AIBU to ask how it's possible for anyone to spend so little on food and supplies?

[Nicebucket]

Right, so colleagues and I were discussing how much we spend on things each month.

One bloke said he spends £80 on both food and toiletries in the entire month.

In London.

Is this really possible?!

I draw out £100 for mine (one adult, one three year old), if I eat out or get dc a milkshake on the weekend or something it comes out of that. For me it's Aldi, batch cooking, not having snacks. Most veg is frozen apart from salad bits (never buy leaves tho) we are not crazy about fruit just have a bag of oranges every now and again but always have loads of veg. From what I can tell from what friends say who spend more the difference is snack foods, fruit is expensive, we throw away very little, its portioned to satisfy without much left overs. I can imagine another way to eat on the same budget if you didn't like cooking would be going somewhere like farm foods or Iceland.

I think most people underestimate their food spending (unless they're either weirdly obsessive about budgeting, or on an extremely limited income). They tend not to include those mid week bread and milk top-ups, or meals out.

At the same time, the expansion of low cost supermarkets has made it much easier to eat well without spending a fortune - I reckon we spend less on food now than 10 years ago, because our nearest shop is now a Lidl. We spend the equivalent of about £70 a week in Lidl (2 adults 2 teens) but we do buy other stuff in the week - bread, extra veg, the odd meal out.

Very possible. When in london we (2 people) lived on £20-30 per week and eat very well. Shampoo etc from the poundshop. I always went for makes. Food shopping from lldl. No wine and no extras like chocolate, chisps or any snacks. We eat really well as only meat, fruit and veg. I made our lunch every day so no buying sandwiches. I don't miss those days mind you but needs must. It took me weeks after leaving london to get out of the habit of keeping it within that budget. I still struggle now to buy extras in my food shop.

I suspect that is his supermarket spend which I can't see why not. I spend that for one week on four, two adults and two older teens girls mind I suspect this wouldn't be possible with teenage boys who friends say eat a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk daily therefore it does equate to £80 per month each.

However, we do eat out at least one a week and have eggs and bread supplied.

His girlfriend mum is probably feeding him.

Forgot to add. The reason i know my spead per week is i got out £30 per week in cash and never put a penny on a credit card. When that money was gone it was gone. So very possible. Dmil did help through with occasional food and extra parcels like posh kitchen rolls. Never forgot the day she filled my fridge with some amazing food from waitrose! So totally possible but needs to be carefully managed.

Of course it's possible. Until I had kids I never got lunch or drinks out. Now I go along with mum friends who do it all the time.
I am veggie so never buy meat.
Cornflakes cost 25p
Lots of rice/pasta
Tinned tomatoes
Lentils
Make own sauces, never buy jars
Lots of soup
No desserts, just fruit
Didn't own a freezer so no freezer food
Frequently bought whatever was on offer rather than certain brands
Veg in season
Toiletries etc. bought in wilko/ savers
I used to find it hard to spend £80!

Yup it's possible, family of 3 here and we spend no more than £60 on food a month. And never buy value things

I can (but don't at the moment) do the grocery shop for £50 a week for 3 of us including nappies. Which I guess equates to about £80pppm.

DS (2) costs me an arm and a leg in fruit and things conveniently packaged to take out and about as snacks.

It's doable but I think you need a well stocked spice and herb selection, plus other basics such as soy sauce, stock cubes condiments first. Unless you want to eat bland food all the time.

DH and I are on a diet and so I'm being a bit more flexible with our food budget right now as it's more important for us to stick to the diet than the budget.

I'm nearly stocked up on all of the little store cupboard extras and DS is potty training so I'm expecting it to go back down soon though!

We usually spend about £450 per month for 5 of us (admittedly one is only 2yo, but she has shitloads of milk and nappies), which equates to £90 pppm, and we could definitely cut down further if we had to. That includes all meals except DC school lunches, and very very occasional meals out ( less than once a month). We get organic meat and milk, but the rest is just normal food, mainly bought at Aldi/Lidl. Virtually nothing processed though, so lots of cooking from scratch.

I don't doubt it's possible- especially if one is not a foodie.

Cooking varied meals for the pleasure of it is an expensive hobby IMO. If you were to bulk buy and eat the same few basic meals on rotation you could probably feed yourself very cheaply.

Stuff like jacket and beans or pasta with frozen veg and cream cheese can be done for pence per head.

Where do cornflakes cost 25p cornish ?

Has the UK become incredibly good value for money? I have just been to Aldi and cornflakes were €1.89 (in Germany) ... are they seriously 25p in the UK?? That is an outrageous price difference...

under £20/week including pack lunches may be possible if he eats very little and buys the cheapest food

does ht get his Sunday lunch at his gf or parents?

most men eat more than women that's why I am finding it hard to believe

I've just spent €107 on a family of 5 in Aldi... nobody in nappies... It could be done cheaper - I spent €5.34 on 6 litres of orange juice, for example, which was non essential I guess, as was the €2.29 bottle of wine :o Frozen fish was expensive at €3.29 ...

Or for the meat eaters, there's stuff like this

Freeze them individually, and you have two weeks worth of meat for 40p a day. Bulk out with frozen veg and rice or boiled pots. Maybe treat yourself to a splash of instant gravy on Sundays.

To Hell with Jamie Oliver, and his "try something new". It was all a marketing plot for Sainsbog's anyway.

If you buy cheap white carbs and only apples as fruit, it can work out pretty cheaply. But all that cheap bread, cheap pasta and cheap rice does get you down.

I can't think why you would live like that unless needs must, I did it years ago as little money, but wouldn't go back to it unless I absolutely had to.

As for the person who said 'wear no make-up', I'm still in shock. I'm sorry but that's a step too far in frugality for me!

Saucy I agree pork is cheap, but honestly, if you cook those 'chops' they are just grim. I have tried casseroles, I've tried grilling/frying, baking, nothing makes them other than grey lumps of barely digestible meat. My children won't eat pork any more (although a boiled ham is fine), although I guess if starving they would.

£80 a month, say a fiver a month on average for toilet roll, shower gel, washing powder etc leaves about £2.50 a day for actual food. He must be shopping at Aldi/Lidl and discount stores rather than big brands from big supermarkets. But as said before porridge, jacket potatoes, some ready meals, tinned soup omelettes and many other things can easily feed someone for that budget.

It can be assumed that he is not buying expensive fruit and organic meat etc, but apples and bananas are quite cheap so it's not like he is not necessarily missing out. He probably doesn't have the huge bleach and other cleaning product habit that a lot of people on here have either. He probably only does one or two washing machine runs a week, rather than many a day that are necessary for a family. Maybe he has a shit every day at work so he uses hardly any toilet roll.

It always astounds me on here how much people spend on fruit and how they seem to think it is a basic necesscity - I'll never forget the poster who claimed that her £12 a week organic blueberry from Ocado habit just normal basic shopping and couldn't see how extravagent it was. It's fine if you can afford that but many people can't and no-one should be made to think they don't have a healthy diet because they don't buy lots of expensive out of season fruit.

The 5/7/9 a day is supposed to be mostly vegetables anyway and those can be very cheap when in season - carrots and cabbage are just as valid a choice as asparagus etc.

Another person wondering if that's just his supermarket shop he's quoting ...

My SIL was amazed at how much more we spent on food that she did. Turned out she wasn't counting the cost of lunches (school dinners for DC/bought sandwiches for the adults), snacks during the day or the weekly takeaway or times they ate out (generally once a week).

I used to know a guy who had cornflakes for breakfast, cheese sandwiches for lunch and ham sandwiches with Jaffa cakes for tea. Day in, day out. I imagine his food bill was pretty low.

• the Jaffa cakes were for the vitamin C

Yes it's possible.

2 adults,2 kids here, average spend per week £55

I am VERY careful.
We don't drink alcohol & only have meat once a week.
Once a month it goes up to £70 as I buy nappies,cleaning stuff, mouthwash etc.

Yes definitely possible for a single person.

London is a lot cheaper than some people think, because the competition can be quite fierce, especially amongst some of the smaller, independent shops.

There are 99p stores everywhere and at least 6 shops on my high street sell large bowls of fruit for £1.

I don't need to cut back but I could.
Even the first answer on the thread says the man would buy deoderant. I have never bought or use it. I just have showers. I only drink tap water. I don't eat processed foods. I don't have snacks.

It is not hard to spend very little if you have that mind set.

Someone mentioned mouthwash. I've never bought nor use that either.

I suspect over the years this 2016 generation has got rather used to things which many of us never had and which they now regard as somehow "essential". Things like keeping all the small bits of soap and pushing them together to make a new bar I suspect has gone out of fashion/need as we become wealthier.

YY Worra no-one has mentioned the many ethnic shops in London and other large cities that sell things like fruit, veg, spices, rice and pulses much cheaper than even Aldi and Lidl.

its possible to be frugal! i spend £18-£28 a week in Aldi on our weekly shop and all meals are cooked from scratch, and approx £40 a month on a big meat delivery from Musclefood which covers us for the month. So £152 a month max and we have partners kids every other weekend too that are fed out of that. Dont buy lunches etc at work either so any additional costs are if we need an extra bottle of milk in the week.

I don't think you need discount stores to eat that cheaply. the likes of Aldi and Lidl are v good for ensuring you don't buy the extras though which keeps the bill down, but similar prices are there in the bigger supermarkets as long as you can draw your eyes away from the premium shelf space down to the floor level, avoid the BOGOF trap etc.