How much is your weekly food bill? (Bl**dy dh!)

[AmandaP]

Sorry but I'm mad now! We're a family of four (the kids are 9 and 7), and my husband has had a go at me for the weekly shop averaging about ?75. To me that doesn't seem that outrageous - the kids seem to have hollow legs, dh himself eats a vast amount, and whilst we don't live on beans on toast every day, we certainly don't eat lobster and caviar on a daily basis either. I try and buy organic fruit, veg and meat where possible, and we grow some of our own fruit and veg as well. We do live in a very expensive part of the south east and I guess food prices may differ?

I just thought I would take a straw poll and see how much, roughly, other MNers were spending on their food shopping.

(At the root of this, I suspect, is the fact that my husband has never forgiven me for having a breakdown and for no longer being able to be the breadwinner so that he has to work full-time... but that's going into real ranting territory and I'm not ready for that yet!!!)

I spend 80 a week on shopping and there are 3 of us in the house! I am buying nappies and formula aswell. I wouldnt consider it a huge amount.

£75 doesn't sound bad at all - ours is more than that, mainly because of the organic produce as you say.

Frankly if dh thinks he can do better, challenge him to buy the weekly shop - to the same standard, for less.

Tell him todo the shopping for a month and see how he gets on.

Weekly shop for me, dh and a one year old, plus 2 cats, for food and other household stuff like loo rolls and shampoo etc costs us £45-£55 I woudl say, depending on how many things we have run out of in the last week.

100 for two adults and 2 kids

I wish we could keep to 75 quid and there are only 3 of us.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

£120 a week incl household stuff, toiletries and nappies (atm). There are 5 of us and a cat. Don't buy expensive food really just lots of fresh meat and veg and very little processed apart from obligatory crisps for kids.

£150 a month for: me, a very large, hungry 6 year old and a 3 year old who eats hardly anything.
that includes toiletries and well everything.

OMG!! My shopping bill is £110 a week and that's doing it online so that I don't overspend!! The dcs are 2.8 and 1. Admittedly, about £20 a week is probably nappies, wipes, formula etc but the rest is just food. I would love to only spend £75 a week.

FWIW, I had a chat with a financial person to work out how we could save a bit of money and she told me that to feed a family of 4, using a supermarket, realistically you're looking at £75 minimum.

Give your dh the challenge of compiling a menu for a week, buying it and see how much he spends. I did it to my dh when I was getting 'how much?' comments and he spent more than me and didn't buy stuff like loo rolls, etc that always bump up the bill. Now he shuts up!!

I should add, not organic (unless on offer) and live in southwest, shop in sainsbury's and always got eye out for money off/end of line/end of best before stuff to chuck in freezer etc.

Oh God AmandaP. Exactly MINNIE1-tell him to try it! Theres 4 of us-my boys are same age as your two and I spend about £120. Granted-there's quite alot of wine on that but even so....
If he would prefer you to buy complete shite rather than decent fresh and organic food I'm sure you could get it down.
Speaking of which-Asda have whole chickens in for 2 quid at the moment What kind of a life have those poor buggars had???!

Me, Dh and DD, age 4.

Spend about £50-60 on my Sainsburys online shop each week.
Spend about £20 for my veg/fruit.eggs box each week
Get milk from milkman
We also get things in from local shops during the week (£10-30), eat out for 1-2 meals most weekends, and maybe get a takeaway once a fortnight.

Sounds OK to me. If you really had to Im sure you could get it down to 50 ish though, by leaving out the luxuries and planning a little more.

We are a family of 4 and on average I spend £100 per week.

I think you're doing well at £75, AmandaP. We spend about £100 per week for 2 adults and 2 very hungry boys aged 10 and 8! (Plus a cat and two guinea pigs). That does include things like specialist flour and the occasional(very expensive!) specialist cake for DS2 who has allergies to various foods. I also buy organic veg if possible.

Message withdrawn

I think we spend £120 per week and only have one dd! But we do eat food from home all week - I mean, we take packed lunches to work, when out for the day etc. so £100 covers us basically for pretty much ALL our weekly food.

You could probably skim off 25-30% if you skimped and used all own brand stuff. IF you needed to. If you dont need to, then no harm IMO.

I spent £58 today, including buying a frivolous water play table on offer in Sainsbo's for £2.50. I didnt buy nappies today though, which is another £5.

Oh, there are two adults and two children (3 and 1 yrs).

same as cg25 - we aim for £50 for 3 of us but it's totally unrealistic and is usually around £70. I agree with the others - get him to do it

Get ours delivered eack week from ocado - was £93 this morning but that with some extras, nappies, wipes, shampoo but normally around 75 - 80 quid each week.

(There are 4 of us, me, DH DD & DS)

£75 not outrageous. we spend about the same- 5 of us but they don't eat much, and Dh buys ready meals at work

Spend about £100 per fortnight at asda plus about £20 each week at local shop on fruit and veg, plus the things we forgot to buy at asds . That's for dp and me really as dd is only 16weeks so still as cheap as chips to run .