Minimum food budget for two people? £50 reasonable?

silverwhistle

Still blackberries around here on the south coast: probably more further inland as they're a bit later. Apples can often be scrounged at this time of year, and apple&blackberry crumble is both tasty and great padding.

The point about meat is also a valid one. Try taking the Chinese approach: stir fries - big bowl or rice/noodles and small bits of tasty meat.
Casseroles well padded with vegetables, but benefiting from all the tasty meat fat: the sausages would go furthest there, for example.

Seeing as you've wide tastes (goat/hare) keep an eye open for road-kill, and drop hints to people you know who go hunting (I actually started writing poaching!). You could certainly do a month on £50, but beyond that it starts getting difficult.

camNolliesMUMMY

I did my weekly shop at aldi and it came to £42. We are two adults two kids one of them in nappies.
The cost includes nappies wipes, toilet roll, toothpaste.
I've switched all our shopping there as I did a trial shop in tesco for my weekly shop and it was over £70!
We love chicken so I do buy 5kg a month from makro for £20 no vat on it too.
I do buy mince, chicken dippers, fish fingers from aldi and a whole chicken once a week. But our shop has never been above £50! For four.
I have a lot of herbs and spices and I adapt recipes. Instead of cream I use milk, instead of wine a stock cube etc
I cook from scratch as well which saves lots and has more flavour, I'm a lazy cook and rely on my sc.
I'd make a meal then freeze half for next week if possible. Therefore making your budget go down to around £25 a week?
We eat the following
Breakfast. Toast, porridge, Aldis version of shreddies
Lunch. Sandwhiches packed lunch with cheap Yoghurts, hm veg soup with a chicken stock cube.
Dinner. Home cooked meal. Accept for the kids wanting fish fingers or dippers.

Try and incorporate the veg meals but bulk out with pulses which are high in fibre and protein to keep hubby full.
Beans on toast could be a meal one night with a poached egg? Protein is filling!!

Aldi also do fruit n veg on offer every fortnight either 39p or 69p and I've found they keep better than tesco or asda.

themarsbargirl

£50 can be reasonable for a month but it depends on what you eat/buy with it. I'd suggest spending £10 a month on meat using a 3 for 10 offer at a supermarket and then bulking that out-personally i can make 1/4 of a pack of mince stretch to 4 portions of shephards pie by mixing in grated mushrooms. similarly with chilli and other mince based dishes.
It will be tough and you wil have no wriggle room for treats like chocolate or pop or alcohol but it's certainly very doable

camNolliesMUMMY

Sorry I didn't read month!!!
I'd try and eat a similar layout to us.
Porridge, soup, and try and find something super cheap for dinners. Sp yogurts for snacking, make some buiscuits etc

I don't know what else but best of luck.

GreyQueen

I would say that £50 a month for 2 adults is far too low.

The reason I say this is that I am one adult, extremely thrifty, certainly don't eat meat everyday (more like 1-2 a week if I can get YS bargains) and grow some of my own veg, and that's my spend.

I can't see that I could feed another adult on the same budget without us both eating so poorly that health was compromised/ or eating down freezer/ larder stocks so rapidly that it was unsustainable for more than a very short term.

If the budget is that tight, every penny counts and you really have to say no to the treat-y stuff and try to get maximum bang-for-your-buck for everything else.

Your OH may not be overly-happy but needs must at such a time.

AnnieO1234

I'm sorry, I didn't read monthly. I would say in the very short term it is do-able. But long term no, you need to address your debts. If they are unsecured you need to negotiate with your creditors. If you feel up to it, get over to the debt free wannabe board, if not look for a reputable debt management organisation. You may even want or need to consider a formal voluntary arrangement or even bankruptcy if things are so bad.

Just remember that no one is allowed to demand more money from you than you can reasonably afford.

X

smifffy1989

We can manage on £50 a week, it does vary as some weeks we bulk buy which brings down the average cost.

EG we use costco for things like fish fingers and salmon

[Deleted User]

I have a budget of £60.00 per month,but there is only me to feed and I manage fairly well on it.Trick is to use what you have to its best advantage and 'pad' out food like mince etc with oats or lentils.I spend about a third on fruit and veg at least, and the veg is used to its best advantage by making HM soups which are a great filler up before dinner, or with some grated cheese and crackers for lunch.Breakfast is either porridge made with water and a dash of salt and a splash of milk on top, or bran flakes with a chopped banana or sultanas with milk. I have just bought 2 huge tins of apricots last week for 99p each They weigh almost 4lb a tin and these will be used in puddings,cakes,added to bran flakes etc anywhere where I need fruit.They are in pear juice, so I am going to decant them into seperate plastic boxes to freeze so I can use as and when I need them. Not a scap of food goes in the bin in my house, and I can make a double portion of chicken curry for the freezer from just a chicken quarter as I like to add lots of chopped veg and pulses,pepper etc.Even broccolli stalks which sometimes seem to be as much as the heads of the broccolli are trimmed, sliced and frozen to be used in soups and stews. Veggie peeings get frozen in a bag for when I make a big pot of soup, carrot peelings once scrubbed go well into the soup vat I go to my local greengrocers, and on Mondays he sells reduced stuff left over from Saturday stuff ,if its going into soup I'm not to fussy if its a bent carrot or bendy celery.
Re Gravy granules I don't use them as I use ordinary bisto powder as its far more economical, and you get the same gravy. Left over gravy goes into the fridge to be used in another meal It certainly doesn't end up down the drain. Virtually nothing edible gets binned and I am in pretty good health I usually have a few bob over at the end of the month this goes into a pot in my kitchen and is used in August when I go on holiday with my family (buys my grandsons ice creams)
I have two purses one with my food budget money in and that only goes in my bag when I go shopping. Basically when that purse is empty thats it:) until the beginning of next month. Its not happpened yet as I try to only shop every 7-10 days and then for essentials only.I keep a list by the kettle of stuff I have run out of and will only replace it if there is nothing I can adapt instead.I shop as I did when I first got married in the early 1960s ,in those days there were no credit cards and what money you had was meant to last you from pay-day to pay-day.I grew up with rationing so can remember my late Mum streeetch food until it squeeked almost.
We had no best-before dates or five-day- ideas in the 1950s it was a case of you ate what was there and were just glad to get it.
If it didn't go in the kids, it ended up in the dog.Food was too hard to come by so wastage was unheard of.I make my own biscuits and cook from scratch.I don't eat bread anymore so have little need for butter or spread.I use soft cheese on crackers or eat them without I have lost two stone by just cutting out bread and unneeded stuff.
I think your £50.00 a month may be a bit tight to do healthily for two of you but try to use what you already have in store first before going anywhere near a shop.Use Aldi or Lidl for stuff it really is great value.Good Luck

craigywv

Great post as always jackio! Xxx

ChilliHippo

Thank you so much for all your replies. It has helped immensely and has made me feel a bit more upbeat today (I was feeling rather down yesterday after OH had another knock back from an interview). I've started making a list of all your advice.
We are meeting at least the minimum payments on the debt (and the debt has been moved to 0% interest cards at 33 months), and I make sure that all the bills are paid each month, but there are days when all I tend to do is worry.

Looking over the replies it looks like £50 is probably over ambitious of me. I will make meals out of the things I have currently before I do another shop. I think I can get two weeks at least out of it. I think it has been too easy to just pop to the shops and not really think hard enough if we really need that particular food (which I am now trying to curb).

I will investigate our Lidl and have a play with mysupermarket with a monthly shop, as well as see if we have any blackberries growing around us.

As for the hare and goat, they were presents from friends that went to a local Farmers market. Our tastes aren’t usually that expensive! Usually it’s beef and chicken but I will start looking around for cheaper cuts, and make more use out of the slow cooker (and implement veggie days!).

Thank you again for your kind and helpful messages. Know it might sound strange, but I found them quite reassuring.