Food costs. DMP suggests £100-£222pcm What do you spend?

Dannii75

What do you spend on food, toiletries and cleaning every month (or week, if that's easier for you to answer)?
I was going through the StepPlan Management Plan online forms & put £250 in the 'food, toiletries and cleaning' box but that was over the max suggested of £222 pcm.
Interested to know your views on this.

D

culpepper

How many people must it feed?

Dannii75

Oh, apologies, it's 1 person.
I've never really looked at how much I spend so guestimated £250 (£3 lunch deal Mon-Fri then another £5 for breakfast, dinner, cleaning products, toiletries... rounded up)

PasturesNew

I mentally budget for £10/week, knowing I'll go over that for my naughty little treats.

£100/month would be entirely doable. £200 would be "rolling in it" and £250 would be perfectly luxurious a lifestyle.

I'd say £100/month would more than do me for all my food, toiletries, cleaning stuff, etc etc, including all treats, takeaways, sweets, biscuits.... and the occasional multi pack of crisps

I'd never spend £3 on a con of a "meal deal" - which are designed to suck you into paying over the odds for food you don't need ... presented as a bargain and as the way "everybody" eats.

I'd go down the chilled aisles and get a couple of sandwich fillers, then bakery for a pack of bread rolls, then down the crisps for a multi pack ... and off to drinks to see what's on offer this week.

Bread roll 10p, 40p of sandwich filler, 15p multipack crisps, 25p fizzy pop - that's 90p with very little effort whatsoever.

Hiddenidenity

We are a family of 4. I budget £180 a month for everything (toiletries/cleaning/lunches for school/work/nappies)

tori.k

I spend £240 pcm on a household of 2.5 adults ( son still at home eats out as often as at home)
On all food & household sundries this is considered generous with the old style board. A great place to start if your needing help to bring you grocery bill under better control.

Ebe_Scrooge

Our weekly shop is usually in the region of £130, something like that. That's for a family of 5, and that's without being particularly cost-conscious - the trolley will always contain lots of treats, cakes, sweets, whatever, in addition to the essentials. Doing a rough calculation, that's working out at a little over £100 per person per month ? If the budget is tighter, and all - or even most - of the non-essentials were removed, I reckon £100 per month for one person would be very easily achievable. Gotta love Aldi

Indout96

Dannii75 wrote: »

Oh, apologies, it's 1 person.
I've never really looked at how much I spend so guestimated £250 (£3 lunch deal Mon-Fri then another £5 for breakfast, dinner, cleaning products, toiletries... rounded up)

Wow - we have no debt and healthy wages but I would not dream of spending that sort of money on food for a workday.
I take Cereal (750 g box for £2 at poundsaver - its Nestle Coco Shreadies)
Lunch is Tuna sandwich (1 tin makes 3 (2 slices each) sandwiches so 3 days) cans are 4 for £3 at B&M at the moment or Cheese (Morisons are doing great deals on cheddar at the moment with Lakeland for £1) - that's 8 slices so 4 days worth of sandwiches.
I am a 6 ft 4 man and survive quite well on this - in fact I'm a bit overweight on charts so not starving LOL

elljay

A few years ago on my bankruptcy application I put £23 per week which is what I spent (and still do, ok maybe £25 now that Aldi has yummy Xmas grub!). The Official Receiver put it up to £50 a week so I assume this was the standard allowance they go by for one person living alone. (2014) Includes cleaning materials/toiletries etc but they gave me a separate allowance for pet food. In fact my £23 includes cat food.

So the figures you've been given look about right. It's a pretty luxurious allowance to be honest, as others have said.

I record my spending on a very basic spreadsheet so can easily see what I've spent over the past few years and know exactly why I've gone over if I have (and keep away from the shops the following week to get straight again!). If I go under £23 it's yay, bottle of wine and pack of Lebkuchen for me!!. While I had a payment agreement in my bankruptcy I put the extra £27 that I was allowed, away into savings towards car repairs, Xmas etc.

Good luck - EJ

EssexHebridean

£150 per month here for two adults, no debt, decent income. That includes basic toiletries and cleaning materials too.

£3 a day for lunch is ludicrous and simply borne from laziness I'm afraid. If you want an easy to prep lunch that you don't have to do in advance then how about trying a can of soup (assume your office has a microwave?) and a bread roll, followed by fruit - will cost you a fraction of what you're currently paying, you can buy at the start of the week so you're all set up ready, and it will be far better for you than your current habit is too - with the high calorie/salt/sugar content of most supermarket sandwiches and salads even the walk to the store to get it isn't offsetting the health aspects much! (as a clue - your current lunches are costing you over £700 a year - putting in place even what I suggest would be in the region of £235 instead - to go down the home made sandwiches route could potentially be even cheaper).

I'd also say that you're almost certainly underestimating your real spend - try going back over your bank statements for 3 months to get a more realistic average. If you've estimated this you will no doubt have estimated other spends too and that is really not a sensible way of going into a DMP - do you even NEED a DMP I wonder? Try using the SOA calculator we recommend on here (link is in the "sticky" post at the top of the page) and filling that out honestly and accurately and let's see how much money you're "losing" in a year...

enthusiasticsaver

I would say £222 for 1 person is more than generous. We don't have debt and spend around £250 to £300 per month when there is two of us and that is not economising that much and that would be everything, cleaning stuff and toiletries and bits and pieces for our granddaughter who is often with us and lactose free/gluten free for OH, granddaughter and son in law when visiting.

I could probably get it down a bit further if needed but lunch while I am at work is a sandwich brought from home and piece of fruit. No where near £3 of a meal deal which I would only get if away from home. They are a con and no way would I shell out £60 a month or those. Multipack crisps or bag of apples, some rolls and sandwich fillers are more economical.