Normal Food Shopping

rachbc

I've never known if I'm normal or not (in many areas not just grocceries shopping) but we spend £250-300 pcm for 4. We eat really well on that (meat most meals, roast dinner, steak, king prawns, lots of fresh fruit and veg - no pea soup. That doesn't include OH's occassional forays to the corner shop for sweeties mind!

Typical week this week

Mon - Sausage (bulk bought on lidl weekend offer), mash, apple and onion gravy, fresh green veg
Ties - King prawn (bulk bought from asian cash and carry)fried rice with veggies
Wed - Carbona (hm pancetta from bulk bought pork belly), salad
Thurs - Lamb curry (bulk bought and cut from leg on offer), aloo gobi, naan
Fri - Potato and gammon (bulk bought in lidl offer) gratin, fresh veg
Sat - Can't rememebr as the list is at home!

Breakfasts - porridge with fruit and golden syrup or maple peacan crunch cereal
Lunch - sarnies with roast chicken (meat striped from drumsticks roasted at weekend), ham, cheese, cream cheese, salami, roast beef pnb in any combo! Roast veg soup, pasta salad. Yog, piece of veg/ fruit also go in kids pack up
After school snakcs - toasted muffins, toast with hm jam or pnb, hm ginger cake.

All my meat/ expensive items ate bought on offer/ in bulk and frozen

Drinks are tea, water, milk, juice at breakfast and g&t (the t is in the grocceries budget, the g form the holiday duty free budget)

Hiddenidenity

I'm a family of 3 (Me a 3 year old and a 1 year old) and then an extra mouth to feed as well as his work lunches. I budget £50 a week. I never send this though. I managed of £50 a month for months and months and now I average on £100 a month for everything. I include toiletries/nappies/Cleaning things etc. We have meat with 95% of our meals and veg/salad with every meal. The kids get pudding after every meal too.

We meal plan/shop monthly for most things/everything other than one or two things is value/smartprice.

Lunar_Eclipse

£4-500/month for a family of four.

This covers food for the family plus cat, household items and very little alcohol: a few 'on offer brand' beers a week if anything. Everyone takes a packed lunch and snacks from home. Oh and practically zero entertaining!

We eat well, but I would like to eat more fresh fish and much better quality meat, which would push the spend higher. I buy as many value items as possible (loo rolls, fruit juice, cheese, beans, tinned tomatoes etc), middle of the road meat and some luxuries (fresh coffee, 'luxury' tea bags.)

A few years ago we spent £250. I worked hard to keep us on that budget, but it involved a couple of beans & rice type meals a week (which I'm sick of), batch cooking, deal hunting and more items from the value range that I am not prepared to eat unless we have no choice (ham & chicken specifically.)

My ideal meal would be fresh fish or chicken with stir fried vegetables most nights of the week. It's too prohibitively expensive, so on a typical week we probably have a roast, a risotto, a stirfry, fajitas, pizza, a thrown together quick meal (pasta/veggie) and maybe something like omelette & salad. I meal plan and shop to a list based on that. I stock up on items we use that are on offer.

I had this discussion recently with friends. They both spent £800/month. Yes it's extremely lavish, but if you shop in Waitrose (or M&S) and eat good quality meat, organic fruit & vegetables, decent eggs, luxury brand muesli (how much?!) and some alcohol, it is very easily done.

Mara69

quintwins wrote: »

Itonight we are having potatoe and leek soup.

I don't consider that an evening meal - its a snack! My husband has a very demanding manual job and needs something a little more substantial.

There is no right or wrong when it comes to a food budget. Some have to spend less and some choose to. Some, myself included, spend more. I think we average out at about £500 a month for three adults and one cat. Oh and a Waitrose shop once a month that is between £50 - £100. That one is pure luxury . The dog food is bought from elsewhere.

We always shop in Sainsbury's and because we all work we don't have the time or inclination to shop around. We eat really well and have meat or fish most nights.

We could cut down but we work hard and can afford to eat well without having to batch cook or eat cheaper brands - so we don't

Amanda65

I love how this has turned into a 'My name's XXX and I confess to spending £ <insert high figure> on food shopping' :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Three of us (5 when DD's home from uni) and 16 yo DS and OH both eat for England. I work from home so make my own lunches and OH takes a packed lunch. DS buys lunch at college (around £2.50 per day) and we have two cats.

When the girls aren't here I spend around £100 pw on food, which goes up to about £130 when they're home. I cook from scratch every night, cannot remember the last time I bought a ready meal and we probably have take-away about twice a year. OH and I don't go out much so usually have a couple of bottles of wine over the weekend and often socialise at home with friends (too tight to eat out unless on Tesco vouchers ).

We eat well and part of my problem is if I served a pizza for tea they would both just look at me and ask where the rest of the meal is. We do eat lots of stir frys, pasta dishes, risottos etc so not all 'meat and two veg' meals but they still seem to cost a lot. We are not 'well off' by any stretch of the imagination and are working at reducing debt levels but I really couldn't serve up beans on toast or a jacket potato for dinner for us - I guess I would if I really had to (and definitely not trying to offen anyone who has no choice) but it's not what we're used to.

JodyBPM

Family of 2 adults, two primary age children, we spend around £60 a week in the supermarket, to include all toiletries, food, alcohol etc. We buy milk separately (from the milkman), have eggs (from our backyard chickens) and get washing powder/dishwasher powder in bulk from ebay.

I could do it cheaper, for sure, but I would be sacrificing either the quality of the food I served up, or the quality of my life if I was having to make every single thing from scratch. I do enjoy cooking and baking, but I like to have a balance!

I buy sensibly, but I don't rigidly stick to a budget or meal plan. Things like steak, or leg of lamb roasts are certainly a treat rather than an everyday item, but we don't stick rigidly to value or super cheap items.

Food for us will be typically stuff like casseroles, homemade soup, homemade lasagne, chilli or bolognese, curries, pasta bakes, paellas, roasts, stirfries, homemade pies or puddings, chops, fish pie etc - fairly typical everyday dishes that are easy enough to prepare from scratch. I quite often use quorn or supermarket quorn equivalent instead of mince to reduce the fat content of mince based meals. Suspect this probably works out a bit cheaper too. Once or twice a week we will have "quick" food, which might be something like fishfingers, beans and mash or fresh (shop bought) ravioli or a frozen (shop bought) pizza or pasta with shop bought sauce. I find keeping stuff like that in the fridge freezer helps avoid ending up with a takeaway after a long day at work etc.

Ultimately its up to each household as to what is the appropriate budget for them. We could afford to spend more, but £60 a week buys us all we need to eat well, including plenty of fresh fruit and veg and a range of fish and meat. We manage to get our 5 a day easily, plus packed lunches for the family out of that budget too. I personally couldn't live on the recipes given on some of the budget food planning websites that are often linked to on the OS board, they look fairly vile to me, but it is nice to know that I could meet my families nutritional requirements for £100 a month or whatever should we fall upon hard times. And for those who really do need to budget hard, they must be a godsend.

Kildare

We (a couple) spend on average £200-£250 a month on groceries (toiletries, food, cleaning products etc.). I could cut this down if needed, but it's well within what I can afford so I choose to buy some ready meals and branded goods and to go to waitrose. If the situation changed and we could no longer do this I would cut it back in a heartbeat. That being said I don't through money away; I stock up on products when they are on offer e.g. you should see all the packs of loo roll and kitchen towel I buy when the offers are on.

£380 seems a lot for two people, but then I also don't often have alcohol at home (or out actually!) and I don't have any pets which may make a difference.

floss2

I'm not brave enough to add up how much we spend on food each month, but I'd guess it's similar to the OP - and there are two of us, DH works away part of most weeks and we have a half-size allotment plot

However, we do eat very well - we cook from scratch every meal, we have left-overs for meals (e.g. tonight it's l/o lancashire hotpot from Sunda, with 2 more portions in the freezer). I have a list of what's in my freezer and that will feed us for November and a good part of December with what's in the cupboards & fridge, with just a few additions to make into meals. We also buy wine and/or beer most weeks, and have enough wine not to buy any until after Christmas

Our supermarket shopping covers household & laundry, my 2 monthly magazines, toiletries, booze, food and my drinks, snacks & lunches for work (DH has left-overs if he's at home, otherwise he's fed at his clients' expense).

We both work fulltime with DH working up to 60 hours a week, and as a consequence of doing most of the housework as well as looking after my plot and having a life, I don't have time to shop around every week to get the best bargains. I did that 20+ years ago when my kids were small and I worked part-time, and had the time & energy to shop in different places.

bestpud

I think we eat quite cheaply, compared with friends at least.

I don't have a limit as such but I like it to be around £70 a week. I start to flinch if it reaches £80!

We are 3 adults, an 11 year old and a dog.

We do buy value pasta, cheese, fruit and jam type spreads and that seems to be the main difference between us and friends who spend a lot more.

We tend to eat fairly simple meals.

Breakfast is cereal, toast or yoghurt with fruit.

Lunch is sandwiches, fruit, yoghurt for dd(11), crisps/cake/chocolate biscuit. On weekends we'll have soup or egg/beans on toast.

Popular evening meals are pasta bake with tuna, chicken/turkey/other meat with potatoes and veg, spag bol, cottage pie, lasagne, baked potatoes with a filling, breaded chicken or fish fingers with potatoes and veg or sometimes chips, pizza (shop bought), turkey curry or sweet and sour with rice, chilli con carne, sausage or turkey casserole...

We mostly buy frozen veg, except for carrots, but use fresh veg in casseroles.

We use 24 pints of milk a week so that is £6 of our bill.

I buy whatever toiletries and cleaning products are on offer and bulk buy things like toilet rolls so that saves quite a lot, I think.

I think we'd spend more if we had the money but we don't feel deprived so I think we have a good balance between wants and needs.

thehappybutterfly

I reckon we spend close to £600 a month on food, cleaning and toiletries and pet stuff. We're a family of four (2 teenagers) and 2 cats.

On our PTD, we get a very generous allowance of £585 a month for food alone. We don't spend as much as that but we do spend more than the allowance on, say, toiletries.

I cook a lot of food from scratch, we never eat microwave meals. We rarely have a takeaway, maybe once a month, it's far too expensive! We were £23 for 4 suppers at the chippy the other night and that was things like sausage and King Rib. No fish or chicken. How people can afford to eat takeaways every night I'll never know.