What are families honestly spending on their weekly food shop?

[Catty21]

cost of weekly food shop - Our food shop cost is crippling me. Our weekly food shop is £300 for 2 adults , 14 year old and a cat. My husband thinks that’s normal and is just the cost of living when I know my friends are paying half that. His response is well they are not being honest and they are actually paying more.

I can’t continue paying £300 a week, it’s insane I know . I’ve tried talking to him that it’s too much and he’s blaming me stressing over it on “ time of the month” as usual.

My question is , honestly what are families spending on their food shop weekly.

Very true. Eating leftovers, and planning your weekly meals to incorporate everything, so for instance, if you’re cooking a chilli on Monday using one pepper, but your supermarket only sells peppers in packs of three, then plan to use the other peppers in, say, fajitas, or a salad, or an omelette later on in the week. Or if you’re having a chicken casserole using half a pot of cream, then think of something to make the next day to use the other half. It’s astounding how much people manage to waste by not doing things like that. My mum didn’t realise until I pointed it out to her that you don’t have to eat a cucumber all in one go. If you peel the wrapping back as far as you want to eat, then cut that bit off, you can wrap the rest up and put it back in the fridge for a few more days and eat it another day. She used to just chuck what she hadn’t used straight in the bin 😮 Obviously that’s only one thing, but someone who’s that wasteful with everything, every single day, could easily end up spending an extra £50 or more a week.

I very very rarely need to do a top up shop. We have a milkman, but otherwise it really just is the weekly shop.

Thats bonkers!!!? I cant imagine why anyone would think you need to eat a cucumber in one go! Whether or not it is wrapped.

I'm very proud of my ability to use food up in the correct order so very little goes bad before being used. I plan meals, but also leave some days unplanned and improvise from the bits and pieces left over. And when I do my weekly shop I look in the fridge to see if there is anything that needs using up, and buy ingredients to make dishes to use things up if need be.

@Greengage1983 I’m sorry but your mum must be think as mince if she really needed somebody to tell her that you can just chop chunks off a cucumber and save the rest for later .

£300 a week for your sized family is very high but it depends if you a shopping in Waitrose or Aldi, and whether you are buying alcohol, steaks and salmon and high end convenience meals as regular weekly meals. Presumably about £15-20 mac of that goes on laundry and cleaning products and toilet paper . Do you have high levels of food waste ?

You need look at your receipts ' write down your meals and snacks, review supermarket, look at own brands and cut out non essentials if you want to knock £100 off. Personally I'd change shopping habits and take cash with me. I would be spending about _160 a week on your family size including the cat but I am.only a drinker of an occasional bottle of wine, and general dont pay more than £7.00 for a bottle. I don't buy many ready meals either.

Also Try not to do top up shops in the week if you want to get your budget back down to a more reasonable level. Running out of something rarely means someone will starve, they will just eat something else that might have gone to waste otherwise.

Your husband's attitude is the bigger problem here

Not on its own it doesnt, but add lentils - HUGE protein boost and veggies - Fibre - both really filling , it certainly can, and it does in this house as well

For me I dont meal plan as such

I go and see what's good value for money

99% of the time, I skip the beef mince in favour of turkey or pork - half the price

Cant remember the last time we had lamb chops or lamb steaks - way too expensive, but Ive still a £7 leg of lamb in the freezer I got at christmas - I bought 5 , and its waiting till we have family for dinner. Last time they came we had the other half of the boned rolled Turkey which cost me £24 at Christmas, Half fed three of us for 3/4 days, plus scraps for cat and dog, and this portion fed 6 adults and another meal for 2 - so 17/18 meals for £24

I buy joints when they are on special offer and freeze . I have a vacuum sealer so they last well there . I stocked up on the Wiltshire outside bred pork around easter , Ive about 3 joints left

And I think about the veg. If Ive got to pay £1.20 for a fresh cauliflower, I buy the biggest I can find, even though there are just two of us. And I cut as I need - lasts at least a week in the fridge and if it goes bendy - soup

Cheese funnily enough is cheapest in Marks - for a good quality matured cheddar

So I walk into Lidl and their super six or whatever they call it now has mushrooms, mange tout, sprouting broccoli at ridiculously cheap prices, so right away Im thinking lighter dishes - stir fry, Chinese , what can I use these veggies up on? Then I look at meat , turkey , chicken, pork - even steak can be good value if using as thin sliced in a Chinese dish . Even without being the most experienced of cooks, you can stand in the supermarket and ask Google - what can I make with.

I use chicken thighs - not the boneless/ skinless fillets - they are as dear as fillet, it takes just 30 seconds to skin and bone a thigh and you can get a kilo for around £4

And I yellow sticker shop for fish and meat. Last week I got a 2kg of silverside for £12, in the slow cooker, it was as tender as any and has fed 4 dinners and sandwiches for two days

At our house if it's not going to be used before spoiling then it gets frozen for future use. Our supermarket sometimes has bags of 'wonky' peppers with no green ones (we're not keen of green) so I buy them (even if we don't need them all) chop them up and freeze them raw (found out that the pots that hold sweet & sour sauce at our Chinese takeaway hold roughly 1 average pepper) same with reduced price things that we regularly buy, very useful for the week before payday.

I thought so too, but then over the years I have met other adults with similar habits, so it must be contagious or something…

Just on food, no toiletries etc, probably about £50?
1 small adult and 2 very active children late primary age.
No one drinks alcohol. Breakfast would be porridge with fruit or toast. Lunch a cheese or ham sandwich, packet of crisps and piece of fruit or yoghurt, dinner spag Bol, sausage and mash etc simple stuff.

Exactly. Add lentils and other bulky veg and you're onto a winner. Plus the spare portions are sometimes smaller, ao they're made into wraps (less required) or chilli by adding beans, or baked potatoes or cottage pie. As long as it feeds everyone a 2nd time then we are winning.

I think people have very different portion sizes sometimes. I use a 250g mince from Asda to make spag Bol for me and two kids and that’s without filling it out with veg or anything. My friend said he’d need at least that just for himself- and he’s slim, just very sporty so needs more to eat.

At the moment mine is never more than £600-700 for 3 adults 3 dogs and 2 cats . But I’m lucky that I have a chest freezer and get certain things from a wholesaler and plenty of stuff from save from landfill/food pantry’s . Bulk rice and pasta . make my own Greek style yogurt. Once month I spend £35 on two 1kg boxes of the most amazing sausages and 2.27 kg of beautiful thick cut bacon. I bag that up and freeze. Other than that I buy

6-8 x 500g mince
2kg chicken breast
1 whole chicken
a pork joint
800g Braising steak
8 1/4lb burgers
cooking bacon
2kg of cheese
48 eggs.
4butter but I often buy the £10 grahams butter for £10 from Farmfoods and freeze some.

most from Aldi or Lidl. Then I top it up with
instant mash (DHs guilty pleasure).
4 Frozen chips
a mix of £10 for £10 at farmfoods
4 bags frozen veg
4 bags frozen fruit
4 loaves to freeze
6 x2 lt milk.
2 x cereals

and I buy fresh veg /salad weekly for Things like roast diners. I use frozen veg in chili, curry shepherds pie etc but if it’s a side without a sauce I’ll get fresh. I buy spices and herbs in 125-250g packs and I don’t buy any jar sauces etc and make everything from scratch. All tinned stuff comes from the community food pantry where I get 15 tins of top branded items for £4 every two weeks or so. So we use the beans for all day breakfasts, as a side with omelettes, then the toms for chili and spaghetti Bol, shakshuka etc we also eat a lot of Omelettes to clear up the random fridge bits I pick up for free/cheap. I grow my own salad/toms /cucumbers/ corn and garlic and have fruit trees so freeze what I can when I can.

Most people here in the uk, put the spaghetti in the bowl or on the plate and then completely cover it in the bolognese - treating it as mince and potatoes , instead of using a ladle or two of the bolognese and stirring the spaghetti into it with a ladle of the starchy pasta water

Even though we do use small portions, there's always bolognese left on the plate when the spaghetti has all gone

But there again, Italians dont eat spaghetti Bol

Do they? I've never known anyone to do it that way. Most people I know just make a well in the middle of the spaghetti for the bolognese.

Just google images

A pile of the bolognese on top the spaghetti

And tbf, that's how it was served up to me in the 70's so for a while it was learned behaviour . Fortunately I learned that tubs of dried parmesan was also shite as well :)

So you are basically feeding him for one day a week then. You yourself eat little meat and have beans on toast or salad in the evenings.

Your post is quite misleading. Food has to be paid for. Your son is not eating for free but you are claiming to be feeing both of you for under £50 a week.

That’s like me saying I feed my entire Avenue every Monday for £5. (But not mention that all the neighbours are actually eating their meals at work, so I just give myself beans on toast that evening and claim I did it all for £5)

About half that. We are pretty much veggie these days but do buy organic dairy and eggs so that's expensive.

Household varies between 2-5 adults, but most weeks just 3. Plus dog.

you don’t have to eat a cucumber all in one go. If you peel the wrapping back as far as you want to eat, then cut that bit off, you can wrap the rest up and put it back in the fridge for a few more days

I find it keeps better if you just take the plastic off at that point.

Family of 4 and I spend £150 on the weekly shop at Aldi and maybe £30-40 top ups on milk, fruit, bread and household bits in between. I budget £200 a week for everything including a couple of bottles of wine over the weekend. £300 does seem a lot for 3 people.

Ours is about £170 a week for a family of 5. But we only really buy essentials and no booze.

I would have said that's alot until I added up our food/toiletries shopping for June & for 3 adults, 1 hungry teen & a cat we are spending approx £250 a week. That's tesco, fruit & veg shop, butchers. It's alot! But we rarely have a takeaway

I'd let your husband takeover the food shopping for a month, see how he manages

It would be higher. He demands all the branded stuff which is half the reason it’s so high. I tried buying Lidls own crumpets once and he got a bit verbally abusive as I came back without walburtons ones .