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?!

We all know what makes most women and men look good - not being fat so actually eating one or twice a day only and just drinking tap water (costs very little) is going to make most women look a lot better than hours spent in front of mirrors with make up and fancy clothes. It is just about all in the weight now 60% of people in the UK are fat.

It would be impossible to eat your five a day on that.

Not a very healthy diet.

Fruit and vegetables are expensive no matter where you shop for them.

has anyone done that 'live below the line' thing for charity? I can't remember precise rules but i think you have to live off a pound a day for food for a week. you can't just take 'part' of larger bags of food you or someone else has already bought either. I did it a couple of times and it was a real eye opener - much harder if on your own as can't benefit from bulk buying, very easy to resort to cheap carbs (can get v cheap bread which is filling), scoured reduced tins section of supermarkets.....eggs became a real luxury! and tomatoes/ bananas the only sweet things I ate. had massive caffeine withdrawal too.

Carrots, cabbage, bananas, frozen veg and probably other things are very cheap.

But most people don't eat anywhere near five a day anyway.

Fruit and veg is not expensive everywhere. Shop daily at a greengrocers and buy what is in season.

Having been living off £40 per week for DP and I for a while now. This includes toiletries and loo roll. We're not living below the line, but we pay £1300pcm rent in London and are mid-twenties so still becoming established in careers- salaries aren't high yet.

We eat healthily, often exceed 5 portions of fruit / veg a day, and the quality of our diet is fantastic. I even buy things like avocados (buy ahead from Lidl + ripen), so it's hardly a life of gruel.

It helps that I've built up a good store cupboard over the past few years, including a huge array of herbs and spices. I've even asked for bulk spices / herbs for Christmas and birthday presents.

The big savers are:

• Bar soap, unbranded toiletries, coupons, share toiletries, 1 type of concentrated cleaner for all uses which I dilute in a reusable spray bottle.
• Everything is cooked from scratch bar bread (we buy nice soya + linseed, not crap!), and we don't tend to snack / if we do it's on veggies, nuts (used in meals too).

-Buy from the world food section of supermarket- way better value for spices, pulses, and things like chopped tomatoes. -Lidl trips once a month. -Breakfast, lunch and dinner are planned + plans are strictly followed. -Meat 2-3 times a week, fish once + tends to be cheaper kings like mackerel/sardines. Lentils / pulses used more often. -Very little food waste- leftovers, even off the plate, get frozen and re-purposed. -Slow cooker + good blender were amazing investments. -Use Olio app to pick up food for free.

Personally, even if we had more disposable income, I'd choose to save it / invest in good experiences.

my budget for dp and myself is £100 per calendar month for all household supplies - food, non alcoholic drinks and cleaning materials. I also have a budget of £100 per calendar month for alcohol, takeaways and meals out. This is on the basis that if we were hard up the £100 for alcohol etc would stop with minimal increase on household supplies.

Easily keeping within budget - last month total household supplies was £46 and alcohol etc £80. Even during December our total household supplies was £122 and that including entertaining at home for 4 days over Christmas. Our annual spend last year was £1000 for household and £1200 for alcohol etc.

As a student, I used to spend £15-20 pw on food etc and actually ate really well. I used to batch cook some things and freeze so 1 batch of bolognaise would go quite a long way. I never ate out either. As a single person, if you're frugal then I'd say it's do-able.

I now spend around £50 a week on food and household items for me, DH and a 2year old.

I shop at aldi for most things and buy my meat from the butcher. We eat very well and take lunches to work everyday. We also have treats and some alcohol.

I think it does depend on where you shop. When I shopped at Asda I could easily spend £80pw with few treats.

Fruit and veg is not that expensive. 5 a day includes beans and pulses which are very cheap, fill you up and are protein rich. It's expensive if you choose fashionable or foreign fruit and veg. Instead choose greens and cabbage , cauliflower, apples, carrots, onions, beetroot etc and when in season.

Pfft. I spend more than that on Wine!

How Elinor? Do you batch cook and freeze or cook day to day? £63 per person for a month can not be easy surely? or is it just me ?. Including booze?? What do you eat?

I think I am just not as disciplined as some of you

I really need to be more frugal and spend less on food.

I have no idea how some people spend so little on food and toiletries.

I love a bargain, and budget and food plan every week. I also batch cook and am religious with freezing stuff...I always make too much pasta and rice for instance and the leftover gets frozen for a rainy day.

But we probably average about £80 a week for food and basic non-food/toiletries. That's 2 adults, 2 dc, 2 cats.

We eat really well (IMO)...plenty of lean meat and fish, a fuck ton of veg and salad, a smaller fuck ton of fruit, natural yoghurt, wholewheat bread and so on.

But there's no way I could spend significantly less than that without significantly impacting the quality of our food.

I spend 450 on food and 50 on toiletries a month for 2 ppl. We don't have extravagant things.

I had to live like this in the past. It was probably slightly easier as food used to be cheaper 5 years ago. However, I thank my lucky stars I no longer have to. It's miserable and in no way desirable or impressive IMO

Cooking from scratch in no way equals cheap. It totally depends what you cook. Convinience food can be very very cheap too.
What people mean when they say that is cooking with very very cheap ingredients. Not "cooking from scratch" that on its own isn't cheap and won't save money.

Its a shame that so many people in poverty are time poor too and often not able to organise all of that Lucy

Very surprised at some of the replies here
I'm a single woman, I probably spend less than that. I don't buy work lunch out and never ever buy coffee out, there's coffee in the office!

Left to myself, I'd never eat out unless someone's birthday etc. I compromise on about 2 a month to keep friends and family happy, but it's always with a half price voucher or something. If he doesn't eat out at all, totally possible. I shop at Aldi. Their meat, fruit and veg is actually better than other big supermarkets. I batch cook.

Someone mentioned washing powder. As a singleton I get through a box of that in about six months, so I wouldn't even put it on a monthly bill.

I'm saving for early retirement. Handing Pret £3 for a sandwich? No way. My sister spends £5 a day on lunch at least. But she's happy to work till she drops, so that's different.

At the moment my extra expense is protein powder because I'm on mega muscle building workouts. Even that's not bad as I only ever get it on Amazon offers. But I reckon if I calculate over a year, even that included would leave me at £80 a month.

You can also spend a lot on cleaning products I find, but I don't.
When I shop for my folks, I'm horrified at the cost of things like that in comparison to Aldi. They like their brands!

Yes! Porridge for breakfast
Cheap tins of soup
Sliced bread and a few apples and tomatoes
Plus pasta with some cheap sauce and cheese
This was my student diet and it wasn't awful, I was healthy and thinner than I am now plus I had money left over for fun!

Vixx, £500 for two people and no extravagance? I wonder how you define extravagance?

Cooking from scratch in no way equals cheap. It totally depends what you cook. Convinience food can be very very cheap too

I agree.

I also think the whole trend for 'eating from scratch' 100% of the time is a load of bollocks. Lots seem to think that convenience food = burgers and chips which isn't the case. I cook from scratch enough, but I also enjoy the odd night off.

One of my staple convenience foods is Lidl's frozen bag of paella. It's so cheap (cheaper than i'd be able to make a fresh paella for anyway) and the ingredients show it's made from various fish/seafood, rice, herbs and natural flavourings. No shit, no E numbers or nasty chemicals...the worst that's listed as an ingredient is water and a bit of dextrose, which you get in most chickens anyway. High in protein and vitamins and low in calories/fat. Would recommend for any Lidl shoppers!

That's so true too lilac. The other day I bought a ready meal fish pie from M&s. I checked the ingredients carefully and the ingredients were exactly the same had I made it. Yes, it was more expensive portion for portion (although I couldn't have got all the ingredients to make it for the £3.50 outlay for the meal) But no more unhealthy.

Kennington I wouldn't class that as a 'healthy' diet at all tbh.

Tinned soup is loaded with salt, very little protein and processed to shit. Don't get me wrong, I love the odd tin of soup (and so do the dc) but not every day. The only protein in your list is cheese...high in fat, and not enough protein for a healthy diet. Cheap pasta sauces ditto on the processed/high salt and sugars content. And theres hardly any fruit or veg.

What on Earth are you eating now if that was healthier?

Also I spent nothing when I was a student, but I was permently drunk or hungover so food wasn't that important