Russian large families’ spending on food has reached a 15-year record

Russian large families’ spending on food has reached a 15-year record

In the fourth quarter of 2025, a Russian family with three or more children spent 42.2% of its income on food. This is the highest figure in 15 years, according to Rosstat data on household consumer spending that Verstka drew attention to.

The figure was higher only in 2010, when families with three children spent 35.3% of their income on food, and families with four or more children spent 45.3%. Those expenses were a temporary spike — they rose in 2010, fell in 2011, and in subsequent years never reached 40%. At the end of 2024, food spending amounted to 35.7% of large families’ income.

Food spending rose by 6.6 percentage points at once after the VAT increase and rising food prices at the end of 2025. More money began to go toward practically all categories of food — bread, meat, milk, eggs, butter, vegetables, sweets.

At the same time, families began saving on education, cafes, entertainment, and repairs. For example, in 2024, an average large family spent 9.5% of its income on entertainment, and in 2025 — 5.3%.

Pensioners are spending a record amount of money on food. In the fourth quarter of 2025, a single Russian pensioner spent almost half of their pension — 48.3% — on food, compared with 48.8% in 2024. This is the highest figure at least since 2015, when Rosstat began providing the data; at that time, pensioners spent 47.7% of their income on food.

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