To wonder why people don't include food in their 'bills' budget?

[thecatsthecats]

I see this all over the internet. People talk about finances, and lots of people say things like "We put £500/£400/£1000/whatever into a shared account for bills/mortgage, and then £400/£300/£1000 left for food and spends".

I mean, obviously food isn't a bill, but in terms of expenses, it's pretty damn essential. I know that you can spend more or less a month on different items as well, but at the same time, that applies to energy costs too. Any underspending just sits in our account covering overspending a different month.

It makes judging whether or not an amount is reasonable (when asked!) pretty impossible, because you have no idea how much they are spending on food etc!

My DP and I put a budget for food onto the amount we put on the shared account - £200. It buys three Tesco online shops of £50-£60 plus a few extra bits. We actually also put £200 on a month for shared pub meals and the like, but I can understand why people wouldn't bother with that as it's strictly non-essential.

Genuinely curious as to why people don't treat food as they do other standard expenses in their budgeting!

I agree. I do budget it as a bill!

I think for the reason youve said, food bills vary, and can be cut a little if needed or you can put things off (like washing powder) till the following week etc where as other bills are fixed and are what they are every month if that makes sense?

I do. Crazy not to

I agree op , we have very little spare cash but any that is labelled as such is genuinely for anything we want.

Yes we budget £100 a week even though there are just two of us. We don’t say it’s for food it’s for ‘shopping’ so covers food, cleaning stuff, toiletries, random b&m stuff 😂...

I include it in our bills budget. It's always around a €100 a week for shopping so it's easy to do.

I include it in my outgoings as although it varies slightly not by that much and is an essential. Then the left over money is for spending on things like clothes, kids activities etc.

I think it's because it feels like you have more money than you do. I have a 500 left each month! Woohoo! Oh wait, I also have 4 children. Then I feel poorer!

Because most other bills are reasonably fixed but food isn't set, you can buy cheaper stuff if needed or more expensive if needed.

We budget £700 per month for our family of five which covers groceries, cleaning products, toiletries - basically everything bought from supermarkets as part of the weekly shop. If we didn't take he amount into account then we'd be seriously overlooking a major expense.

I don't count it because for me, and I think for most people who aren't completely skint, my 'food bills' are a mixture of 'need' and 'want'. Yes, we need food, but we don't need nice food, or snacks, or alcohol (which we also buy from the supermarket). If we suddenly had a crisis I think we could probably cut our weekly shop price to a third of what it is now and we'd survive just fine but it wouldn't be much fun.

I also suspect that a lot of people don't really know what they spend on food. I'm pretty hazy on it - we do a weekly online shop so I could tell you roughly what that costs, but I don't know how much extra we're spending on top-up shops and lunches/coffees during the week. Whereas I could tell you what we spend on gas each month, because it's one, fixed amount.

I agree. Food is pretty much the most important bill! In my head bills are the "will definitely need to be paid for every month" expenses. Like electric, diesel, tv license, mortgage, food, travel etc. Anything else belongs in the "spends" or "disposable income" Section.

I get what people mean about the being able to cut back on food spends, but they're still essential. You can cut back on other things like electricity etc in a crisis. Everything else you might consider a 'disposable spend' is almost entirely 100% disposable if necessary, except some clothes.

Anything I bung in the shared account that doesn't get spent adds up to an extra buffer on that account, and if it builds up to a nice amount, we maybe do something special with it.

NoCry - fuel is another one! I don't do it from the joint account, but it's in my own budget as something I take away before considering money as 'disposable'.

I think it depends on th size of your income. My dp and I are not huge earners and we live in an expensive city so our food budget has to be "set" and then we work backwards from that. The only way we could spend any less on food is if we ate vegetarian pasta or beans on toast every night!

Likewise with entertainment, we plan our weekends (loosely) when we get paid and put by the cash for entry to a musuem and a sandwich and coffee etc. This way we know we get some nice days out with the kids without worrying about the cost.

I have monthly outgoings budget categories and food is a part of that, but it's also one of the regular costs that has flexibility and if needed can be adjusted. So our spends can vary by £100 or so; depending on what we run out of, how long the month is, cash flow, guests, if one of us is working away, whether I just can't be bothered meal planning and cooking (more frequent since I've been pregnant) etc.

The way we structure out budget it's difficult to see our 'disposable' income as I have monthly spends, annual bills that we put aside money for, quality of life that includes health as well as beauty, savings goals and self employment expenses.

We each have £150 no questions asked monthly spending money, plus a takeaway and day out together so that's about £300 truly disposable income. I can reduce our budget down by about £500 so you could say we have £800 disposable, but it's not sustainable in the long term to think of it as that. It has jobs to do! (Paid up user of ynab budgeting software)

I don't count food in with the stuff I budget because I don't have an exact value for it. I can say that the council tax, rent, utilities, internet, netflix, car tax, etc all come to a certain amount - because they are a set value - but food costs are less predictable, so they are part of the 'left over for spending'.

Our monthly budget includes utilities, council tax, school dinner money and food/toiletries.

There's a small contingency for a call out charge/school trip etc.

My grocery shop is full of luxuries (wine, chocolate, premade foods, fancy cheese, beauty products, easy cleaning products etc). Its definitely more about 'fun' or convienience (buying time in which to have fun) than utilitarian food I need to survive.

I would really struggle to cut even a few pence of our utility bills, but could easily cut our supermarket budget down 90% or more in a crisis.

My food shop is highly variable and if needed to could be cut RIGHT back, so to me it doesn't feel so much like a bill as discretionary spending.

Its a flexible cost in our budget. Some months we may spend quite a bit more than others (if it is someone's birthday, or we are entertaining, or just fancy a treat of some sort). Other months we may need to cut back a bit as we have some other large expense. So in my mind it is a fluid cost, like spending on clothes, entertainment, etc. But we do have a fairly high disposable (discretionary?) income and have the luxury of this attitude, if things became tighter I would probably set a stricter budget.

Because it is common sense to always count your non negotiable items first. So things like rent and fixed bills.

Then you have essential but negotiable spend which is usually what people want help with I.e food bills.

It's basic budget management.

Most people do factor it in, the reason it's categorised as spends rather than bills is because it can vary significantly. Upwards if you have guests or a birthday party; downwards if you want to clear out the freezer!

Plus, most people don't have a regular standing order to pay for their food so it's not a 'bill'.

I only really count things that are set up on direct debits as bills. My energy costs don't vary as we pay the same direct debit each month.

Food costs vary so much, and I genuinely have no clue how much we spend on food as we don't need to budget for it really. Just two adults and two cats.

Because it's variable and it's done in cash/on card rather than by direct debit. Also many people work out bills monthly whereas food shopping is normally done weekly or thereabouts.

I could not tell you what our minimum food spend is a month. I just don't know. Sometimes when I'm trying to spend very little it seems to come out high, perhaps because we need lots of extras like washing powder, hoover bags, the things you only buy every so often.

I do have a rough budget per week but IRL some weeks we spend less, some weeks more. I can't be doing with adding it up in my head as I walk around the supermarket, that just gives me a headache!

I include it but it does fluctuate week to week depending on household needs