FOOD BILLS PER WEEK

[Diamondsareforever123]

We are two adults, middle aged, with 3 cats. Very low income. What's the cheapest food bill we could budget? We're not veggie/vegan, no food allergies or intolerances. I think we're spending too much.... and the fuel bill has knocked me for six!!

We’re a family of 4 but judging by how we buy, I think for just 2 adults we would probably spend about £60 or £70.

For a family of 4 I used to be able to get a full weekly shop for about £60. That was the cheapest I could go and still get everything we like, enough fruit, veg, nuts etc. Now I'm at about £85. The prices on the basics have gone up and often I can't get the cheapest basics range and have to get the next bracket up.

Re: the cat food. Our 4 fussy buggers have tried the lot! We've finally found that they all love the Aldi canned cat food. I think it's 49p a tin. They share two of those a day and get unlimited good quality dried food which I buy in amazon. The last 10kg bag was bought in the black Friday sale for £15 and we've still got some left. I appreciate buying dried food in bulk is a lot of initial outlay but if you can find it it works out so much cheaper than the smaller bags of decent quality stuff.

As for feeding the humans... Do you have a local food pantry? Not a food bank but a community fridge? We've got some good stuff from our local one, usually the day after their display until date but last a good week or more.

Also the food app Olio is great for bread and veg from the day before too.

It may not give you everything but can ease a little of the costs?

£20-£25 a week

Depends on the shop and where you live, we're in Oxfordshire and ore kids used to do about £50-60 at Tesco or Aldi £40-£50. But we were massively into the gym so would be buying a lot of meat, nuts, nut butters, agave.. which added about £15 per shop at least

Potatoes, rice and basics pasta are your friends and then beans, pulses and eggs for your protein. Fried eggs on toast with some chilli flakes and salt are a great filler meal for a small cost. A katsu curry sauce is also a cheap curry sauce to make with plenty of veggies in, serve with rice and fish fingers or frozen breaded chicken. I had for lunch today some left over samosa filling which was just potatoes, carrots and peas with curry powder, salt and pepper and I out some spoonfuls of basics natural yogurt on it. In fact, and egg with a runny yoke would have gone nicely on top.
Eat seasonal vegetables, you might have to forgo fruit unless you can stretch to frozen which goes nicely in porridge or plain yogurt for breakfast.
I found that buying bacon offcuts was good for throwing in pasta dishes with chopped tomatoes and mixed herbs.
Do you have a butcher near by who is reasonably priced? We are lucky that we know ours well and his prices are the same as the supermarket, but we can buy smaller quantities than what you get when it is prepackaged.

£25 for 2 adults I think is do able but would be very basic and cheap meals. Cheap cereal/porridge/toast. Meals such as beans on toast, tinned soup and toast, cheap pasta and sauce. Oven chips and eggs/cheap frozen meat such as nuggets. Could add in lots of tea and cheap biscuits. It wouldn’t be fun or fresh and nutritious but for able and there are many people in the UK that do live eating basic meals everyday long term.

@fairylightsandwaxmelts What on earth would you buy in order to feed three cats and two adults on such a small amount of money? easily done, for comparison I spend approx £90-£120 but mostly at the lower end on our family of 9. Obviously economies of scale come into play but still.

I have just made 10 portions of soup
celery, carrots, onions, garlic, lentils, cherry tomatoes, spinach, stock cube
Total cost of ingredients £3.00.
That’s 10 lunches
Pack of organic porridge oats from Aldi plus 2 litres of milk - 5 breakfasts

If you're not fussy and willing to take a gamble then the Too Good To Go app might suit you.
I've had mostly good results from it, just one particular bag I wasn't keen on, but if I didn't have freezer space or was a fussy eater then I wouldn't bother.

If I was to cut down, one go-to would be £1 can of tuna, half a jar of £1 Dolmio from Lidl, pasta, bit of grated cheese or slices of a ball of mozzarella (about 70p a ball). Obviously jackets and beans or cottage cheese. Things on toast. I think at current prices, that plus cereal for breakfast and a basic sarnie for lunch as well as milk, teabags, etc would still cost about £6 a day for 2 adults. Add in the cats and still over £200 a month.

We are a family of five and spend about £80 a week. The children are small so I would say jt probably equals 3.5 grown ups!

For you I would think £40-£50 is reasonable.

[quote MyDcAreMarvel]**@fairylightsandwaxmelts* What on earth would you buy in order to feed three cats and two adults on such a small amount of money?* easily done, for comparison I spend approx £90-£120 but mostly at the lower end on our family of 9. Obviously economies of scale come into play but still.[/quote]
Okay, if it's so easily done, what would you buy with your £25 to feed two adults and three cats, including litter, cat food, human food, toiletries and cleaning products?

Three cats a week alone in this house costs at least £10 in food, and that's not including cat litter or any extra treats. For basic food and litter you're looking at probably £12-15 which leaves £10-15 a week to feed two adults, plus buy any cleaning products and toiletries.

I just don't see how that's remotely possible.

£1 per meal per person each week would be £21 each.

So £42. I think that’s pretty tough to do tbh. That doesn’t include cats, or allow for any extras or the fact main meals general cost more than £1 per serving.

I think £60 per week is just about doable. Any less isn’t sustainable long term. Ideally £70 a week.

I saw an article that the average in the uk per person to eat a healthy diet is apparently £40.30 each, per week.

Not including cats cheapest i could do is £28 for a full 21 meals a week that is

Porridge with milk and jam
Or toast and a piece of fruit for breakfast

Lunches
Broth, soup, scambles egg on toast, ect

Tea
Stew, sweet and sour chicken, mince and veg, pasta bol, ect

2 adults here.
I spend between £40- £50 a week. DH is diabetic and we eat healthily. No sugary junk

@fairylightsandwaxmelts

Okay, if it's so easily done, what would you buy with your £25 to feed two adults and three cats, including litter, cat food, human food, toiletries and cleaning products?

In fairness, that wasn't what the OP asked. She asked for the cheapest food bill for 2 adults and 3 cats. It absolutely could be done on £25-£30 per week. It won't be an exciting diet, or even the healthiest, but the cheapest food bill, would not be a lot of money.

Asda Smart Price is the way to go.

We are two adults and a cat and around a year ago used to survive on around £30 a week shopping but our food bill has creeped up recently. I find that we probably average at about £40/45 a week now and that includes cat food (but we buy royal canin which is around £5 every ten or so days) and litter.

I would say you should be able to manage on £200 a month quite comfortably, with treats such as puddings and the occasional bottle of wine. Would say £100 a month minimum for a healthy diet for you both but obviously could survive on less if you had to. Probably be a struggle in less than that long term and had to include all groceries

We have 4 kids no pets cook from scratch and dont eat processed food. I can easily live on £250 food a month. We do eat lots of pasta so that helps. Cooking bacon, eggs and pasta to make carbonara for example could be a £4 meal.

However I buy most of my cleaning stuff, tea and such in Costco. I think it's easier to eat frugally if you run down the freezer / cupboards at the same time. I have tons of random things I'm using up right now and this is about a frugal as I get. Shepards pie with 500g of mince for under £2 in aldi. Value Yorkshire pudfinds, jacket potatoes and have a pack of cocktail sausages for dinner tonight so another meal for about £4-5. Gets interesting plus bonus is that anything seems interesting after a few weeks of weird freezer combinations. It's not unhealthy food. But its card heavy.

@Caspianberg

£1 per meal per person each week would be £21 each.

So £42. I think that’s pretty tough to do tbh. That doesn’t include cats, or allow for any extras or the fact main meals general cost more than £1 per serving.

I think £60 per week is just about doable. Any less isn’t sustainable long term. Ideally £70 a week.

I saw an article that the average in the uk per person to eat a healthy diet is apparently £40.30 each, per week.

Gosh £40.30 per person each week just on food!! Well I consider our family lucky enough to be having to watch the pennies but not going hungry, cold etc comfortably off, we would struggle financially if we were spending that much!

With regards to saving on the cat food - I buy a high quality cat dry food every few months - costs more upfront but he eats less of it so it lasts longer than the cheap stuff, which can be a false economy.

I also have stopped buying cans of cat food and he eats minced (various types) human grade meat, canned tuna/sardines (in water) or poached chicken, twice a day. It's much higher quality meat than the cans and works out far cheaper (and you can buy on sale too).

Family of 4 here - 2 adults, a ravenous tween and a very picky teenager. Plus a cat.
We average about £100 per week (excluding youngests school dinners but including cleaning stuff). Eldest DD does eat dinner at work twice a week.
We meal plan rigorously, use a lot of frozen veg to reduce waste, and utilise leftovers for lunches. Bulk out stews etc with lentils. Meat free meals. Batch cook. One or two dinners each week are 'simple' things like eggs/beans on toast or jacket potatoes. However I won't scrimp on fresh fruit, which we buy a lot of.

I'm guessing if it were just me & DH it'd probably be about £60 per week, maybe less.

@IsDaveThere

What the heck do people eat for £25-30 a week for two? Me and DP spend £40-£50 and I though we did quite well to be honest!

Super noodles.... every day 🙄 We spend 60 ( 2 adults and 1 dog)....ok we are vegetarian....but we are quite frugal ....no way could we eat for 12.50 a week each.