How much do you spend on food every month?

[MixedFamily]

Where do you shop and what are you food habits like? Do you eat out a lot, do you meal prep?
We are a family of 3 and spend around £400 a month in food (Sainsburys, Tesco and Waitrose) but DD eats most meals in nursery and DH and I are in the office 3 days a week and tend to buy lunch out (a bad habit we are determined to cut). We have a meal out once a week or so, like a brunch or a pizza.
Our fridge is never that full although we never go without anything but I wonder what everyone’s shopping/food habits are like.
We usually just have the essentials at home and weekly ingredients for some key meals but we very rarely keep lots of treats/drinks and nice things stocked up, for example.

Family of four adults and one cat, £1100 per month plus two takeaways a month and about 8 meals out per month for two of the adults.

900 - family of 3
Don't ask me why
a very long list of my relatives special preferences
I thrive on bread, cheese and tomatoes

Two adults, one preschooler.

We spend between £80-120/month.
£15 veg box
£30 posh chicken and meat lasts a fortnight
The rest at Morrisons

And budgets and priorities to balance with how much is left for non essentials.

I genuinely can’t comprehend how you could feed 3 people everything they consume in a month on £80-120.

I track every penny spent, 2 adults and 2 children - 4 and 18 months. We generally spend either £550 or £700 or food per month looking back at the last 6 months, and this must depend on number of weekends as that's when I shop. This includes bappies, cleaning products and all top ups and individual items like a bottle of coke or loaf of bread. Eating out between £20 and £100 per month includes all non supermarket items, I.e. coffees, cakes, meals, takeaways.

I'm always sceptical of those who quote their main shop as I try not to top up but actually spend quite a bit on it

£95-100 per week here, family of 4 (age 1 and 4). That includes all household and personal care sundries, lunches.

Low UPF family, cook from scratch, DH WFH, kids eat lunch at nursery 2d/week. Eat out as a family couple of times a month.

Ditto this for a family fo five with 3 young kids. Every so often I try to move away from Ocado and it’s always more expensive (I don’t rate the local Lidl for fresh fruit and veg)

That's because it's impossible. It's a typo and should say per week of course. Sorry for the confusion.

£1K per month, family of 5.

£8-900 pm family of 5. Shop in aldi never eat out or get take aways. Try not to eat prepped frozen oven food. Argh!

I hate these threads as I genuinely don’t understand how we spend so much more than others. We easily spend £1000 a month, two adults, two teenagers, a (big) dog, two cats, cook pretty much everything from scratch, both adults wfh and the teens take in food so it is ALL meals and includes cat litter and toiletries etc not just food. We do have a weekly veg box but that’s only £12 and we eat mainly vegan (but not fake meats) or vegetarian. If DH and DD have meat or fish we do buy as humane and organic and local as possible which pushes up the price. I think we all just snack too much and get through so much fresh fruit. I predominantly shop at Tesco and Lidl except for the meat and fish. Sainsburys is so expensive

@Citygirlrurallife

You've answered your own question there.

Many people aren't buying organic meat and 'so much fresh fruit', either because they simply can't afford these things or would rather spend less so they have room in their budget for other things.

At the risk of over simplifying, it could be that someone with £1000 available for food and holidays would spend £800 on cheaper groceries so they can afford a holiday instead £1000 on groceries and not be able to afford a holiday.

You could spend less but it would mean reducing your expensive meat, fish and fresh fruit.

Also how much are you spending on toiletries? Basic ones cost virtually nothing so likely you're choosing more expensive types than others.

£360 food and household items per month for 2 adults. We meal plan, shop once a week mainly at Lidls followed by Morrisons to get what we can't get it Lidls. We eat well but we don't drink more than 1 bottle of wine a week. This also includes light lunches.

£800 per month. 2 adults, 2 teen boys. Includes toiletries etc and all lunches (several of which will be 'meal deal' type things), dinners are cooked from scratch. Very little alcohol.

We have a couple of takeaways a month but this we budget separately.

About £800 a month. We shop at Waitrose but we get a weekly UK only veg box from Able and Cole, we buy our meat from Piper's Farm and get our milk from a local milk station.

We deat about a 90% ultra processed food free diet which really increases the costs even though we mainly cook from scratch. We rarely eat out or have take aways.

About £300 a month for 2 adults and 3 young children. Tesco, everything cooked from scratch. Very rarely eat out or have takeaway, maybe a handful of times a year.

No idea to be honest. I shop as and when nowadays as our family needs have changed so much in the last year or so. DD went off to uni, DS spends most weekends at his friends so I don't see him from Friday night to Sunday evening. DH is travelling with work a lot.

I would say if I do a weekly shop the cost for 3 of us is about £70 then we eat out once a week which costs about £60.

When everyone is here (during uni holidays for example) the cost is probably double that.

@Bjorkdidit Also how much are you spending on toiletries? Basic ones cost virtually nothing so likely you're choosing more expensive types than others.

I wouldn’t say toiletries for basically 4 adults costs virtually nothing. Toothpaste, toothbrushes/ heads, shampoo, conditioner, several types of face wash, 4 deodorants, shower gel, moisturiser, hand soap is a fairly basic list and the cost definitely adds up for 4 people.

But the standard versions of those items are £1/2 each and wouldn't need buying every week, so you've got £20 a month at most. So fairly trivial within a grocery budget of hundreds of pounds.

If you're spending more than that, it's because you're choosing more expensive versions. Which is fine if you can afford it, and also the reason why you spend more than others. People who spend less on groceries achieve this by buying mostly lower priced items.

£1000, family of five (4 adult sized, 1 preteen) plus a dietary restriction in the mix

@Bjorkdidit yes I agree re where my money is going but there was another thread recently where people seemed to be spending £60 a week and only buying organic meat though so I think that’s where I get confused. We only buy basic toiletries and own brand (more because I don’t see the point in buying other stuff, there’s no difference!) and I get cleaning stuff in bulk usually

Too much, about £900 for 2 adults and 2 hollow legged teenagers. That includes all meals, we rarely eat out or get a takeaway due to the cost and the fact that we’re usually disappointed, I do meals that we’d choose if we ate out at beefeater/harvester at home on Saturdays instead of that makes sense. We cook from scratch aside from having maybe a packed of frozen fish every few weeks. We have meat most days and shopping includes about 10 beers a week for dp and chocolate for me. We do like a lot of branded goods, although there are a few bits of own brands we eat.

We spend about £1200 a month for a family of 5. I do buy good quality food and generally get meat from the butchers but still can't quite get my head around what we spend!

I honestly think it’s probably £1k or maybe more.