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!

Here's a cheap alternative that AI says is safe to eat...
https://youtube.com/shorts/CXma_DuKUT8?is=R0L9YGdqaevmmXSl

Or https://youtube.com/shorts/40naAeApF3E?is=3HcCCvuYBJUt3hS_

sounds loads to me, but I spend very little on food just naturally. So I guess it’s just depends on what you eat . As a family we spend £50 every 5 days for 5 ppl , but I know a lot of ppl may thinks that’s low 🤷🏽‍♀️ but we eat three meals a day and shop at Ocado.

Yes, it has come to that.

My own meal plans have not changed but my food bill has steadily increased. I have a similar amount in my budget and I confess that with food for one pet included it is getting tight.

Family of four, DH, myself, DS24 and DS17 plus two cats our weekly spend is around £125-140
Normally closer to the bottom end. I also feed DD23 and DGS2 once a week. I bulk but chicken breasts (5kg packs from the butcher). I do a food plan weekly and create a shopping list from that.

£250 a month for 2 adults here. Doesn’t include dog food which would be an extra £75 a month.

do you have much that goes off or gets thrown away?

Think that says more about chatGPT than anything else

If you are trying to highlight rising costs, I think we are all aware that things cost more than they did a few years back. You are obviously better off than many people, so you can afford this amount of money, and seeing what you are buying, you aren’t trying to economise.

People can only spend what they’ve got, so for a lot of people this will be 2, 3 or 4 times their budget, and they won’t be buying the things you do. Others will spend more.

ChatGPT has based its comments on £1000 because that’s the figure you gave it.

How? Seriously that’s £31.50 per person per week? Where do you shop that you can do that? Do you have lots of big budget supermarkets close buy? Could you post your shopping receipt? Because that would be so helpful to see how you are doing this and where I am going wrong. TIA.

Wow! That’s a lot. We spend £370 a month for 3 of us. Then £60 on dog food and £50 on cat food for 5 cats (Royal canin and Hills not supermarket stuff)

Shop at Lidl for the most part, but pick up cheese and milk from the local Sainsburys. We are vegetarian so I guess don’t have the added expense of meat. I usually make too much for dinner then have that leftovers for lunch the next day.

I bake my own bread rolls about twice a week, flour in Lidl is pretty cheap for a 1.5kg bag we only eat the bread rolls at the weekend and rest of the week it’s left over dinners for lunch. I will try to post the last couple of Lidl receipts - not added attachments before so let’s see if it works

Does that include everything? No top up shops and cleaning/ toiletries? £2 per person per day? Please tell me how.
I bought a jar of coffee, 4 pints of milk and a loaf of bread and it came to more than £10. How on earth do you manage?

You asked a question, I answered it.

Along with lots of other posters, I would say there is no need to spend anywhere near £1,000 a month on food.

You have expensive tastes, your food bill will be higher. If you want to spend less, there will be some compromises.

I buy ground coffee, supermarket own £3.60, milk £1.65, bread i usually buy yellow sticker, but lets say £2. Less than £10 of you look around. I also try to get cash back and save points which I put towards my holidays.
The original op may not even drink coffee.

By buying cheaper versions obviously.

Some people simply don't have the budget to buy whatever they like regardless of the cost.

Even by buying cheaper versions I genuinely don't know how you can manage to buy all food drinks snacks toiletries and cleaning products for £2 per person per day. Especially from Ocado when you are also paying for delivery, which is presumably counted in the cost as it was deliberately mentioned.
I was genuinely asking as I was shocked (and a bit in awe) that someone could manage this.

That still comes to £7.25, nearly 4 days of Howyoudoings total food/ cleaning budget for 1 person.
I genuinely would love to know how she does it.

Edited to make sense

Yeah I’m single and have had to up my budget recently
I allow £280pm not including toilet rolls or cat food

no not cleaning stuff I think it because we normally just have porridge or yogurt and fruit for breakfast , I make my own bread etc, lunch is normally sandwich, soup, salad and I make dinner normally chicken or fish don’t really eat red meat . Prop do eat out about once per week . Husband sorts . his own lunch at work .