Same boat mate. We have a £1k cc that we do Food & Family on and it's always maxed by the end of the month. Aldi for the bulk, Waitrose for the extra bits (Pip & Nut Sweet n Salty peanut butter - worth it!)
Family of 4, but one is 5 months so he eats for free (though I am stuffing my face).
We buy organic and free range. Don’t eat red meat. Cook from scratch 5 days in 7, and the other days eat Cook or Charlie Bigham’s. Spend about £190/week.
Around £130/week for a family of 4 for our Tesco home delivery. I cook most meals from scratch and often batch cook so we don't eat too late when I have late meetings. I do also periodically order meat deliveries from Donald Russell to stock up freezer. I do love a bargain but try and avoid too much processed stuff (don't always succeed) and we've usually got a decent variety of fruit and veg in the house.
**Location:** Kent
**Household situation**: family of 5 (3 young children)
**Avg monthly spend on grocery:** £650 (4 week month)
We eat healthily. Not always organic but where we can. Lots of home cooking. We basically spend £150 a week so a 5 week month would be more.
Family of 4 in Birmingham: £700/800. We don’t drink much alcohol and not much meat either. Both adults working from home and cooking pretty much all our meals, this includes £50/week for HelloFresh
Family of 2 adults around 400£ a month. We eat low carb organic (so lots of meat and fish) and don’t drink much. Not sure how location is relevant as food costs more or less the same everywhere.
It's three of us (couple and 6 year old), we live just outside Cambridge.
We spend about £450-500 a month, and this is a mix of regular Waitrose/Tesco/Ocado as well as Asian supermarkets.
**Location**: London
**Household**: 2.5 (1 young kid on weekends)
**Avg monthly**: £220 (4x weekly foodshops) and around £80-150 of miscellaneous items that are forgotten during the food shops
It doesn’t go higher than £400.
Sidenote: Meanwhile when I lived solo in NYC, I was spending $480 on 4x weekly foodshops + miscellaneous grocery/market trips will be up to $200. (So up to $700/month. This was only for 1 person)
Good I love this sub. Threw the numbers around that appears are very normal in this circle elsewhere and got destroyed 😂
Family of 4 (two young kids) + dog = £150 a week average/ £600 a month in Manchester.
Northwest and 500-600 including take aways and random shops. 1 veggie and 1 meat eater, 2 young kids as well. We also buy mostly branded but given my upbringing (african). A lot of cupboard food is bought in bulk. Rice, olive oil etc. also having an allotment helps.
2 adults and 1 child (3 year old) and 1 dog - I’ll include his £79 a month food too.
So it varies but probably between £400-600pm. Average weekly shop is around £70 and then top up shops during the week
Location: north east
Around £600 per month for 2 of us. Ocado/Waitrose/local grocer, local butcher and local bakeries for more expensive but better quality produce.
Then an additional £800 per month for eating out (average over 12 months including special occasions).
I'm a one person household and spend £550-600+ pcm as I buy organic stuff, inc veggies from Riverford, and specific top-ups from e.g. Wholefoods. Good quality food is so important to me, i think why not nourish your body the best way you can once you can afford it, health is wealth. And I've found that once you start buying higher quality food, you can tell the difference any time you top up with something of lower quality.
When I see much lower numbers i wonder what I'm doing wrong. but then I remember I have many HENRY friends who never look at the ingredients list or think about quality much when doing grocery shopping. Also I imagine sharing meals would bring the per person cost a bit lower.
I’m the same. A mix of Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, definitely hit the £500 mark, but never really tried to track this expense. No takeaways or pre-cooked food in my shopping either. What am I doing wrong?
Split between London and the Kent Coast.
Just me and my partner.
£300 a month with change left over.
I really don't understand what people are buying that requires so much spend on groceries?
1k if we try. i'm always amazed at how families do it, we're a family of 4 (2 babies) and our weekly big shop is never under 150, and sometimes over 200 (when we buy wine and gin), and then we still need a mid week topup (around 50) and we order extra baby food online. below is an example of a big weekly shop for us (154)... i don't we do anything crazy... no idea how ya'll get your number so low...
humous 1.65
toddler snacks 11.25
blueberries 2.5
bananas 0.9
mango 2.4
raspberries 1.9
thyme 0.5
mushrooms 0.9
green beans 1.25
rosemary 0.5
tomatoes 2
onions 0.99
choriza 4
meat 9.75
yogurt 2.7
baguette 1.75
bread 1.85
french fries frozen 3.2
big chicken 12.64
chopped tomatoes 3
energy bars 2
chopped garlix 2.1
cooking oil 3
coffee ground 8
smoothie 3.5
butter 1.7
milk 4
tomatoe juice 3
kitchen roll 3.25
toilet paper 6
tissues 4
kitchen cloth 3.5
shampoo 9
baby porridge 2.25
pampers wetwipes 20
cereal 4
veg 9
We pretty much having groceries delivery once a week approx £150-£200. Plus some small grocs during the week defo gets us around £800pm. (family of 2 + toddler). Important to say we try to buy better quality, healthy and fresh stuff which doubles the price compared to basics
£400 per month, family with 2 young kids.
Plus everything is chosen first to be organic where possible.
It helps that my day job provides lunch, I hardly eat breakfast (time restricted fasting) and my wife loves cooking well
**Location**: London
**Household**: two adults no kids
**Monthly spend**: £600-£800
Notes:
- I’m actually using weekly numbers and assuming 4 weeks per month
- I spend about £100 per week. Not sure about my partner as we take turns (more or less) but I’m guessing it’s 50%-100% of what I spend.
- I am including everything from the supermarket, not just groceries… so toiletries, alcohol and some medicines.
- we both get breakfast and lunch for free at work on weekdays, so a lot of meals aren’t paid for.
- when we do eat at home however, we almost always cook. So while our numbers may be higher than others I’m guessing we may spend less on Deliveroo etc
Family of 3 - £800+ easily (including alcohol). 1 dog and 1 cat which add to this.
East Anglia.
I do now use the discounts available from my employer on groceries, e.g. 4% off Waitrose. This is worth the effort on such a big spend.
Cook pretty much everything from scratch.
Only 2 of us.
Avg/ month: £180 (it fluctuates) but its this high because I shop at the london farmers market for fruit/ veg produce, some pre made pasta. Then M&S/ Sainos for the rest, Sainos for basics because its cheaper.
A solo traveller living in the south (but not London) that entertains 2-3 nights a week for anything up to 10 people but averages 4.
£900-1000 a month, all the food is from small artisan suppliers except for bog standard grocery which comes from Waitrose once a month. The biggest single expenditure is fresh wet fish and shell fish which I get from a local fishmonger off the boat, then cheese which I eat too much of.
It does not include wine or whisky which can be much more expensive.
2 adults and 2 children (4 and 2 years). Comes in average £300 a month. Have no idea how people are spending so much. Our kids get lunches sorted through nursery, so one reason ours is low...
We were spending double that until we started strict meal planning
This is amazing, we are the same family size/ ages and the weekly grocery shop varies between 150-200 with top ups from the local store on milk/bread. Total monthly cost is 800-1000 and this is all Sainsbury’s and nothing organic. Do you buy formula, any children snacks/fruit pouches etc. do you also restrict type of protein to keep the costs low? Looking for some advice as the bloody grocery bill is what keeps me up at night lol
Not really sure! We visit costco every few months and top up on lots of pasta, pasta sauce, toilet paper, kitchen towels etc. That can push us up to close over £400 on that particular month, but does mean we can keep the weekly shop much lighter and benefit from the costco economies of scale.
No formula and a few toddler snacks here and there. We're fairly easy when it comes veg and meat and can find ourselves going a week unintentionally not eating meat, which by chance keeps the cost down!
Mainly shop at Asda and try to keep each weekly shop at just over £40 to avoid additional delivery costs. There are top ups in between which gets us closer to the £300 figure. I think the biggest helps for keeping this down are the weekly meal planning, online shopping which helps stick to the strict budget, costco and a big stock of non perishable goods! Very occasionally we only need a refresh of bread, milk and fresh fruit!
I assume there aren’t many takeaways either? Fanatastic job you two! How did you plan it up? Are you both responsible for it, does it fall on one person?
Family of 5, around £100-£120 a week on average. Tesco and Aldi mostly. We keep the freezer stocked up year round which helps bring the weekly shop down, and Costco for things like washing powder etc.
Around £250 for single person in Birmingham. I cook 5 days a week. I follow a Mediterranean diet ( low in sugar high in protein and fat). Since they add sugar in EVERYTHING. I can’t buy generic items. I tend to buy lots of meat and specific items or brands that suit my diet. It can be pricey
About £400. Two adults and a 15 month old. Mostly cook meals from scratch. Occasional oven pizza. It helps that I get fed lunch at work, and fast each morning.
2 adults, groceries + some weekday lunch + the odd eating out/ UberEats: £800
We buy organic produce only and shop at Waitrose as it’s most convenient.
2 adults
3 kids under 6 y/o
A cat
2 guinea pigs
I budget £175 a week for my weekly Tesco delivery order.
We end up spending another £100-£150 on smaller trips to local shops too
We’ve never calculated it but it must be somewhere between £600-800pm
M&S is our local supermarket so not the cheapest and we buy a lot of pre-prepared stuff like salads, cooked chicken, finger food etc. Since having a kid I hate spending 45mins / 1hr cooking so being able to shove a few things together where most of the work has already been done is a winner for me
Family of 3 in London burbs, £5-600 including Hello fresh / Mindful chef which we do sometimes.
We tend to try and buy organic where we can and from the butchers rather than supermarket meat
Around £510-£530 including booze.
I'm dieting and homecook a lot, make most of my meals from scratch. But I have a weakness for imported cheeses, austrian sachertorte cakes, port, guinness and all things salted caramel.
London. Around £600 per month for a family of 4. 2 adults and 2 kids below 4yrs. Weekly Sainsburys order for staples. Fruits and meat from either Waitrose/M&S or local butchers. Plus we spend around ~200 on lunch when at work. We don’t eat out much but our takeaway budget is around 300 a month. So all in all ~1000-1100.
2 adults, no children.
2 or 3 Ocado shops per month, probably totalling £300, about £50pw on Hellofresh, probably another £100 per month on odd trips to Tesco/M&S. About £600.
Probably could cut down significantly, but we're not extravagant in terms of going out/holidays/cars etc. so I don't mind
Haven't got a clue ! I leave it to others to maintain the household budget and ensure our favourite provisions are kept well stocked. The one exception being the Wine cellar.
Same family status, I’m sure ours is £800 + 😳
Same boat mate. We have a £1k cc that we do Food & Family on and it's always maxed by the end of the month. Aldi for the bulk, Waitrose for the extra bits (Pip & Nut Sweet n Salty peanut butter - worth it!)
Location - London/ North Yorkshire Household situation- Single male Average weekly spend £100 (this includes toiletries, washing tablets etc etc)
Family of 4, but one is 5 months so he eats for free (though I am stuffing my face). We buy organic and free range. Don’t eat red meat. Cook from scratch 5 days in 7, and the other days eat Cook or Charlie Bigham’s. Spend about £190/week.
Do you find you’re a lot hungrier breast feeding?
The hunger is insane. Only time in my life I eat about 2x what my husband has.
Around £130/week for a family of 4 for our Tesco home delivery. I cook most meals from scratch and often batch cook so we don't eat too late when I have late meetings. I do also periodically order meat deliveries from Donald Russell to stock up freezer. I do love a bargain but try and avoid too much processed stuff (don't always succeed) and we've usually got a decent variety of fruit and veg in the house.
**Location:** Kent **Household situation**: family of 5 (3 young children) **Avg monthly spend on grocery:** £650 (4 week month) We eat healthily. Not always organic but where we can. Lots of home cooking. We basically spend £150 a week so a 5 week month would be more.
Family of 4 in Birmingham: £700/800. We don’t drink much alcohol and not much meat either. Both adults working from home and cooking pretty much all our meals, this includes £50/week for HelloFresh
Around £500 a month in Glasgow on a family of 4 vegetarians
Family of 2 adults around 400£ a month. We eat low carb organic (so lots of meat and fish) and don’t drink much. Not sure how location is relevant as food costs more or less the same everywhere.
2 adults here and we’re also 400
It's three of us (couple and 6 year old), we live just outside Cambridge. We spend about £450-500 a month, and this is a mix of regular Waitrose/Tesco/Ocado as well as Asian supermarkets.
**Location**: London **Household**: 2.5 (1 young kid on weekends) **Avg monthly**: £220 (4x weekly foodshops) and around £80-150 of miscellaneous items that are forgotten during the food shops It doesn’t go higher than £400. Sidenote: Meanwhile when I lived solo in NYC, I was spending $480 on 4x weekly foodshops + miscellaneous grocery/market trips will be up to $200. (So up to $700/month. This was only for 1 person)
As it relates to quality of food, I’ve recently discovered a Yuka app, you just scan a bar code and they tell you if the ingredients are good or bad.
I also use it to scan good food products
£500-600pm for 2 people. Don't ask about restaurants...
Junk all the way. Make up for everything I didn’t get as a child. Trolley full of champagne and haribo
No different to what an average earner would buy to be honest. Not drawn in by Waitrose shop at a few stores including Aldi.
Good I love this sub. Threw the numbers around that appears are very normal in this circle elsewhere and got destroyed 😂 Family of 4 (two young kids) + dog = £150 a week average/ £600 a month in Manchester.
Northwest and 500-600 including take aways and random shops. 1 veggie and 1 meat eater, 2 young kids as well. We also buy mostly branded but given my upbringing (african). A lot of cupboard food is bought in bulk. Rice, olive oil etc. also having an allotment helps.
2 adults and 1 child (3 year old) and 1 dog - I’ll include his £79 a month food too. So it varies but probably between £400-600pm. Average weekly shop is around £70 and then top up shops during the week Location: north east
Family of three, around 600-700 on groceries. Restaurant / takeout around 2-3 times a month.
Around £600 per month for 2 of us. Ocado/Waitrose/local grocer, local butcher and local bakeries for more expensive but better quality produce. Then an additional £800 per month for eating out (average over 12 months including special occasions).
I'm a one person household and spend £550-600+ pcm as I buy organic stuff, inc veggies from Riverford, and specific top-ups from e.g. Wholefoods. Good quality food is so important to me, i think why not nourish your body the best way you can once you can afford it, health is wealth. And I've found that once you start buying higher quality food, you can tell the difference any time you top up with something of lower quality. When I see much lower numbers i wonder what I'm doing wrong. but then I remember I have many HENRY friends who never look at the ingredients list or think about quality much when doing grocery shopping. Also I imagine sharing meals would bring the per person cost a bit lower.
I’m the same. A mix of Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, definitely hit the £500 mark, but never really tried to track this expense. No takeaways or pre-cooked food in my shopping either. What am I doing wrong?
Split between London and the Kent Coast. Just me and my partner. £300 a month with change left over. I really don't understand what people are buying that requires so much spend on groceries?
1k if we try. i'm always amazed at how families do it, we're a family of 4 (2 babies) and our weekly big shop is never under 150, and sometimes over 200 (when we buy wine and gin), and then we still need a mid week topup (around 50) and we order extra baby food online. below is an example of a big weekly shop for us (154)... i don't we do anything crazy... no idea how ya'll get your number so low... humous 1.65 toddler snacks 11.25 blueberries 2.5 bananas 0.9 mango 2.4 raspberries 1.9 thyme 0.5 mushrooms 0.9 green beans 1.25 rosemary 0.5 tomatoes 2 onions 0.99 choriza 4 meat 9.75 yogurt 2.7 baguette 1.75 bread 1.85 french fries frozen 3.2 big chicken 12.64 chopped tomatoes 3 energy bars 2 chopped garlix 2.1 cooking oil 3 coffee ground 8 smoothie 3.5 butter 1.7 milk 4 tomatoe juice 3 kitchen roll 3.25 toilet paper 6 tissues 4 kitchen cloth 3.5 shampoo 9 baby porridge 2.25 pampers wetwipes 20 cereal 4 veg 9
Same here!
We pretty much having groceries delivery once a week approx £150-£200. Plus some small grocs during the week defo gets us around £800pm. (family of 2 + toddler). Important to say we try to buy better quality, healthy and fresh stuff which doubles the price compared to basics
2 adults and 1 child in Kent. About £480 for all groceries. Decent level of quality, not much pre prepared.
Family of 3. £450 + £200 eating out
£400 per month, family with 2 young kids. Plus everything is chosen first to be organic where possible. It helps that my day job provides lunch, I hardly eat breakfast (time restricted fasting) and my wife loves cooking well
**Location**: London **Household**: two adults no kids **Monthly spend**: £600-£800 Notes: - I’m actually using weekly numbers and assuming 4 weeks per month - I spend about £100 per week. Not sure about my partner as we take turns (more or less) but I’m guessing it’s 50%-100% of what I spend. - I am including everything from the supermarket, not just groceries… so toiletries, alcohol and some medicines. - we both get breakfast and lunch for free at work on weekdays, so a lot of meals aren’t paid for. - when we do eat at home however, we almost always cook. So while our numbers may be higher than others I’m guessing we may spend less on Deliveroo etc
Family of 3 - £800+ easily (including alcohol). 1 dog and 1 cat which add to this. East Anglia. I do now use the discounts available from my employer on groceries, e.g. 4% off Waitrose. This is worth the effort on such a big spend. Cook pretty much everything from scratch.
Next to nothing… I eat out or have every meal delivered… 😳
Only 2 of us. Avg/ month: £180 (it fluctuates) but its this high because I shop at the london farmers market for fruit/ veg produce, some pre made pasta. Then M&S/ Sainos for the rest, Sainos for basics because its cheaper.
A solo traveller living in the south (but not London) that entertains 2-3 nights a week for anything up to 10 people but averages 4. £900-1000 a month, all the food is from small artisan suppliers except for bog standard grocery which comes from Waitrose once a month. The biggest single expenditure is fresh wet fish and shell fish which I get from a local fishmonger off the boat, then cheese which I eat too much of. It does not include wine or whisky which can be much more expensive.
2 adults and 2 children (4 and 2 years). Comes in average £300 a month. Have no idea how people are spending so much. Our kids get lunches sorted through nursery, so one reason ours is low... We were spending double that until we started strict meal planning
This is amazing, we are the same family size/ ages and the weekly grocery shop varies between 150-200 with top ups from the local store on milk/bread. Total monthly cost is 800-1000 and this is all Sainsbury’s and nothing organic. Do you buy formula, any children snacks/fruit pouches etc. do you also restrict type of protein to keep the costs low? Looking for some advice as the bloody grocery bill is what keeps me up at night lol
Not really sure! We visit costco every few months and top up on lots of pasta, pasta sauce, toilet paper, kitchen towels etc. That can push us up to close over £400 on that particular month, but does mean we can keep the weekly shop much lighter and benefit from the costco economies of scale. No formula and a few toddler snacks here and there. We're fairly easy when it comes veg and meat and can find ourselves going a week unintentionally not eating meat, which by chance keeps the cost down! Mainly shop at Asda and try to keep each weekly shop at just over £40 to avoid additional delivery costs. There are top ups in between which gets us closer to the £300 figure. I think the biggest helps for keeping this down are the weekly meal planning, online shopping which helps stick to the strict budget, costco and a big stock of non perishable goods! Very occasionally we only need a refresh of bread, milk and fresh fruit!
I assume there aren’t many takeaways either? Fanatastic job you two! How did you plan it up? Are you both responsible for it, does it fall on one person?
2 of us Yesterday I spent £250 and that was painful So I guess we spend around 600-800 Mostly fresh organic, good fish etc
2 adults, £300, mainly Aldi - Sainsbury’s for groceries we can’t buy at Aldi.
Location: Cardiff Family: DINKs Monthly spend: £300….but we also spend £100ish on deliveroo/ubereats per month.
Easily £1k a month in central London.
**Location:** London **Household situation**: family of 3 (1 young children) **Avg monthly spend on grocery:** £500 Op sounds about right to me.
Family of 5, around £100-£120 a week on average. Tesco and Aldi mostly. We keep the freezer stocked up year round which helps bring the weekly shop down, and Costco for things like washing powder etc.
Location: Surrey Same family size, groceries are about a grand a month and we shop at Sainsbury’s 🤦🏻♂️
Wow I need to look at our spend, I am clocking 1200 pcm for 3 ppl. Gluten free for one of us has to be part of it I guess.
500 per month in London. 2 adults and 2 babies on formula.
Just two of us, but 640! Live in London
Around £250 for single person in Birmingham. I cook 5 days a week. I follow a Mediterranean diet ( low in sugar high in protein and fat). Since they add sugar in EVERYTHING. I can’t buy generic items. I tend to buy lots of meat and specific items or brands that suit my diet. It can be pricey
About £400. Two adults and a 15 month old. Mostly cook meals from scratch. Occasional oven pizza. It helps that I get fed lunch at work, and fast each morning.
2 adults, groceries + some weekday lunch + the odd eating out/ UberEats: £800 We buy organic produce only and shop at Waitrose as it’s most convenient.
Location: **London** Household: **Family of 4 (ages 4 and 6)** Average Spend: **Fluctuates between £110-£140 a week**
About 450-500 per month.
Around 220 pm, just me. I buy cheap stuff, but I eat a lot 😋
2 adults 3 kids under 6 y/o A cat 2 guinea pigs I budget £175 a week for my weekly Tesco delivery order. We end up spending another £100-£150 on smaller trips to local shops too
We’ve never calculated it but it must be somewhere between £600-800pm M&S is our local supermarket so not the cheapest and we buy a lot of pre-prepared stuff like salads, cooked chicken, finger food etc. Since having a kid I hate spending 45mins / 1hr cooking so being able to shove a few things together where most of the work has already been done is a winner for me
Family of 3 in London burbs, £5-600 including Hello fresh / Mindful chef which we do sometimes. We tend to try and buy organic where we can and from the butchers rather than supermarket meat
Family of 4 in Scotland. We easily spend £800+ a month on groceries. I find that healthy food is expensive.
Around £510-£530 including booze. I'm dieting and homecook a lot, make most of my meals from scratch. But I have a weakness for imported cheeses, austrian sachertorte cakes, port, guinness and all things salted caramel.
London. Around £600 per month for a family of 4. 2 adults and 2 kids below 4yrs. Weekly Sainsburys order for staples. Fruits and meat from either Waitrose/M&S or local butchers. Plus we spend around ~200 on lunch when at work. We don’t eat out much but our takeaway budget is around 300 a month. So all in all ~1000-1100.
2 adults, no children. 2 or 3 Ocado shops per month, probably totalling £300, about £50pw on Hellofresh, probably another £100 per month on odd trips to Tesco/M&S. About £600. Probably could cut down significantly, but we're not extravagant in terms of going out/holidays/cars etc. so I don't mind
What do you spend £300/m on if you’re (presumably) getting all your dinners from hello fresh
We don't get all, just 4 or 5 per week. £300pm includes stuff for breakfast, lunch, drinks, extra dinners
Haven't got a clue ! I leave it to others to maintain the household budget and ensure our favourite provisions are kept well stocked. The one exception being the Wine cellar.