how much are you spending on food shopping a week?

Kimitatsu

[QUOTE=nickj;26125273
i spend on a good week 60ish to 90-100 on a bad week for 2 adults and 2 teenage kids + 1 cat , this inc all food , drink and household goods - shampoo, bog roll , plus my wife will get a few bits and peices during the week which can range from £10 to 30 .
so i'm not sure how average i am when i'm in the supermarket i look at other shoppers and they seem to be spending far more than me ,
i'm not sure if this is good or bad[/QUOTE]

Have to say we spend a comparable amount to this and our family set up is similar to yours. I have two sports mad boys so feeding them what Dave apaprently eats a day would be ridiculous!!

You can make cuts to your food shopping by shopping around, making your own bread and making all of your own meals, but the thing I found is if you work full time and have a family, I run out of hours in the day fairly quickly!!!

So for us at least it is a comprimise sometimes between quality of life and quality of food and being able to say we are the most thrifty shoppers. Welshwoofs some brilliant ideas there though - will be using some of them.

The things I have found which work are a breadmaker (little one is gluten intolerant so saves me a fortune being able to make my own), my freezer so I can bulk/batch cook, we keep our own chickens so always have eggs for frittatta/omlettes/sarnies etc, grow your own where you can, if not look around your local feed merchant, I bought a 56lb sack of potatoes the other day for £4.75 and they are gorgeousm same for cat and dog food (working dog food attracts no VAT) and keep an eye out for the bargains but really its not worth stressing over if we cant get our budget down to less than a tenner!

Clowance

Kimitatsu wrote: »

look around your local feed merchant

do you need a trade card to use a feed merchant?

Kantankrus_Mare

Well I feel like a spendaholic when in reality Im most definitely not.

Family consists of myself, 6ft 3 husband, 6ft 4 teenage son of 16, daughter of 14 and our choc lab Max.

I probably spend between £8o and £100 per week in tesco which I do on line and use money off codes where possible.

Our milk bill is £8 a week

Fruit and some veg (have an allotment which helps) £6+ a week

One big spend at good quality butcher a month £35

Make a lot of dishes from scratch and rarely use ready meals. (Do have a weekly treat of an Indian takeaway) (I even try to make savings on that as we get a stamp for each meal collected and once we have four stamps....we get a free meal which is very nice!!)

Its teenagers which bumf the cost up. They just never stop eating and often wont eat what we like so something different has to be made.

I could probably more than half the food bill if it wasnt for them but oh how they enrich our lives with their attitude, drum playing, and electric guitar sounds. LOL (Wouldnt be without them)

Smidster

I, single student, target £20 a week

Fruit - £8
Veg - £5
Meat - £5
Other Stuff (Cheese, Eggs, Canned Fish, Canned Tomatoes etc) - £2 on average

Kimitatsu

Clowance wrote: »

do you need a trade card to use a feed merchant?

No not at all - they are not like pets at home, they are usually just sacks piled up but if you buy their own brands they are far cheaper. Many will get in specific brands if you need them too.

DianeB_2

We spend approximately £350 a month and we're a family of two adults, three children (10, 12, and 14), a labrador dog and a cat! This amount includes shampoos, toilet rolls, washing up liquid, etc., as well as the food. I do most of the shopping (a good 95%) online, and get free deliveries using codes. Most of my shopping is done in Asda and Tesco's as they seem to be the cheapest overall.

Bargain_Rzl

I've lost track really of what I spend on food (for one adult and no pets) because whereas I used to budget for it specifically at £15-£20 a week, I now include it in a larger weekly budget of £50 for "all food and spending money" which means that some weeks I might go out a lot and eat from the freezer and spend next to nothing, while other weeks I might spend £40 on stocking the freezer (often with reduced goods) but not be out in the evenings at all and therefore still come in under budget.

However, even on the weeks when I buy almost nothing (and this is assuming I have a well-stocked cupboard full of the basics and am cooking and eating things that are already in the cupboards and freezer) I can't imagine spending less than £4 or £5 just on fresh milk, fruit and veg - the things that for a healthy diet you really should be buying on a weekly basis. That's even assuming that I drop my usual standards on organic milk and eggs, free-range chicken etc.

sue.j_2

I spend about 70 a week altogether for me and my husband, this is mostly on fruit and veg. So roughly £35 each which i dont think is too bad. It could be less, we got it down to 30 a week altogether once but it was a struggle and i think if you work hard why not treat yourself and buy nice food? I dont obviously spend a fortune on things i still look at the prices and get the nicest but cheapest option but also treat ourselves.

OrkneyStar

invisiblecabbage wrote: »

:eek:oh my goodness, 5 in our household, me, hubby and 18yr old, 17 yr old and 15 yr old and I thought I did well at about £80/week . Although we have no processed food stuffs just real meat and fresh veg. I'll have to rethink the weekly menu.

That IS good, if you are eating proper food- there are 5 of you after all!
We spend approx £50 per week for 2 adults and a 28 month old (he still wears one nappy at night- he was a reusable nappy boy but they were not absorbant enough for night time!). Like you we eat mainly 'real' food, and I tend to bake treats (although bought some biccies this week as I have been ill and so not really baking!).
Give yourself a :T.
We live in the Northern Isles and so have limited supermarket choice, I tend to shop in a mix of Lidl, Coop, Tesco, local baker/butcher. TBH I could scour the supermarkets before closing time and count every last penny, however I choose not to. We are not in debt, and although hubby has a modest income (I am currently a SAHM) we can afford what we spend and also still afford to live, entertain ourselves, save for hols/Christmas/household, run a car etc. I think it is all about a happy medium and balancing budgetting/Old Style living with relaxing, having fun and getting things into perspective! Were I trying to pay off debts I may have a different idea of course!

spidystrider

We are spending around £85 a week for 3 adults, 2 kids and a dog.
I would love to be able to get it down a bit.