Couples! How much do you spend on food per month?

thriftwizard

***Not a couple*** but a family of (currently) 4 adults with 2 different diets, omnivore & pescatarian, so kind of like two couples under one roof, though we do share some meals in common. (Not to mention puddings!) I'm spending around £400 per month on food, toiletries & cleaning stuff, so £100 per person per month, and we eat well, mostly local & cooked from scratch. I'm self-employed & we worked out long ago that it's cost-effective for me to make the time to shop & cook, as well as healthier. Luckily I enjoy cooking, as do our pescatarian DDs. We have no low-cost supermarkets locally, only a small W8rose & Co-op, but we do have a baker, butcher & greengrocer & a 3-day weekend market.
However I've recently taken pet & poultry food out of my reckoning; this cost has held pretty steady at around £500 per annum (3 cats, 2 cockatiels & 12 chickens) & is usually bulk-bought, but our human food, bought mostly at the market & local shops, has gone up quite markedly since Christmas. It usually does go up with the "new season" then falls back, but this year it's much more noticeable. A 5th member of the family is re-joining us soon after 10 years of (mostly) studying & working away so I'm going to add another £100 to my Grocery Challenge target. So IMHO £100 per person per month is reasonable & consistent with eating a varied & healthy diet, provided it's there to be spent. 

hosay299

we are 250 a week. but could be less if a family member stopped smoking ....

annieb64

We spent £196 on food last month. That didn't  include alcohol and we did have quite a lot of food in the house as had stocked up for Christmas . I was expecting  there to be five of us for five days but in the end there was just DH and me.

General_Grant

Siebrie said:

We're in Belgium and our employers give us 'meal vouchers', €6/day for dh and €8/day for me. If we don't work a day, we don't get the voucher (vacation, sickness). So, roughly, we have €120 and €140 (I work half-day on Wednesdays and don't get a voucher) per month to spend. We have to spend it on food, we cannot spend it on anything else. Most foodstores accept it, even the fastfood places and fancy restaurants (but not our local baker). So, we spend €240 on food for 2 adults and 2 children, with the very occasional extra shop of butcher meat and African veg/spices. We don't drink alcohol, and very little soda.

Sorry - just became nostalgic for Luncheon Vouchers - 15p/day tax free.  Could actually get a cheese salad in J Lyons (Hyde Park Corner) for that, but that was 1970.

old_motters

I spend about £300 a week in grocery stores. That's everything though food, alcohol, lunches, toiletries etc.  Takeaways are on top of that and we'll eat those maybe once or twice a month.

AliBee16

£300 per month for me and my grown up daughter. Gone up since covid due to getting food delivered from more expensive shops rather than going into lidl in person but I could make this cheaper if I was more careful and planned better

yeahyeahyeah

We spend £320-360 a month. This does not include alcohol, toiletries or cleaning stuff. I'm veggie almost vegan, and husband has about 2 meat products a week, as high welfare as I can find. I mostly shop in Tesco and Aldi. We both eat 3x a day with some snacks (I eat too much, he doesn't :')). Takeaway twice a month at most (including in this stuff like subway, supermarket sandwiches). We eat a lot of cheap basics and I have attempted and failed to spend much less, so I'm impressed at everyone's low spend! 
I think our biggest spends are barista plant mylks, coffee and various teas, processed snacks & puddings and fresh fruit!

Oh edited to add - 9/10 times I will buy the more expensive product for less/no plastic.

Doc_N

old_motters said:

I spend about £300 a week in grocery stores. That's everything though food, alcohol, lunches, toiletries etc.  Takeaways are on top of that and we'll eat those maybe once or twice a month.

  A week?

maisie_cat

We are retired and spend around £200-£250 including cat stuff, cleaning etc. We have a separate "going out for lunch" budget that we are obviously not using so we do sometimes have nicer food, we've had steak 2 or 3 times since Christmas because I bought a freezer pack. We also have a separate booze budget and have a couple of bottles of wine a week. I cook the vast majority from scratch, we used to buy an occasional meal deal but the last one was so disappointing we no longer have "ready meals" except a rare pizza.  

[Deleted User]

I spend £160 a month at the most.  We have been shielding for more than a year. It did go up a bit until Aldi started doing click and collect, I had to use either Morrison or Sainsbury between 10 and 15 percent more expensive especially for meat.