£250 a week on shipping. Is this nuts?

[Twobigsapphires]

The jury seems to be out amongst people I’ve spoken to (not many, basically my family). We are essentially now spending around £250 a week on the food shop (one main shop a week and one top up). Household consists of my and Dh, ds20, dd18 and ds16. Often ds1 gf will stay for dinner on a Sunday and one or two nights in the week. We have 2 dogs but Dh pays for their food separately.

shop covers park lunches for Dh and I plus ds1 and ds2. Dd I give an allowance too and she pays for lunch out of that. Also covers a couple of bottles a wine a week and household cleaning products and most essential toiletries (shower gel etc).

Dh thinks this is excessive, I think at £50 pp per week this is what it is. My dm said I should be aiming for £150 per week! Dsis says she spends around £150 per week on her food shop for her, Dh and two small dc (doesn’t include dinner money and her Dh buys lunch out each day).

what does the mums net verdict think?

1 adult 2 teens (80% of the time)
I spend between £50 and £80 a week.

Further to my previous post if I add in cleaning products and drinks it works out £58pp pw.

So I think you’re doing well OP.

You could easily have;

1kg pasta - £1.40
400g cheese - £2.60
Loaf of bread - 75p
Tin of beans - 30p
6 pints milk - £2.30
6 apples £.150
6 banana £1.20
1kg plain yoghurt £1.85
2 X tins tomato 75p
Onions 50p
Carrots 50p
1kg porridge oats 90p
Frozen mixed berries £3
Jacket potato 50p
Tin tuna £1
Spread £1.50
500g Pack of minced beef £3
6 X Eggs £1.59
And that's only c. £25.

And plenty for breakfast, sandwich, fruit, veg etc. With a few choices like porridge, toast, dippy eggs etc for breakfast. Make yourself currys/pasta dishes/toasties/jacket potato for dinners

You would be able to add in things like sauces, rice, pack of easy peelers, a few salad bits like cucumber, iceberg lettuce, salad tomatoes. The monthly bits like trea/coffee etc if you wanted for not much more to make up the extra £5.

So it's easily doable for £30 of you don't have expensive meat/fish/alcohol etc.

• prices based roughly on Aldi

@00100001 - that would be a pretty bland curry from your list. No rice, no yeast or flour to make naan or flat breads, no dried spices, no fresh ginger or garlic for flavour, no herbs, no protein like lentils/ chickpeas/ Paneer, no vegetables to go in curry ( bar one potato and carrots).

Sure you ‘can’ live off it, and it’s calories, but it’s not really a nice way to eat week in week out if you don’t have to.

Youtube Atomic Shrimp he does food budget challenge videos, those are interesting to see.

Rice is pennies.

Why would you need to make naan? Rice is plenty.

There's protein in the list, plus you still have £5 to buy chicken/lentils/paneer if you want As well as spices and any extra veggies.

Point is £30 is fine for a week and easily achievable.

It's those essentials that you need but don't think of when you mentally tot things up though isn't it, like mayonnaise for the jacket potato with tuna, stock cubes and herbs for the spag bol, spices for the curry, rice to go with it, cooking oil etc.

I buy a kg of crunchy peanut butter every week. And about 35 bananas, 45 eggs, 6 or 7 loaves of bread. When I was ill recently my husband and the kids kept up with all the big stuff but we ran out of mustard and turmeric and marmalade and loads of little bits and bobs.

Yes, but that is what the £5 a week extra is for isn't it... One week you might spend 90p on some mayo, £2 on some salad bits, 80p on some flour, £1 on stock cubes. Some of which will last more than a week.The next week you might spend, £1 on curry powder, £1 on peanut butter and 80p on jam.etc

@00100001 I spend about £8 a week on peanut butter

The joy of teenagers

@00100001 - might be for you, we would usually make roti or naan with curry as well. And I would always add some kind of protein. Ie chickpea, spinach and potatoe curry. Maybe lentil Dahl with it also.

Rice isn’t pennies here, it’s €6.99 for 1kg locally. £5 spare wouldn’t get us much at all. Milk is now €1.80 a litre, we use about 4-5 a week. So €10 on milk.

Well, we're clearly talking about different currencies and countries so... Why are you comparing the prices?

Rice here is £1.50 kg.

And even if you must have naan again, flour isn't exactly expensive. It's 80p for 1.5kg. So you'd still be able to have extra carbs on top of your rice if you really wanted with the £5 each week "spare".

Does the food get eaten or are you chucking stuff out each week?

Are your food cupboards bursting?

I accept that this could be a list for a week, but it is all the extras that add up. You have not included spices for a curry, which are expensive, vegetable oil, for frying the onion, rice, spread for toast or syrup for porridge. There is no tea and coffee on the list. I am thinking that all these extras will cost far more than £15, a week.

2 adults, 1 teen adult sized, 1 child, 1 medium sized dog. The humans are veggie, the dog definitely isn’t. £500 mth inc cleaning stuff, bathroom etc. Lunches generally leftovers for adults - when bought are extra to the grocery’s. Kid’s school dinners also extra.
we are pretty frugal but do buy crisps, snacks etc

Yes, tea and coffee can easily cost a tenner by themselves

And someone must be buying all the condiments the supermarkets sell or there wouldn't be so many of them. I don't buy ketchup myself but it is a horrifying price if your family like the branded one. I myself much prefer Branston pickle to any other I've tried.

My husband would like me to add that adult/teenage males who are growing, have physical jobs or do sport or exercise probably need 75-150g of protein a day and 500g of mince contains about 70g of protein.

To me that's a lot but I don't have £250 pw to spend on food. I think your income is relevant in that if you don't have that much money, there's no possible way to spend that amount.
I have three adults, ds16, ds11, dd9 and spend £100 pw but from that my freezer is full so I might not spend £100 one or two weeks a month and just top up. £80-90 does us. No alcohol, only mine and ds11 lunches. Snacks are possibly 12 packs of Crisps and 10 freddos. Loo roll and detergent etc is two monthly from Costco at £200. I only buy one or two cleaning products maybe less than every three months. But that's my budget and live comfortably within in it

My kids take a packed lunch because school dinners were costing £300 a month, were not nutritious and also not filing enough. (3 children) so everyone's lunches are included in our food bill.

A lot depends where you shop as well, I have online ordering set up for Tesco and a monthly off peak delivery cost, so I use them often.

I went to Aldi today and got a huge amount of groceries for £50, including a large tray of chicken breasts, two bags of filter coffee and 15 free range eggs. I don't want to list it all out, but I can see if we did all our shopping at Aldi we would probably save £15-20 per week.

I shop at Aldi, and Lidl, and Tesco, and Iceland, and a local fruit and veg stall, and a local bakery, and the refill shop. and Waitrose and Sainsbury's.

Some shops have the best price on particular items and some have the best quality. And some are the only place that sells a particular item.

We do the bills for PIL's live-in carer. We are asked to provide £40 per week for her food. So I think you are pretty near the norm at the moment, as that doesn't cover toiletries or cleaning materials.