How Much???

clairabell

Hi there,

Could anyone advise me as to how much i should be aiming to spend on my weekly groceries. I am married with 3 children who live here and on weekends we have my husbands 3 children here. How much realistically would be the minimum i could spend on the families food shopping??? Thanks guys & girls xxx

miltonskeen

So 2 adults, 6 kids at weekends?

Guess people would need to know do you all take packed lunches mon-fri, do any of you get free meals at work / school?

I would think you could get by on £100 a week if you cut out luxuries and made alot from scratch?

clairabell

Thanks for the reply, My Husband and 3 children have lunches Mon - Fri

I can cook well so not affraid of making things from scratch etc.

At the mo i am spending about £125 per week plus bits and pieces at the local shop

I would really like to get this as low as possible, Thanks for your help :-)

vicki+1

well me and husband and one child = £50 a week with a few luxuries , i am thinking £100 a week with a few luxuries, 75 a week if you cook all from scratch, don't snack to much, eat shops own brand cerwal etc etc

natalieho

I spend 40.00 per week on 2 adults 3 children. Everything i cook is from scratch and once a month i spend 20.00ish in Costco stocking up on meat.

My children are young though 3, 5 and the other is a bf baby so no food needed for her.

Clowance

Why not work it out by portion cost, having taken above tips into account. For example you could make 500g of mince (wouldn't buy cheap one though) feed all of you if you make spag bol with loads of spaghetti and stir the meat and sauce through it. HEnce the one pack of mince would feed 8 on a weekend?
Basically increase the cheap part of the meal like spuds and decrease the expensive bit which is also better for health.
Have veggie meals occasionally too. - Jacket pot, cheese and beans would prob be a family favourite.

miltonskeen

Clowance wrote: »

Why not work it out by portion cost, having taken above tips into account. For example you could make 500g of mince (wouldn't buy cheap one though) feed all of you if you make spag bol with loads of spaghetti and stir the meat and sauce through it. HEnce the one pack of mince would feed 8 on a weekend?
Basically increase the cheap part of the meal like spuds and decrease the expensive bit which is also better for health.
Have veggie meals occasionally too. - Jacket pot, cheese and beans would prob be a family favourite.

And bulk out bol sauce with mushrooms and onions too....

supa-girl

How old are the children? Teenagers are going to eat more than pre schoolers so that will help to weigh it up. My friend has step children who are really fussy eaters - with their Mum they live on a diet of processed/instant food so she has a nightmare trying to get them to eat a home cooked meal. Do you have any such issues or are the kids all good eaters?

We are a family of 7 and spend about £85-£90 per week. This includes nappies for the youngest 2 but our kids are (usually ) good eaters and are all pretty young (oldest 10), youngest under 1 so their portion sizes are small. We eat veggie 2-3 times a week which helps as well....

SG

csm_2

natalieho wrote: »

I spend 40.00 per week on 2 adults 3 children. Everything i cook is from scratch and once a month i spend 20.00ish in Costco stocking up on meat.

My children are young though 3, 5 and the other is a bf baby so no food needed for her.

How do you manage on £40 per week? I have 2 adults and 3 children also (1 bf baby, although only just starting very small amounts of homemade puree)

We go to costco every month and get chicken breast and cook the majority of our meals from scratch, although we have 2 very fussy children who want to eat rubbish all the time.

We spend way more than £40, we spend over £100....where are we going wrong?

What meat do you buy from costco? What sort of things do you cook?

I'd love to get my food shopping cost down alot per week.

thanks

sassygirl_2

csm, i was like you are last week, i was spending on average £120 a week for 2 adults 3 children.
I put a thread in the thrif part of the forum and this week managed to get my bill down to £70 but that was stocking up on lots so i had enough to do lots of baking and freezing.

Check out my thread, theres lots of really good suggestions on there If i can do it, anyone can cos im useless at anything to do with cutting down on money lol

mitch99

I think it depends on how well you want to eat? You average 6 people in the house over the course if the week (8 x 2 and 5 x 5 all divided by seven equal 5.85). On Martin Lewis blog the other day (August 13) it shows that most people spend £20 - £29 a person, but quite a lot managing to get by on £10 - £19. That's either £150 or £90 a week based on £25pp or £15pp. I think it's hard to eat well for £15 per person per week assuming that's breakfasts and dinner week days and breakfast lunch and dinner at weekends - basically £10 per person once you've accounted for cheap breakfasts and desserts. We've just started trying to economise on this front and I looked at meal plans online yesterday (there's also a couple of threads on this forum where people have really managed to shop for very, very little, though I think the prices are out of date because the posts are quite old).

Basically, for £10 per person per night you get a meal plan like:

lemon roast chicken and veg, braised chicken and beans, gammon steak and mustard mash, tuna fish cakes, turkey meatloaf, spaghetti and turkey meatballs, pasta arrabbiata

I'm not a massive fan of meatloaf or gammon - I think of them as a bit too budget so for me £10 is too low. For an extra £5 per person gets you meals like these:

bbq pork chops, beef stroganoff, bacon & pesto penne, grilled salmon & rocket salsa, Beef & Bean Burritos, peri peri chincken, singapore style noodles

All of which I'd be happy to eat. That's £15 a head for dinners, so you guys should expect to pay £20 a head overall including cheap breakfasts (cereal) and cheap desserts (yoghurts, etc.) £120 in total, then you've got to add in for tea coffee, juice, detergents, bin bags loo roll etc. If you're economical this should cost about £10 to £20.

So... I'd say £135 if you are wanting eat reasonably well but don't mind inexpensive desserts and breakfasts, but as low as £105 if you don't mind eating slightly 'budget-ier' food too. Assuming your bits and pieces at your local shop amount to about £15 a week, it sounds like you're spending £135, so you're probably spot on.