to ask what you think is a reasonable food budget is for a student living in digs?

[grovel]

DS was "fully catered" in his college at university last year. Now moving into digs with 4 friends. Monday to Friday they are each going to take turns to cook for the others in the evening. I'm trying to work out a budget with him for food, loo rolls, cleaning materials etc. Any thoughts?
I've cut this lots of ways and have got answers ranging from £20 - £50 per week.

hAHA Student landlords get away with it because students don't (as a rule) take proper care of premises - cleaning etc etc.

13 years ago I did it on £10 a week, fairly easily. I Think £25 a week would be reasonable, though would require him to budget a bit (no bad thing), and would leave little for booze, (also no bad thing!). This would leave nothing for takeaways, pre- pack sarnies or any high end stuff. But if he can make paked lunches and a meal from scratch and in bulk will be fine. I used to shop in the markets (old bull ring) and aldi.

Can I suggest that DS is not encouraged to nick bog roll, tempting though it is? My friend was kicked off our course when she was caught. Oh and taking turns to cook does not work. Some people can't/ won't cook, peoples tastes / dietary requirements / budgets vary. I lived with 4 different groups over 5 years. The happiest house was the one where we had no cleaning rota and no communal cooking (incidentally also all boys apart from me).

I also lived on about £10 a week 15 years ago. I also think £25 sounds about right.

Can be done easily for £25 if they have no convenience food and snacks or booze in their shopping. More realistic is about £40 I'd say given that they will probably buy Doritos and beers.

Bloody hell I spend £50 a week for 4 of us!

It depends how frugal he is prepared to be. As a student I ate mainly jacket spuds, pasta, LOTS of toast and topped it all off with alcohol .

I will warn DS against bog roll theft.

I think the hard part if you're just buying for you in a shared house is you don't get much freezer space, so if you buy a whole loaf of bread it goes off very quickly etc...

so if they are planning on sharing that kind of thing it will be much easier for them t oget more for their money than the average student.

I wouldn't expect him to be able to eat decently for under £35 a week. The fact is, sometimes you do need to buy a readymade sarnie or something, and nobody that age is an experienced meal-planner and cook.

I live on my own and spend around £30/week. I find that I save money by getting one of those organic veggie box deliveries, as it costs no more than buying non-organic veg from the supermarket and it means there's always veg in the house to cook. Which in turn means there's less temptation to do mid-week top-up shops and blow the budget on impulse purchases.

About three years ago I budgeted around £20 per week. That used to get me three decent but pretty basic meals a day - lots of pasta with a simple sauce, stir frys etc.

I also used to buy a lot of reduced items and cook up big batches of stuff like bolognese, ratatouille etc which I used to freeze and then de-frost as necessary. I also quickly learnt that it was cheaper to do a proper shop every week or so, rather than avoid the temptation of picking up 'something nice' from the supermarket on my way home each night.

I lived with 3 other girls in my final year and we rarely cooked together. When we did it tended to be more on a Sunday night when we would do a roast dinner or something. Cooking together in the week wouldn't have really worked as we all came home at different times, had different appetites etc. I also had one housemates that used to receive weekly supermarket deliveries paid for by her parents. Her fridge shelf and cupboard would always be full of delicious things like Parma ham, good cheese, organic meat etc and we were always v envious..z

I was a student two years ago so I have some idea of costs. I used to spend £20 - £30 a week and ate quite well and used cheap household products. I used the veg stall when I could and bulk cooked. Boring but cheap and if they are in a house that should work. Don't be so cynical about that, group cooking avoids so many washing up rows!
Now I live with DP and spend £35 each a week. That's with a duel professional income!

30 a week is fine. As a student you expect to shop at the cheaper places. I'm always shocked to see students at my local Tesco stocking up on fresh pasta, speciality cheeses etc - then stopping for a Starbucks! I think they probably are so used to being in debt, they lose incentive to budget.

If the shared cooking doesn't work out, encourage him to batch cook, or as others say, do simple meals like jacket potato with tuna.

LeBOF is right though - meal planning is difficult without a bit of practice and a reasonably predictable life. I bulk-cook things like chili, bolognese, casserole, curry etc and then freeze it in portions for packed lunches at work, which saves me at least £100/month; but I certainly wasn't organised enough to do that kind of thing as a student

£25

I dunno, I was pretty good at it. But my dad is an accountant. And my sister is a good cook so I had a good foundation on both sides I suppose.

I lived in a flat with five guys at uni and we did all cook - took turns and left each other's dinner in the fridge if we weren't in. It worked brilliantly. Well it did for me - they did all the shopping at Aldi on their bikes. They tended to make really simple stuff - jacket potatoes, pasta, and were happy if I rustled up something a bit more complex like lasagne or curry once a fortnight. And once a term our Chinese flatmate would make a banquet.

£30-£40 that should be comfortable enough, especially if they are going to take turns cooking. Its always cheaper cooking for 4 than for 1.

More years ago than I care to remember I lived in a house where 4 of the girls used to cook together Mon-Fri. I don't know how much they spent as I wasn't included but the way they worked it was, they shopped together once per week and pooled their cash. It's cheaper to shop for four people than it is for one as you can bulk buy and also means they're budgeting and meal planning for the week ahead rather than each doing it individually. Also means no one can complain they don't like whatever is being cooked since it's planned when they go shopping. Might be worth suggesting to your DS as sounds from your posts that they're planning on doing things individually?

Good point, TeaMakesItBetter. I'd be surprised if 5 boys can be that organised though. You're right that they will be cooking individually for the others on their cooking night (ie buy the ingredients for spag bol or stew on the way back to digs after a hard day at the coalface).

20 years ago I lived in a shared house where we each put in £10 a week, each agreed what night we would cook, and a menu, and communally shopped for the ingredients. It worked really well for us.

I think that might cause fewer arguments than each buying the specific ingredients needed for a meal.

perhaps £30 a week to include everything for lunches, breakfasts and cleaning equpiment? Beer and skittles money separate.

we also always brought stuff at the beginning of term, so one family brought a sack of spuds, my parents always filled the car with tins of tomatoes, tuna and similar. Meant less to carry from the supermarket, and bulk bjuying was cheaper and kept us going for a while.

Thanks, everyone.

I managed fine on £30 pw a year or 2 ago and I did my shopping in Waitrose! I did eat mainly veggie tho.

(It was the only one I could get to on a bus, Sainsbury's was out of town and you could only get to it by car, or else there was a little tesco metro which was more expensive than Waitrose)

I used to eat in the canteen a few times a week too, might be something worth considering if he has a few lectures in one day and home's to far to get back to/it's cold and you cant eat your sandwiches indoors.

I'd go for £30 for a main food shop, plus £10 for eating in the canteen/days when you nip to the corner shop for milk and chocolate

I spend about 40quid a week and shop mostly in Waitrose.

I eat really well but don't eat a lot of meat (through choice) and do tend to buy what is on offer. I also take packed lunches to work which is included in that price.

Lots of my friends lived in communally cooking flats as students. It generally worked well. My flat was less regimented but we used to cook communally one - two nights/ week. It is much easier to cook a decent meal for 5 than it is for one IMO.

Yabu