What is your food spend per person?

Guineapigsqueaks

I spend maximum of £75 per week when there are 3 adults in the house, me, OH and DD.  DS at Uni most of the time, goes up a bit when he is home.  That includes cleaning supplies, loo roll and everyday toiletries.  Covers breakfasts, lunches and cooked evening meals, plus snacks. I rarely buy alcohol or fizzy drinks. We have takeaway or eat out about once a month if that, not included in budget. OH grows some veg, tastes nicer, but not massive savings there I don't think. I think we eat well on that budget, including 10 litres of milk a week from a local organic farm.

theoretica

I think the bits and pieces can really add up.  You can easily make a large meal for under £1 per person with cheaper cuts of meat (eg chicken thigh), unlimited carrots and cabbage, potatoes from a big bag or pasta.  But that is fairly plain so most people add lots of bits (ketchup, cake, coffee), which add cost but not actually that much to nutrition.

Smoosh

If I remove pet costs from our budget, we spend £70 per person per month, so approximately £17.50 per week. This includes cleaning products and toiletries. 

We do the bulk of our shopping in aldi, utilise things we already have, and I buy YS bargains where possible. 

nobler

Economies of scale mean that a single person or couple is unlikely to achieve the price per head a larger family can. I haven't worked out how much I spend on my family of three because it is very inconsistent. I tend to bulk buy items when they are on special offer and we also grow own veg (with mixed success!), so that also contributes on a very variable basis.

hugheskevi

Our household is just my wife and I. We spend about £120 per week on groceries, so about £60 each. That includes all food, drink and household goods. We both follow a plant-based diet, I cook mostly from scratch but my wife has more processed food. All of our shopping is from supermarkets, mostly just from one weekly delivery.

The expenditure is high and could easily be reduced, but we never have take-aways and rarely eat out - only when on holiday and when eating out with friends.

blue_eyed_girl123

We are £75 per week, roughly, for 2 adults plus a cat, inclusive of all toiletries, household cleaning products etc, sometimes it comes in a bit less than that. 

Generally do batch cooking etc, but sometimes get nicer food, rather than eating out or getting a takeaway. 

ianthy

We budget for £75 per week for 2 people, We are retired so most of our meals are at home. We eat out twice a week - the cost is not included in the food shop budget. Plus the cost of my OH wine delivery from Majestic is def not included in the £75 food shop budget.

elsien

Probably about £25 a week for one. Doesn’t include anything dog related or eating out (that’s a separate bit of the budget.) I do use the olio app and get bits of fruit and veg from that sometimes although it’s not worth it unless someone is within walking distance. 

Or it was £25 a week until prices started shooting up - not done the sums again lately but suspect it’s creeping up.
However I don’t need to manage on that so if the 25% off wine offer comes up, who am I to argue?

I try to keep to my budget mainly so I can splurge more on holidays, but it’s all a bit swings and roundabouts. I’m not going to deny myself if I don’t have to.
 
 Have you tried keeping a spending diary? I can spend nearly as much on treats and bits and bobs as I do on the main meals if I’m not careful.

Pollycat

gorgeousme said:

theoretica said:

£25 too - almost all cooked from raw ingredients and helped that I actually like things like root veg and cabbage... Nearly no waste helps too. 

I bought some ketchup last week and that was £3.  I, too, cook from scratch and we have the leftovers for lunch normally but I don’t think I could feed my family on £25 pppw. I wonder if we simply eat a lot, we have simple breakfasts and hearty meals for lunch and dinner. Hubby is the only snack eater, he likes biscuits, crisps, and chocolate. We only drink when we have guests so it’s not booze that is pushing up the bill.
our weekly bill for 2 people has been anything from £90 to £120. We eat well but not extravagant and I have a machine load of washing every other day. Where am I leaking money?
I am trying to ascertain what we should be spending plus reviewing what we are giving to our daughter whilst she is away at uni.

That's not looking at it the right way - unless one person in your household will consume the whole bottle in one week.
However, I would be querying whether spending £3.00 on ketchup was good value.

Do you buy branded goods?
Have you tried Martin's downsize challenge?
We have on lots of things and have changed to quite a few cheaper items but have kept to some things we prefer the taste of.

Do you buy things when they are on offer but you don't actually need them that week?
I do - and don't pay full price for many things.
I have a friend who would only buy a small can of beans because that's what he'd eat. He had no concept of putting the other half of a big tin in the fridge and using it up later in the week.

Do you need 2 hearty meals per day?

Where do you shop?

Do you menu plan?
Yesterday I bought a 750gm pack of wonky mushrooms and a family pack of peppers.
They will be used in risotto, goulash, pasta dish and a chicken casserole.

Do you have any food wastage?
Last night we had a dinner made from some of the leftover Christmas beef (a 2.5 kg joint for just the 2 of us), leftover roast potatoes, blanched Xmas carrots/sprouts/cabbage/romanesco and the base of a very tasty gravy that most people would have poured down the sink.

Toonie

So, I looked back at my budgeting spreadsheet for last year. Averaged out over the year we spent £34 a week on groceries and £4.50 a week on toiletries and cleaning for two people (so a shade under £20 per person per week). I think we will struggle with that this year as prices are frequently increasing just one week to the next. 

We rarely buy branded goods, shop at Aldi (once a month for a stock up shop and to buy meat to portion up for the freezer), Sainsbury (once a month for toiletries we can't get in Aldi and a couple of items we prefer from them), Lidl (once a month as a top up between the two previous) and the market (for fruit and veg-twice a month).

My aim this year is less wastage, I try my best to use up everything but occasionally something slips by unnoticed.

You say you eat leftovers for lunches, my question is are you cooking extra large portions in order to do so? I generally find my lunches are my cheapest meal of the day as I'll have soup/stew and bread as opposed to something meat based for my evening meal. If I cooked more food in the evening to eat the following day then I would certainly be spending more. That's not to say I don't use leftovers when I have them, but I'm more likely to make something frugal for my lunch.