Since when was £1000 a month enough for a food budget?

[BitCoinBillionaire]

We are a family of 3 adults - my youngest still at home being 19. We don’t buy alcohol and have 2 cats. Like to eat as well as possible and I’d really been noticing I’d been overspending lately so decided to use ChatGPT to work through a budget with me

I want this budget to include all food, cat food and household type bits - of which I’m generally well stocked up on anyway. I also wanted this budget to just cover August to see how it goes

I’ve put a figure on it of £1000 and ChatGPT has been helpful in helping me see how to divvy it up etc into pots (I’ve previously just been spending as I feel) but tells me that ‘£1000 is very doable to not generous’

Not generous! Is this where we are at now? A grand a month is considered ‘a little tight with not much wriggle room.’

Thoughts? Are you spending this? More than this? I know it’s like asking how long is a piece of string but I think it’s highlighted to me that I need to perhaps meal plan a bit more!

I think 1k a month is fairly generous for 3

How does chatgpt divide it up?

Cats are bloody expensive to be fair. Mine constantly want novelty and I’m swooping around all over the place.

i don’t eat meat or dairy and don’t drink alcohol.

1000 a month looks a lot to me.

It’s an AI sloppy answer, I wouldn’t pay too much attention.

£50 per per person per week, is more than enough for any family.

You don't need to believe everything chat GPT says to you

The problem with AI is it uses what information it has been told and extrapolates it.

On MN its frequently said £1k is not enough for food, bills etc.
Same djscusdion hallens in diffetent currencies.

That becomes £1k is not enough for food.

Well it’s appeasing you, you’ve given a figure and it’s positioning it as the right number. If you go back
to it and say “actually I think it’s too generous” it will likely say “you are completely right, £1000 is generous…etc etc”.

You could ask chat gpt why it thinks that? Does chat gpt give sources?

We have to use copilot for work and I take everything it says with a pinch of salt.

But yes, I would say £1000 I's say £1000 is generous for 3 adults.

Is that all food, 21 meals a week x 3 and also snacks?

That’s 63 meals a week.
Thats 273 meals a month.
You need milk and toiletries also. And biscuits. I think it’s tight.

Chatgpt frequently makes mistakes & can't be relied on fully so I would take what it says with a pinch of salt & do the budget myself.
£1000 is definitely enough for a family of three, I buy & cook for three adults and spend less than that.

You have to plan meals and be organised about what you buy but it's definitely doable and a generous amount which can include a few snacks/treats.
I shop online for my "big shop" and make use of offers etc.

1k sounds like a lot we spend around 100-150 a week with top ups for 2 adults and a child who eats as much as an adult and a cat.

It’s generic chatGBT response language though isn’t it. You’ve asked if a question about your circumstances and it’s responded accordingly in that tone I.e if you asked it about your pretences for food types and to include cat food, litter, cleaning stuff etc etc then it’s an appropriate response isn’t it that you can cover it with a grand but unless you looked at cheaper food types or something you won’t have a lot left over.
£1k for 3 adults is towards the comfortable end of the budget spectrum I’d say but it’s not a luxurious amount either once you’ve factored the cat food, litter, cleaning stuff, toiletries etc

Goady thread

It’s not enough for me. Not even possible unless I ate rice at every meal.

AI still has a significant bias towards telling you what it thinks you want to hear. I wonder if it picked up from anything you told it that you were moving "down-market" and it was trying to reflect back to you that you were doing so well, you tough little cookie, in trying to get by.

I would treat it with more circumspection. If you told it you had been living on £100 a week and thanks to a windfall were looking to increase to £1000pcm, you might get a very different tone.

Chatgpt is not giving an opinion on the state of the economy or people's spending habits. You told it what your budget needs to cover and it is responding to that. Presumably £1000 is the figure it gave you to cover everything you need with no wiggle room which is why it said that.

If you’ve been overspending and want to stick to a budget of £1000 a month surely chat gpt is going off your own information which means you will have to make cuts to your spending, therefore it will not be as generous?

For comparison, I have two teen kids and we eat fairly well, if I factor cleaning stuff, laundry , toiletries and food for 2 dogs in I’m not far off £1k and I’m a single parent trying to budget

Absolute lol at ‘goady thread’ - stop it!

If you ate rice for every meal you would have a surplus of about £48.
Not possible and not wanting to are different things.

I’m spending £700 per month on a family of 4 including 2 teenagers and a dog that eats chicken. We have cheap meals like jacket potatoes, pasta, fish and chips, home baked pizza, roast and curry. I only buy cheap fruit like oranges, bananas and apples. If the kids are hungry for a snack I have loaves of white bread in the freezer for them to toast. They also have access to yoghurts and fruit too but nothing else as it would affect my meal planning. Sandwich fillers are ham or cheese.

Small reminder that ChatGPT isn’t “intelligent” it is just a predictive text model spitting out the next most likely word. In saying that, groceries are very expensive these days! We spend more than this.

Yeah that’s insane, for context my household is very similar to yours, in that I have my teenage son 75% of the time and a partner roughly the same time.

I probably spend £450 max on food a month, I stock the freezer with chicken (breast, thighs, wings and drumsticks), salmon, pork (belly and loins), fish (of various kinds), prawns and some easy stuff like frozen steak pies, scampi and nuggets every couple of months (usually at Costco or big Tesco and I spend around £200 a time). I then do a top up shop for fresh fruit, veg and replacement cupboard bits every 4 days or so.

I am very lucky to have a Sainsbury’s and Tesco local in walking difference, it’s obviously more expensive in the smaller shops too so I am shocked at £1000.

I used to have a cat and dog (they live with my ex) and had the Amazon subscription for pet food a mix of wet and dry, was about £30 every couple of weeks.

To me thats a lot. £150 a week here for 3 adults and a 12 year old. We are on a fairly tight budget but 250 a week is fairly generous.

I go with £10pp per day, so for two of us it’s about £500-600 per month.

£1k for more people doable as meals easier to bulk out etc.