Family of 5

Tink_04

Maybe at take away is 5x bags of chips? Or maybe the kids are younger and pizza and chips goes far?

redmel1621

I read this as £10 per takeaway but thinking about it further i'm not sure that would be right? As a family of 6 even a chippy dinner of sausage and chips (cheapest type of takeaway) is more than that? I think you should at the very least cut the takeaways down to only 1 per week.

I spend £80-£100 per week for a family of 6, 2 adults, 2 teens who eat a lot, and two small children.

meritaten

I read it at £10 per person - which is easily the cost of a Chinese meal. say a curry at £4.90, Special fried rice is the same, or ordinary egg fried rice is £3.50. plus prawn crackers £1.50 or Spring roll £2.50, you can easily spend £10 per person.

fairy3

We are four adults and a dog and spend around £60 per week - DS1&2, DD1 and myself. I cook from scratch and include packed lunches for 2. Boys buy their own takeout and I have learned to do a mean curry and chinese so takeout is once a month (supplemented with rice and noodles/nan bread made at home - I resent paying £2.50 for a portion of boiled rice!)
DD1 can and does eat at work when she is there - I also often do take out style freezer meals single portions from LO for a quick and easy option for lunches.

gayleygoo

That seems a lot to be spending, but easily done if you're not planning meals, shopping with a list, and you are popping to the shop every other day for milk or bread. If you do need to go out for these things, take only the change you need so you don't get tempted to buy other things you didn't plan for.

You need to start a spending diary. Get a notebook and aim to get in the habit of recording every spend every day. It can take time to get into this habit, but is well worth it. I am just starting this again after a few months forgetting about it, but it was the only way I could keep track of anything. I added up totals in various categories at the end of the week (food, household, pets, personal allowance, clothing, fuel, electric, school expenses etc) so that I could try to keep within the budgets for the month.

Meal planning is another habit you should think about. It gets easier as you keep doing it, and it creates less food waste as well as reducing stress of what to cook every night.

I think a takeaway once a week is fine as long as you eat fairly healthy the rest of the week and it's not cutting into your finances too much. £10 per takeaway would seem reasonable, but £10 per person is a crazy amount! Maybe set a limit of once a week, then see if you can cut it down to once every 2 weeks. It feels much more desereved when planned as a treat, rather than a last minute decision because you didn't feel like cooking.

My budget for 2 adults and 2 children is about £65 per week, and I hope to reduce that over the next couple of months. (We are expecting our third baby in April but I don't expect the food bill to increase for the first year!)

redmel1621

Excellent advice from gaylegoo.

Also if you are grabbing a takeaway as you are short on time, too tired to cook etc. Think about getting some cheap aldi frozen chips and pizza in... Ok it isn't healthy but neither is a takeaway. That way you have some easy/quick food to hand instead of going down the more expensive takeaway route..

There is always batch cooking but I myself am never very successful at that so couldn't really advise on it.

I hope you come back and speak to us a bit more

trulymadlyhannah

We are a family of 5 (nearly 6, one on the way) We spend about £190 ever 4 weeks on food (but this also includes nappies, toiletrys and cleaning). We tend to do one big shop per 4 weeks (generally when the aldi voucher comes out, occasonailly use 2/3 vouchers) and buy all the toiletrys, cleaning, nappies, wipes and store cupboard/freezer items in bulk. We go then visit the supermarket weekly-ish when we run out of milk:rotfl:, (normally about once a week, occasionally longer) and top up on bread, fruit and veg (which we freeze if there is a good offer/reduction).

Our children are young 5, 3, 1yrs, so they dont eat too much. We dont buy much junk (biscuits, crisps, choc ect) we tend to bake instead (and we get some bought for us by the childrens Nanna)
We dont eat cereals during the week and make them a treat for weekends as they and the milk are expensive, we choose porridge or toast (with egg/jam). We have sandwichs most lunch times, and have an hot meal on an evening. We buy fresh fruit and some fresh veg, but we buy broccoli, cauliflower, sweetcorn, peas, green beans, frozen as they are much cheaper. Potatoes we get a huge sack from a local supplier for £5, which lasts over a month. We dont drink (Im pregnant, and DH is on strong meds, but doesnt really drink anyway).

We also do 95% of our shopping at Aldi, I had to nip to another supermarket to collect a clothing order recently and cant believe the difference in price.

Hope this helps

peterpan01

Kim_kim wrote: »

Are you saying you spend £50 or £100 a week on takeaway?
That's a mortgage on a cheapish house.
You could have a brilliant family holiday for the money you would save stopping that.

the whole takeway is £10. so its £10 - £20 a week. Its mainly when im too tried to cook.