Food Bills

[Teamedup]

There is one of those progs 'Get a New Life' on about a family moving to France. The woman on the show, announced that the weekly shopping bill would drop by a half currently a £120 a week, for a family of five..............?

Well ours dropped, just because the kids left, but no way for the four of us did it get below around £100 a week and that was with me on a real economy drive. Usually it was higher than that.

So who pays £60 a week for a family of five including a couple of ados.

 

[Miki]

[quote]There is one of those progs 'Get a New Life' on about a family moving to France. The woman on the show, announced that the weekly shopping bill would drop by a half currently a £120 a week, for a fami...[/quote]

As the head of our family taxi firm (as in taxiing the family about !) we often put in somewhere in the region of 70/90 euros most weeks for fuel (say £50/60) plus Tina spends more than double that on food for 4 adults (kids 21 & 20). Kids to work, kids to friends, one kid to school, run around here run around there and so on...........and don't forget kids lunch money for school !

I do wonder where some figures come from, I am frightened to add up all the annual payouts, as I think I would wonder where the money would come from.

Sample and on the wall now ; Annual Lycée fees 899€ lus lunches on top and miles of extras to come this year ~ House assurance 850€ ~ Main car 329€ ~ Taxe Fonciere (low compared to many) 690€ ~ not to mention the cotisations etc and G de Fr annual bill, bit late due to small change required 757€ and it is frightening to know that the EDF bill (mentioned some days ago) was over 700€.

Final (hopefully) set of driving lessons to pay this week of 740€ for son before his second test and daughter to start her final 12 hours !! and as anyone on here with kids will know, that lot ain't the half of it but what else would we do !!

And as me old Mum always said, "there's many worse off  than us sonny" and from what I see on these programms she might well be right !

Has anyone ever done a more or less definitive list of ex's for an average household with 2 kids and a business....Val, have you?

 

 

 

                                          

[Val_2]

Miki, am too scared to work it out exactly because I know what I will find. £120 per week won't cover our petrol/diesel bills currently although now I don't have to taxi anything like I did because schools and hours have changed and daughter has her own transport and lives away all week. Food, like you say costs a fortune here now compared to five years ago and we are a family of four adults (the youngest and biggest could eat for France anyway if we let them). Plus we also have four cats to feed and litter along with vet's bills every so often. I have actually changed my shopping habbits and tend to go to Lidl more often now they have a nice new clean one not far away and a brand new one opening up soon in the nearest town as you seem to get an awful lot in your trolley for a lot less than the local Super U. Obviously we can't get everything we like in there,but every little saving helps when things like the medical mutuelle seems to keep creeping up every couple of months. These dreaming programmes,I have noticed,quite often drop comments about how cheap it is to live in France, well,property maybe in some places but certainly not day to day expenses as it is all relative.

[Lori]

As a family of 3, one 10 year old child, me and my husband, we could spend 90 euros (I think that's 60 pounds?)per week on food, but just food. Not things like wine,canteen tickets, or having friends over for an apperitif or dinner. And, that is just as has been said by others here, shopping at the Lidl, the Leader Price and LeClerc. They are all within 500 meters of one another, so no extra gas is spent taking advantage of the bargains each one has to offer.

I cannot imagine how a family of five could eat on 90 euros per week. Perhaps they eat only rice, pasta, frozen and/or packaged items which can sometimes be cheaper. No way to fresh veggies, fruits and meats on that budget.

[Quillan]

When we arrived in France and before we moved in to our new house out of bordom I ran a spread sheet on food costs (sad isn't it). This was two years ago now but at the time the average weekly food and fuel bill (for the car) was the same as the UK. Some things were cheaper other more expensive so it balanced out. The only thing I did notice was that salad stuff had a taste, meat was better even in the supermarket but veg and fruit (in the supermarket) were not always as fresh as in the UK. You also have to check the sell by dates in France.

[Coco]

I'm with you on that one Chris - I now ALWAYS check the sell-by dates.  IN the UK everything was reduced within a day of the sell-by date.  Here I frequently pick things up and discover that they are a couple of days PAST the sell-by date.  I'm often tempted to point it out to the manager, but then think about whether my French is up to a long (which it will be) debate on the subject.

As for living on £60 (90€) a week - well I think I'll probably start getting a reputation on here for extravagant living (what with my grossly over-priced cheddar:blush but a couple of times I have forced myself to go shopping on Monday and then not go for the rest of the week and keep my bill under 100€.  I can do it quite easily (but there are only two of us) and that is if I substitute fresh pasta for the dried stuff and buy a few tinned pulses to put in "big" soups where I only have to use half as much meat than I would in a "meat and two veg" style meal.  And of course that doesn't include wine, loo rolls, cat food or cleaning products!!

But normally my food bill is in excess of 150€ because we do like our fresh fruit and veggies.  There again, I spent on average £120-£150 a week in the UK, so I'm still better off!

And it does all taste a lot nicer here!

 

Coco

[Russethouse]

Last year I told my lot (we are 4 adults here too)that I was going to put it all the supermarket shopping into a spread sheet for a month and see just who was responsible for spending what. For that month I kept the supermarket bill down to £160 a week !

A lot of the costs are because no one eats the same here. We even have 3 types of bread on the go all the time ( I know, stupid) ......we do have lots of fresh fruit & veg and I tend to buy soft fruits etc when in season, which are not cheap in the UK.

As stated the kids are both adults, (23 & 20) when they work they pay a 'token' rent, more to teach them the value of money than anything else. Lots of my friends don't do this, so my two moan (half heartedly) On the other hand some parents seem to make them pay more than just a token........

[Dick Smith]

We came to the conclusion some time ago that our French food bills are roughly the same as in the UK but the quality (especially vegetables and fruits) is better and the meat is tastier. There is also more choice if you shop in supermarkets. Buying in charcuteries isn't cheap, but is a pleasant improvement over an English bakery...

In England we buy more rubbishy stuff - we seem to discover discernment in France.

[Kent]

My food bill in the UK for two adults and two kids (young teenagers) is usually around £60. I found in France I was spending more - but then I don't have a kitchen there yet so its either something that will barbecue or something cold.

However I found the flavour of food in France was far superior on most fresh items and meat (I find this particularly depressing as I work in the food industry!) I'd still rather be shopping in a french supermarket than a british one!

[Val_2]

My mum in the UK has always been a staunch Sainsburys shopper until about five years ago when they began to get more and more expensive and she was having to watch the pension money so she changed to Asda which were more realistic prices. Recent years have seen a Safeway open up within two minutes walk of her local Sainsburys so she has been shopping there. Last week she went there after an absence of a few months and found it is now Morrisons - she went round once and left without buying anything saying how dreadful the stuff was and the quality was rubbish. She's now looking forward to getting back out here to visit LeClerc and Super U again. Another thing I have noticed over the years is that the french aren't afraid to sell things that would offend many british shoppers like trays of fresh cow's tongues with the grass still green on them, a pig's head sliced in half,trotters, ears and lungs which would cause uproar I'm sure in Sainsburys etc as I don't ever remember seeing those sort of things sold amongst the meat products.

 

[Dick Smith]

When I asked in our Sainsbury's why didn't they sell veal I was told that it would offend the customers...

They do sell escalopes at about £14.99 a kilo, though, but nothing 'controversial'.

[Teamedup]

On that prog last night the woman bought escalopes de veau from  a market butchers for 4 people.........that was probably around 6 quid's worth or more, big hole in a £60 budget for the week.

The man, it was said had got a job as a spark in France. I wish that they had mentioned the salary he would have been earning working for a company, probably around 1200 euros a month, perhaps if he was lucky.......... I really wish they had said.

 

The two Morrisons stores I have used in the NE of England have been excellant. The quality has been very good as has the variety of products. I did call in a Sainsburys, but wondered 'why' anyone shopped there, so unispired was I, that I had problems buying the £5 worth of stuff to get my parking money back. 

[Russethouse]

Haven't seen bit of pig, head, trotters etc for sale in a supermarket but I guess most butchers would get them for you.

Spending on food is a topical subject as it was on the news today that the average Uk household spends £600 a month on food.

[Val_2]

Six hundred quid! Now why dosn't that surprise me. Everytime I ring home, someone is moaning about the prices but they don't actually cook a proper meat and two veg meal except for my parents, its all convenience or takeaway and those have never been particularly cheap. One thing we have forgotten to mention is the cost of non-food items like washing powder,loo rolls,pet needs etc which does boost the monthly bill for everyone,but you can easily economise by buying the cheaper brands or going to the cheaper supermarkets here. I still can't believe the fact that there are many inner-city families who never buy so much as a pound of carrots or apples to eat and some kids have never eaten fruit in their lives.

[Dick Smith]

That's a bit of a sweeping generalisation. I doubt if there are many kids who have never eaten fruit. There have been recent 'pieces' by organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group which shows that buying convenience-type foods can be cheaper (in the UK). £1.50 for green beans for 2? That is pretty normal, usually flown in from Kenya, of course. Just as in France, farmers are complaining that they get paid a tiny fraction of what the supermarkets sell food for.

[opas]

I worked in a large supermarket in the Uk for nearly 10 years and believe me the same families bought the same junk week after week .Some peoples Idea of fruit and veg are baked beans and tofee apples....It is not suprising that the food bills are going up I would need to buy 2 frozen dinners to fill me up....(no I am not a glutten or overweight,just  a healthy appetite!)

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

[quote]I worked in a large supermarket in the Uk for nearly 10 years and believe me the same families bought the same junk week after week .Some peoples Idea of fruit and veg are baked beans and tofee apples...[/quote]

That's very true. Things like chilled lasagne are very small portions and are usually full of liquid compared to if you made it at home. I do find though, that the tinned couscous meals you get in France do go as far as they say they will. We only use them occasionally for emergency camp food, but we have doubled the quantities as we would with English pre-prepared foods and found that there was a lot left over. Also, the bought stuff in England is usually artificially sweet. Although I can't say regarding similar items in France as apart from the couscous, taboule and confits de canard, we tend to cook real ingredients when we are in France as we do at home, except for occasional stand-by food.

[Iceni]

We don't buy any ready made meals or fizzy drinks or flavoured water etc.  Our shopping bills in the UK were below all our friends but they were always amazed when they came over for a meal how well we ate. Here it is even cheaper for us as we grow so much - yes we live a frugal healthy eating lifestyle but we spend far more on good cheese and other things we would not buy in the UK.

In our early 50's we started to live the frugal life when the pensions went down the drain and will continue to try to restrict our spending as and when we can.  We live far better over here than we did in the UK but it is much much harder work.  Cooking a good meal takes time, opening a can or defrosting a package does not.

I personally do not begrudge anyone the ease of convenience food, it just is not for us, as we don't buy imported fruit in the winter, most would rather go to a supermarket and buy someting flown in, they probably hold off the colds better than us but we do eat loads of seasonal veg.

As we get older our choices will be limited and costs will go up, for now, we eat and drink really well and it is cheaper than the UK in money but very very much more expensive in time and this would not be possible if we were running a B&B or had children/other adults at home.

[Val_2]

Out of interest to see what is happening back where we used to live in the UK, I was reading the local weekly paper online last night and one of the headlining stories was that very shortly every school in the county were going to be giving all the kids a piece of fruit daily for a week to try and encourage them to eat more and stop bringing crisps,choc bars and cakes for their school lunches. They worked out how much percentage of a typical packed school lunch was nutritious and it was practically zero. Quite frightening really when you think about the serious long term effects on these kids eating habits for the future and for their kids too.

[opas]

Firstly I would like to dito Iceni, except that we are a few years younger with 2 schoolage kids who eat like horses!

Val,we have been in France just over 12 months now and when we left  the UK our youngest had just completed Reception year at school.Our school had been chosen to pilot the fruit scheme you mention. Though to be honest all it did for most of the mums was lighten the shopping bag.....everyone normally brought in fruit for the afternoon...but some forgot on purpose because `miss` gave them half a rice cake if they hadn`t got anything! no crisps,chocs or biscuits for snack time. They also had free milk in the morning and you had to sign a letter if they didn`t want milk!

[Musicmonkey<ADDRESS><STRONG>Musicmonkey<STRONG><ADDRESS>]

I have my weekly shopping bill for two adults and two children from Sainsbury's today and it came to £91.70.  That equates to about 135 Euros and does not take into account the meals/snacks my daughter has at school.  It just so happens this week I only needed sandwich bags and an air freshener as non food items.  This bill does not include any ready meals (except for a pack of fresh filled pasta) and no fruit as I bought that a couple of days ago.

Another very worrying statistic has been quoted on the news today.....that one fifth of today's teenagers are showing signs of heart disease.  I gather from Jill's previous posts it seems her children have acquired a very wide taste of food which is great.  I am constantly challenged by my children (aged 12 and 10) who want to keep to a very unhealthy and restricted diet.  Example: when I buy mackerel or salmon, I am accused of being weird as none of their friends are ever offered such foods and don't even know what they are!!!  What is your secret Jill?

  

[opas]

I also have 2 young children who will try anything,largely because right from weaning we have all eaten the same meals, curries/chillies excepted,our daughters Idea of a `treat tea` is baked beans on toast or boiled egg and soldiers!

they don`t like everything though,snails,liver and melon spring to mind though they have horsemeat burgers from Auchan(unawares) and love them and dad `treated `us to half a tongue the other week...very nice too.

Tea tonight is cauliflower cheese ,but I have to add mustard to the sauce as we are on  Auchan thumbsup cheese at the moment,isn`t strong enough for them!!

just a funny afterthought,when our youngest was at day nusery in Uk aged about 3 years she had the staff in stitches one luchtime,she was served her plate of food,can`t remember the full meal but her exclamation was `lovely, Calamaries! where is the lemon` the nusery nurse at her table mouthed to the others` what are they?` they were onion rings!!! what a let down ,and no lemon either!

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

[quote]When I asked in our Sainsbury's why didn't they sell veal I was told that it would offend the customers...They do sell escalopes at about £14.99 a kilo, though, but nothing 'controversial'.[/quote]

Must be something different about the area you live - I haven't seen veal in Sainsbury's or any other supermarket in this area for at least 10 years!

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

[quote]I have my weekly shopping bill for two adults and two children from Sainsbury's today and it came to £91.70. That equates to about 135 Euros and does not take into account the meals/snacks my daughte...[/quote]

Er! Gosh, you're going back a bit. No I don't have any secrets - my kids do eat a wide range of foods, but I still can't get my son to eat veg (although he will eat salad and some crudites) They just seem to have weird tastes. All I can say is that we have always eaten a wide range of foods of different nationalities. My son hasn't taken to pasta dishes though. But he will eat rice now. My daughter will eat more or less anything, but it has to be good quality. My son is beginning to eat a few things he wasn't eating previously. He does eat things that a lot of his friends would think odd or even sick - olives, anchovies, hummus, rabbit, horse, veal, kidneys, liver. If we have a meal where he doesn't like much, there may be some bread, pitta, garlic bread to go with it. We don't have puddings. One of the problems I did have with food education was that when my mum or sister looked after them, they took it into their heads that all meals should end with a pudding! In fact, they were given puddings as meal substitutes there too. No main course, no pudding. We only keep yoghurts as puddings. We are really bad with fruit though. If we have any at home, we just forget to eat it and it goes off.

I have no idea what our food bill is, as my husband does most of our shopping and has the habit of going several times a week. We try to buy things like meat when they get reduced by sell by date, to keep the price down, but on the whole we do buy more expensive cuts. For example we will buy a joint to turn into a curry rather than a stewing meat, if the joint is a cheap enough price, because we would just cut off and throw fat away. I think, to be honest, we are quite extravagent with food.

I do think though that if kids are going to be difficult with food, there is no method to change them. My son's friend called round the other day while we were still eating, sniffed and said "pepperoni pizza". I said no, Pasta alla carbonara. She was curious, so I gave her and the other friend a taste and they liked it. After we had eaten, I gave them what was left. If her mother had served that, she wouldn't have touched it. Also, when my son when on residential school trips, he came back eating things he had not eaten before. So it tends to be circumstances. So, where are you going to send yours to?

[Musicmonkey<ADDRESS><STRONG>Musicmonkey<STRONG><ADDRESS>]

[quote]Er! Gosh, you're going back a bit. No I don't have any secrets - my kids do eat a wide range of foods, but I still can't get my son to eat veg (although he will eat salad and some crudites) They jus...[/quote]

We don't usually have puddiings either, just fruit or yoghurt.  If the children want cake after a sandwich I insist they eat fruit first.  (However, quite often that results in no fruit or cake!).  My children eat the same meals as we do (except sandwich fillings - my daughter eats only marmite and son, honey). It's just the moans I get fed up with.

I suppose they are not too bad really as they both eat rice, noodles, pasta, potato and most meats (even when curried or with mild chilli) and eat most vegetables, but not salad which we eat quite often. They don't eat enough fruit.

It's true what  you say about them going away Jill.  Both children went to Scout camp at Easter and my son came back with a real appetite for apples, when previously he wouldn't touch them.  Unfortunately, it didn't last long