2 people food budget help please

Mummy2cheekymonkeys

From the sounds of your original post I would say you are already doing most of the things I would have suggested.
For keeping costs down I find batch cooking and making a meal plan are probably the 2 best things. I have done a lot of batch cooking recently as I have a 18 month old and a 2 month old so need quick meals. Search on you tube for "Jamie Oliver quick Bolognese recipe" I've used a few of the tips.
If you want to grow your own I would definitely recommend growing courgettes. They are amazing producers. We normally have a couple and I can't keep up with them once they get going. I find myself trying to imagine up new ways to use them and by the end of the summer I am sick of the sight of courgettes. Courgette and lemon cake is my most requested recipe.

PipneyJane

Bracelovers wrote: »

Hi money savers,

Long story short. Financially we are tight. I lost my job and have had to take a job with far less hours and hourly pay. I'm tracking our spending and we currently spend £50 a week on food.

There is just 2 of us, we have a roast on a Sunday and I use whatever is left for the following days, we have no takeaways neither of us drink alcohol (with any regularity).

What would you expect a couple to spend on food per week? I do batch cook and use all leftovers, we will be growing vegetables to help reduce our spending but atm the garden is very much a working progress. We purchased our house in Mid December and I lost my job end of December.

Any advice on saving will be very much appreciated :beer:

Firstly, I’m really sorry to hear about your job. I was job hunting for most of last year, so I know how hard it can be. Sometimes it feels like nobody is hiring.

There are just the two of us. We eat really well, cooking from scratch most of the time. We budget £220 a month for household “stuff”:

£120 general groceries/housekeeping money; (this is what I track for the Grocery Challenge)
£ 40 Meat Fund. (This accrues for months. We buy most of our meat from a specialist butcher, 2-3 times a year, but I will buy cooking bacon and sausages from the supermarket.)
£ 40 Bulk Fund (spent on bulk items at Costco or Wing Yip or when we see a really good offer in the supermarket)
£ 10 Christmas Fund (set aside for the Christmas turkey/goose, etc)
£ 10 Garden Fund, for gardening supplies, seeds, etc. (This usually only gets spent in spring)

What do you like to eat? What do you like to cook? My culinary style is a mixture of Indian, Italian and Southeast Asian food, so I use quite a few spices. I buy them in bulk ( 500g bags) and store them in recycled Douwe Egbert coffee jars; usually a large bag costs the same as 2 of those little jars.


Have you found the Sneaky Ways to Save the Pennies thread? (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2247257/nervous-of-my-own-challenge-reduce-or-stop-spending&highlight=sneaky+ways)
It’s old but worth reading from start to finish. There wass a replacement thread, Los More Sneaky Ways to Save the Pennies, but it seams to have been pulled.:eek:

Regarding toiletries and cleaning stuff, can you change down brands? (We use own-brand.) What about cutting back on quantities? Decant shampoo, conditioner, body wash and moisturiser into recycled pump-action soap dispensers and see how much further they go. (I have long, curly hair, which I wash daily, and can get by with 2 squirts of shampoo and 4 of conditioner.).

HTH

Pip