What’s a reasonable food budget for one person?

[PinkOnWednesday]

Hi, I’m trying to set myself a reasonable food budget for one person as I’m currently spending an extortionate amount on food! What would you say is reasonable?
Thanks x

£30 a week would just be miserable. You can’t get the same scale as you can with a family. I’d say it costs 75% of what it costs to feed a couple. Unless you are happy to eat the same meals 3-4 days in a row because you have to eat a whole cabbage cauliflower or bag or carrots in that time scale. Who has just one bottle of wine a week in lockdown!!

Brie and bacon risotto? What now? That sounds fabulous

Her tropical oats is tasty as a desert or breakfast. That’s on the food page on BBC. Uses tinned pineapple and mango/mandarin mixed with oats and baked.

Lol - I seem to have freaked out people with spending £15 a week on sundries! - depends on what you call sundries I guess. For me, I'd definitely get several of the list below from Sainsbury's each week:
Big family pack of loo roll
Fairy laundry wash - I do a lot of cycling, hiking and am perimenopausal so bedding washed twice weekly otherwise it stinks, along with a couple of loads of kit, plus washes for darks, lights and towels.
Bleach, toothpaste, shower gel, oven cleaner, multipurpose cleaner, handwash, loads of tissues as I'm a sneezy person, tights, the odd birthday card, bit of stationary for home, dental brushes, kitchen roll, foil, cling film, pain killers, Tampax, all that sort of stuff. This week I bought a big bottle of Fairy laundry, big washing up liquid, two bottles of sink un-blocker (my bathroom plumbing is a nightmare and the sink and shower need doing monthly and it's not even hair!), Regina kitchen roll, and shower gel, which totals £17.40.

Would stress that I'm not necessarily shopping for the cheapest, just the brands/types that I prefer - sometimes branded, sometimes supermarket's own brand. E.g I use Oral B and the one I use is £3.50. I don't do the whole shopping around in other shops like B&M/Home Bargains/Wilko either as I'm working during the week, and walking or on the allotment at weekends. During Covid I go to Sainsbury's once a fortnight, don't do top up shops usually, and that's it. I also do a blitz and buy a stash of non-food stuff during my two months off from council tax, and stock up to try and keep my budget level.

I spend between £25 and £50 a week depending if I need to restock loads or just get fresh stuff
Cleaning stuff is usually from wilko and I buy in bulk toilet rolls/laundry stuff when it's on offer, same with stuff like peanut butter/beans/anything you always use, buy it when it's on offer whether you need it or not. That way you never run out and have to pay the higher price for it
If not shielding I would be using Lidl, but delivery means sainsburys at the minute so I keep it to £40pw for the free delivery

You can eat frugally on £20 shopping at Lidl and just getting a basic if needed e.g. loo roll or washing up liquid. Takes a LOT of planning though and a well stocked cupboard to start.

I usually go with a 50 shop in week one, maybe 35, then 25 and the last week of the months is a scrabble! So 120 - 140 p/m incl. household.

You can cut household spend in a few ways:

• cheap loo roll is a false economy
• bars of soap not shower gel
• cut dishwashing sponges in half
• use an Eco Egg not laundry powder (I gave up on this one!)

Similarly saving on food

• batch cooking
• bulk buying e.g. a side of salmon cut into slightly smaller than the usual fillets

Sorry long time single saddo here!

Who has just one bottle of wine a week in lockdown!!

Some of us don't even drink.

Whilst I totally appreciate that many people are having to budget for food ( and everything else ) this doesn’t seem to be the case with op. They simply want to spend less, and that’s their choice of course but with that choice comes comprising and scrimping when it’s not really necessary.

At the moment there is very little one can do except eat nice foods. We have no entertainment outside of the home, no gyms, pubs, hobbies etc so I would find other ways to cut back before I cut back on food. It’s one of life’s pleasures.

I seem to think about food constantly lately and am always planning ahead in my head about what we will eat during the day/week and love having a load of stuff in. I know we’re lucky to be able to do that and we haven’t always been able to.

I couldn’t spend less than £50 for just me.
We have a 4 month old puppy, dd 10, ds 18 and dp and myself and we spend around £200 a week easy. We’re all at home though and 2 of us are vegetarian.

This website is good:

frugalfeeding.com/

Maximum of £40.if using a main supermarket. £25-30 if using aldi or lidl.

I think we are pretty extravagant, probably spend around £130 per week. That includes regular takeaways (maybe 3 weeks out of 4), beer subscription, wine account and monthly trips to the local butcher though, as well as all toiletries and household goods. We could definitely keep it below the £100 mark if we needed to cut back and in fact probably further if we ditched the beer and wine...

Some of these amounts are ludicrous, and more than I have spent on a family of 5, without specifically going out to save money !!

My adult dc reckon they never spend the £20 that they have in mind for a budget. That includes things like toothpaste or washing up liquid, but doesn't include social life such as eating out / takeaways / alcohol.

If your aim is to save money, people can help you with suggestions ?

Well fuck me I think we'd all say we're spending about £1.47 on food (ie the cost of 7x instant noodles) if we could have unlimited takeaways and booze on top of that and not include those in our spending. And if we were 18. Catch a hold of yourself please.

I would say £30-£40 a week.

Bottle wine £10
Bag of coffee £5
Bar of chocolate £5

That’s 2/3 my budget blown! Do people have no nice food or treats in their lives ?

@Akire I don't drink but the chocolate definitely gets included
That's the thing, if it's a week when I need coffee, laundry stuff, and lots of ££ stuff then my bill is higher. Some weeks I only need a tenner of fresh stuff
I'm including all my meals in that including lunch for work etc. Costing me a bloody fortune in milk and teabags WFH!

I live alone and at home all day( disabled
I spend £30
I get through lots of milk and coffee, and never eat breakfast( never have)

I spend £50-70 for 2 weeks. Plus a veg box on the week I don't have supermarket delivery.
A week where I need dishwasher tabs or laundry stuff makes a big difference.
I could be more frugal but I'm lazy.

As someone pointed out above, it generally costs more to shop for one person. Smaller packs of stuff tend to be proportionally more expensive (i.e. a smaller loaf of bread is not half the price of a larger one).

Budget treats:
Nescaffee Azura Coffee £3 a pot (about my only branded treat) only bought on special offer (I have a stash)
Value Chocolate chip cookies (or morrisons own brand which are as cheap) 45p-50p a packet (heated in the microwave for 20 seconds)
Value Chocolate chip cake bars (not too bad on sugar either)
Value chocolate spring rolls 6 for something like 60p
DD likes value fake penguins which are 20 for less than a pound
Since getting an airfryer I've found those cheap croissants that come individually wrapped and last forever are not in fact vile but are lush.
No alcohol at the moment (diet) or when I'm strict budgeting. If I do alcohol I tend to get a spirit that i can do a half measure with a mixer.

I am a single person and spend approx £25-30 a week. There's a caveat however, in that I don't buy alcohol and am mostly vegan. That doesn't only include food, that's household items as well - loo roll, toothpaste, cleaning products.

I eat a lot of lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans, frozen vegetables, tofu, soy milk and fresh fruit.

@Akire

Bottle wine £10 Bag of coffee £5 Bar of chocolate £5

That’s 2/3 my budget blown! Do people have no nice food or treats in their lives ?

I have treats but I never spend £10 on wine except maybe at Christmas, and £5 is quite a bar of chocolate! I'd say £1 fir that.

I mean you should spend what you choose and can afford of course.

I do think it's a lot harder to budget for a single person. Though at least you get to eat all the cookies at your leisure.

I spend about £250 a week at the moment on 4 of us. Maybe a bit more. Everything is so miserable that I prioritise nice food. I will say that that includes one restaurant takeaway a week and a heavy reliance on M & S!

For one person? I'd say £60

I could manage on €20 I think. Not much variety in that but I added up 5kg potatoes, 6 eggs, 2 small loaves of bread (10 slices each), 4 heads of broccoli, a pound of butter and a mini ham fillet/2 pieces of trout/chicken fillets. Could buy cheaper eggs and cheaper bread and less butter and afford some cheese and fruit. Or just add those on for still less than €25. Frozen peas or something would be cheaper than broccoli.

As someone pointed out above, it generally costs more to shop for one person
Not if you are happy to freeze stuff. Stuff doesn't come in three person portion size either so I buy bulkish, open up and freeze. Especially stuff like meat into 3 person size portions. But I've been known to do it in single person portions in case of guests. Ive found that works better for us than bulk cooking and freezing cooked. The exception being a whole (slow cooker) chicken for £3.50-£4.50 which you can get 7-9x100g portions of meat. If you can freeze individually, it does for sandwiches, wraps etc for lunches. So you can have choice but nothing goes to waste. Healthier than stuff like ham too.

Personally I wouldn't necessarily bother with bread for one person unless I liked it for breakfast. I'd do jackets and wraps (butter not necessarily needed then). Again if you when you open up the wrap packet you pop some kitchen roll between them, you can freeze them use them individually.

I also use a lot of frozen veg so theres no waste there and would work equally as well for one as three.

The cheapest I've done is £15 for myself per week; was on a very tight budget at the time. It was doable, I'm not vegetarian but just made veggie stuff and meal planned everything. Things like porridge oats for breakfast, homemade vegetable soup for lunch, and batch made veggie chilli or cottage pie for dinner. Tap water to drink. No booze, no chocolate etc. Plenty of fruit and veg though, probably the healthiest I've ever eaten, but wouldn't want to do it again!

Probably spend about £35 on myself now.