Weekly food budget for family of four?

LBincoming

Just wondering what the general weekly food budget should be for a family of four? I meal plan, shop at Lidl/Aldi primarily but still feel like I’m spending too much. 

Any tips for keeping costs lower while still shopping healthy would be great too please!

elsien

I suppose the starting point is the age of the children and any particular diets that you follow.
Hollow-legged teenagers versus two-year-olds, for example? 

Vegan? Vegetarian? Any specific dietary needs - it all makes a difference.

How much are you spending?

Brie

There's also going to be a lot of differences if you like to cook from scratch, only have ready meals, have certain ethni preferences that Lidl/Aldi might or might not cater for cheaply.

There's also a lot of great ideas on the old style money saving forum - lots of dinner planning, recipes, suggestions on short cuts and then on this Food Shopping forum there's a thread specifically about good/bad buys at Lidl & Aldi.  

Old style MoneySaving — MoneySavingExpert Forum

LBincoming

Two year old twins, husband who needs twice the calories of a usual adult male due to his active job. No dietary preferences, we do eat meat and fish and generally I make everything from scratch. 

Concerned I’m making too many ‘posher’ meals in the name of being healthy and eating a good variety for the kids, when I could swap in some cheaper meals a few times a week. Was wondering what others spend so I could gauge.

Currently spending around £600 a month! Feels like too much by far.

elsien

Have you thought about swapping some of the meat for lentils? I do half meat, half lentils when I’m making spaghetti or lasagne or anything like that, so it stretches twice as far.

There’s only me so I can’t comment usefully on your budget, but that does seem quite a lot given that your children are young. 

Brie

Batch cooking seems a popular way to cut down in that you can buy the more economical big packs of meat etc but use it for 2 or more meals rather than just one.  Saves on prep and cooking time and ultimately less spent on electric/gas too.  Even switching one dinner/day a week to vegetarian would also save.  

For what it's worth  - 2 adults only in this household and we over eat and over indulge so food is normally about £100 a week.  Part of that this week is a £10 duck crown from M&S. 

Biggest change I've managed to make over the last 15-20 years is to get the OH to not try to "finish everything because otherwise it's wasted".  He now knows that a small amount of chilli and a bit of left over pasta makes a nice lunch, and that veg that is starting to go off can easily be prepped and frozen for use rather than be simply binned.  His family would simply throw away the excess veg from a roast dinner whereas my mom would pop it in a pot ready to be used in soup.  They're small wins but good ones I think. 

maisie_cat

We have a mix of  meat and non meat days so some days our dinner costs £1 for 2 and sometimes it's £5. once or twice a month we have a meal deal and it's then £10 or so. I batch cook, we eat lots of legumes & veg that's on special, often adding both to meat dishes like ragu and meatloaf/meatballs. 
I do batch cook & virtually all from scratch including bread and dough and have a freezer "shop" that hubby can choose from
We tend towards organic and higher welfare food so spend more and shop in M&S/Tesco once a month each.
In the last year we've spent an average of £16/day including cleaning supplies, cat food and alcohol for 2 adults and a fussy feline who probably eats better than us.
Food is our largest spend item but is also the one we can reign back if we get an unexpected bill and need to live on cupboard/freezer supplies. 

LBincoming

Thanks everyone. 

I think we’re the equivalent of having three adults - my husband is 6 ft 6 with an extremely active job so he eats more than twice what I do. 

We do tend to stretch meat with legumes but have definitely got used to buying pre-puréed fruit sachets etc for ease when we could definitely cut back a bit.

Just wondering is £75 a week is reasonable. I’ll find it easier to stick to a weekly maximum spend I think.

HouseMartin567

LBincoming said:

Thanks everyone. 

I think we’re the equivalent of having three adults - my husband is 6 ft 6 with an extremely active job so he eats more than twice what I do. 

We do tend to stretch meat with legumes but have definitely got used to buying pre-puréed fruit sachets etc for ease when we could definitely cut back a bit.

Just wondering is £75 a week is reasonable. I’ll find it easier to stick to a weekly maximum spend I think.

Cutting down from £600 per month to £75 per week is almost halving the budget (based on 4.2 weeks per month). You might be best trying to reduce gradually (unless finances dictate a hard change now).

Are you talking solely food, or does your £600pm/£75pw include the toilet roll, laundry liquid etc? There is just 2 of us and we average about £375 a month - that includes all the household extras. We shop predominantly at Aldi with the odd Asda visit, and then Costco every couple of months for the bulk stuff.

LBincoming

HouseMartin567 said:

LBincoming said:

Thanks everyone. 

I think we’re the equivalent of having three adults - my husband is 6 ft 6 with an extremely active job so he eats more than twice what I do. 

We do tend to stretch meat with legumes but have definitely got used to buying pre-puréed fruit sachets etc for ease when we could definitely cut back a bit.

Just wondering is £75 a week is reasonable. I’ll find it easier to stick to a weekly maximum spend I think.

Cutting down from £600 per month to £75 per week is almost halving the budget (based on 4.2 weeks per month). You might be best trying to reduce gradually (unless finances dictate a hard change now).

Are you talking solely food, or does your £600pm/£75pw include the toilet roll, laundry liquid etc? There is just 2 of us and we average about £375 a month - that includes all the household extras. We shop predominantly at Aldi with the odd Asda visit, and then Costco every couple of months for the bulk stuff.

Thank you! It’s good to get a ball park.

We’re buying a lot of milk from the corner shop which is on top of the weekly shop. Maybe £100 a week would be better, with a bulk trip for toilet roll etc occasionally.

elsien

It may be worth tracking the other spends outside of your normal shop - that tends to be where the extras creep in. Go out for a bottle of milk and come back with a bottle of milk, some crisps and whatever else catches your eye. 

What does your husband do for his work lunches?