To ask minimum monthly food spend single person living alone

[ItsNotJaneFonda]

Afternoon mumsnetters. I know mumsnet has an intelligent and pragmatic demographic. Just trying to sort my monthly budgets out.
The lockdown has made me sharply change my spending habits.

What do you think is the minimum amount a single adult female with an office job and no physically strenuous hobbies can spare to spend on food a month.?

When I was at university I found less than £40 a week (so £170 a month) was a cut too far. I could survive on less but it would be a miserable diet with no luxuries at all. Mind you student lodgings meant no freezer and limited fridge space, so buying and cooking in bulk wasn't possible.

@ItsNotJaneFonda

Thank you so much for all your responses.

In answer to your questions - yes I literally mean the minimum amount you can spend without risking malnutrition!! I'm not saying I'd necessarily stick to that but I feel I do need to be a bit more practical in relation to how I manage my finances - for example - I don't even use the freezer - so 'batch cook and freeze?' wouldn't have a clue!! I need to be more practical in every way in how I manage finances generally and manage household stuff generally.

Well you can make big pots of soup according to whats on offer at supermarkets - eg If there are bags of carrots for 10p I will be 3 or 4 of these and make carrot and coriander soup (coriander quite often on offer where I am) Or bags of onions for 10p it will be French onion soup - you can keep enough for 2 or 3 meals in the fridge and freeze the rest in tupperware/ old takeaway containers. I turn down my fridge so it only just above freezing - food stays good longer which helps when you're cooking larger amounts and want to eat over following days.

One roast chicken costing £3.80 and large trays of roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, roast mixed veg can last me in various formats over the next few days - they can all be added to curries, stir fries, pasta bake etc, and curries and pasta bake freeze well. Obviously keep yourself right with food hygiene and ensuring it's still good to eat.

I spend max £50 ( add in bulk cat food some weeks), It tends to include flowers, choc, meat and fish, tho trying to give up choc!
Varies week to week, I always have enough fir anyone else visiting always includes eggs tho.
Min prob £20 .week
Cleaning stuffs, bulk buy whenever tho

I used to do £10 per week, with a slightly larger shop once a month for bulk pasta etc... So probably £50-55 would be as low as I'd like to go.

Toast featured quite heavily in my diet though, as a student I didn't care, but if you want actual nutrition you might find it costs a little more!

How is anyone feeding themselves on £50 a month including their toiletries and cleaning products?!!!

Raella - it can be done but just include a few days of just eating toast and buy all things budge range!! Not ideal, but can be done!!

A few days only eating toast?!!! You cannot be serious? I suspect prisoners have a better diet than that.

It depends on where you shop and if you have a decent store cupboard to start with. Also, how much time you have to shop around. One of the reasons I have noticed my food bills go up in lockdown is that I usually get different things from different places and shop the offers. Now all my shopping comes from one shop. If you can use places like Home Bargains for cleaning bits and toiletries you really notice the difference.

I am in a different place now, but when a struggling student I had little.

I never worried about toast either!, but eggs are relatively cheap so poached, scrambled eggs, or baked beans with grated cheese on top made a different tea every two days (on toast of course!).

Veg was hit and miss, but I did the soup thing now and then too.

A bag of potatoes will make lots of things stretch, baked mashed etc. topped with cheese and tuna.

Mince made lots of things too. Spag Bol being every skint person/student's lifeline.

I survived!

Best of luck OP I know what you mean....

I think pescatarian DD does about £30/£35 a week. Shops at Aldi but buys stuff like salmon and berries too. Cheaper days it’s things like home made lentil soup. I imagine wine gets included.

I used to spend ten quid a week when I was poor. Porridge for breakfast. Dinner was often cheap noodles (14p a packet ones) a handful of frozen mixed veg ( a quid for a kilo) with an egg mixed through.

Lunch was a salad or a sandwich. What saved me was living near three supermarkets so I'd often do a tour in the evening. If your not fussy then you could often get some real bargains for 10 or 20p.

I think I actually ate quite well in those days, need to have time and easy access supermarket though.

There are folk that need to live on a £1 a day, must be tough lots of porridge and repeat foods tho, easier for 2 or 4, rather than 1.
No doubly, more veg and lentils, meat and fish would be very limited.
I have to say I class myself very lucky never having needed to do this

I spend £50 a week mainly shopping in Aldi/Lidl with some gluten free products from Tesco as I am ceoliac, but no alcohol as I don't really drink. I eat VERY well and a lot though (I have a very active hobby) so I would say you could do it for a lot less and still keep it very healthy. I rely a lot of batch cooking, meal planning and frozen meat, veg & fruit.

I spend about £10 per week, including cleaning/toiletries etc.
I agree with a pp, where & when you shop is very important. I know the usual price of my basic items - i.e. things like coffee, cheese, etc. & keep an eye out for offers in various shops on those items.
Buying end of day reduced items is my first option so it also depends how that would fit into your work schedule.
I buy most of my fruit & vegetables from the market (big outdoor market here in Birmingham city centre) & it's really really cheap. Many of the indoor market shops just beside it have great deals. A frozen food shop there will sometimes have things like a whole salmon for £5, no head or tail. I'd easily get a week out of that & it's one of my "luxuries". They stock things like M&S, KFC etc in plain packaging at rock bottom prices.
Mostly my household cleaning products consist of white vinegar & bleach. I get some cans of furniture polish from Tesco, value brands, for about 10p. Not sure if they still do those. Another small local shopping centre beside my nearest Aldi has great prices, sort of like a mini version of TKMaxx but lower down the food chain. I got packs of 4 Tesco moisturising soap there for £1 a pack. Soaps & shampoo etc last ages. Also got a lovely pure cashmere cardigan (v. expensive Scottish company, usually about £200) for £1.50, & beautiful high quality cotton summer dresses at £4 for 2.
Mince & sausages are always your friends lol. The Pound shops do packs of "misshaped" bacon which are a great stand-by & very versatile.

My economies are very much necessity driven but overall I think I eat well (at times extremely well ) & it's been a life long habit learned from my late mother so it comes pretty easily to me. She was an absolute star at making a penny do the work of a pound.

The Pound shops are brilliant for many things but always know what you can buy them for in your other shops, sometimes they're more expensive.

£10pw?!?
I do like to budget but that’s incredible.
I’m struggling with the pp on £50pm for her and a dog 🤔
My 4 dogs cost me £140pm, 1 would be £35pm and that’s not the most expensive food, what does the dog eat?

I agree with PP that if you’re not bothered too much about nutrition (for example if you’re doing it short term to save up for something) then you can do it very cheaply. Lots of rice, pasta & potato heavy dishes. For example, a pack of cheap mince, some passata, and some pasta will cost less than £5; and that’s easily 5 meals (with pasta left over for another 5 meals). Skip breakfast, toast for lunch, and you’re sticking to under £10 for the week. If you can access a freezer and start batch cooking, even better. Toiletries and cleaning products last ages when there’s only one of you, too, so you don’t need to buy them every week.

Also, check what you're paying for your broadband/phone/TV package. I changed mine a number of months ago for a brilliant deal Now TV had on - a year of broadband/phone/Entertainment passes for £18 per month plus 2 months free Movie passes. I added the voice mail message service to it for £1 per month. I can still just use all the Freeview channels that are on my tv set anyway but I haven't actually done that since signing up, really happy just using the Now stick. I recently bought 2 more Movie passes from Curry's for £15 total, saving £9.98 on what they cost from NowTV. Previously I'd been paying a little under £42 per month.

EileenAlanna - I read your first post a bit earlier and I was really impressed by your budgeting skills. I don't have broadband just phone and I only have freeview. I think I need to review my monthly phone tariff.

I have lived with a hard budget £10 p/w for all shopping expenses outside of bills and while I managed (because I had no choice) it was a slog. I didn't starve but there wasn't much variety and fresh food was basic (veg for soup etc) plus no meat or eggs as I don't eat it.

If my cooking skills had been better I may have eaten better because basic lentils and other cheap ingredients would have been the base for cooking from scratch but even then I did cook almost every meal as I couldn't afford ready meals.

Now as a single person I would budget £50-100 for a month and that would get me a decent balanced diet with extras like the odd takeaway and wine/alcohol buying toiletries and every so often bulk buying things like toilet roll or bigger packs of cleaning supplies or pasta/rice etc.

As it stands I spend roughly about 50 p/w for 2 adults

About 50 pounds a week

Less is possible

Easily, eg if you are veggie and batch cook lentil stews etc

Meant to add that includes cat food too.

I budget £50 a week but that includes toiletries, cleaning products etc as I get them from the supermarket too.

I'm a member of a group on Facebook called feed yourself for £1 a day, it is doable but very grim.

If you join the group it does give you loads of tips, I've managed on around £30 a week for two of us before but spend more now that I can afford to.

I would also google Jack Monroes websites where there are loads of low cost recipes.

What's happened to make you want to live on so very little, OP? Were you left without work during lockdown? What would be ideal for you?

I give my student dd £35pw and she says that is plenty for everything - all her spends. Just her food she reckons she spends about £20 but she doesn't scrimp for that.

To some extent it will depend on where you can shop. If you can buy stuff in a City Centre market, you are going to do a lot better than if you go to 'Independent' butchers / Greengrocers. If you are near a Lidl or an Aldi you'll be able to get a lot more for your money than a Waitrose or a Co-op or if you need to shop at a local independent trader / corner shop.

Then it depends on
a) cooking skills
b) time you have to cook
c) if you have a freezer
d) what facilities to cook - folks in hostels or bedsits might not have a hob or might have a gas ring but no oven
e) if you have to cater for allergies, or religious needs or even if you are fussy.
f) your knowledge (eg buying fruit that is in season, not just because you fancy it, and how to store things so they keep longer etc).
g) your willingness to eat up leftovers, or the same meal for a couple or 3 days running.

Also depends how long you need to do it for.
I could get by on a £10 a week budget for a month if I needed to, but it would become pretty tedious once it got into the 3rd month.