Is £100 a week really seen as a lot to spend on food a week?

[sweetkitty]

Honestly was looking at "that" thread and the OP was being slated for spending £100 on food.

I have nowhere near that amount of income but still spend £95 a week on an online shop and top up during the week fruit etc of about £10, I am always looking for ways of reducing it.

I have me, DP, DD1 4, DD2 3 and DD3 4 months so one in night nappies, one in full nappies, oh 3 cats that need food and cat litter a week.

I use Tesco own label wherever possible including nappies and wipes
I have stopped buying Organic chicken (£9 for a chicken) but buy one £3.79 chicken but it does DP and the DDs 2 dinners
I'm veggie
I BF so no formula
I buy all own label cleaning products and use sparingly
we buy 20 pints of milk a week and 4 loaves of bread thats about £10 in itself
DP takes sandwiches to work so already saves money that way
fruit is a big one for eg we each have a banana a day thats 28 bananas a week!!
I usually have to back through the Tesco order and take things off so that it stays at £95 and the cupboards are empty on the day before Tesco arrives

So I guess I'm asking AIBU in thinking thats not really a lot for 5 people?

I've just been through my online bank account to work out what we spend on food these days. I'm to admit I don't really follow too closely, but try and make sure to buy own brands and things that are on offer.

So there's me and dh, and ds who's 14 months so full time in nappies...

In october we spent £363.88 on food
In November we spent £308 on food

Not too terrible but I'm sure there are savings there to be made. I do try and meal plan as much as possible, but much of my meal planning happens in the supermarket.

To me food is more important than other things, I'd rather have shabby clothes than eat mega cheap meat for example. I'm not buying chickens that are hand reared on fluffy cushions, but I'm not getting some dodgy 50p chicken from Bulgaria either.

I shop a lot of the time at Waitrose/Ocado, with top ups from the Somerfield in our road so I guess we do get some balance on the expensive/cheap front.

we are two adults one small child and spend about £100 a week. that includes all adult meals - ds eats lunch with cm during the week - and booze. i think it is pretty good.

i do eat far more cheaply when not at work, more likely to have beany stew things instead of expensive meat in sandwiches.

£15 for cats my three eat Tesco Crunchies about £4 for a huge bag probably lasts them about a month, Value cat litter for pooing in. They do get a tin of Sheab from santa though.

We don't have many ready meals but I do tend to use a fair bit of Quorn but can get 2-3 dinners out a pack.

We spend £40 a week - I obsessively budget and we have a lot of smart price stuff. (2 adults, a 5y/o, a 2 y/o, and a cat - still needing litter box ).

"
DD1 loves strawberries but they are £3 a pack right now, it's depressing when you just do fruit and veg and it's £20."

i love strawberries too. so do both my kids. but at that price they go without! doesn't hurt them to ahve something else instead.
this is the kind of thing where we cut down.
I buy seasonal fruit, or stuff that is on offer.
you don't have to have your favourite stuff every week.

Last week i spent £32

This week £26
there is me, dh &ds who is 5.

I do not spend more than £40 a weeek on food.

I meal plan each week

buy food only on the list.

I get washing powder/cleaning stuff/toothpaste etc from B&M bargains muchly cheepo.
I got 2 big tubes of colgate for 50p each because the box they were in was damaged.

I dont think that i have ever spent £100 in a week on food shopping but then im tight and we are skint!

we spend loads on food, I dread to think. It must be more than £100. but it's one area I'm not too bothered about tbh, we can afford it and don't spend much on anything else at all. I like eating

deanychip I have started sticking to a shopping list as well, spend less and much less waste.

Actually the local Asda do a smaller pack at £2 and have been getting them and she's only been getting them about 3 days a week. I like them to have a large variety of fruit but things like blueberries at £3 a pack are just too expensive.

I am dreading it when DD3 starts to be weaned and will be having loads of fruit too, it's the fruit that does it. I have spotted a fruit stall up town now may think of using it for a few weeks see if theres any difference.

just to add though, we do not drink, clothes are only bought for birthdays, occasionally if very VERY reduced i buy clothing for ds. I cant remember the last time i bought myself something to wear.

gemmiegoatlegs - you say you're at a loss to know how to cut down. Cut out the unseasonal fruit, ready made food from the chiller, bought quiche and rice puddings for a start!

These will be costing you a fortune.

Buy seasonal fruit/veg and make stuff yourself. It is a fraction of the cost and will taste so much better.

I posted on that "other" thread

we are 2 adults, 2 dc

I spend £100 at supermarket each week

then about another £20-30 weekly on top-up bread, milk, fruit, veg etc

food is expensive, no two ways about it

I remember when DP and I were students we used to spend £15 a week on food (OK 12 years ago) we lived on 49p pizzas, pasta n sauce, supernoodles and toast, basic chips and 12p bread.

Hang on - maybe £15 for the cats was a bit of an exaggeration! They can't eat dried food because one of them throws it up as soon as she's eaten it - but they do eat 3 pouches each a day - that's a box every 2 days - that's 3 and a bit boxes a week - so £10ish. Is that a lot? How can I make them cut down?

I buy the reduced bread and then it goes into the freezer and only take it out as i use it for sandwiches or toast. 2 loaves last me a week and a half.

I get supermarkets own brand on lots of stuff.
make double meals and freeze half, so that we can "eat out of the freezer" once a week.

Our absolute budget is £60 a week for me, DH, DS (2) and 2 cats. That includes all household stuff, nappies etc., cat food and cat litter.

It's not much fun though. Frequently by the end of the month we are making do with very little in the fridge and cupboards. Pesto pasta again anyone? I make virtually everything from scratch, including making bread by hand, but that can cause a problem when I'm ill and there's very little ready made food in the house.

I am conscious that DS doesn't get as balanced a diet as he should. In particular it is hard to get enough fruit and veg, partly due to the expense of fruit and partly because there is nowhere local that I can buy it. So topping up on fresh fruit & veg requires a special 30 mile round trip to Tesco to buy cold storage, imported rubbish. That irritates me more than anything I think.

Well, I reckon I spend about £35 a week on food for me and the kids.

But ds1 has free school dinners.

They both only have toast with peanut butter for breakfast, cereal is a bit of a treat.

Ds2 is 2 and appears to photosynthesise.

And I don't, as a rule, buy crisps, sweets, cakes, chocolate bars/biscuits, weird pulped fruit items, expensive cuts of meat, beef, lamb, branded food and convenience food bar oven chips.

Typically for the week I will buy
1 packet dried egg noodles - £1
1 packet value spaghetti - 0.30
1 carton passata - 0.40
1 bag value grated cheddar (byfar the cheapest way to buy cheese and it's nice) - 1.99
1 small chicken - 3.00
1 packet rib chips - 2.50
1 packet stewing steak - £2.50
12 eggs - 2.00
4 loaves of bread - 2.50
10 pints of milk - 5
2 heads of broccoli - 1.50
1 cabbage - 0.60p
1 box mushrooms - 0.60
big bag carrots - 1.50
big bag potatoes - 1.50
1 tub marge - 0.70
6 chocolate mousses - 0.40
1 packet of nappies - 4.00
2 packets of wipes - 2.00
1 jar peanut butter - 0.80
then fruit - 4.00

Which I make to come to under £35. And apart from the odd bit of topping up (salt, vinegar, garlic, mint sauce, gravy granules, flour etc), that's all I spend and none of us are ever hungry.

So it's not that your shopping is excessive - I don't think it is, certainly, but I do find that men are expensive things to feed. They eat a lot and they always want things like thick cut ham, and expensive sausages, and steak, and beer.

Seeker - can't you buy cans instead of pouches? It's pounds cheaper. If ours got to the stage they would only eat pouches they'd be going hungry I'm afraid.

And I NEVER buy out of season fruit. Apart from the expense - think of the air miles and the water consumption. And (ponce alert) I like the idea of the dcs understanding seasonality "Mummy, I love strawberries' "Yes, so do I - won't it be lovely when they're ripe again and we can have some"

My cats throw up after dried or canned, more after canned actually, Agree cans would be more cheaper supermarket own label too.

I used to work in the food industry maybe thats my undoing so I know exactly what goes into a lot of foods so would never buy cheap processed cheese or wafer thin ham for example.

Don't know how you can only spend £4 on fruit, if we all have a basic apple and banana a day thats 28 apple and bananas a week, I often don't have fruit though.

Colditz - you are so right about men being expensive to feed. I would quite happily survive on a lot less than we have, as long as DS was alright. In fact I will quite often skip meals to make the food last longer (I don't tell DH that though).

But DH has to have jam for his toast, he has to have cold meat for sandwiches, he gets through enough coffee in a week to supply a small country (I do insist on it being own brand instant though), and he usually eats two bowls of cereal a day. He's an expensive mouth to feed that's for sure. But then he's in our freezing cold house all day with DS, either that or working outside in freezing temperatures, so I guess he needs the fuel.

i must be extra bllody tight fisted me!

I rarely bought baby wipes either, i bought a cheep packets of 10 face cloths and used them and bungged them in the wash.
i bought big packs of cheep cotton wool and wet wads and used them for bum wiping.

Asdas own nappies.

bags of frozen veg.

in sept we go balckberry picking, get windfallen apples off friends and neighbours, boil them up and freeze them in batches. they last me bout 4 months through winter.

tighghghghgt arse!!!

If you like summer fruits in winter, what about frozen ones? They're generally cheaper, keep for ages obivously and are much more environmentally friendly. I sometimes sprinkle a few raspberries and strawberries on to ds' morning porridge, don't even need to defrost them. They're lovely on icecream too.

I agree about cheap processed foods. I would rather go without than buy much of the cheap food on offer. You only have to read the labels to be put right off. I guess some people really do have no choice though, which is sad. The principle in our house, in the main, is real food and real ingredients.

Baby wipes are my luxury. But I walk all over town to find a shop selling either pampers sensitive or huggies pure on BOGOF, because ds2 has such a rashy bum, and I have sensitive hands