Average food spend per person per month?

trixie4

Hello everybody,

I've just gone through my accounts wondering where an extra £100 a month goes missing and I'm sorry to say that I think the majority must go on food. I thought I was spending about £100 a month on food, but it looks like more around the £180 figure. WHAT A WASTE!

I'm a single girl so I surely don't need to spend that much. My problem is living in an expensive area and doing all my shopping in T Express. I also only have a box freezer so when I do batch cooking only one or two portions can fit in the freezer so it's not very economical. I think I also eat too much as I can only split the food I cook over so many plates (if its not freezable) which is a waste in itself.

So how much do you spend per person per month? Preferably single people who aren't able to bulk buy and feed a family!

Trixie x

PS spend includes one or two takeaways/restaurant meals a month @ ~£10 average

carpedieme

Its perfectly possible to buy all groceries tioletries cleaning items for 20 to 25 pounds per week per person, been doing it for years, therefore 100 pounds a month.

lizzywig

Well husband and I spend £200/month so if I were single that would be £100/month. A friend of mine is in the same boat as you, she lives in a studio and only has a small fridge (no freezer) and she manages to spend just under £100/month. However she is a veggie and she has things like bread rolls for lunch.

I read something on here that the only way to track what your actual expenditure is to keep every single receipt, even down to the odd pint of milk that you pick up during the week. So why don't you try that for a couple of months to see what you are actually spending. I also read something on here that you should ask yourself if you actually need it. If you really do then put it off for as long as possible and in the long run you will save money.

My advice to you would be to invest in a flask and make your own soups for lunch, one batch should last you almost a week. Then for breakfast have porridge and for dinners make batch cooking type things (chilli, bolognase, casserole etc). I buy a chicken, roast it, take off the meat and boil the carcas for stock. I then using the stock and some of the chicken make chicken soup (this makes 10 portions), I then make 4 portions of chicken curry (using curry paste, goes further than sauce and you just buy tins of tomatoes instead) and 4 portions of chicken casserole. Hardly costs anything. What you could do is the same and have the soup for lunches, cook some meals and pop in fridge (should be good for a few days) and then store the chicken in the freezer and then take the chicken out for the following week and cook the meals then. That way you can keep the meat for longer but it won't take up so much space. You could also do it with mince, I personally using 500g minced beef to make 4 x portions of chilli and 4 x portions of bolognase and freeze. You could cook up mince, onions and carrots, make half the food now for the week, freeze the mixture and then add the rest of the ingredients the following week. You could also buy a cheap freezer on ebay, that might help.

**Juice**

Me and my boyfriend spend about £180 a month between two of us - we're not really buying in bulk either though we have better availability to freeze things than you do.

Could you maybe arrange for a big Tesco/Asda/other delivery of non-perishables line tins or pasta etc that doesn't go off and then you can just be buying the fresher stuff as you go along?

Ilona

Single person here, retired. I am currently on a quest to get my food spending down to £10 per week. For the first 8 weeks I spent £80, then came Christmas, and I went a little bit over. I think £10 - £15 is doable. I dont eat out, dont have takeaways, take pack ups when I go anywhere, so it's all food I buy in shops, markets and supermarkets.
Ilona

pinksk8

Hi There

Me & my fella have managed to get our spend down to around £20 per week for food. If you can, id use a supermarket comparison site and order online, and maybe pick up a few woopsies in you local T of an evening?

x x

asparagusnextleft

We spend about £60 per week on food, this includes lunches as we both take a pack up to work rather than buying at lunchtime. It seems like a lot though, that's over £240 per month! I'll have to try and cut that back a bit. We don't waste anything though - I do a menu plan for the week and make a list, and only buy what we need for the meals plus the odd treat.

Less stir fried king prawns, more liver casserole I think!!!

quintwins

asparagusnextleft wrote: »

We spend about £60 per week on food, this includes lunches as we both take a pack up to work rather than buying at lunchtime. It seems like a lot though, that's over £240 per month! I'll have to try and cut that back a bit. We don't waste anything though - I do a menu plan for the week and make a list, and only buy what we need for the meals plus the odd treat.

Less stir fried king prawns, more liver casserole I think!!!

i spend £50 a week on 5 of us and liver casarole never features in our meal plan :rotfl:if it didn't it wouldn't get eaten

asparagusnextleft

quintwins wrote: »

i spend £50 a week on 5 of us and liver casarole never features in our meal plan :rotfl:if it didn't it wouldn't get eaten

I do actually like liver though - and the liver casserole I do is lovely and costs less than a quid to make!

quintwins

asparagusnextleft wrote: »

I do actually like liver though - and the liver casserole I do is lovely and costs less than a quid to make!

see we don't beef shin in a slowcooked casarole is lovely and comes in at not much over £1, theres a living off £10-£15 thread a week on here somewhere def worth a read

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3683757

trixie4

I don't know where I'm going wrong so I think keeping all my receipts is the best way to go!

- I love the woopsie section
- I have a cereal bar and piece of fruit for breakfast
- Lunch is a bit of salad or a pack of cous cous
- Dinner tends to be veg and potato and meat or something like a stir fry or a pizza.
- I hardly touch alcohol

I do spend quite a bit on fruit juices, but obviously not £100!! Perhaps the couple of takeaways and odd indulgences of chocolate/ben&Jerrys push it up to that figure?

Who knows! (Well, I should...:o)

x