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

DH and spend 100 to 140 per week and that currently covers all our meals. We cook everything from scratch and rarely order takeaway (3/4 times a year). We do buy organic/local where we can though

My dsis lives alone, I used to take her food shopping when I could as she doesn’t drive.
She used to spend around £30 , £40 at the absolute most and some weeks only £20.
She is a vegetarian and doesn’t really drink other than a very occasional baileys (a bottle from Christmas lasts her the year, she doesn’t buy it, only received a bottle at Christmas and has maybe one small glass a month or something!).
She eats well, doesn’t use ready meals, no fish or meat obviously. Eats pasta once a week, bean chilli with rice one night then the next night a baked potato with the rest of the chilli, frittata which she eats over 2 nights, basically cooks a larger portion most nights that she can eat again the next day so no need to buy 7 separate nights of different ingredients.
Plus she used to also eat here probably once a week which must have helped keep her food budget down a bit
It can be done for sure, she doesn’t go without and could afford to spend more but chooses not to.
I suspect her food bills have gone up a little this last year as she’s home all the time and she used to buy lunch at work quite a lot so I imagine she’s spending more on her grocery shop now.

If you can cook/rustle stuff up from whatever is in the fridge, I think you can eat fairly well on £30/£40 pw for one person. I certainly expect my teenager when he leaves home for uni to learn to manage on that budget including household stuff & toiletries!

Just placemarking.

Thanks @Hazelnutlatteplease

However, I know how to use up food that might not otherwise be eaten.
I've spent many years living on a much smaller budget that people are talking about here . I'm just noting that, in the years I've been shopping / cooking for 5 (or often 6), the "per person" spend, is less than the "per person" spend even for two people, and then it will be slightly more again for a single person.

I love fresh bread, as it happens, and- although I do put the rest of the loaf in the freezer when it gets past it's date, and use it for toast, it really is never the same in taste or texture once it has been frozen.

Our family eats about £35/head/week, including meat and fish but little processed food.

I find that if I forgo biscuits, crisps, fizzy juice and processed crap ,my food bill is a fraction of what it used to be, and I'm much healthier/happier.

In a weekly shop I used to spend easily £10 per head on junk - a multi pack or sharing bag of crisps, a couple of packets of nice biscuits, a tub of £4 ice cream, some desserts, a few chocolate bars etc. Looking back I'm horrified. I def succumbed to food manufacturers advertising!

"Paying £1 for a single twirl when you can get a multipack of 4 for that. Bonkers!!! You must be having a laugh"

I would never buy a multipack of something like chocolate bars. I buy junk food in small portions only.

@greybluegreen

A typical menu:

Porridge, soy milk, banana
Homemade carrot and lentil soup
Vegetable chilli made in slow cooker

Apples, pears, tangerines

Tea and soya milk
Sparkling water with lime

This doesn't sound like enough food to me. Plus, there are absolutely no treats, nothing to make the weekend enjoyable.

£50-£60

This doesn't sound like enough food to me. Plus, there are absolutely no treats, nothing to make the weekend enjoyable.
How can it not be enough food when it doesn't say how much? You would adapt portion sizes to your needs. I eat foods I enjoy, but I do buy a bar of 85% dark chocolate as well, it only costs £1.50 at Aldi and you get 5 small bars.

"How can it not be enough food when it doesn't say how much? hmm"

I'm presuming the soup is one bowl. If it was 10 bowls at a time, it would no longer be cheap. For the other dishes I also presumed one bowl/plateful.

@Gwenhwyfar

"How can it not be enough food when it doesn't say how much? hmm"

I'm presuming the soup is one bowl. If it was 10 bowls at a time, it would no longer be cheap. For the other dishes I also presumed one bowl/plateful.

There can be a big difference in bowl and plate sizes and how much food you put on a plate according to your needs. Three meals a day plus fruit is pretty normal.

I reckon 25-30 quid a week is easily doable, including some luxuries, and especially if you shop at Aldi or Lidl.

Or tbh if you live alone I'd probably do a big shop every few weeks for store cupboard essentials and things you can freeze etc (still no more than 50 quid). Then do some top up shops as and when you need for things like milk, eggs, fresh veg etc. When I lived alone so much fresh stuff used to go to waste as I'd have good intentions to cook it all and then not do it. Top ups at local shops worked much better for me and often if you go on the evening you can get lots in the reduced section.

In 2015 I did it for £30 a week in Lidl. It wasn’t exciting but it was pretty healthy looking back - granola, yoghurt, fresh berries for breakfast x 5, salad with lettuce, avacado, beetroot, cucumber, tomatoes, feta and salmon for lunch x 5. Dinner on work days would be simple like beans on toast, pasta with a tomato sauce, chicken and mash.

Weekend breakfasts would be poached egg on toast, leftovers for lunch maybe. Dinners would be risotto or something. I would also buy some chocolate mousses and some of the big bags of sweets.

I didn’t feel like I was missing out at the time, but I didn’t drink tea and I’m pretty much teetotal. I think that I could do the same for around £40 a week as prices have risen, which doesn’t help you really!

There are three of us now and, since the pandemic, I’ve changed how I shop but it does depend if you a) have a bit of money and b) have a bit of time! I don’t buy supermarket toilet roll for example but will spend £21 in one go for a bulk delivery of who gives a crap. I do a rough monthly meal plan andshop weekly, but I’ll do a bulk buy at the local wholesale butchers and get a months worth of meat for maybe £30 one week, £15grocery top up and a weekly £10 veg delivery. The next week I might have the £10 veg delivery and £40 grocery shop. Week after that £10 veg delivery and £30 ‘treat’shop.

"There can be a big difference in bowl and plate sizes and how much food you put on a plate according to your needs. Three meals a day plus fruit is pretty normal."

A bowl of soup without bread would not be enough for lunch for many people, unless the soup was incredible thick. I'm imagining a normal soup bowl, maybe two bowlfuls, not a washing up bowlful.

"In 2015 I did it for £30 a week in Lidl. It wasn’t exciting but it was pretty healthy looking back - granola, yoghurt, fresh berries for breakfast x 5, salad with lettuce, avacado, beetroot, cucumber, tomatoes, feta and salmon for lunch x 5. Dinner on work days would be simple like beans on toast, pasta with a tomato sauce, chicken and mash."

Wow. Quite a lot of expensive stuff in there - fresh berries, avocado, salmon. I suppose it's because you don't drink alcohol or soft drinks apart from water?

@Gwenhwyfar as I was typing it out I was thinking along the same lines, like wow I can’t afford to buy myself that stuff anymore but it’s because firstly I shopped in Lidl but also because I was pretty hardcore about portion sizes. 2 avocados, one pack of feta, one of the vacuum packed packages of 2 salmon fillets, one cucumber, one punnet of tomatoes, one pack of beetroot for a week. One punnet of raspberries, one of blueberries for the week.

I didn’t drink tea or alcohol, don’t remember buying soft drinks but I don’t like anything but tonic water anyway.

The situation wasn’t really through choice - I finally, after 8 years, aged 27, left my abusive partner, but ended up sort of homeless. An old boss let me live rent free in a static caravan for five months but it was pretty touch and go for a while! I did lose a shit tonne of weight though...

A bowl of soup without bread would not be enough for lunch for many people, unless the soup was incredible thick. I'm imagining a normal soup bowl, maybe two bowlfuls, not a washing up bowlful.
You could add bread, bread is hardly going to break the budget .

I would serve rice with vegetable chilli as well. Getting enough calories is not usually a problem until your food budget is extremely low.

[quote AlohaMolly]@Gwenhwyfar as I was typing it out I was thinking along the same lines, like wow I can’t afford to buy myself that stuff anymore but it’s because firstly I shopped in Lidl but also because I was pretty hardcore about portion sizes. 2 avocados, one pack of feta, one of the vacuum packed packages of 2 salmon fillets, one cucumber, one punnet of tomatoes, one pack of beetroot for a week. One punnet of raspberries, one of blueberries for the week.

I didn’t drink tea or alcohol, don’t remember buying soft drinks but I don’t like anything but tonic water anyway.

The situation wasn’t really through choice - I finally, after 8 years, aged 27, left my abusive partner, but ended up sort of homeless. An old boss let me live rent free in a static caravan for five months but it was pretty touch and go for a while! I did lose a shit tonne of weight though...[/quote]
Well, life is definitely cheap if you only drink tap water. Tea and milk are cheap though.

If you want to spend £20 a week it is doable, with careful meal planning I would say. I spend about £100 on one adult and 4 children. So that averages £20 each, but there are economies of scale within that obv. And differing nutritional needs. The teenage boy eats a lot more than the younger children.

I just didn’t like tea that’s all, or coffee.

A bowl of soup without bread would not be enough for lunch for many people, unless the soup was incredible thick.

If you're aware of your calorie intake you make well find that bread plus soup is quite hard to fit into a balanced diet if it's not your main meal. Most people vastly over estimate their calorie needs. If I have soup I generally won't have bread with it.

I know it goes against the grain with some people but I like to be frugal and found it stressful that my ex would spend a lot on coffee, cheese and wine. I would tot up the cost and think, that’s the price of the nice summer holiday he could never afford when it came to it. I love those menus with lots of fruit and veg, like Mazeofpipe’s menu and saving the spare cash for holidays and other luxuries.

@Hazelnutlatteplease if I have soup (around 200 cal) with a slice of bread (100 cal max) how is that hard to fit into as a main meal? 300 cal is a diet lunch!