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?

What does everyone do with their milk? 20 pints?

We are dh and dd1 and me, dd2 on way, I think we use about 6 to 8.

Think breakfast cereals must be route of all financial melt downs as I think they are way way over priced. Porridge in our house!!

We spend maybe £20 a week with occasional £50 blow outs.

I do the hand size portion thing, which makes the meat part of a meal about the size of say, a coaster. Soon makes meat cheaper and most packages of meat look incredibly huge.

Use approx 1/4 of all the recommended doses of cleaning/washing stuff to no ill efects.

We don't buy booze which makes us cheap too. And our loo roll is 49p for 4 instead of £2 or something - I just refuse to spend money wiping my bottom!!!

we easily spend over 150, me dh dd. probably 40 on wine alone, fruit is about 25 and meat/fish about 30.

I don't think it's a huge amount.

"I do the hand size portion thing, which makes the meat part of a meal about the size of say, a coaster. Soon makes meat cheaper and most packages of meat look incredibly huge."

That's very sensible. We eat far too much meat generally. I'm always trying to thin out the meat content.

Thank you MaryMotherofCheeses! I think it's right too, we were never meant to eat these amounts of meat. I asked my gran what kind of portions they had when she was in charge and took that into account too. Red meat in particular is know to play a role in many cancers.

And going on our evolution - we would have mainly lived on berries and cultivated vegtables - only meat when men returned from hunting with a feast of deer or something. Apart from that tiny rabbits, pigs etc.

So I'm not tight, I'm in tune with something or other!

I think the portion thing goes
claw hand size - veg
whole flat hand - carbs
palm - protein

Haven't read the whole thread, but I usually cook for 3 adults (my dad eats with us each night) and 3 children under 5, and I spend about £110/wk.

I meal plan, I don't throw food out, I cook from scratch. I shop at various different places to get the best prices (aldi for some things, tesco for others, get meat from the butcher's and fish from the fishmongers, go to markets etc) I don't see that I can spend much less unless I reduce the quantity or quality of food we eat.

To me, I would rather save money anywhere else before I cut the quality of food I feed my children- I like them to eat fish once a week (and they love it)- my fish bill alone is usually about £10. I prefer to get good quality meat at the local butcher, which is probably a bit more expensive than the deals from the supermarket, but at least I know where it is coming from. I like the kids to eat as much fruit as they want, and it isn't cheap. I plan to start growing my own veg next spring, but until then we only eat veg that is in season, or on offer at aldi. We go through a lot of milk too.

I don't understand why it seen as shocking that people spend this amount on food. We don't spend much on anything else- very rarely buy clothes for myself or DH, and if we do they are cheap/ second-hand. We sell stuff on ebay to finance any new purchases and we don't go out. I like to cook and I like my children to have a varied diet with good quality protein, so we make sacrifices in other areas. Food is our biggest expenditure in the month after our mortgage, but I don't think that is so terrible, as long as we aren't chucking stuff away or wasting it.

I think with food the principle should be to spend as much as you can afford. That is with the proviso that you are buying the basics, and not a load of expensive packaged products, and you are not throwing anything out. That is the principle I work on. Unfortunately, however, I have had to cut our food budget in real terms by about a third as prices have gone up and my income as gone down.

I think it's great to be able to shop around and buy one thing from here and another thing from there. That is the one thing that makes me envy SAHMs or part-time workers (are you?) because as a working mother I just don't want to spend my whole weekend food shopping. And I don't trust DH unfortunately, although he is getting better.

It's not shocking to me, just interesting.

Fruit is mad crazy expensive. Have gone feral and taken to picking apples. They taste much nicer.

picking nicking

But if no one else wants them.........

£400 a month though. Blimey.

We have a disposable income [to include food] of £300 so can't imagine spending that much on food alone.

Should say HAD dispposable. Redundancy yesterday reduces disposable income to approx -£200

Apple stew anyone?

We are pretty much spot on £100 a week for a familly of 6. It includes food ,toiletteries and nappies for DD4. We do not drink alcohol so can't save on that, and honestly, I do not think I could podssibly spend much less. Until recently, we used to spend more or less £300 for a month shopping it has gone up a lot in the last 6 month for similar trolley load. Apparrently prices are soon to fall down again or so I was told (not noticed it yet.)

Oh treedelivery - I'm sorry. (I nicked an apple from Tesco the other day )

Just re read Jooly's post, we have very similar spending habits. Have just calculated the amount spent on each of us for food per meal.
Monthly shop £400.--
take away about £40.-- for non food (nappies, shampoo...
It leaves £360.-- for food
360 : 30 days = £12.-- per day
12 : 3 meals = £4.-- per meal
4 : 6 member of family = just under 67p a head per meal

If anyone spends less I would welcome some tips.

Just a question as well, do you include the money you pay for school lunches in your food budjet ? (mine are on packed lunches)

This country is just too damn expensive for mass produced tasteless crap food.

I mean when did a tomato taste like a tomato anyway? And what happened to milk with the cream floating on it that birds used to peck the lids open for? Why do I have to buy uber expensive gold top if I want to give dd that? And what's happened to pears? Why can I get a lovely mango in November - but a basic pear is good for nothing but batting practice?

Pants.

Thanks twinklemegan x

treedelivery I read somewhere that asda are doing a petition to the governement to dramatically reduce the VAT on fruit and veg so there might be some hope, but I agree with you, it is a big chunk of our budjet, actually, for veg I tend to buy frozen now as Iwaste nothing that way and thereis no impact on nutricious value of veg.

There is no VAT on food already

I just googled this. The campaign is about VAT on fruit juices and smoothies.

Accordind to the Asda Magazine I have got burried somewhere under a lot of ather stuff trhere is and it is higher on fruit and veg than it is on frozen chips and cans of spaghetti I will try to dig .

Sorry, they want to cut VAT on smoothies, not fresh fruit.

www.thebabywebsite.com/article.1412.Asda_Call_for_Vat_Cut_on_Smoothies_and_Fruit_Juice.htm

My mistake.

Really? VAT on bloody apples. They grow wild if they are let!

I know people on certain benefits get £10 or something towards fruit and veg when pregnant or with young child. I could REALLY do with that.

Will stop hi jacking thread with my money worries now. Sorry!

Am feeling slightly guilty now as have been known to spend that amount quite regularly, but never in one hit - we tend to go to the supermarket 3-5 times a week (it is a 5 min walk away) and we buy the best we can, whenever we can. I am trying to train DH in the art of portion downsizing however, as he makes dinner and his portions are on the large side for both of us - but we manage to clean our plates, so we are eating too much (and feeling it in the waistband!).

Apart from petrol and DS's clothes, activities and occasional treats, it is about all we do spend money on though - no pub visits, no going out, rare takeaway meals - so it does fit into our "budget".

TD The only tomatoes that really taste like tomatoes are homegrown ones.

I think the only food that attracts VAT is food that is prepared (to be eaten) on premises that you buy it from, i.e. restaurants, sandwich bars etc.

Don't feel guilty - feel happy you can do it!! It's lovely you can and not your fault others can't.

Homegrown toms - that depends on the variety. If you grow Moneymakers they'll be almost as bland as the supermarket variety.

twinklemegan- yeah, I only work p/t so am fortunate enough to be able to shop around (my lovely butcher and fishmonger actually deliver my order to my work for free, which saves a lot of time!) I really only started shopping this way when I stopped working f/t after having dd1. I read that book, "Shopped", which really made me re-think my supermarket shopping and prompted me to use local sources and eat things in season.

I agree with twinklemum- it's rubbish that we can't get good, local and in-season produce at local supermarkets. When I think of the miles those strawberries currently in the shops have travelled, and how far they have come, and how long it's taken them, it explains why they just don't taste like the ones we get locally in the summer, and puts me right off buying them- and that's before I even get a chance to baulk at the price!

But I am hopeful that things are changing, slightly. I think the current financial climate might slowly turn the tide. And I am hoping (praying!) that food prices will start to come down as people tighten their belts and food retailers realise they need to do more to persuade us to part with our cash!