I could cook healthy and balanced meals for about £40-50 per week for 2 (meeting all the nutritional guidelines and including everything), shopping at Tesco and using free range meat (I could probably do it cheaper if I used Aldi/Lidl and replaced the meat with extra beans and lentils or used lower welfare meat).
I could also probably do it cheaper if I was able to buy in bulk and had spices etc in my store cupboard.
There would also be some stuff leftover that I could use for meal planning the following week.
Menu:
Breakfasts- Porridge made with full fat milk, stewed apples and pears, and sultanas. Small glass of orange juice.
(You could replace this with an egg and 1/2 avocado on wholemeal toast or Greek yogurt with stewed fruit and nuts for about the same price).
Lunches (2 days):
Pitta with hummous and salad (tomato, cucumber and lettuce)
Banana
Yoghurt
Lunches (2 days):
Jacket potato with cheese, coleslaw (or tuna mayo, add about £1pp) and salad (cucumber, tomato and lettuce).
Yoghurt
Banana
Lunches (3 days):
Daal (red lentils, stock cube, jar of curry paste, onions, garlic, 2x tins of tomatoes, frozen spinach)
Mini naan
Orange or 2 satsumas (or other fruit)
Yoghurt
Dinner (2 days):
Chicken and veg stew (1/2 pack chicken thighs, 1 pack mixed root veg, 1/2 pack leeks, 1 tin cannelloni beans, veg stock, fresh rosemary or thyme).
Mashed potatoes (made with milk and butter)
1/2 tin pp of rice pudding with
Frozen berry and blackcurrant mix (100g pp)
Dinner (2 days):
Chicken and veg curry (1/2 pack chicken thighs, red lentils, jar of curry paste, onions, garlic, frozen veg mix, frozen spinach, 1x tin tomatoes, tin of coconut milk)
Brown rice
Fresh pineapple for dessert (1/4pp per day)
Dinner (3 days):
Beef stew (400g stewing steak, cooking bacon, root veg pack, mushrooms, 1/2 pack leeks, onions, tin of borlotti beans, stock cubes, squeeze of tomato purée).
Mashed potatoes (made with butter and milk) or French bread.
1/2 tin of custard
Stewed apple and frozen berry and blackcurrent mix
Store cupboard:
Dried fruit- 27p per week (£1.09/4)
Veg oil- 32p per week (£1.30/4)
Stock cubes- 50p per week (£1/2)
Brown rice- 72p per week (£2.85/4)
Wholemeal pasta- 50p per week (£2/4)
Tomato purée- 15p per week (31p/2)
Plain flour- 18p per week (70p/4)
Butter- 75p per week (£1.50/2)
Biscuits- 32p per week (£1.25/4)
Tea bags- 14p (55p/4)
(I included this in the £40-50)
I’d probably also have salt, pepper, chilli flakes, salad dressing, and sugar or honey in the cupboard but I’d probably only buy them every 6 months or so so the cost is pretty negligible.
I’d also spend about £5 per week on extras like toiletries, cleaning stuff and medicines.
I could (and have) spent far less per week. But I think realistically £40-50 is probably what I’d want to spend for 2 people on a longer term basis to ensure we were eating a balanced diet and didn’t feel like we were constantly compromising. I think anything less than £35 including toiletries and cleaning products would start to feel quite tight.
As for the cats, I imagine you’d probably be better buying in bulk (if you know they’ll eat it and you have space to store it). As other people have mentioned cheap cat food isn’t always great for their long term health (and lots of cats will only eat certain things anyway).
But I imagine the bigger expenses would be things like insurance, vets bills and worming/tick treatments.