To ask what she spends £300 a month on?

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My friend and I were talking about our monthly outgoings. She works one day a week in a shop and her dp has taken a huge paycut to do something he loves. She said that he gives her £300 a month for food. They're veggie (she's vegan) so I really don't understand what they spend all that money on. My food bill is less than that and we eat meat (good quality meat) and have cheese etc. My plan if one of us lost our jobs was to go vegan and eat big veggie stews and curries all week,so how come she spends so much?
She did ask for my advice so should I tell her that I think she could cut down on her food shop.

Have you asked her?

Vegan meat replacements especially are super expensive. £300 sounds vaguely reasonable really.

No. I don't think following a vegan diet is cheaper. Fresh foods are more costly.

Does that include toiletries?

Does she buy organic? Nuts and seeds?

I find fresh fruit and veg really bloody expensive sometimes. And if that is the main staple of your diet id want to have a huge variety of it.

Nuts are expensive. Vegan/veg alternatives are really fucking expensive too judging by my brief visit to the free from aisle last week for a friend.

That's only £75 a week. Pretty average I would say if they can afford it. Do they have pets? Could include pet food or maybe they drink a lot?

Also special vegan products can be expensive.

My in laws spend £130 on just two of them but a lot is alcohol.

£300 a month is less than £40 per person per week for food (and booze, and cleaning supplies etc).

Hardly extravagant.

How many in the household? We are a vegan and veggie mix household. Strew etc are fine but you will get very bored and lack nutrition if you eat the same meals all the time. My shop is around £120 a week for a family of four. This includes nappies for two children, cat food, cleaning products, lunch boxes for two children and my husband on weekdays, snacks, fruit, drinks. The kids do have nice treats for a Fri evening and I have a bottle of wine for the weekend but other than than not sure where I would cut back.

£75 a week is not a huge amount for 2 adults, though obviously many people manage on far less. If they like eating a big variety of out of season fruit and vegetables (raspberries, blueberries, aubergines, courgettes etc) it can get quite expensive. Vegetarians can still of course enjoy wine, chocolate, nice cheese etc, and the costs could soon mount up.

Sorry family of six, four kids

I can spend anywhere between £50-70 on four of us depending on what we need stocked up on, including nappies but for nighttime only now. No alcohol bought either. We eat lots of fruit and I cook fresh most nights, I think £300 a month is reasonable.

I definitely spend more than that don’t really know what on, I’m not frivolous though I do buy fresh and always free range. I think it very easily adds up. She could be including all householdy type stuff in that too? I do as it’s all on ocado.

£300 per month really isn't so much to spend on food is it?

Do they only eat organic? That nearly doubles the price of some things. How many children do they have? DP and I budget £300 a month for food... and wine, and beer, and household stuff (cleaning stuff, loo roll, etc.) and a couple of takeaways... But we could easily spend a lot less if we needed too. Meat isn't the most expensive thing we buy though. I'm not sure being veggie makes things that much cheaper. It depends how you shop and cook.

Where does she shop? I'm vegetarian, and use a lot of cheap ingredients like lentils etc but I spend a lot on fruit, veg and nuts. If I always bought organic and bought it all in my local organic wholefood deli place I would be spending several times as much as I do buying it at Sainsburys, Aldi and the Asian supermarket. It's amazing how much one basket of a sourdough loaf, some organic veg and a few packets of quinoa and chia seeds can add up to...

£300 per month is a tiny amount to spend on food!
Blimey, double that would seem reasonable to me, whatever the diet.

Food only, or groceries? Cleaning products? alcohol?

Doesn't sound a particularly large budget to me.

But if budgeting is your hobby, by all means ask her to indulge you.

£300 a month on food is very little, imo.

I spend significantly more than that for our family of 5. We eat some meat, but on average once a week. I think it’s easy to do if you cook lots from scratch - fresh fruit and veg is expensive, and I like to use our local farm shops a bit. I enjoy cooking and don’t need to feed us as cheaply as possible, so don’t really worry about this - I know I could cut back a lot here if I had to.

Blimey, £300 is cheap!
We spend £100-£150 pw (2 people, meat eaters which includes household products and some weekend wine/gin)

When we have more time we spend less as can cook things that take longer. Our lives are very busy though so sometimes we have to pay for convenience. Maybe that applies to them?

It depends whether they are the type of vegans who live on chips, beans or lentil and seasonal vegetable stews or whether they are buying lots of meat and dairy replacements, nuts, seeds avocado, out of season fruit etc, the latter being expensive.

Also where they are shopping. You could get a load of pulses and veg for next to nothing from Aldi or you could be spending an absolute bomb in places like Whole Foods, Organic shops, Waitrose or online specialists. In the first example, you'd have change from £300 pm and in the second, £300 pw might not cover it.

For me and ds I probably spend around that amount or slightly more every month. It includes cleaning products, some toiletries and cat food. I don't think £300 is too much.

We spend rather more than that, probably around £130 to £150 a week for two of us, including cleaning products and a bottle of wine, but not toiletries. Lots of fresh fruit and veg, and I cook from scratch every night. And DH has the appetite of a horse. We eat around 50% vegetarian, and those meals are actually more expensive than most meat or fish dishes.

We spend almost double that and we eat some vegetarian dishes so i wouldn't say that is wasting money as such. Of course she can probably bring it down if she needs to though.

I used to spend about double that when there was two of us, organic veg, decent wine, ethical meat. Vegan substitutes can be expensive. Of course it is possible to cut down, we did when DC arrived but in places like Waitrose it is very easy to spend that.

How many people for? Do they have DCs and can she work more than one day a week?

£300 should be enough to cover food shopping for a week for 2 adults and maybe 1 or 2 primary school DCs but it really depends on what their incomings and outgoings are, on whether this is affordable.

If she was my friend, I'd advise her to go to the budgeting section of moneysavingexpert and systamatically go through the information - working out and maximising income and minimising expenditure and making sure they are aware of the impact of regular small expenditures.

For example plenty of people regularly buy coffee and lunch while out and about, not realising that the odd few quid here and there can add up to hundreds of pounds a month or thousands of pounds a year and really derail a budget unless there is a lot of disposable income.