A single man living alone on JSA

Doom_and_Gloom

Andybez38 wrote: »

How much should i be spending on a weeks food shopping. I have found food to be really expensive just lately. I dont wanna live on packet noodles everyday but want to be able to eat healthily.

Sample of what you could buy for just over £20 for a week and possible meal ideas;

Bag of carrots - £1.12
Bag of oats - £ 1.10
Bananas for the week - £0.84
Apples for a week - £0.77
Bag of oranges - £0.89
Bag of onions - £0.50
Bag of peppers - £1.58
1 courgette - £0.34
Pack of mushrooms - £1.36
Dried mix fruit - £0.65
4 tins baked beans - £1.16
6 tins chopped tomatoes - £1.98
4 tins sweet corn - £1.16
Bag of couscous - £0.70
Bag of lentils - £0.88
Wholemeal flour - £0.99
Bag of salt - £0.23
Dried yeast - £0.68
Bag of tomatoes - £0.79
Soya beans - £0.99 (I use soya beans to make soya milk with my plant milk maker)
2 bulbs garlic - £0.39
Bag of brazil nuts - £0.94
Total - £20.02

Breakfast could be something like porridge made with soya milk with dried mixed fruit as well as a fruit smoothie made of banana, apple and orange.
Lunch could be something like lentil soup with homemade bread.
Dinner could be something like Mediterranean mixed vegetables with couscous.
Snack - a few brazil nuts and beans on toast
Drink lots of water :rotfl:.

From the ingredients above you can make many meals. It would be more cost effective if you buy certain things in bulk and you could make things like curry/chilli etc if you have the right spices/herbs in your cupboards already. Obviously if you can buy things reduced that’s great as well as buying fruit and vegetables from the grocers as that's most likely cheaper and so on. Being on a budget does not mean you have to eat unhealthy foods. Eating healthy foods can be very cheap if you know where to look.

calleyw

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Obviously if you can buy things reduced that’s great as well as buying fruit and vegetables from the grocers as that's most likely cheaper and so on. Being on a budget does not mean you have to eat unhealthy foods. Eating healthy foods can be very cheap if you know where to look.

I think everyone thinks you eat dog mess if you don't spend x on food. I spend approx £100 a month for food and only food for two adults who enjoy there food no half portions around here..

I always have fresh fruit in the fruit bowl. Most of my veggies are frozen means less waste. Buy a half bag of potatoes last for ever.

We get out 5 a day virtually everyday including one glass of juice a day.

Typical menu is:

Breakfast: Porridge or on offer cereal and apple juice.
lunch: Soup and sandwich or left overs and fruit
Tea:spag bog (wholemeal pasta) and salad, veggie sausages and veg, left over meat from sunday with veggies and gravy, salmon with wedges and salad.

Snacks:Fruit, plain scones, popcorn or toast.

Nearly every sunday we have a roast be it chicken pork etc.

So far this month I have spent about £75ish need to get some more fruit and milk later on in the week. But I also keep in milk powder to make up milk or to have in tea and coffee.

Included in the budget is squash, fruit juice, tea, coffee and milk but any soft drinks like cola etc comes out of own money.

Yours

Calley

angel13

the list above sounds great but the fresh stuff will go off if you buy big packets like that. i feed 2 adults and 1 teen and we eat tons of fresh stuff but still have problems with it going off.

if you are single and have £40 a fortnight budget there are certain things i need to help suggest things.

if you are in a bedsit (as i have been) you will have just one shelf in a fridge to use and will want to keep the rest of the food locked in your room so noone else steals it. you will probably have just two saucepans and a small frying pan that you also keep in your room which you can keep clean as the oven will probably even not work or be filthy - going on my experiences. if this is the case you need to find things that are easy to cook with just two saucepans so lots of these ideas are just not practical.

if you are in this situation and live within walking distance of a supermarket i suggest going daily if it will not cost you bus fares etc etc etc. so on this budget you would have £2.50 a day week days and then that leaves you £7.50 on the saturday so you can get a couple of treats for the weekend and hopefully a few bits to help you through the next week. i would suggest every weekend IF you have somewhere to store it buy veg to make a big vegetable stew. you only need one big saucepan for this and can reuse it for 3 days. so you could have it first day with some rice or bread and then use the rest of it the weekdays as a lunchtime filler. especially good if youve had to spoend extra in the first week of the fortnight as it means you are getting some veg in the 2nd week as well.

also you will not want to buy in bulk and be stuck having the same meals over and over as its really not nice so bullk meals are just not practical for anyone in this situation.

some good meals that you can make easily (especially good if you cant cook) i know you can get in asda - should be alternatives other places but asda have brought in excellent new veggie dried stuff. something they have done for YEARS is meat free dried bolognese packets. (i make fresh bolognese but when my son was a toddler and i was a single parent and student we used this all the time to keep us going through the week and son still loves them now over my homemade :eek:). a packet costs i think 69p and is loads. you just add it to water bring to boil and then simmer. so this can be done in one pan and then in the other boil some pasta. same packets you can get chilli pack so you could do the same but with some rice or buy some wraps and some salad.
eggs are always good as easy to do. i used to make a lot of egg salads and used to get cream crackers as as cheap as bread but wont go off and you can have tons at the side to fill you up. i also suggest buying some cheap peanuts and sprinkling them on the salad as its tasty and will fill you up. the new packs in that section are dried mixes you add to water which make up veggie burgers and falafel (weve got some in the cupboard to try next week). weve had the veggie sausages and makes TONS and very simple to do. two packs costing 78p each was ample for us.

IF you have access to a freezer dont know if you have seen them (maybe theres a meat alternative ) you can get frozen veggie meat balls. asda do their own make which is the cheapest and you get tons (5 portions for £2). ive suggested them to my mum as she lives alone now and doesnt make things like bolognese. you can just keep them in the freezer and take a handful out whenever you want them. perfect with some pasta and tomatoes or a cheap pasta sauce if any is on offer. you can also buy packets of swedish style sauce for meatballs which you just add hot water too and then you could have them with some potatoes and veg.

hope this helps - let us know what cooking facilties you have and if you have access to a freezer or not and how many pans etc and ill think of some other ideas.

clutterydrawer

I think buying sonme fresh stuff in bulk works ok - I can happily eat a bag of peppers in a week without them going off (i keep them in the fridge though) and carrots I wrap in papper and keep sonmewhere dark...although another trick is to make them into soup and freeze it.

angel13

clutterydrawer wrote: »

I think buying sonme fresh stuff in bulk works ok - I can happily eat a bag of peppers in a week without them going off (i keep them in the fridge though) and carrots I wrap in papper and keep sonmewhere dark...although another trick is to make them into soup and freeze it.

i agree but some stuff doesnt last and if you are on a small budget and something goes off you end up with no food by the end of the week. this week the veg was not good when we went shopping so i just got a few basic bits and then expensive salads and fruit as i had no choice as partner is away all week with the car. week before we got two bags of carrots for a £1 (family of 3 so can easily use them up) but i chucked 1 and a half bags away as they went off so a complete waste and meant we were short of veg at end of week.

i keep peppers in fridge too (and most other things) and peppers seem to be ok for us as are butternut squash on the whole.

if i think things are going to go off i cook extra the day before and then make them into a vegetable curry next day. but if its just the one person its harder as you can eat multitudes in one go and you wont want tons of the same thing.

weeks when partner and son are away i spend virtually nothing on food as i usually make up pasta sauces with lots of courgette aubergine and mushrooms as a big meal and fruit and yoghurts rest of the time. IF i get hungry ill have some toast or cereal but im happy living on fruit and veg as my main things as i get to choose my favourites when its just me.

mumto7

my budget is £120 a week for 2 adults and 6 children so i recon £20 - £25 should be ok for one adult and like most carefull planning and if the room bulk cooking / freezing i buy most of veg fresh and margority of the meat fresh i also save £15 a week to buy quater of a butchered cow every 4 mths i realise this is not a option for you but saving a few £1s each week to get a meat hamper might be something for you a lot of my local butchers do 'freezer packs' wich work out verry good value compared to supermarket prices

Doom_and_Gloom

I will admit angel13 that I keep all of my vegetables in the fridge. That keeps them fine for a week. In fact I went shopping today with my ma and hadn't been shopping for food since Tuesday last week so I know you can get vegetables to last that long as I still had some vegetables left over. I still had a few fruits left over that had been in the fruit bowl that were fine. Apples and oranges can last a week or so in the fruit bowl as can pears. I bought these reduced so I’m sure fruits that aren’t reduced would easily last longer. With bananas if you buy them lose and buy some that are ripe, near ripe and green you’ll be set for bananas for the week like this. I do buy a lot of my fruit and vegetables reduced as I remember how well this worked when I was on a low wage and when I was on JSA (I’m not working and I’m not on benefits at the moment though. This is because I have hospital appointments etc. that it isn’t possible so I try and help my parents by costing them as little as possible and food is included in this).

Fire_Fox

Our current budget is £92 a month each for two of us - but it would be pretty easy to cut down further. We only shop in Asda every two weeks which has saved money as I buy less junk food. I find most fresh fruit and veg lasts fine and we also use some frozen (cheaper). Whatever doesn't is made into soups, vegetable curry or puddings.

By far the largest part of our spend is meat and cheese - and these would be very easy areas to save on. Mr. Fire Fox doesn't like pulses so haven't tried the Old Style lentil trick with him yet, but I do for my own lunches - chickpea curry, lentil and bacon soup etc. Beans and cheese on toast or jacket potato, eggs oven chips and beans ...

I work in healthcare so won't buy really cheap cuts of meat, I buy whole chickens which we either roast and eat over a couple of meals or butcher into bits - legs for stewing, breasts for stir frys or fagitas, carcass for soup. I buy extra lean mince but pad out with loads of veggies to make it go further. I just bought a whole leg of lamb when on half price offer in Asda which we cut up into loads of servings - obviously you need a freezer for this.

Again Mr. Fire Fox doesn't like eggs in most formats - but we do eat Spanish omelettes and savoury bread and butter pudding (granary bread, no butter for health). Eggs are cheap, healthy and versatile so very MSE.

I have recently started making my own soups which are easy, cheap and healthy. Brocolli and stilton (frozen veg and powdered milk for price), leek and potato, chicken and sweetcorn (chicken carcass), minestrone, chicken and barley (dried soup mix plus chicken carcass) ... I don't much like cooked root veg such as carrot which limits me but might not limit you.