average bill for a family of 4......is?

415SanFran

Pepsi is a luxury?
Tell my kids that!!

quintwins

pepsi or in our case mostly coke is a luxury reserved for mummy and daddy in this house and only bought on offer, i've given up on stocking up cause when it's here hubby drinks it then drinks mine (he likes diet and i don't so i buy both) my kids luxury is cakes/doughnuts

we are a family of 5, but that included 5 year old twins and a 2 year old( with great appetites), and 2 dog, we spend £200 a month that includes everything, we buy our dogfood in bulk so it costs £16 a month and there usually some left, i spend alot of fruit but i've found tesco to be cheaper for bananas but foreverything else we go to the market or farm shop, the farm shop is pretty much the same price as tesco but i find things like apples are bigger, i got 10 apples for £1 in the market yesterday, nearly all my veg is frozen now (unless it's reduced) theres no waste i find it cheaper aslong as you don't overcook it it tastes the same, it also gives us alot of varitey which otherwise we'd only be buying in season veg

hubby gets lunch in work and the twins have recently started school dinner which are free, the school provide snacks at a cost of £4 a week but they get fruit and milk and a yogurt so i have to buy slightly less now, my youngest eats fruit and yogurts like it's going out of fashion, a big help for us is that we get sunday dinner at the inlaws however if they didn't invite us we don't get any and i do a fry instead (which is another treat)

we eat meat for about 90% of our dinners hubbys not keen on pasta and rice so we don't have it very often

nearly all my storecupboard items are value or on offer

if my freezer and cupboards are anything to go by i'm buying far too much, i will be defrosting my freezer before xmas and i think it will take til dec to run it down as it's a big chest freezer and it's full of meat which doesn't take up much room, so in a week i'll prob only lift out the amount of space a loaf of bread takes up (which i can't even fit in anymore) i plan to spend £100 for the next few months and that will include snack money and dog food so it's worth seeing what you acually have before you go shopping

approved foods is fab if you have room to store everything just remeber to only buy stuff you need/will use because all those sweeties are very tempting

mummygems

We are a family of 5 DH and myself and 3 kids (5yrs, 3yrs, 7mths). We usually spend approx £500 a month which is a lot and I am trying to reduce. This covers all the food, nappies, wipes, baby milk, cleaners, dishwasher/washing machine tabs etc.

DH and DD1 have a packed lunch, myself and DD2 have lunch at home and we all eat at home at night. DS has special milk (which we cant get on prescription) which is £10 a week plus he doesnt like my home cooked food(!) so we buy jars when they are on offer.

I think the baby milk, nappies and wipes each month alone come to £80. I buy meat, cheese, washing tabs, dishwasher tabs and toilet paper from costcos which does help and I only buy the nappies when on offer. We also eat a lot of fruit so thats another £15-£20 a week alone.

Its hard but I am hoping with all the Old Style info and the expertise of others on here we can bring this figure down a lot.

flippin36

Well last month it averaged out at £80 pw. But thats a lot for us and it was the six week holidays which is always more expensive. This month is going to be more like £65 which is probably more like a usual month give or take. I don't include toiletries, nappies etc (we get them in town wherever is cheap) its just edibles but does include dogfood and the odd bottle of wine.

My ambition is to cut it down to £50.

DominicH

sleepyme wrote: »

I spend £20 on my main shop and £10 during the week if needed.

We are a family of 4 and I have to make sure I budget well due to money being tight. I always take a shopping list and make sure I stick to it. I only buy what I need for that week so there is no waste. I actually find it quite easy to stick to.

That works out at about £1 per person per day, for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and hopefully maybe the odd snack or cup of tea, plus toiletries and household products. That is some impressive economising. Any tips on how you achieve it?

Snakeeyes21

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

I used to spend more than that and there are only three of us and two dogs, however by joining the grocery challenge and the eating out the freezer and cupboards I have managed to get my spending down to around £300, and I am hoping to go lower. The problem is that I have VERY fussy teenagers and they won't eat the sort of cheaper casserolee-type meals, and one won't eat anything in sauce, like pasta bakes etc.

There are loads of people on here who seem to manage on very little money and I admire them because I just can't seem to. I meal plan and shop according to the meal plan but it is still expensive. I spend £12 a week on milk alone. I have been thinking about a breadmaker or a slow cooker but don't know how much use they would get, plus the fact that the breadmaker would only encourage me to eat loads of bread and butter, particularly if it's hot and crusty!!

This is so disturbing, you allow your kids to dictate what they eat? really?
somewhere along the line you have allowed them to become 'fussy' read demanding and controling..
and are now paying the price in more ways than one, really not wanting to
eat anything in a sauce :rotfl: whatever next. give them a plate of grub,
if they dont like it they will go hungry, they will soon break those fussy habbits

And seriously you buy 40 pints of milk a week? what do you do? bathe in the stuff.

katierose1 wrote: »

How do you all spend so little - we are a family of 4 (2 adults, a 5 year old and a 15month old and a cat) and spend around 700pound a month! Although hoping this month will be a bit less as i have started couponing!!!

TIA

:eek::eek::eek: words just cant describe what im thinking about this.
I just cant see how 2 people and 2 little ones that eat less can possibly
go through £700 worth of food in a month.
Its going to take a bit more than a few coupons if you want to get that
down a bit

hkminca

We don't have kids but we try and have a few cheap meals a week, and try and make it a bit fun too...Mackrel Mondays and Tuna Tuesdays (mackrel veg stirfry and tuna pasta/or pasta bake) and very cheap days and ensures we get some oily fish too.

I used to use 500g of mince between 2 of us but now split this and use it to make 2 seperate meals and freeze the second lot and just use more veggies.

We grow quite a bit and bought a cheap freezer this summer so can now freeze more for winter use.

I can see us eating a lot of campbells soups, shreddies and sacla sauces over the winter months!

recovering_spendaholic

Snakeeyes21 - I smiled at your post, and I know that it is true that I should've been firmer with them. I buy 6 or 7 2ltr bottles of Cravendale skimmed milk a week which costs between £11 and £13 depending on what offers are on. I drink 1.5 pints a day and the kids seem to get through the rest of a bottle between them and their hordes of friends who seem to drink buckets of milky coffee! I know it would be cheaper to buy other milk but I really like the taste of the Cravendale and I don't drink alcohol or smoke so it is my one indulgence.

Tonight I made a bit of a mixed up tea of bits of stuff out of the fridge and freezer, which has used up most of the stuff that needed using up in the fridge. It was a bit of a hotchpotch but actually quite nice! Vegetable fingers, cheesy mash, beans (for DD2 and me) and salad and jacket potato for DD1. Am thawing out a big piece of whoopsied pork for tomorrow - am hoping to make a roast dinner as I have all the stuff in so it should be a NSD.

rising_from_the_ashes

I'm really interested in finding out what families spend as it's made me realise just how much money I must be wasting - my food budget's nearly the same as some of you who have families:eek:

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

I spend £12 a week on milk alone.

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

And seriously you buy 40 pints of milk a week? what do you do? bathe in the stuff.

I spend £6.40 / week on milk - just for me - which is £25.50 or £32 / month depending on whether it's a 4 or 5 week month.

I'd love to get this down but I'm lactose intolerant - I can only use Lactofree milk (only available in 1 Litre cartons at about £1.30) and cheese (about £1.80 for 200g and never on offer).

I'm also wheat intolerant and oat based products (breads, cereals etc) are so much more expensive it's practically impossible to do.


Any ideas?

lola34

We are 2 ad and 2 ch 8 and 12 and I budget about £60 per week, I go through the cupboards so I know what I have and what I need to buy and get a rough idea of what we will eat each night, OH works shifts so if he's on days he'' have an omlette/ soup when he comes in which means DS's have a 'freezer' tea and I'll have some form of leftovers that have been frozen from a previous meals leftovers, when we're all in for tea it'll be a meat/ veg /casserole type tea, Saturday is usually a couple of pizzas, treats for us are lager / 3 bottles of wine for £10 which I will get once a month, ds's little bottles of coke/ cans and again once they're gone then they're gone.
DS1 takes a packed lunch but also £1 per day and DS2 is on school dinners but I don't include these and I'm very lucky as DS2 is picked up by my Mam once a week who loves cleaning so I rarely have to buy any cleaning products as she brings them with her - this is her choice she just loves cleaning products!!!!!