Is this do able?

Kezzabelle

Forgive me if im on the wrong board...
Im trying to work out a weekly budget in order to pay off our credit card debt.

Is £50 a week, enough for food shopping for 2 adults and 3 cats??
Ive also allocated £30 a week each for "pocket money".

What are your food shopping budgets?

Many thanks

slummymummyof3

Do your feline friends eat dried or wet food? Buy a large back of dried food from a farm supplies or similar which should last a number of weeks; dried food works out far cheaper after the initial outlay. £50 should be more than sufficient to feed you if you do things like bulk out chilli etc with dried lentils, buy reudced items and freeze them etc. Make sure you plan your meals in advance and write a shopping list and stick to it - that said, if things are on offer that you would ordinarily use.....buy multiple amounts to stockpile, such as loo rolls, toothpaste etc. Do you really need £60 per week pocket money as this seems rather a lot. Is this to pay for cigarettes, alcohol or what in particular as it seems rather extravagant to spend £60 per week on pocket money while you have a credit card to pay off? Why don't you try halving your pocket money for a month and paying off that extra £120 towards the credit card?

Kezzabelle

Thanks for your reply! Our cats eat dried food and im deffo gonna look into bulk buying.
The £30 pocket money is for things like buying lunches at work if we've not brought in a packed lunch, juice at work, a newspaper or magazine. We dont drink (much) or smoke.
Your right, thinking about it, £30 a week maybe is a bit much.
Thanks for you advice, youve been really helpful

tightandproud

I live on my own on a very tight budget and my food comes to at most £20 a week. But I'm well honed when it comes to frugal living, by that I mean I always cook in bulk, buy frozen instead of fresh because it is far cheaper, buy reduced to clear then freeze, in fact whenever I see reduced to clear I buy as much as my freezer will fit! On a good week I can get my food bill down to around £10 for the entire week!

There is a trade off though because you will be sacrificing fresh ingredients and nutritients by doing what I do, so it's all down to what's more important, your savings or your health?

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

I say go for it!

Allocate your money weekly, meal plan, establish a good storecupboard and buy in bulk where you are able. Have you looked at places like petmeds? I go through quidco and buy a big bag of food for my dog and they deliver free too, it works out a lot cheaper.

Is there anywhere you could grow some veggies? I find salad really useful as it makes a meal fresh and tasty, I just grow a few and cut the outside leaves to keep the plant going. Radishes grow fast and taste nice.

It is harder now than it used to be because food prices have gone up but here are a few tips:

- search for shops that sell the types of things you buy cheaply (eg, I have found a cheapo shop that sells fresh milk for 1.09 for 2 litres so I stock up on payday and freeze to last me the month.

- storecupboard essentials like tinned tomatoes (or anything tinned!) dried goods such as lentils, bean, chick peas, curry powder spices

- search for recipes that you can make out of storecupboard ingredients, my faves are pasta in homemade tomato sauce with grated cheese. Tinned spuds, frozen peas, onion with eggs make a spanish omelette. pasta in cheese sauce with any leftover veg thrown in (nice with courgettes and mushrooms)

-zero wastage! I made a lovely pud on sunday out of stale breadcrumbs and 2 manky apples! grate the breadcrumbs and layer 1/2 in a dish, sprinkle with sugar and slosh some milk in, slice the apples and layer on top, finish off with breadcrumbs, sugar, cinnamon and dot with butter and bake (I did it in the remoska) and serve with custard, they ate the lot!

Good luck

GettingHitched

Im in similar household as you ( 2 adults, 3 cats ) and our monthly budget is £80. I spend £60 in the first week, and the rest is for top ups. I allocate ( for myself ) £15 a week, and that is mine to do as I please ( magazines, food for my lizards and rabbit ( as I wanted them! ). We do a lot of batch cooking, buy a lot of reduced to clear and special offers, and we do eat very well.

KimYeovil

Is a £217 per month budget for food survivable? <Shakes head in bewilderment at how the other half live.>

The £30 per week pocket money is more realistic - a newspaper alone costs £30 per month.

KimYeovil

tightandproud wrote: »

There is a trade off though because you will be sacrificing fresh ingredients and nutritients by doing what I do, so it's all down to what's more important, your savings or your health?

Rubbish! £217 is more than enough. Their advantage of cooking for two does make it significantly easier (and cheaper) to up the variety but there is no danger of malnutrition with that budget.

savemoney

Why not make your own packed lunches?

£30 a week pocket money is a lot

I dont buy any papers/mags, I can get all I want online. Fair enough odd magazine or book wouldnt harm too much if you want to read at dinner time, even cheaper get books at charity shop or use library

But you can get a reasonable pack lunch/yoghurt/fruit/biscuit each day for around £5 a week

Kezzabelle wrote: »

Thanks for your reply! Our cats eat dried food and im deffo gonna look into bulk buying.
The £30 pocket money is for things like buying lunches at work if we've not brought in a packed lunch, juice at work, a newspaper or magazine. We dont drink (much) or smoke.
Your right, thinking about it, £30 a week maybe is a bit much.
Thanks for you advice, youve been really helpful

kalaika

savemoney wrote: »

Why not make your own packed lunches?

£30 a week pocket money is a lot

I dont buy any papers/mags, I can get all I want online. Fair enough odd magazine or book wouldnt harm too much if you want to read at dinner time, even cheaper get books at charity shop or use library

But you can get a reasonable pack lunch/yoghurt/fruit/biscuit each day for around £5 a week

Just what I was thinking, it saves a lot of money to make your own! If you get into a habit of making it and work out a way to vary it slightly each day then it doesn't become a chore either.

kalaika

KimYeovil wrote: »

Is a £217 per month budget for food survivable? <Shakes head in bewilderment at how the other half live.>

The £30 per week pocket money is more realistic - a newspaper alone costs £30 per month.

Do you need to buy a paper every day? If so, would it be possible to share the cost with work colleagues that read it too (i.e. rather than, say, three of you buying the same paper every day, could you take it in turns to buy it - then you only need to pay for it every third day).

Alternatively do what I do and read then online (although I know this is not everyone's cup of tea - for example, my Mum insists on buying a paper every day as she likes to sit in the garden reading it.) All of the papers have online articles that are free to read which cuts the cost out completely.