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!!

@Crikeyalmighty

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

Declared what a bit crap?

How is a Aldi carrot different to a Morrisons carrot?

I'm doing Gousto at the moment to steal their recipe ideas. Frugal Feeding is also good.

You need to eat like @HerbivorousRex.

Breakfast ideas
Porridge, yoghurt, frozen berries, table spoon of seeds, add honey or cocoa if you desire a treat. Eggs on toast once a week for a treat. Buy budget eggs. Basic beans for a store cupboard saviour. Bacon for a treat but this can be frozen between baking paper into portions.

Lunches - I usually just do wraps over the week with canned cannelini or black beans (60p) and a small amount of spread like pesto or philadelphia or grated cheese. Cheddar can be grated and frozen. Add some protein like prawns from the freezer. I buy a whole side of salmon as more economical and I can chop into sizes I want. Avocado freezes well if eaten straight away.

Dinner - beef mince in various ways such as cottage pie or bolognaise, lentil mince in same way, lentil dahl as a side for fish. Cheaper frozen fish like hake and mackarel. Home made chips. Nutrient dense food that is more expensive but worth it, like frozen scallops and mussels occasionally. Canned tuna and cheese bake. Beef stew. Red meat and chicken once a week, fish and veggie rest of time.

Spinach, brocolli and frozen peas.

Snacks - apples, oranges, bananas, oatcakes, maybe budget digestives if you have a sweet tooth. Apples or other fruit on offer can easily be made into crumbles for desserts if you desire. Or just stewed with cinammon.

@HerbivorousRex

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.

That to me looks like a pretty normal meal plan shopping list for someone with a decent budget.

Many, many people sadly do not have the funds available to be able to eat like that.

The OP was asking for the cheapest food bill they could budget, because they are on an very low income.

I do think many on MN are so privileged that they really don't understand that lots of people do have to live off of Asda Smart Price, and nutritionally substandard diets. Diets such as the one posted above (which sounds great BTW) simply aren't affordable to many.

Ok @Caspianberg, you got me there. Two bunches of bananas.

Show us your shopping list, with your calories.

@Smokeahontas - I don’t have one. That’s the point. It’s really hard to get full calories on such a low budget. I couldn’t do it. I would need to double most if your list, making it more like £50, which is what others have said

@TheAverageForumUser it does show the quantities used. Fair enough I fucked up on the bananas.

Just because you wouldn’t each porridge with water doesn’t mean others don’t.

@Caspianberg It’s horses for courses. Not everyone is active, not everyone needs 2,000 calories a day. I have a sedentary job, apart from walking DDog I don’t go to the gym etc so I have no need to consume that amount. OP didn’t mention her and DP lifestyle either.

@mrsm43s you’re completely right. I’ve been on a budget where I was spending about £10-12 per week (luckily it was just me), but it definitely wasn’t very healthy, especially long term.
Obviously it’s possible to budget for less (and I could probably get the price down to about £30pw whilst still being fairly healthy if I was able to shop around, buy reduced items, cut out any desserts/snacks, swapped meat for pulses etc).
Lots of the people posting suggestions were also recommending diets that were seriously lacking in both calories and macro/micronutrients. For some people that will sadly be a necessity, but I think it’s worth recognizing that eating a healthy balanced diet isn’t cheap and the people who claim that they could easily live on £20pw for 2 people long term are probably doing people on a very low income a disservice by not acknowledging how difficult it actually is for that amount.

Coconut milk is an easy way to add calories to a veggie curry or dhal. About 65p a can at Aldi/Lidl (I do realise it may cost more elsewhere) and we normally get six servings from this.

I can do £ 30 a week for 2 adults with a healthy diet but we are vegetarian. And we don't eat fake meat. We just eat vegetables and lentils.

@JanisMoplin what about nuts, seeds, cheese, fruit? If all you eat is lentils and vegetables you must be missing some key nutrients, surely?

We eat eggs, cheese, fruit and nuts as well
I can still get it under £30. We don't eat biscuits or chips though DS does.

@Svara

Coconut milk is an easy way to add calories to a veggie curry or dhal. About 65p a can at Aldi/Lidl (I do realise it may cost more elsewhere) and we normally get six servings from this.

You can also get block coconut for around a pound from the world food section of larger supermarkets or independent grocers* that's equivalent to 4 cans coconut milk. Just mix the amount you want with boiling water.

• Also look here for spices. Large packets at a fraction of the cost of Schwartz jars etc. When open, I keep mine in old jars in a drawer (I like those from capers or anything else that comes from a small wide jar) but obviously any jar would do and you can ask friends and family to save old jars for you if you don't have any, no need to spend money on fancy tins etc.

Asian shops. Worth a look. There is a lot of very cheap stuff there. But that involves a whole different way of cooking and a radical change in diet which is likely not possible for most. I am not saying it is easy. I think it is just about possible. But I have left the cats out because I have no idea about how much cat food costs and they certainly can't go veggie.

When DP and I moved in together pre-pandemic we shopped from sainsburys and spent about £40.

Now we shop at tesco and struggle to get it under £55. That's just for the two of us. I did put our food shop into Aldi just out of curiosity and it came to £40 but we don't have one close by anymore.

So I think it's totally dependent on the supermarket but we are not eating the best on our budget and have cut lots of things out. It is manageable but if we were eating to the quality we were pre-pandemic I think we would spent more like £70pw.

Location is also key. We live rurally, we have a village shop which is quite expensive. Our nearest supermarket is Morrisons, 3 miles away. The nearest Asda and Aldi are 10 miles away, as are Asian shops, so you'd have to factor in petrol. There is a daily market in the city (also 10 miles away) but parking is a nightmare and horrendously expensive. If you go by bus it's £7.20 return. So for us, and many others living in villages or rurally, the costs of getting to cheaper shops outweighs the savings.

I know Asda deliver, but then you can't get yellow sticker stuff. Plus there's the delivery charge. Aldi and Lidl don't deliver.

We are 3 adults, one cat, and we spend about £80 a week, which includes soap powder, toilet roll, shampoo, that kind of stuff, and the cat's food

@Fudgein How is that possible? A lot of these meals contain expensive things like chicken and mince, and things like a fajita kit which costs around £4. Unless you made them from scratch, but then the ingredients would cost that much too?

Threads like this always depress me a bit. We're 2 adults, a child and a dog and we spend around £130 a week (that includes all toiletries and house stuff, nappies, wipes etc).
We shop at Asda and don't buy anything hugely extravagant, though we do have some treats like biscuits, crisps and a couple of bottled beers at the weekend. Ok, if we cut those out we could save some money but still nowhere near enough to allow us to live on some of the amounts quoted here. Even when I was single and shopping at Aldi my weekly bill came to £30 for me alone, and that was without treats.

@Fudgein
"I spent £34 this week for 2 adults and a child.
As an example:
Mon - fajitas
Tue - chicken curry
Wed - soup & crusty bread
Thurs - shepherds pie
Fri - pizzas
Tonight- chicken burgers."

Impossible. Unless you were already using stuff you had at home.

Chicken for fajitas, curry, burgers £10 easily.

Fajita stuff;
Wraps £1.50
Peppers £1
Onion 30p

And anything else you might have like salsa etc

Extras for curry;
Rice 50p+
Onion 30p
Tomatoes 60p

And anything else you might have, naan, chutneys etc

Soup;
Let's pretend you've made that with beg and leftover chicken etc so £1-2
Crusty bread £1.50

Shepherd's pie
Onions 30p
Potatoes 50p
Mince £4
Veggies £1-2

Pizzas

Again let's pretend you make them
Dough.£2
Sauce 75p
Cheese £2-3

And anything else you might have with them salad etc

Chicken burgers
Rolls 75p-£1

And anything else you are having, ege wedges, salad.

That's already £30 without anything aside from the main ingredients. How are you making £4 stretch to include; breakfasts, lunches, additions to main meals, toiletries, cleaning stuff etc? Even if you were making you fajita wraps, that still costs money, even if you already had the bag of flour and oil at home.

Please break down your costs. It just seems impossible that £34 would feed a family for 21 meals

If you can feed a family of three for less than £5 a day, then I'm missing a trick.

If you stick to aldi and lidl, you can get decent shopping for £40.

@catscatscatseverywhere

If you stick to aldi and lidl, you can get decent shopping for £40.

I’m sorry I disagree I decided to give Aldi a go to see if I actually saved money versus Sainsbury‘s in Tescos and actually I found the savings to be minimal but with the other disadvantage I was no longer getting my points.

@IEatChocolateForBreakfast

Surely a weeks worth of healthy meal or anything that's not just store brand beans and toast is going to cost more than £25 for two people? I'm ignoring the cats in this btw.

I really don't think this is realistic is it? I'm genuinely curious if this is even possible. Can someone give me an example of the types of food they would by to stretch over a week for 2 people with just £25?

OP if this is your genuine situation (as I'm sure sadly it is for many others too) can you not seek help from a local food bank? Or a local charity - even just for the cat food?

I spend £100 a month on average and I can admit I do waste a bit because things go off before I can use them. For an average monthI spend: £20 on meat, mostly chicken but also pork £15 on average for non perishables like rice, pasta, beans & tins £10 on fresh veg £15 on average for sauces, condiments, spices & dairy substitutes £15 on average for freezer stock like frozen prawns, meats I don't eat often & frozen finger foods. £7 on m&s ready meals (they're my favourite) £10 on cleaning items & detergents

I cook almost everything from scratch and don't really eat processed food. So i usually eat things like pasta, rice & potatoes with some kind of sauce or one pot dishes like chilli. I also love stir fries and have those pretty often. Oh and I shop at Aldi & Tesco.

@catscatscatseverywhere

If you stick to aldi and lidl, you can get decent shopping for £40.

but as I said above, many of us don't live anywhere near a Lidl or Aldi. It's a 20 mile round trip to my nearest Lidl or Aldi, which is expensive given the price of fuel

Hello sorry I'm just coming back to this - I shop in aldi & I'm savvy. I also shop yellow label if its something I need! Chicken I buy pre cooked frozen - £1.79, then add in a jar of curry sauce, £0.89, poppadoms £0.60, rice I had but if I had to buy microwaveable rice is £0.34 per packet. So £0.68.
Again fajitas I used the frozen chicken, bought the pack from aldi which is under £2 and contains spices, wraps and salsa , we have nachos on the side own brand so cheap and I put in peppers only as that's all DD will eat which are under £1 aswell. It can be done. We were always skint growing up so I'm careful with money and I make the same meals a lot which although boring keeps costs down. The mince and potatoes for the shepherds pie I got for less than £4 all in, I added butter and milk plus gravy which I already had so didnt factor in those, I add in frozen veg which you get a big bag for less than £1 I also didnt add in salt and pepper as these aren't things I buy every week. The pizzas are £1.00 each, the chicken burgers were 4 for £2.15 and the brioche buns are £1.50 for 4. Refuse to believe me if you like but I try to keep costs down by meal planning & making use of what I have in the cupboards. None of this was homemade other than the shepherds pie but needs must on a budget.