How much do you spend on food?

Nictom80_2

Between £25-£40 per week for myself. Usually £40 on my first food shop after payday where I stock up on things like pasta, tinned tomatoes, porridge etc as needed. Then £25-£30 per week the rest of the month.

I take in all my food for work so this includes every meal, I never buy any extra for work.
I never order takeaways and rarely eat out.
I am pretty health conscious so not convenience/processed food for me, and I do a lot of cooking from scratch

determined_new_ms

our budget is £180 pcm for 2 adults and a 4 yo. Mostly it's under that by £20-30 but sometimes over. that includes alcohol

Fireflyaway

From this month I'm on a tight budget. I've cut down everything that I can, but obviously some costs are fixed.
If I can spend just £100 this month on food for 2 adults and a child its really going to help, but I don't know if its realistic?
There is quite a bit already in the cupboard / freezer and none of us eat lunch at home during the week. I figure if I shop alone and make good choices it might work. I'm kind of excited to challenge myself but maybe £100 is too tight? Do you think its doable?

worried123

just having a browse of old threads.....I live alone and probably spend around £50 a week on food. (this does not include if i buy a sandwich whilst out and about etc) From what i have seen I must be spending far too much. I do shop in marks and spencer and as i work funny hours often getting home about 8.30 pm i find it easy to just cook fresh vegetables (which i confess are usually peeled and cut etc out of a bag) with a naughty ready meal. having said that i eat some ready meals i also feel that i eat healthily.....it may be fish that i just put in the oven etc....

When i finally retire i shall take up cooking properly but until then i am too tired when i get home.

Fireflyaway - I hope you managed your challenge. I would think that if you were really careful it might be do-able.....wasn't there a tv programme recently - eat well for less or something.....when i retire i will definitely eat well for less...

meal5

£100 a week

GlasweJen

Household of 2, our shopping bill weekly is around £25-£30 including cleaning products.

We do a big Costco meat shop 3 times a year and spend about £120 each time, this will include tins of tomatoes, cans of juice for work pack ups, random bits my husband picks up and a tray of danishes.

ladybabe

per week fresh stuff/milk £15 to £20
frozen per month £80 (mainly meat/fish and berries)
per month tinned £5/£10 (mainly tomatoes and beans/chickpeas)
per month cleaning (£15/£20 buy in bulk every 6 months so much cheaper)
per month toiletries (£5/£10 always methodically use stuff bought for us at xmas/bithdays so mainly preponderant and shampoo until march until full shop required)

freyasmum

We usually stick to about £70 a week for 2 adults and an 11 yo with an adult-sized appetite.

We work to the principle of £1/meal each per day. As you would assume, breakfasts work out a lot cheaper than that depending on what they might be - a few pence for a bowl of porridge, to about 50p for a sandwich thin and bacon medallions with tomato.

My OH works later shifts so we batch cook and freeze and he'll have a portion of something to take to work and we do similar with lunches - he's been loving bbq pulled pork on a brioche bun with homemade chips recently.

We buy huge sacks of potatoes from the local farm shop, flit around the big 4 supermarkets for offers of stuff we like and do the bulk of our shopping in Aldi. We eat very well on that, in my opinion.

Scorchio

Easily £200 a week for 1 adult, a teenager and a couple of extra adult meals a week. Teenager is a vegetarian - a homemade veggie chilli costs at least £5 and a homemade veggie lasagne is at least £7 - peppers, courgettes, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, lasagne sheets, white sauce (milk, flour, cheese), herbs etc.... it soon adds up!

Shop most days and spend £20 - £30, this does include some toiletries and wine.

It's a lot.... but not sure how to cut down as I find healthy, homemade food is expensive - I could buy cheap ready meals for a few £ but that's not what I want us to eat. I also shop at farm shops, local shop etc as much as possible which does add a little bit but I think it's worth it.

p.s. no aldi / lidl nearby - options are co-op, tesco, m&s... and that's it really apart from local independent shops.

GwylimT

Now we've moved our weekly food bill is averaging at £42 a week for two adults and two children, the only thing it doesn't include is our childrens lunches five days a week as these are provided free of charge at school.

The only thing I have noticed that is more expensive here are eggs, but only by about 20p per dozen.

You can get they down Scorchio
Lasagne ingredients at Tesco
250g onion 25p
Lasagne sheets 32p
Plain flour £1 for 3kg, so like 3p per lasagne
400g tomatoes 30p
Milk 42p
Courgettes £1.80 for 1kg so lets say 90p
Mushrooms 70p
Veg cheese (not usually in a white sauce) 20p
500g peppers £1

That gives a total of £4.39 you only need to add about 15p for seasoning, it would also feed more than two people.