Single people, what's your grocery spend?

[littlepieces]

Weekly or monthly, how much do you spend on your grocery shop as a single person (with no current dependents), and what kind of food do you buy? Eg. Lots of convenience stuff or mostly ingredients to make from scratch?

I like to cook and I'm spending £200-220ish a month recntly, can't work out if this is a lot. Used to spend much less pre pandemic, but was spending more on eating out. I swear food has got more expensive too!

It’s about £25 a week but that’s it cover a teenager as well.

Around 40-50 a week including alcohol and cleaning bits and bobs + odd express shop. I am a mix of food prep and convinience. I also love a MS treat! Think its ridiculous but lifes little pleasures.

I’m usually about £40, more on weeks when I have to buy long lasting things like washing powder etc.

I eat heathily and buy fresh, but I do like frozen veg. I am bad at measuring quantities so always end up freezing leftovers or having one meal over two days.

I do have a severe cafe bought latte addiction though… wouldn’t like to add that on!

Not me but SIL lives primarily alone and tells me she spends around £40 a week on food, a little bit more when her partner comes to stay. She’s a vegetarian so no meat or fish and she doesn’t drink.
She doesn’t buy or eat convenience food like ready meals.
I don’t think what you’re spending is crazy tbh.

Live alone and it really depends. On a week where I need everything then £60 isn't unusual
But some weeks when I only need a top up of fresh stuff it's £20!
I batch cook - cottage pie, pasta bakes, beef stew etc. Lunches are usually a wrap with tuna or chicken and salad plus crisps. Salads in summer, omelettes, usual basic food I guess! I don't eat steak/salmon which helps
Breakfast rice cakes and cottage cheese or porridge
I buy stuff on offer. If peanut butter is on offer, I get some whether I need it or not, same for anything that's not perishable that I know I use

Oh and that doesn't include cat food and I don't drink at home (except for giant amounts of tea!)

It's a bit 'how much can you afford? dependent though.

I have two young adults living away from home until last few weeks and both reckon under £20 a week. However one is a student and one only a recent graduate and been furloughed a lot of last year, so both are budget conscious and have had time aplenty to spend cooking things in batches / slow cooking and freezing / shopping at the time of day that supermarkets reduce their food etc.
If you don't need to, then you could easily spend more than they do.

It depends if this is a "how do I save money" post or just a pondering if this is a sensible amount post

In 2018 the Food Foundation researched how much it would cost to follow the Government's guidelines on healthy eating ( Eatwell). Their research was based on 2016 costs and calculated it would cost £42 per week for a single adult. Their research showed that about half the population wasn't spending enough to ensure a healthy diet. Food prices have gone up a lot since 2016 and I've noticed some big increases since COVID. I would say the amount you're spending is fairly frugal if it's on a balanced healthy diet. If it's going on Mars Bars and Gordon's Gin,you could economise by switching to Lidl versions. I particularly recommend their version of Mars Bars. Better than the real thing.

Not me, but had this discussion with my sister who lives as you describe. She spends around £50 but can vary depending on requirement of cleaning/washing products.

Doesn't really drink at home but eats quite a lot of fish/seafood.

Interestingly my sister said that food bill had gone up in pandemic due to having lunch at home but also as she realised she had been unconsciously stocking up much more. She was always doing little shops on way home from work but now does less frequent bigger shops.

Hen2018, only £25 a week and with a teenager?
I do not think I can put a figure on it as I try to avoid food shopping. If I go to the supermarket I try to buy at least 2 weeks worth of food and stretch it out as long as possible.
Just food...possibly £20, but that does not include a cheap bottle of gin, cat food for 2 cats. nor cleaning stuff which I tend to buy monthly.

My 20yo spends £40 plus 1 takeaway a week. That's without paying close attention to prices so he could reduce it.

His tastes are quite cheap- pasta, mince based stuff, oven pizza with convenience stuff like packs of veg

£75 a week including toiletries and cleaning stuff.

I mainly cook/assemble from scratch and eat a lot of soft fruit, which is expensive.

I’m not trying to budget. If I were I reckon I could do it for £40-50 a week.

I've noticed some big increases since COVID

Since Brexit, I reckon.

Not single but for perspective - we spend £40 a week on food for two adults and two kids (this is just food, not household items etc). Mixture of meat and veggie meals. Only ready-made ‘meal’ I buy are pizzas, the rest I cook from scratch.

I reckon around £20-30 a week, then occasionally up to £50 when I need to top up on household items, including cat food etc.

This is really interesting thanks everyone.

I don't drink alcohol but wouldn't expect to include it in weekly grocery shop expenditure? It's not an essential.

£25 a week because that’s all we have. I don’t drink so it’s just tea bags.

I have to do an awful lot of batch cooking and freezing of whatever people give me (such as carrier bags of windfall apple).

We have a takeaway on birthdays but cook our own rice and naans.

Cleaning things is just cheap scrubby sponges and a bottle of generic Flash. We do get cat food but we pad it out with our leftovers.

I make pretty much everything from scratch and will make sure pastry for a quiche one days and save some for an apple pie the next.

Just waiting for the ‘I feed 6 of us on £20 a week, what you’re spending is horrific’ type of posts to start.

It’s all relative isn’t it. If you can afford £200, there’s nothing wrong with that.

If I lived alone, I’d probably spend that, as I love good quality food.
No one can convince me that Aldi or Lidl food taste as good as local grown food from my local farm shop.

50 quid once a month for Store cupboard and freezer and about 15-20 a week on fresh food and miscellaneous ingredients.