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.

£180-90 for a family of 4.

we eat a lot of meat and the kids have packed lunches 3x a week.

I meal plan and we don't deviate. One easy dinner night, like frozen pizza, and usually one meal out at the weekend.

£170-200 week for 2 adults and 2 children (DS 10 and DD 7) from Sainsbury’s.

Organic fruit and veg, meat where possible. No alcohol apart from fortnightly bottle of wine.

Covers all breakfast, lunch and dinners for a week. Neither I nor DH buy lunch.

6/9 months ago same bill was £130.

Austerity continues apace.

We are a family of 4, two adults plus an adult child and teen. Although adult child eats her less often now but then equally his gf is here around twice a week.

We budget £150 a week but usually spend around £130 unless we need things like washing powder/ toilet rolls that we buy in bulk.

I cannot imagine spending £300 a week on food.

My budget is £200 per week for 3 adults. That includes all food, drinks (including a couple of bottles of wine), all cleaning products, kitchen roll, toilet roll etc and all shampoo, shower gel, toothpaste etc I recently upped it from £180 and I'm still finding it difficult to manage.

4 adults (son and gf only eat evening meals with us) and I budget £400 a month. We shop in Aldi, plan meals. The kids buy their own lunches, rarely eat breakfast and buy their own toiletries so I suppose that makes a difference.

Dont buy loads of biscuits or crisps/snacks but do buy a lot of fruit, veg and at least 4 meals have meat.

£300 a week is a lot.

2 adults and 2 adult children. We do Gousto for 4 nights for about £70 and then Ocado £80-100 weekly includes laundry detergent/other cleaning products, 1 bottle wine, alcohol free beers, eggs, milk, fruit and veg etc
Then a bit of a top up if needed.

2 adults 2 older primary age DC and an (old) cat

About £120-£150 per week. Majority of meals at home. I do consider the cost, but we aren’t on a strict budget and get what we want. Includes alcohol but we aren’t big drinkers. Mostly shop at lidl with a top up at Tesco.

About £100 a fortnight sometimes lower.

I spend £50ish from Ocado, £15 weekly veg box from the local greengrocer, about £60 at Aldi every couple of weeks, about £40 -50ish yellow stickered items, mostly from Waitrose, when I get a chance.

So that works out at about £130 - £150ish per week all in. We don't drink much alcohol, but we do eat a fair bit of meat and fish, and a lot of fresh vegetables.

2 adults, 2 tall, hungry teenagers.

I do wonder how our local butcher survives, their prices are more than double what I am willing to pay.

£200-£300, family of 7 and cat.

£100 a week 2 adults 2 children 2 cats
although I tend to do a monthly shop and weekly top ups and bulk buy a few items whether that be monthly, two monthly or quarterly
we don’t drink or smoke, don’t buy any kind of fizzy drinks or juice either

£100 a week here. Two adults two kids and a dog

That is honestly an insane amount of money. We spend £200 a week for 2 adults, 4 teens, 1 child and 2 dogs.

£300-£400, 3 kids (inc. one bottomless teenage boy), DH and I and 3 cats

About £120 to £150 most weeks depending on what we need. That's for a family of 4 with a 2-yr old that will eat you out of the home and a 4-yr old. Both have outgrown most their allergies now, so aside from oat milk we thankfully don't need to buy Free From food anymore

About £200 a week for 2 adults, 18 and 20 year old sons and a dog. I think what we spend is too high and I could definitely get it lower if I stopped buying stuff we don’t really need. I shop at Ocado and Sainsburys

£120 a week, for 2 adults, 1 toddler with the appetite of a rugby player, and a weaning baby. Includes all our lunches, excluding the toddler twice a week. We usually then have one takeaway or meal out a weekend

That does seem high. Ours is still high at about £180 a week for 2 adults and a 3 year old and 5 year old but that usually includes a bottle of wine (£12-15) and some beers around (£10) so would be less without those. We eat meat 4-5 times a week, fish 1-2 and a veggie dish 1-2 times a week. We cook pretty much everything from scratch but we do have lots of snacks for aforementioned children!

150 ish a week, no takeaways or eating out for 2 adults, 3 kids. Meal planning, cooking from scratch and searching for offers when online shopping has helped a lot. You could start by limiting it to let's say 200, and that's it you can't spend anymore and then slowly reduce further if needed. Everyone will need to use what's in the cupboards until the next shop.

About £350-400 a week for two adults, a five year old and 6 month old. We're cognisant we try to buy only organic wherever possible. I figure we could spend half of this if we weren't buying all organic.

Ours can be close to that especially during a busy week when I go to the supermarket and just throw things in the trolley . I might end up going over three or four times in the week and it piles up to £260 -300.

• Mostly use all organic products
• My son eats high-protein home-cooked meals for breakfast such as beef, chicken, etc ...costly!!
• We buy Marks and Spencers crisps, cooked in olive oil .
• Steak night once a week.
• wild salmon another night, although this is currently on offer though in Tesco, so stock up whilst you can!!

Would you say that your food shop mirrors this?

I work with older people who have health conditions and after years of observing them I think buying the best food within your budget is the most important thing you can spend your money on .

We are very boring people who pretty much eat the same meals each week

Mon- Chilli
Tue- wild salmon
Wed- chilli again!
Thursday- Steak night
Friday- wild or organic Fish of some sort
Saturday- roasted veg pasta
Sunday- Roast or Thai food (Homecooked)

It's the snacks that get us: the crisps, Nut bars, the "healthy" Ice lollies , bottle of Wine, Coffee etc.

About £120 a week for 2 adults and a 7 yo. That includes alcohol and cleaning products and toiletries etc etc. I always buy higher welfare meat and go for organic veg where its an option.

To keep costs lower we meal plan to avoid waste, have some good containers for freezing leftovers, and go to Aldi first then Sainsburys for the gluten- and lactose-free stuff. It is a faff but makes a big difference to the overall spend.

£150 - 4 adults and tween

We spend around £250 a week 2 adults, 3 teens, I’m trying to cut it down.

I spent £100 per week (just me plus a dog). So I guess that is equivalent of what you are spending (£300 per week for 3 of you). Seems about right to me.
I do eat alot of berries, fish, meat so that probably accounts for a large chunk.

Todays menu for example
Breakfast - greek yogurt and blackberries
Lunch - Chicken Salad
Dinner - Baked Potatoes with Prawns and cucumber
Supper - Porridge with honey

Dog Menu
Today he's got chicken, roast beef from yesterday that he turned his nose up at and ox tongue which he normally likes but I think the heat is putting him off his food. Dog kibble available as usual but very rarely eaten.

I don't drink alcohol so that is not included in shop but it does include everything else - toilet rolls, facecream, shampoo, dishwash tabs etc.

I'll be honest it's a struggle now with food prices going up and so 2nd half of the month I usually eat things like tinned sardines on oatcakes or cottage cheese on oatcakes which gives me some cheaper dinners. I also eat eggs regularly although they are not that cheap anymore.

I try to stock up when things are on special so bought 5 bars Lindt 90% choc last week in Tesco reduced from £3.5 to £3.0 I also bought 10 bags of scampi a couple of months ago when it was reduced and it's in the freezer and getting eaten over a few months.

Anyway - just to let you know your spend is about the same as mine so you are not alone. I guess I could do it cheaper if I wanted. The berries are expensive, prawns are expensive. However I like these foods and they are good for me so I figure worth it for now. Obviously if food keeps going up I might have to revisit.