently, 2 adults, 1 child and 3 dogs, can’t get bill below £90.
Food shopping has gone up massively, just this week the supermarket own brand toilet roll has gone up 35p!?!?
If everything goes up 10-35p that can be £5-10 a week extra on your shopping.
Crazy

You need to sit and break it down.

What’s animals.

Does it include lunches and cleaning stuff.

Are you shopping at Aldi / Lidl.

Dry food with a smaller amount of wet food alongside it is cheaper for cats/dogs.

We need a lot more info.

I don't have pets so can't help there, but we are pescatarians and this has a huge effect on our food bill compared to when we ate a completely omnivore diet.

We all eat vegetarian food using chickpeas, lentils, pulses most of the week. I use Quorn mince (which is cheaper than meat) mixed with lentils to make lots of freezable portions of Bolognese sauce.

Once a week DH and I eat some kind of fish fillet, and the kids will have a tuna or tinned salmon Pasta bake.

What food do you like to eat, what do you like to cook?

Is there any food that the family will not eat?

Do you pack lunches for work or school?

Do you eat meals without meat?

There are 5 of us and I've found that I can do a food shop of around £70 a week but that's only if we don't have any treats - crisps, booze, chocolate etc. So that's just meals, packed lunches and fruit.

How many, and what, animals?

Do you eat mostly veg or lots of meat? You can bulk out meals with veg and lentils/beans and use much less meat.

If you list what you are buying we can probably suggest ideas to cut costs.

One dog one car on dry food mostly shop at asda or aldi and animals on dry food if we skint xx
Prices have rocketed

What kind of things are you eating. What does a typical week of eating look like for you guys? I am spending max of £80 a week for food and most toiletries and home things. We shop at Lidl and am feeding me, dh, 10,6&5 year olds and a small dog (she gets homemade food)

You need to feed the animals home made food I think. Might be cheaper. Also, not being funny, but if you’re struggling financially you need to consider whether having pets will work long term. Priority should be the humans.

Try buying a lot of frozen stuff, frozen fish and vegetables are great to have on hand for healthy meals when you've run out of fresh stuff.
Also get frozen fruits instead of fresh and put them on porridge or in smoothies for breakfast.

You'll find a lot of meatless meat options are still delicious and protein filled but not as expensive as proper meat!

Buy own brand stuff too, like shower gels, soap etc.

X

Do you buy things like prewashed carrots/potatoes/sliced mushrooms etc? These can be quite expensive. Frozen berries are great for smoothies etc (if you eat them).