The average UK household is spending nearly £119 per week on food shopping, amounting to more than £6,000 per year, and for families with children, the cost can increase to £170 weekly. The rising prices mean many people have had to make sacrifices and 61 per cent of adults claim they’ve had to cut back on buying certain items, and more than two in five claim the cost of food has affected their ability to save.
In a new series, The i Paper asks families how they budget their weekly food shop. This week, we hear from Sylvie Frankel, a 41-year-old mother of four in Derbyshire, on how she and her husband, 45, budget their £75,000 household income between them and their four children, aged 19, 15, three and one.
Both my husband and I do the food shopping, and we spend around £800 a month. We try to do one big weekly shop but sometimes we only manage to do a big food shop every other week. Each one costs between £200 and £300.
My husband cooks most of the time. I’m the main worker and he looks after the children. He works (he runs a business with his dad repairing and servicing garden machinery) but I work longer hours. I do the budgeting for the household, as I’m a senior finance business partner, and I have a business working with women with ADHD and their finances.
