Is £150/£160 per week too much for shopping for a family of 4 (2 adults, 4 year old and 1 year old and 2 dogs)?

[Biosblbay]

My husband thinks that I spend too much on food shopping, this is including absolutely everything, toiletries, formula, nappies, dog food, food, wine etc. I’ve worked out in average we do about £150-£160 a week on food shopping, so works out about £650 a month. I always shop at Asda and I get online delivery as I work full time and have 2 young children and my husband is rarely home so it just saves me so much time. He reckons if he shops at Lidl and gets the named brand stuff we get like the formula and nappies from Morrisons that he can save us a ton of money but I don’t think he will. I think most places are expensive these days and this is an average amount.

Curious to know what people think and how much other families with children spend per week/ month on shopping.

This!

I feel for you. I was in a similar boat 10yrs ago. My former husband said the same, I just ignored him. He worked long days never home before 11pm because his work day included networking (at the pub), his only task was to put his dinner plate in the dishwasher and switch it on, which he failed miserably at most nights, but couldn't understand why he stopped getting any dinner.

As others have said your DH is not making like for like comparisons. The products are usually smaller. e.g. loo rolls the centre cardboard is bigger, bags are same size but the content weight changed. The time and effort required to keep checking would be more costly.

Others have said to make it his task, if your DH is reliable and would do it then crack on. But in my experience I was on the receiving end of weaponised incompetence - he just wouldn't do it 'too busy' and every excuse you've ever heard of - net result I was left high and dry.

When people, often men, don't do the food shopping regularly they have no idea. We are a family of four and spend a minimum of 200 a week. Long gone are the days when you could have a trolley loaded to the top for 70 quid.

I’ll be watching this thread so please come back to us with an update. Challenge on! I don’t think that’s very high, especially with nappies etc plus the convenience of an online shop.

We’ve got a 2&3 year old and spend less than £100 each week at Lidl, we don’t have formula but have nappies for the youngest. He might have a point but I would say we don’t have a huge variety, we buy mainly the budget brands and I sometimes do top up shops for fruit and milk (luckily my kids love apples/bananas/oranges at the minute and we buy frozen berries mainly). We also get point with Lidl so I do find it works out quite cheap. We don’t factor alcohol into this and any weekend treats are also separate, so potentially not much in it to be honest! Please come back and tell us how he gets on 😁

Sounds reasonable to me we are a family of 5 with 3 young kids 5 and under and our weekly shop is about £120-£150 plus little runs to the shop when we run out of milk etc. We don’t go cheap, we go normal with a good blend of supermarket brands and branded things. We always shop at sainsbury's.

Nappies are very cheap unless you choose to buy pampers/huggies etc.

We buy sainsburys own brand and currently my 8 month old is in Size 4: 44 nappies for £2.79, which will last a week.

We spend the same (maybe nearer £160) have 4 adults (2 DSs are young adults) and a teenager. And 2 dogs. We do shop at aldi, eat mainly from scratch, not much meat, eat in season and buy discounted stuff to freeze where possible.

I think it is really good! Let your husband do it for 3 months or so (not just a week or two because once in a while he might pick up bargains or not need to replace nappies or cleaning products which brings the average down) and he will see that keep the shopping down to the amount you have, over a consistent period, is actually difficult and impressive given the cost of living.

I don’t envy you the first 2 or 3 weeks when he will go out of his way to keep the cost low and likely gloat…

@Biosblbay you are certainly not overspending at all! In fact that’s very good value for a family of 4 and 2 dogs! Does your DH not realise that EVERYTHING has gone up in price and things like nappies, wipes, toiletries and dog food are expensive. If he’s going to be doing the shopping then he needs to understand that he needs to be on top of it constantly and that you cannot run out of anything with small children. There’s no way he’s going to save more than about 20 quid if even that. I bet you’ll be back to your usual routine or ordering online within weeks!

I think with nappies and formula that is very good. My shop was higher when I was buying those. I spend the same for 2 x adults 2 x teens 2 x cats and yes it feels extortionate as a couple of years ago it was £120 but that’s just life unfortunately.

Let him shop at Lidyl , If he proves a point , he can continue ... bet he soon gets fed up !

I did something similar when ExH was complaining about how much I spent on food. He took my debit card away and gave me £60 to buy groceries for 2 adults and a toddler in night nappies.

I bought as normal for me (prefer little to no meat and DD whilst he was bought the very cheapest food I could find. Example, the cheapest frozen sausages for him and nice sausages bought from the butcher for DD.
Snacks and dessert - he declared none of us needed so I'd hide them in my car.

He seems to have reverted to type post divorce and eats the very cheapest food with no snacks. It doesn't stop him visiting my snack cupboard on his way out of my home or eating his fill if invited to join us. I send DD to his home with a packed lunch, which he has had to have instructions that it is not to share with him.

Has your hubby been shopping recently? I presume not as he has no idea how expensive shopping is now. Sounds about right tbh. We spend about £100 a week, 2 adults, cat and a tortoise. We do have some little luxuries in there though, like at the moment Kent cherries are out, those are expensive!

If he wants to waste his weekend going from shop to shop to save any pennies, leave him to it. He'll soon get bored.

We're a family of three with no pets. We spend around an average of £90-100 a week on food only.

To be fair my OH and I don't eat breakfast but our 9 year old obviously does. We eat berries most days - I try to eat plenty of protein and fibre and am currently obsessed with cottage cheese with vanilla, chopped strawberries and blueberries. We don't drink.

We shop weekly in aldi, regularly in costco (crisps, meats, babybels, pepperamis, etc). But I will also pop into farmfoods (mccains 10 for £10) and every other supermarket if they have deals that I want to pick up. I don't find the fruit and veg in our most local lidl is any good unless it's going to be used that day. The one further away is OK, but obviously that's another 5-10 minutes driving to get there.

And, fwiw, I find morrisons dearer than asda anyway.

What the actual?! 🤯

Thank goodness he's an ex! Though he'd be getting drop kicked if he thought he was going anywhere near the snack cupboard.

Imagine having to be told you've not to eat your kid's food 🙈

Solution let him do the what are we having and the shopping for a couple of weeks.
I have been ill and my husband has done all the shopping. He is amazing but never looks atvthe price ot anything!!😂

I cannot get our weekly shop below £150. This week we spent £180. We do an online delivery from Sainsbury’s for time saving reasons and utilise Nectar points/prices and the cheapest delivery slot. We are also a family of four with a five week old baby (so also in the nappies stage), a three year old and a cat! I was irritated recently when a family member looked aghast when I told him what we spend. Many people are out of touch with the cost of things, although I accept in our case there might be cheaper supermarket options. Solidarity!

We're two adults (1 wfh all the time, 1 hybrid), a 4yo (has lunch at school) and a 1yo (combi of nursery and grandparents), no pets. We shop at Asda and spend between £100 & £150 a week depending on what we're doing, whether we're topping up on staples or if we need things like loo roll/dishwasher tablets etc which push the shop up. So I think it's reasonable.

Well done! This is 100% the solution ... I make my DH do more of the food shopping every time he questions how much I've spent on groceries and other basic household items ... it usually solves the problem

My solution for this was to make him come with me.
It did actually sink in that fairly modest food ( chicken, sausages and mince rather than salmon and steak) did cost £150 a week for 3 adults and the mutt.

We spend more like £220 a week for a family of 4. I spend about £180 on the main shop, then DH tops us up on a Saturday morning and spends roughly £40. We could spend less, we mostly shop at Sainsbury's but I like the food we get so wouldn't change it unless necessary. I suspect your DH is in for a shock if he hasn't been responsible for food shopping for a while, your budget sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Let him get on with it if he wants to do it himself though, he'll soon find out!

Totally reasonable

That's reasonable. It's so expensive now. There doesn't seem to be a massive difference between supermarkets either.

@Swissmeringuewe are the same - around £200 per week for breakfasts, packed lunches, evening meal and snacks! More if there’s wine or beer to be ordered and not including cat food!