How much do you spend on food?

Feral_Moon

I agree Annie01234 I think some people must live on fresh air. As I mentioned in my previous post, I cook everything from scratch, batch cook & freeze, have absolutely no waste and shop as cheaply as possible (Aldi etc) yet still spend at least £50 - £75 a week just on myself and the odd visiting adult child.

How the poster above can also include another adult, child plus two dogs in this figure astonishes me. My dog alone costs at least £20 a week to feed and is not included in my grocery spend as I source his food separately.

Pollycat

AnnieO1234 wrote: »

I just don't and can't understand how some of your spends are so low. 2 adults and 2 toddlers here, one in nappies. (A cat, two hamsters and a budgie too!). We spend on average £150-£200 a week for everything except personal toiletries.

I set myself a budget this week for spending £100 when we did our main grocery shopping yesterday, still went over by about £20. Thing is that's a top up shop. We have our main shop coming up not next Monday, the Monday after and that will be around £300 but some of the stuff will last a couple of months. (It's a bulk buy wholesaler day).

Yesterday I didn't buy nappies as these were stocked up, and our shop was mainly from Lidl and Morrisons with a few things from Tesco, Aldi and Sainsburys.

Xxx

That sounds a lot to me.

Do you cook from scratch?
Cook in bulk & freeze?
Menu plan?
Do you make sandwiches for your OH's lunch or does he buy out?

AnnieO1234

Pollycat wrote: »

That sounds a lot to me.

Do you cook from scratch?
Cook in bulk & freeze?
Menu plan?
Do you make sandwiches for your OH's lunch or does he buy out?

Yes I cook from scratch, meaning from scratch. My DH is recovering from cancer so is home. Yes to meal planning.

The only big difference I ever can see is stuff like when people do rubber chicken. I might save the carcass for stock, but the chicken is one meal with maybe a few scraps. Xxx

HappyMJ

Feral_Moon wrote: »

I agree Annie01234 I think some people must live on fresh air. As I mentioned in my previous post, I cook everything from scratch, batch cook & freeze, have absolutely no waste and shop as cheaply as possible (Aldi etc) yet still spend at least £50 - £75 a week just on myself and the odd visiting adult child.

How the poster above can also include another adult, child plus two dogs in this figure astonishes me. My dog alone costs at least £20 a week to feed and is not included in my grocery spend as I source his food separately.

I also put pet food down as a separate expense on my budget.

I spend £10 per week to feed a 4kg cat.

I also do not include alcohol, treats, household goods or toiletries in the £25 per person per week figure I said earlier in the thread.

HappyMJ

AnnieO1234 wrote: »

Yes I cook from scratch, meaning from scratch. My DH is recovering from cancer so is home. Yes to meal planning.

The only big difference I ever can see is stuff like when people do rubber chicken. I might save the carcass for stock, but the chicken is one meal with maybe a few scraps. Xxx

Get a bigger chicken. There is more yield from a larger chicken than a smaller chicken. As a proportion of meat to bones you get much more meat on a larger chicken.

You might get about 600 grams of chicken meat from a 973g chicken (£3 Tesco) which would only be enough for 2 adults and 2 children for one meal with not much left over. It's about 60% meat. The rest is bones, skin and fat.

but...you would get about 900 grams of chicken from a 1.35kg chicken (£3.50 Tesco). That's about 65% meat.

From the 2kg chicken (£5.50 Tesco) you might get around 1,400 grams of meat. That's about 70% meat.

If you go for a free range bird you get more useful meat and less fat.

Pollycat

AnnieO1234 wrote: »

The only big difference I ever can see is stuff like when people do rubber chicken. I might save the carcass for stock, but the chicken is one meal with maybe a few scraps. Xxx

A whole chicken will do us at least 3 meals (me & OH).
1 breast between us for one day, with roast & new potatoes and lots of different veg.
Same for following day.
Legs & wings another meal with home-made wedges.
Pickings will probably do us a sandwich, may be enough to put in a risotto.
Then the carcass in a pan to make stock.

Do you buy very small chickens or eat a lot of meat?

AnnieO1234

I buy roughly 1.9kg chucks...

Feral_Moon

HappyMJ wrote: »

Get a bigger chicken. There is more yield from a larger chicken than a smaller chicken. As a proportion of meat to bones you get much more meat on a larger chicken.

You might get about 600 grams of chicken meat from a 973g chicken (£3 Tesco) which would only be enough for 2 adults and 2 children for one meal with not much left over. It's about 60% meat. The rest is bones, skin and fat.

but...you would get about 900 grams of chicken from a 1.35kg chicken (£3.50 Tesco). That's about 65% meat.

From the 2kg chicken (£5.50 Tesco) you might get around 1,400 grams of meat. That's about 70% meat.

If you go for a free range bird you get more useful meat and less fat.

Yes, I would agree with this. Even if just cooking for myself I still buy the biggest FR chicken I can find (1.8-2kg) and whilst it may cost me £7/£8 I can easily get 8 portions of meat (2x roast dinner, curry, chicken & mushroom pasta, fajitas etc) plus another 4-6 portions of soup, using the carcass and scraps of leftover meat.

VeGGie-STyLe

Pollycat wrote: »

Maybe we should ask what you eat.

A typical day for me would be....
Breakfast: Greek yoghurt + fruit/nuts
Lunch: Fish/chicken/eggs + veggies
Dinner: Fish/chicken/eggs +veggies

Plus coffee, tea, squash, maybe one fizzy drink, chewing gum.... herbs/spices/seasonings/sauce....

which works out around £8 per day. It's not £10 but as I said, it easily could be, depending on what varieties I choose. Please don't judge me badly - the foods I will eat are rather limited!

Pollycat wrote: »

That's why I asked that poster what they were spending the £10 on.

Because if they are in the habit of buying a Starbucks coffee on the way into work plus a sandwich for lunch and ordering a pizza for dinner, it's quite possible that they can spend £10 per day on a regular basis.

I never buy coffee out, or eat out.

Pollycat wrote: »

so I asked what he ate.

I'm a girl


ETA: I feel I should also add that I am bulimic, so you can actually add an extra £30 per day on food that gets "wasted". :embarasse

Super_Whiskey

Feral_Moon wrote: »

I agree Annie01234 I think some people must live on fresh air. As I mentioned in my previous post, I cook everything from scratch, batch cook & freeze, have absolutely no waste and shop as cheaply as possible (Aldi etc) yet still spend at least £50 - £75 a week just on myself and the odd visiting adult child.

How the poster above can also include another adult, child plus two dogs in this figure astonishes me. My dog alone costs at least £20 a week to feed and is not included in my grocery spend as I source his food separately.

What sort of meals do you have? If I spent £50-75 on myself each week just for food I'd be having steak/salmon every night! Especially if you're shopping at Aldi, batch cooking, freezing etc.

For example, a spag bol meal from Aldi would cost me £1.69 for 20% mince, about £3 for onions, peppers, mushrooms other veg to chuck in. £1 for chopped tomatoes and passatta. Pasta is about £3 for 3 kilos in a number of supermarkets, not sure about Aldi as I don't like their pasta.

£8.69 for that roughly and I get about 6-8 portions out of it. Depending on your pasta to sauce ratio yours might be less but that's still at least £40 for lunch and breakfast!