Reasonable Food Budget for 1

antonia1

Hi y'all, I'm looking for advice on what could be a reasonable food budget for me. I think I've been spending around £120 per month on food for just me :eek:. I've heard the 50p per person per meal, but I have absolutely no idea how you would get costs down that much! There are a few hindrances to my ability to cook and eat cheaply:

- I don't have a slow cooker, and there is no space in the kitchen for one
- I can't eat bread
- There is no low cost supermarkets near me, I have to stick to A T and S
- I share a flat so I have only one shelf in the fridge, one drawer in the freezer and one cupboard
- I don't eat processed foods
- I love fresh fruit, especially berries

On the plus side
- I don't eat dessert
- I don't eat many snacks (no crisps, chocolate etc)
- I'm actually not that bad at cooking when I try
- My spice rack is pretty full

adelight

£60/month considering you don't eat bread and like a lot of fruit (berries are so expensive! i would limit yourself to one purchase a week, which would still be ~£8/month). What is all your money going on right now? Do you buy expensive/organic? Firstly shop a brand down, ie try the basics, look out for offers and bulk your meals with pulses. Search the board and go through all the eating/cooking for one threads, threads on reducing food bills, recipes threads and lurk the GC for tips.
OH, and COOK!! Everything from scratch, you will get used to it, it'll become super easy second nature. Don't buy those expensive filled pastas, so many people seem to justify spending £2 a bowl on that junk when you could just have pasta with a HM sauce in that flavour or make your own giant ravioli.

When you say processed foods, are you including tinned toms, beans, peas etc? Eating these rather than making fresh passata or boiling dried beans is quicker, and in the case of the toms it's cheaper too.

You can comfortably keep a slow cooker in your bedroom or take it out only occasionally. My friend keeps a mini one from Argos(1L? 1.5L?) in her room and I just take mine out to use as and when.

Maitane

To be honest, I don't spend that little. Perhaps finding ways to cut down bit by bit might be helpful to you until you reach a level you're happy with unless you're totally skint and need to cut down now of course.

Do you like things like pasta, noodles and cous cous or soups and stews? Are you a vegetarian or do you really like meat? Any type of cuisine you prefer? I ask that because despite being a well trained curry chef, I don't eat it very often at all but I could eat chinese every day.

antonia1

adelight wrote: »

£60/month considering you don't eat bread and like a lot of fruit (berries are so expensive! i would limit yourself to one purchase a week, which would still be ~£8/month). What is all your money going on right now? Do you buy expensive/organic? Firstly shop a brand down, ie try the basics, look out for offers and bulk your meals with pulses. Search the board and go through all the eating/cooking for one threads, threads on reducing food bills, recipes threads and lurk the GC for tips.
OH, and COOK!! Everything from scratch, you will get used to it, it'll become super easy second nature. Don't buy those expensive filled pastas, so many people seem to justify spending £2 a bowl on that junk when you could just have pasta with a HM sauce in that flavour or make your own giant ravioli.

When you say processed foods, are you including tinned toms, beans, peas etc? Eating these rather than making fresh passata or boiling dried beans is quicker, and in the case of the toms it's cheaper too.

You can comfortably keep a slow cooker in your bedroom or take it out only occasionally. My friend keeps a mini one from Argos(1L? 1.5L?) in her room and I just take mine out to use as and when.

Thanks! I think most of the cost has been on healthy snacks (probs about £7 per week on fresh fruit alone), and some has been buying a brand for no real reason - for instance I realised this morning I keep buying branded porridge oats.

By processed food I mean microwave meals, pre-prepared pasta / curry sauces etc. I do use basics tinned toms, kidney beans etc. I've never tried using pulses to bulk out meals though.

I will think about a slow cooker, but tbh I have no space in my bedroom at the moment either - I'm a dreadful hoarder, which is no good when trying to keep everything you own in one room. Perhaps an ebay clear out would help.

antonia1

Maitane wrote: »

To be honest, I don't spend that little. Perhaps finding ways to cut down bit by bit might be helpful to you until you reach a level you're happy with unless you're totally skint and need to cut down now of course.

Do you like things like pasta, noodles and cous cous or soups and stews? Are you a vegetarian or do you really like meat? Any type of cuisine you prefer? I ask that because despite being a well trained curry chef, I don't eat it very often at all but I could eat chinese every day.

Not in massive debt, I'm just considering going back to uni next year so I need to make sure I've cleared by overdraft and credit card by then. I really like meat, but don't need to have it in every meal. The cost of the meat is ridiculous at the moment, and I do try to buy cheaper, but lean mince is never cheap!

I'm not a massive chinese fan, but love currys, and can make a few different pasta sauces.

ajs88

Its hard for one person because I don't think its costs that much less to cook for two, my dad says he still spends the same since i moved out, there are some dishes that are good if your cooking for one like noodle soup and dahl. but the best way you could save money is buy sharing some cooking with either your housemates or friends, say monday you cook and tuesday they cook

adelight

What is your typical weekly food shop like?
I honestly can't fathom spending that much so I don't know what to suggest changing without knowing

If you don't mind going without meat then assume you will eat veggie but pounce on any reduced/good offer meat and use your freezer space for storing it. Also use the freezer for small scale batch cooking, ie making 4 portions, eating one that day, one the next and freezing two for another week.

Use the Indexed Collections to find useful threads to read, spend a couple of hours reading, saving recipes and making mock budgets.

Gingerbiscuit_2

It is harder to eat cheaper for one espeically fruit/veg wise, for example you buy salad but maybe cant eat it all before goes off where as family off 4 get to us it all. And huge bags of bananas or apples are great vaule but there are only so many you can eat in one go.

I think £30 per week for one is good going! As you say your not buying bread/junk food or procesed food and snacks so cant see really where it is going to waste? Agree is possible to keep slow cooker in a room as you can lift out the pot bit to wash it

Raspberry_Swirl

I spend anywhere between £10-20 a week with a little top-up here and there so probably average at about £80-90 a month.

antonia1

adelight wrote: »

What is your typical weekly food shop like?
I honestly can't fathom spending that much so I don't know what to suggest changing without knowing

This week I bought:
- berries for snacks (£3)
- bananas (£2)
- apples (£1)
- fat free natural yoghurt (£2)
- frozen berries for breakfast (£2)
- 700g lean mince (£4)
- bag of peppers (£2)
- mushrooms (£1.50)
- onions (£2)
- tinned toms (£0.50)
- tinned kidney beans (£1)
- tomato puree (£1)
- salad (£1)
- frylight cooking spray (£2)
- potatoes (£2.50)
- tinned tuna (£4)

Total for the week £29.50. The mince etc for chilli will do about 10 meals, and I already have some chicken breasts and turkey steaks in the freezer to do salads for lunches.

Gingerbiscuit wrote: »

It is harder to eat cheaper for one espeically fruit/veg wise, for example you buy salad but maybe cant eat it all before goes off where as family off 4 get to us it all. And huge bags of bananas or apples are great vaule but there are only so many you can eat in one go.

I think £30 per week for one is good going! As you say your not buying bread/junk food or procesed food and snacks so cant see really where it is going to waste? Agree is possible to keep slow cooker in a room as you can lift out the pot bit to wash it

Will defo look into the slow cooker thing, if nothing else it should give me some more variety in recipes. Agree about big packs though, it isn't possible to get salad in small enough portions for one person.

I want to set myself a target to reduce to, but without being ridiculous and aiming for something impossible. I might aim for £100 next month, then if that is easy try £80 the month after.

beautifylife

Adelight - what are the indexed collections? thanks