If you live alone

[Jan89]

How much are you spending on the food shop?

Bonus points for meal/shopping ideas. Everything comes portioned for two, and I hate eating the same thing all week!

I spend probably £ 40 a week on food and household items.
I don't really cook much these days apart from my breakfast porridge because my evening meal is usually a salad. And I very rarely buy meat.
I do.buy a lot of things like almonds and chia seeds and I've been quite shocked at the hike in price in these lately and I fully expect my food bills to be increasing.

I do tend to eat similar things two nights in a row. Or I change it up and have the first nights leftovers the following day.

I have to say that I use my microwave a lot more now compared to when I was not single.

A whole cooked chicken I will strip the meat and freeze into about 4 more portions.

Cooked mince the same.

I should add I'm not very food orientated though. An every day meal is just a meal, but if I fancy something nice you can be sure I need to feel like having it twice 😀

I should add I'm not very food orientated though.

This is me as well @isthismylifenow

I'm very much an " eat to live" rather than a " live to eat" person.

About £150-200 a month on average. Much less in the summer as I have an allotment and I grow what I need.

Cooking for one is a ball ache, but this is what I found works for me.
Shopping every 2/3 days. No point in making a week’s menu.
This last week I bought a family size punnet of mushrooms. I fried the lot with garlic. Friday I had some with fried halloumi in a bun, like a burger. I made 2 lunches with some of the mushrooms, I added roasted vegetables (frozen from the summer), one day I had it with flat bread, the other with pasta.
I still have some, they’ll get thrown into an omelette for tonight.

Basically , I’d cook a ‘base’ that I then can incorporate in other dishes.

I’d never thought of using mushrooms like this! Thank you.

£35 a week and about £60 - £70 once a month. Aldi.

£60 roughly and I shop 2-3 times a week. I could definitely reduce it if I actually cooked more. I rely too much on convenience food. Batch cooking wouldn't work for me as I only have a freezer compartment which is very small. I would rather cut back on other things and spend the money on food.

The bill goes up if it is a shop where I need stuff other than food, washing up liquid, foil, etc.

I probably spend around £40-£50 a week but I don't do a big shop anywhere, I use Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons, Waitrose and occasionally M&S and just buy as I go through the week.

I do cook and freeze quite a lot of meals though, I don't buy ready meals, I prefer to cook from scratch so I know exactly what has gone into it.

If I have a lot of meals in the freezer, then my food bill goes down quite a bit as I just need to buy veg and fruit and a few other bits to last the week.

My average weekly spend is around £65. But some of that might include cleaning sprays, washing up liquid etc some weeks.

I’m a big fan of frozen fruit and frozen veg - I used to buy and waste too much fresh stuff. I finally gave up and realised there’s only so much fresh fruit and veg I realistically get through in a week.

I like some tinned food too so I also keep a few tins of tuna, mackerel etc in the cupboard. And chickpeas and kidney beans.

Some typical meals for me are :

salmon and rice and veg.
chicken, rice and veg.
mince, avocado, lettuce and sweet potato (I buy frozen sweet potato chunks)
brown rice and mackerel with veg and harissa
tuna pasta
omelettes
sourdough bread (buy fresh keep in the freezer) and my choice of protein.
broccoli and chicken

I use lots of seasoning and/or marinades
in all the above.

That’s probably about right. Last time I lived alone (over 15 years ago) i budgeted £20-25 per week, and it was hard keeping it at the bottom end of that range. Prices have risen a lot since then.

I did batch cook a couple of times a week. Batch cook in the sense of making a 4 portion meal, eating one and then freezing the other portions. That helps to vary it a bit. Then I’d do a jacket potato once a week, at least, as it’s cheap if done in a microwave.
It’s a lot harder to do it economically without a freezer or with very limited storage space though. I really struggled when I lived in lodgings with keeping food costs down.

Yes. Obviously 🙄

I usually do one monthly shop online with Tesco and then top up with odd bits/fresh veg from Sainsburys (or Tesco Express if I'm feeling lazy as its closer). It works out around £30-£40 a week.

Thanks all. The meal ideas are really useful. I was doing small shops but was a bit horrified at how it was all adding up, so going back to weekly shops but it came to £60 (with coffee and some other non weekly bits). Maybe I’m not doing so badly!

Didn’t know you could buy frozen sweet potato chunks either so that’s a good one

About £80 but I have pets as well.

I'm gluten and dairy free and try to eat healthily so almost everything is fresh..

£21 today and will top up during the week probably more veg

im planning roasting some veg, a soup and maybe kedgeree . That sounds like tons but lots of ingredients in stock already

We freeze a lot of meals and don’t have a microwave either. Things like soups, curry just take out in the morning and leave in fridge, then heat in pan.

Otherwise ikea glass Tupperware is great. The square ones are a good size for 1. You can freeze things like lasagne in individual portions. Put lid on and freeze. Then either take out and defrost in fridge if you remember and cook in oven, but can cook from frozen just takes longer at a lower temp. You can cook in the dish you froze in ( lid off)

I think what really gets me is I spend roughly £35-40 a week on my own. When I have students I will spend £80 per week, so feed 3 of us for twice the amount that I can feed just myself and last year I had a 4th person for 4 days and it still wasn't over £85 per week

Didn’t know you could buy frozen sweet potato chunks either so that’s a good one

I buy the frozen leeks for a pasta bake and add frozen broccoli, I also buy frozen peppers and frozen Mediterranean vegetables to add on as pizza topping with cheese - goats cheese if I have it or cheddar if not. The protein pizza bases recipe is doing the rounds but I have a bread machine to make pizza base dough

Around £50 on average, mainly shop at Aldi and because it’s a short walk I tend to go every week day as I’ve never been much of a big shop fan. I will usually check what I have in the fridge to use and buy something to make up the meal so perhaps some marinated chicken breasts (which I’ll use to make chicken curry) or fish and have with various roasted veg. I also started having soup for dinner as Autumnal dinners last year and have continued with that, it’s amazing how filling and cheap a good bowl of soup is! Monday night is usually pasta night purely because it saves me from having to think about what to have. I made a Nisha Katona Dahl the other week after watching her new show and it was very easy, great flavours and cheap

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