Tesco say we spend 9-10% of our income on food

[Snog]

On the BBC Sunday morning show today the Tesco boss said that people in the UK spend 9-10% of their income on food. My family spends more like 18-20% of our income on food.

Does 9-10% fit with your family spending on food?

@FourTeaFallOut

Way more than 10%! We have three kids, including two unfillable teens, a coeliac and an extremely picky eater.

That's pretty much our position too. We spend more on food than we do on our mortgage

We spend around £120 a week on food which is about 28% of our household income.

I spend so much at Tesco I really should buy shares!

Ours is around 20% but we are low earners in a one income family. Luckily, our other essential expenses are low. Very low mortgage (approx 7%) and a new house with good insulation means fairly low energy bills too.

Average (median) take home wage is £611 per week, or approximately £31,772 p.a.

Does that mean the average person spends £60ish on food per week?

Does that mean the average person spends £60ish on food per week?

Only if they aren't feeding their kids

www.nimblefins.co.uk/average-uk-household-cost-food

Way, way less than 10% of take home for 2 adults, 2 teens. A mixture of having a comfortably large income, and being quite a savvy shopper/capable cook/no fussy eaters or allergies to accommodate.

Less than that. But there are only 3 of us, DH gets his lunch free at work and DD has 3 meals a day plus snacks at nursery 4 days a week. We definitely spend more than we should by buying too much pre-prepared, takeaway etc and not planning well and that’s something to tackle this year.

Easily 25% for us. We are above average earners. That includes lots of wine and takeaways though

Less than that in the supermarket, more if you count eating out/takeaways. But we're still adjusting to having a new baby, allergies and a fussy older child so relying on takeaways more than we should.

But I no longer live in the UK and I have to say food in the UK is cheaper than anywhere else I've ever lived or even visited. I really worry about what will happen when prices go up as it feels massively unsustainable given the other pressure points.

Yes for shopping only. Take always and eat out on top.

Yes about 10% but that includes extravagant food purchases and takeaways. If it were just weekly normal food shops it would be around 5%.

I've just worked it out and it's 7% for us, though that doesn't include eating out. Food doesn't feel like one of the really big bills that worry us - it's half what we spend on childcare and a third of our mortgage, so they're the big beasts of our budget.

About 20-25%. Family of 5 including 1 special diet, 2 growing pre-teens and only one income. Luckily our mortgage is small!

That's probably right for us £500 a month in food is just under 10% of our income.

We spend around £120pw on all grocery shopping. This is around 15% of our take home pay.

6-10%, but we are higher earners. We try not to eat out much, I buy all organic and cook from scratch most of the time. Probably spend around £150 a week. Sometimes more. That doesn’t include toiletries and cleaning products etc.

Ours is probably more like 15% and about 18% if you include takeaways and eating out and we earn quite a lot.

We earn quite a lot and are vegetarian but we do buy locally produced farm eggs, a local veg box, have local bottled milk and good quality bread delivered and use a Gousto box most weeks which all adds up to quite a lot on top of the Tesco order. We could save considerably on food if we wanted to to or needed to but we are in the privileged position of not needing to

Food would usually be the last thing I cut down on anyway. Everyone always says it is where they save money first but for me it is so essential to eat well and it comes before most other things. I know I am in a privileged position but I would always try and cut back on everything else before saving on food.

Is it bad I have no idea?! I mean I have a neat banking app that I could use to work out my annual shopping bill to then drill down and see but I’m fortunate enough that I don’t need to know if that makes sense. Comfortable, although careful with spending on everything, not just food shopping. At a rough guess, I’d say maybe 12%?

Surely the % depends as much upon how many people you're feeding, whether you're remembering to include all food eaten outside the house by all family members, and more than anything what sort and quality of food you're buying and from where.

Anyone only spending a tiny percent of their income to feed multiple older children and two adults must be leaving out food eaten outside the home or buying cheap food - the second of which is unusual as most people do buy better quality if they can afford to - or be earning not just 100k pre tax but closer to double that...

Or some people are giving the % of their gross income where most people are giving the% of net income.

Food is a weird place to choose to scrimp if you can afford not to, especially if you're feeding children and teens who most people want to give good quality food.

15% 3 hungry t(w)eens

It varies so much because it's a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string question'.

Everyone has different budgets, preferences and priorities. If you're spending 20% of your income on food, it's likely that you're either on a low income, or there's a lot of luxury in your budget, that you could reduce if you wanted to.

Yes, at least 10%. We’re a fairly high income family but always try to buy high quality food, organic meat from the local farm shop etc and don’t scrimp on food. Plus there are 5 of us.

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme but if you eat mostly seasonal vegetarian fresh food, it doesn't cost very much, even if you buy organic, so it's not necessarily low quality if you're spending a small percentage of your money on food.