I seem to spend a fortune; i was inspired by another thread on here asking if he could get by on £5 a day for 2000 calories. I had always thought that £35 a week seemed like a decent amount of money if you were mindful about where you shopped and what you ate, but that thread seems to think otherwise.

I seem to constantly eat out, impulse purchase and buy shit i don’t need. I am not in that category (although I would love to be…)

£200 per week 😯

To be fair – it’s a family of 5. So £40 per head, although 3 of those heads are children.

excluding household goods (i,e, washing powders, soaps, booze, & bits) roughly:
£20-25 meat
£6-10 veg
£4-6 fruit
£5-8 dairy
£3-5 bread-making and bread
£3-4 drinks
£5-15 other ingredients (like spices, grains, pastas, rice, nuts, sauces etc)

so anywhere between £50 and £75 for family of 4. No ready meals, all prepared and cooked at home from scratch except occasionally for lazy chicken kievs.

Average shop cost is closer to £100-120 per week, but that includes my lunches (work from home), loads of booze and maybe a DVD for the boys.

Two of us.
Excluding booze and 1 takeaway £45 on average
Including booze and 1 Takeaway £80

All food is cooked from Scratch.

I find food in uk q expensive, sainsburys, its hard to avoid all the packaged rubbish. I always cook so end up chasing aroumd the store looking for individual items. I reckon 100 pw for 2, including wine.

Just me at home so no hungry kids to feed. Easily spend less than £30 each week, sometimes less. But then I’m not a food lover (I eat to ride) so no fancy stuff for me. Treat myself to a chippie every Friday and the odd cake, the rest is just easy to cook meat etc. Does help that I don’t really have an appetite, can go a few days without eating sometimes if I’m out of my normal routine!!

£20-25.

Just me.

Don’t drink, but do have a penchant for biscuits and go for convenience (tinned beans & veg/frozen veg etc) over cooking from scratch/buying raw staples.

About £75 for a family of four. Including non foods from the supermarket.

Cook most meals from scratch and we have an Aldi and Lidl as our local shops.

I think we eat pretty well.

Easily £100.00..but that’s not just food ..its all household shopping

About £90 per week for food and drink for 3 people.

Jamie – Member
£20-25.

Just me.

Sorry. I’m calling bullshit. Nobody can spend that little a week on food…

Can they?

Blimey

Two adults, two teenagers (with hollow legs), just food is about 100-115 a week.

Edit: cook from scratch

£0

I send Mrs Weeksy, I have no idea how much it costs her

I may spend £6 on a couple of lattes though

£60 ish per week all in for the shopping (food, cleaning, bog roll etc.) two hungry adults! Might have a takeaway at the weekend (£15) no booze.

Mostly processed/packaged crap though, need to cook from scratch more, although looking at the above it’s gonna cost more!

Just me most of the time so £70 a week (maybe one bottle of wine included, but not normally) I love food, cook as fresh as I can and when I can’t I’m hooked on Charlie Binghams fish pies/lasagne/meatballs.
When the Mrs’s is around it’s normally £80-90.

Oh, seems some are including takeaways/eating out in thier costings… I’m not.. so I normally eat out once a week with a pint so add another £20 to my total.

Sorry. I’m calling bullshit. Nobody can spend that little a week on food…

I spend about that just on lunches, £5/day at the local coop..

Sorry. I’m calling bullshit. Nobody can spend that little a week on food…
I spend about that just on lunches, £5/day at the local coop..

Sadly so do i. Maybe even more. And normally buy lunch out; maybe eat out twice a week as well. What a lunatic I am. I don’t even enjoy it very much.

I spend about that just on lunches, £5/day at the local coop..

Well, that’s cause you’re such a high roller, mate 8)

Well, that’s cause you’re such a high roller, mate

Yes I often leave the local Coop, clutching my chicken salad sandwich, thinking ‘Yes, I’ve finally made it’ 🙂

We live the high life on the Cambridge Business Park…..

I guess somewhere around £7/day for me.
Breakfast usually effectively free (loaf bought for lunches becomes toast)
Lunch usually around £2
Dinner usually around £3.50
+Snacks and drinks.

I have no idea

Sorry. I’m calling bullshit. Nobody can spend that little a week on food…

Can they?

It can be done, when I got laid off I was unemployed for a few months things got pretty dire for a week or two waiting for the paycheck for my new job to come through.

Weekly shop.
4 x 50p loafs of value bread.
2 x tins of corned beef
Value Ketchup
4 x 25p jars of chicken /salmon paste
Large block of cheese
Large pack of reformed ham
Some really cheap pasta n sauce packs
Some 10p noodle packs
Chilli sauce
6 litres of milk

£100 for 3 adults and a big greedy labby.

so not far off my £5 a day target. 8)

About £125 a week for two adults and a baby. However, that includes nappies and other household purchases. We don’t really drink much so expenditure in booze is neglible. We do however buy quite a lot of meat and fresh fruit/veg. No ready meals or takeaways, all meals are cooked from scratch. Oh, and I take lunch to work with me so there are no additional costs there. Still seems steep in my opinion but the missus insists she can’t/won’t go lower.

I’m quite sad in that I itemise our monthly expenditure against a monthly budget and forecast against big ticket items in the future…needs must when you’re on just the one salary. However, it’s staggering how much money gets frittered away when you look into it – I recommend doing so if you don’t already as the exercise saved us well over £150 per month at the start.

About 150/week. Family of 4. I find it shocking how much we spend and I do try and reduce it but then end up going again and spending more!

I guess about £75. Big shop usually comes to £60 plus a couple of little shops. 2 adults, 2 kids (6&4) Most meals home cooked but kids (and me!) like the odd supermarket pizza and fish fingers obvz!

Recently I’ve been trying to cook 2 meals, one for today and one for the freezer.

Edit: I’ve forgotten we pay for school meals so more like £85.

We have 4 kids, my food bills are bonkers

Personally do try and be frugal, but 4 kids also = tired can easily spend £5 a day on lunch, loads of really nice places to buy food near work too!

I had always thought that £35 a week seemed like a decent amount of money if you were mindful about where you shopped and what you ate, but that thread seems to think otherwise.

You can feed yourself in a decent healthy and nutritious manner for £35 a week. Over your 5 a day and all the protein you need as well. If anyone cannot do this this it’s down to their own incompetence.

Buy your staples (lentils, beans, rice, flour etc) in bulk, buy your fruit and vegetables fresh and in season, and buy cheaper but still tasty cuts of meat from your butcher. Take the time to plan in advance and make use of your freezer. Make your meals from scratch. It’s not difficult, just needs some discipline.

I live alone and spend £40 -£45 every week in Tesco . Now , this does include monthly purchaces like washing powder , dishwaher tablets etc
I also go out approx one night a week with my mate and thats £25 so I spend £65 a week as an average on feeding myself
btw .- I am 5ft 11 and weigh 76kg , so not exactly a tubber

Not good here, both not keen on preparing and cooking so it’s pretty much take away or cafe or bar lunch Thursday tea through to Sunday, 5 in family then usually a boyfriend or two of the daughters averaged out last year at about £200 a week on the above , then there’s usually 3 or 4 £25-£35 debits for the local Tesco express each week , obviously cleaning stuff and toiletries in that so if we said £75-£100 out of that then it’s £275-£300 a week, doesn’t look good but we have a great family time so more than happy to roll with it!!

I only eat breakfast (cereal) and one other meal a day about 3-4pm so that makes it cheaper.Probably 30ish a week.

It is possible to eat very well for not that much.

We do around £100-£120/week, family of four with two 17 year old boys. That includes stuff like washing powder but NOT beer and wine. We could pretty easily knock 20% off that with a few sacrifices (fresh orange juice being top of the list at ~£8/week)

Everything cooked from scratch apart from the odd pizza to keep in the freezer for that quick, easy ’emergency meal.

Key to keeping cost down is menu-planning and bulk purchase of ‘dry’ foods. And never go to the supermarket hungry.

£75-125 for 2, everything not just food (that includes very little booze/wine as that’s mostly bought in bulk in France). We usually spend quite a lot less on food when in France as despite 5% VAT food is much cheaper there (our weekly cheese record was €38 though 🙂 )

We eat mostly vegetarian, some fish (which is expensive). Almost everything cooked from fresh, eg exception twice a month or so microwave curry. We often cook 2-3 days worth and freeze some

OP Eat Well for Less is compulsive viewing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/b0520lz9

I transfer the Mrs £700 a month to cover the shopping etc. I have no idea how that breaks down but the fridge is usually full and my favorite crisps and biscuts are in the cupboard, so I don’t ask…

2 adults, 2 kids (6+12) . We spend about £85 a week , Mrs Carlos is allergic to loads of things so we tend to cook from scratch rather than ready meals.

Most of the shop is done at Aldi , I’d hate to think how much the same shop would be at Asda/Morison’s.

For 14 breakfasts, 12 dinners and about 6 lunches, £60 a week – two of us. Cooking almost always from fresh, mix of Aldi and Sainsburys.

Lunch when I’m out/at work is about £5.

One evening out/takeaway a week on average.

Take the time to plan in advance and make use of your freezer. Make your meals from scratch. It’s not difficult, just needs some discipline

This is definitely true as a new graduate my partner and I were good like this but now food s more of a afterthought, (not so much for other half but for me). Lazy I know. Food is still not massive. About £80 per week all supermarket shopping. Two adults and one baby. Eat really well imo.

£200 per week sounds massive! Even for 5 grown ups, where do you think the bulk is spent.

£125

That’s £60 a week in Sainsburys.
£15 school dinners for the eldest.
£5 a day each for my Wife and I.

Used to be a lot more, I’m trying to get back into the habit of making myself lunch at home, if nothing else I’m bored shitless of the co-op meal deals.

100 quid a week for 2. Plus my lunches. Feels extravagant but I’m not sure what I’d cut out – we eat zero ready meals or stuff like that.

Jamie – Member
£20-25.
Just me.

Sorry. I’m calling bullshit. Nobody can spend that little a week on food…

Can they?

Blimey[/quote]

Just gone through my last 4 shopping bills from Morrisons:

£23.64
£19.88
£26.12
£17.94

You can add about £1 for extra milk during the week onto all of that and the £26.12 was inflated by buying a new pack of razor blades at £10. So I’d say Jamie’s figures tally up with mine for a similar situation.

It’s amazing how quickly those extra little snacks or big portions add up!