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!!

@JuneOsborne

Breakfast, lunch and dinner, 7 days a week = 22 meals. X2. Plus cat food. 42 meals per week.

A jacket potato is 30p can of beans, 50p and some cheese 75p. Even a meal like this is more than £1 a head.

I suppose you could buy economy pasta, economy sauce. That'd come in at under £1 per head.

I think, realistically you need to allow £4 per day, per person. At least. A fiver if you add in some fruit and stuff.

So, £35 pppw is £70 a week. Just on food for humans.

How much do you currently spend?

I’d consider us comfortably off but we certainly don’t have £5 per day per person for food (unless we we didn’t want any money left to do much else except eat) 30p per jacket potato?? Asda do delicious large baked potatoes 42p for 4, cathedral city cheese £3.35 and that would give 20 good servings

[quote TheAverageForumUser]@Autumn42 I was quoting from the meal plan that someone else posted. That said half a ton of beans per person. Also it did not include any extras.

You’re right, I’d never eat that and be full. I’d definitely eat more and some extras. In fact, I wouldn’t eat that type of stuff in the first place. But that wasn’t my point. My point was that the daily meal planner someone posted is completely inadequate.[/quote]
Agreed 1047 calories isn’t enough, well enough to survive but not reasonable at all.

Half a ton of beans, they wouldn’t need to worry about heating their house or feeding visitors though!

Family of 4, I can’t say how much I spend per week as I bulk buy which last us for several months, we come from a farming background so get out meat and fish for cost price.

Farmers market meat £216 every 3/4 months. (Steaks, chicken (beef, lamb, gammon, pork, bacon, sausages) in whole, diced, filet or diced etc…

Fish monger’s £233 every 3/4 months - same cuts as above.

I also done a shop today and it came to £158 however needed cleaning products and basics,

My meal plan for this week is

M - Hunters chicken, broccoli, corn on the cob and diced roasted sweet potatoes

T- garlic, honey and soy salmon with mediterranean veg (mushroom, courgette, pepper, onion, green beans and cherry tomatoes) cheesy broccoli and asparagus.

W- peri peri chicken and halloumi wraps and salad, cobs, homemade coleslaw

T - BBQ ribs, salt and pepper chicken wings, peri peri halloumi, wedges, corn on the cob and coleslaw.

F- homemade fish “scraps” (salmon, prawns, smoked haddock and cod) pie served with creamed spinach, crushed peas and broccoli. (The scrap fish is off the whole fish I buy from the mongers)

S - Brazilian steak, chips, peppercorn sauce, beer battered onion rings, mushrooms and roasted tomatoes.

S - Pork dinner, crackling, stuffing, pigs and blankets, broccoli, sprouts, carrots, cabbage, peas, cauliflower cheese, carrot and turnip mash yorkshire puds.

If I divide that between breakfast (egg muffins, omelettes, cereal, overnight oats etc) and lunches (left over meals, sandwiches, pate and crackers etc) I’d say it comes to £70-£80pw

Pricing goes by breast/fillet example - 2kg salmon, I’d roughly receive 26 fillets for £22

Chicken I get 5kg for £15 (24 extra large breasts)

A jacket potato is 30p can of beans, 50p and some cheese 75p. Even a meal like this is more than £1 a head. Beans are 35p a tin, I'd use half per person, cheese is £2.10 for 400g or £1.60 for 220g at Tesco, it's not going to be 75p per person.

IsDaveThere
You asked how do people eat for 2 at £25 / 30 a week. ?
This is how we doit.
We have a veg box at £ 15 pw. We use that as a basis for
Stews, bols , curries.. we simply add lentils and pulses etc.
We use leftovers in wraps the next day.and have frozen fruit and oats as overnight no effort b fast and that is so.cheap.too
I have two.slow cookers ,both of.which got free via fb so the cooking is ecconomical.too.amd all.done onnone day and frozen for most.of the.week .

Cats can feed themselves

I would have thought it would be £70-80 per week unless you're very creative with ingredients and/or able to cut back on meat meals.

Just done a shop on the Asda app. Shopping list is-

White wraps - 0.95
Asda white bread- 0.59
Asda porridge oats- 0.75
Asda mild cheddar- 2.10
Asda fajita seasoning- 0.70
Asda bolognese sauce- 0.70
Asda pasta bake sauce- 0.70
Asda medium oranges- 0.99
Asda bananas- 0.95
Asda farm stores apples- 0.72
Asda British pork 14 jumbo sausages +
Asda reduced fat mince 650g +
Asda roast in bag whole chicken = 10.00
6 eggs- 0.95
Milk 4 pints- 1.15
Asda brilliantly buttery- 0.95
Asda spaghetti- 0.70
Asda penne 500g- 0.70
Iceberg lettuce- 0.46
Cucumber- 0.45
Asda chicken noodle soup- 0.50
Asda cream of tomato soup- 0.50
Asda beans x 2- 0.70
Asda smartprice 6 double toilet rolls- 1.93
Asda 3 brown onions- 0.65
Asda carrots 500g- 0.30
Blas y tir all rounder pots 2kg- 1.20

= £30.23

Sorry the cats aren’t included as I don’t know which brand/the quantity they eat. But 2 adults can eat for about £30 a week.

Breakfasts- porridge, eggs on toast

Lunches- soup, beans on toast, cheese sandwich or leftovers.

Dinners- sausages with pasta bake, roast chicken with potatoes and carrots, leftover chicken fajitas, sausage and mash with fried onions, spaghetti bolognese.

Forgot to add that snacks would be fruit.

We are in Denmark so I spend around£110 just on the 2 of us — however if I had too back in UK I could feed us pretty well on around£50 including cats— but I like cooking and I could do this even using M&S and buying late in day and freezing . One biggie though is it really depends- my H is quite fussy- doesn’t eat eggs, very fussy about quality of sausages and burgers etc , doesn’t like pasta more than once a week, not that keen on curry either- — I think it’s a lot easier to eat cheaply and well if you are both on same page. I guess if we genuinely were really really struggling then he would simply have to adapt his tastes . Must admit I definitely would struggle at £25, certainly would struggle with My H .

Never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life, me and my girlfriend do not struggle financially and our weekly food bill is around £30 and she's a veggie and I eat meat! We meal prep all our work lunches for around 50p a portion. We make a months worth at a time each. We eat quite well in terms of nutrition and variety. The only reason anyone spends more than £30 a week for two people is that they don't plan their meals.

I once did a shop at Lidl and Aldi without mentioning it and apart from the cooked meat and bread he declared it was a bit crap . I honestly can’t say if it’s psychological and he’s turned into an enormous snob or if he genuinely thought it mainly not very nice— I have to be open minded , because I once did a shop at Morrison’s and thought that it wasn’t that nice and a lot of it tasteless apart from branded stuff like Branson beans or Danepak bacon etc

@zurala

I just wrote a shopping list as if I lived alone, I'm vegan, I included a few items that I would actually have in my storecupboard to reflect the reality of shopping, and came out at just under £20 shopping at Tesco, for lunches and dinners, and I'd have a few extra portions to use the following week as well. It's possible to eat really cheaply if you cook using good value ingredients and don't buy meat. Vegetables and pulses are cheap and can be found even cheaper in bulk in specialist supermarkets or online.

Could you share that please? Thank you

That was supposed to be a !!

@Jdiosmio94

Never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life, me and my girlfriend do not struggle financially and our weekly food bill is around £30 and she's a veggie and I eat meat! We meal prep all our work lunches for around 50p a portion. We make a months worth at a time each. We eat quite well in terms of nutrition and variety. The only reason anyone spends more than £30 a week for two people is that they don't plan their meals.

Or they have dietary requirements. Or they don't need to budget that much Or they don't have access to discount/cheap supermarkets. Or they don't have freezer space to freeze a months' worth of food.

Or a hundred other reasons

Have you got a market near you? I went to the F&V market near me and spent £14 on - bag of apples, pears, oranges, huge bag for a quid. 3 avocados for a quid. A bag of cauliflower, cabbage, 2 leaks and 8 carrots for £1.50. Bag of lovely red onions 1.50, strawberries, blue berries amd two punnets of raspberries, pomegranates, peppers and beetroot. That will feed me and the dc for days - today I made a chunky roasted veg sauce for meatballs and theres enough for a bowl for me to eat as soup tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm making my version of bang bang cauliflower, there will be a chickpea curry and a veggie chilli on the menu this week too. I will have enough with added lentils and beans to make enough for two days of each meal. Me and my dc will be eating really nice, nutritious food for very cheap. You couldn't get all that even in Lidls for that money.

Something that virtually nobody has mentioned on this thread which is now a big factor going forward is the cost of cooking various meals, given current fuel prices.

On that basis, the microwave rice sachets with two portions for 35p in Tesco are great value and worth stocking up on, because they certainly will go up.

Omelettes are great, nourishing if you throw in some veg, cheese etc and cooked very quickly. Throw in a few sliced tinned potatoes and you've got a full meal and only one pan to wash.

I buy a packet of good lean mince and chop an onion or two and form homemade beef burgers. Use 125g of mince per burger, and cook them all at once. Freeze the ones you don't need, then later you've only to defrost them and microwave them to heat. That works very well and is a nice nourishing meal with a few oven chips/ wedges and a salad.

Frozen veg can be a very good buy and no wastage.

Cheese can be picked up very cheaply and is an excellent source of protein, you don't need a lot. Marks and Spencer do a fabulous extra mature cheddar ( so lots of flavour) for £5.50 a kg last time I looked.

You can make a very nourishing and tasty meat and potato pie using a tin of corned beef, potatoes and onions, a stock cube, a squirt of tomato puree, water and flour to thicken for the filling.

If you're really hard up and need to make a supper dish for the kids, put a tin of chopped tomatoes, then a tin of baked beans, then some instant mash in a oven proof dish. Some grated cheese on top if you can run to it. Heat it up in the microwave then grill till the top is golden.

Batch cook and never use the oven for just one item. Halogen ovens and slow cookers are very helpful for reducing energy use.

All things I have picked up along the way during a long life of mixed fortunes.

Jack Monroe's recipe book about living on 10 pounds a week has some great ideas. Sorry its so hard. Its not right.

I think £30 for two people is very doable. We eat fine on that. We tend to have porridge for breakfast, home made soup for lunch with bread, a variety of curry, chilli, pasta, stir fry, etc for evening meal. We are more or less plant based and eat no meat or eggs. The last shop I did was £20 at Lidl, with the most expensive item being a bag of walnuts, but topped it up by £10 at Sainsbury’s. We wouldn’t eat things like beans on toast and neither would we buy white sliced bread.

@Jdiosmio94 - or they don’t live in uk. Food here is easily 3-5x what most prices above are.

Carrots 500g uk =30p, here, €2.50
Milk 2 pints here €1.30
Eggs 6 = €2.50

All from Tesco, assuming you have absolutely nil, not even olive oil. Just shy of £31. 2 people.

Red split lentils 500g - £1.10
Chickpeas 400g - 40p
Veg stock cubes x10 - 50p
Jar cumin - 85p
Jar chilli flakes - £1.20
Jar curry powder - £1
Olive oil spray - £1.29
Minced beef 5% fat 500g - £2.99 (freeze half if you want to use it all for more calories, before someone mentions it)
Chicken breast 400g - £3.20
Tinned tomatoes 4x400g - £1.60
Microwave bag of rice x 2 - 70p
Peppers 3pk - 89p
Red onion 1kg - 67p
Kidney beans - 30p
Jacket pots x 4 - 99p
Tuna 4 cans - £3.25
Mayo - 69p
Eggs free range x 6 - 95p
Potatoes 2kg - £1.50
Green beans - 69p
Leeks - 95p
Loaf white bread - 55p
Garlic purée - 80p
Fresh chillies - 64p
Bag salad - 59p
Porridge 1kg - 75p
6pk banana - 69p
Choc digestives - 49p

Breakfast - porridge - 188 cals per 50g made with water. Eat more or add milk for extra calories.

Lunch 2 people 2 days, 2 slices of bread+ banana - approx 500 cals
www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/red-lentil-chickpea-chilli-soup/amp

Lunch 2 people 2 days- potato & leek soup with 2 bread + banana - approx 500 cals

Lunch 2 people 1 day - egg mayo sandwich (using 4 eggs) + banana - approx 500 cals

Dinner 1 - chilli & rice
Dinner 2 - tuna jacket spuds
Dinner 3 - chicken curry & rice
Dinner 4 - tuna fishcakes, pots & green beans
Day 5 - lentil daal & rice

Snack - toast remainder of chickpeas in cumin and bake for 10 mins. Choc digestives.

I’m not calorie counting each dinner. Absolutely no one does unless you’re trying to lose weight or are bulking for weightlifting. OP hasn’t mentioned how active or sedentary he / she is. I know not everyone has a microwave for lunch. Is it Michelin stay? No. Is it doable? Yes.

[quote Caspianberg]@Jdiosmio94 - or they don’t live in uk. Food here is easily 3-5x what most prices above are.

Carrots 500g uk =30p, here, €2.50
Milk 2 pints here €1.30
Eggs 6 = €2.50[/quote]
Given my comment referred to £ sterling it's clear I was referring to the UK...

PS all my suggestions above can be made as gluten free, because I am. It's often a much more expensive diet.

We wouldn’t eat things like beans on toast and neither would we buy white sliced bread.

@Blimecory I know I included these in my Asda shop above and I’m very aware lots of people wouldn’t eat these things but many do and that’s absolutely fine.

@TiredSloth
Yes, I was just trying to make it clear that you don’t need to go absolutely bargain basement with not great quality food.