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?!

Basin....you need black pepper, herbs (we been growing the same ones in pots for years, they cost pence years ago), pine nuts (use sparely as expensive but lifts a meal),

I think the very little meat was key though!

And basin its fun and sooooo tasty.

But London Rache it's not cooking from scratch that's cheap though, it's cheap ingredients. A roast is cooking from scratch, it can be as cheap or as expensive as you want to make it

Nugget at the moment morrisons are selling packs of fresh breast fillets for £2. The last two nights ive made a stir fry and a thai curry from starch with one pack for two adults!

I think as long as people realise not everyone can cook from scratch and make decent healthy meals full of variety (and tbh, I'm not convinced the meal plans described here are, and the ones that are are the more expensive ones, not the £20 a week we were originally talking about) then that's fine. It's the implication that poor people should be able to eat well by following the advice of the time, skill and money rich that gets my goat.

Sadly adeleslost i didnt have the choice re cost. We had that much to spend on food and extras and nothing more. As ive said before now not in london we have slightly more money to spend on food but i still struggle to spend too much as ive got into the habit. I maybe shouldnt admit to this but i have a bottle of wine in my fridge that was given as a xmas present and has so far been used on 4/5 meals as a sauce when cooking. I cant drink at the moment anyway but image having an open bottle in the fridge since xmas....(im pregnant)

Food isn't anymore expensive on London, in fact it's usually much cheaper because of ethnic shops , street markets etc. I'm surprised you've found yourself saving money by not living there.

I also managed to spend very little in the past but food has got much more expensive in the last 3 years or so so maybe experiences from then aren't quite as relevant now?

Agree adeleslost. The coconut milk i need for thai curry is cheaper in london than where i am now. 50p in some places with over 89% coconut content. I struggle to get it here for less than £1 with high coconut content. I miss london but we couldnt afford to keep renting there and every penny was going on rent living us with nothing. I do miss the food and street markets in london as you see and smell things you never seen before. We have been known to just buy something fruit wise that looked interesting if not expensive and look into how to cook it.

Creamed coconut is much cheaper than buying even the cheapest canned coconut milk and you can make up exactly the amount you need.

They sell it in Asda for less than a pound a block, which is enough to make the equivalent of 4 cans of coconut milk.

I would love to be able to spend that much on shopping per person in our house. We were really bad at budgeting/no meal planning etc. and we were skint all the time. I'm in the second month of budgeting tightly and meal planning - I've just spent £175 on a fortnightly shop (after online e-voucher and staff discount). It doesn't include nappies as we use cloth but we have just started buying formula - the toddler one, and I have bought lots of fresh meat and fish and fruit and that is for a one year old, 13 yr old and two adults with healthy appetites! (Oh and the only cleaning stuff I have bought is a medium box of washing powder - still need to buy toiletries, but have countless tubes of toothpaste already due to my wonderful online shopping skills!)

Oh yes Rache I just meant I didn't buy much meat at the time. Not that you can't buy meat on that budget.

Totally agree with you Adele that rhetoric drives me mad. I wasn't poor at the time, so could spend more whenever I needed to.

Basin- No, not even a little bit tempted to try and live on £80 a month!

It's the implication that poor people should be able to eat well by following the advice of the time, skill and money rich that gets my goat.

This. I'm also a bit about the quantity, variety and quality of food you can buy on a very low budget. In the past we've been really skint and it was very limiting and been ok but on a very tight budget, which was better but still very labour intensive.When we were on a tight budget we bought lots from markets and local ethnic shops but I had to spend a long time cooking everything up as it needed using straight away. I also found i ate much less meat because I won't eat lower welfare stuff.

I think a big freezer would also help. If you can cook 4 dinners-worth of Spag Bol in one go you are always going to be more economical.

I yearn for the pre-DS times when I had time to batch cook and freeze.

I can feed five (3 adults a 10yo & 12yo) of us on £400pm. Which is £80 p&p. So it can be done.

But that's not including alcohol and with very little meat, and things such as ketchup/mayo already in the fridge.

I used to spend £180 PW in a supermarket shop when DC2 was a baby. I didn't realise that was a lot. It's easily done, but I don't think we eat any less healthily these days. We just don't but ready made smoothies/custard etc.

I pretty much always cook from scratch. Tonight I took a portion of chilli from the freezer with little meat and padded it out with a tin of value kidney beans and half a green pepper. I am at Aldi Salmon is 2.99 for 2 fillets yeah cheapo there so 6 quid for 4. £100-120 a week for 4 including everything is 80 a week for food tops maybe not even that much. That is less than 3 quid a day per person.... So the Aldi Salmon even at my 'shocking' expenditure is half of the day's budget per person.

Tbh I don't care, we buy the food we want and it only costs 40-50 a week. I don't really care if you don't agree/believe me.

I don't dispute you can feed 2 people for 50 quid a week Orla, I feed 4 for 80ish (not including the school uniform/ swimming costumes/ toothpaste/ wine etc. Its the ones who claim to eat well and feed a family of 4 for that amount that I have issues with because Salmon's great value in Aldi. On my budget I can't afford Aldi salmon every day.

I spend about £300-350 every 3-4 months on a huge batch cooking and freezing. Thereafter we spend £40-55 weekly at the supermarket, which includes all meals, nappies, formula, toiletries etc. There are four of us. I could easily spend a lot more and quite easily, a lot less.

I don't doubt it either Orla but there was someone who said that they fed a family of 3 on £60 a month earlier on the thread. Without buying value. It's stuff like that that makes me a bit

So it turns out I am exactly 161 cms tall and I weigh 57 kilos. Just had this health check up for my new go practice.

So I have gained more than I thought it's horribly depressing

Sorry posted on wrong thread!

The UK is insanely cheap for food. Whenever we go there we wander around shops exclaiming at the low prices! We are six and spend about 800€ a month, which is less than most people I would know.