How much would you spend to feed 1 adult per week now?

[Teaandcaaaaake]

Just curious really, as I don't live in the UK anymore and keep reading how food costs are rising. When I left 5 years ago, I spent between 20 and 40 quid per week feeding myself, depending on how much meat I bought, what store cupboard items needed replacing, etc. I ate extremely well on that and while I did keep an eye on costs, I basically ate anything I fancied.

I did live near M&S where I got great yellow stickers hauls every now and again which kept my freezer full.

What sort of budget would you estimate you need now for a good, varied diet for one person?

50 ish

Depends what you like to eat. I put £30 as we are now spending £60 for two, but I'd say £35 of that is for my teen, so £25 for me, and £2.70 of that is chocolate.. If I was cooking for just me then I would eat things like dhal more often, cooking for two involves more compromise.

I could feed myself cheaply, if just me (with my current decently stocked spice cupboard). I cook from scratch and I’m quite creative and good at throwing recipes togetjer
I’d do a fair bit of batch cooking and freezing though

Anywhere between 40 to 60 depending on how much meat I need.
I eat lots of fresh veg&fruit, fish, meat, eggs.
Sometimes get the fancy breads😁

And that includes alcohol

@Greensleevevssnotnose thats good you are using leftovers, I hate food wastage but never seem to know what to do with them. I can't really cook though so that probably doesn't help.

I'm a single person household but living in Australia. Converting to sterling, I feed myself on about 50 quid a week, not counting the occasional restaurant meal. And not counting drinks, obviously.

I've compared prices with my sibling and Australia is definitely more expensive for food.

I think it depends if you are going to be doing all your meals and food at home and as packed lunches. I tend to buy lunch 1-2 times a week and coffee about the same, which probably blows the £20-30 budget before I start. But otherwise I eat a lot of fruit and veg and cook from scratch, so I could keep my home food budget down. My food budget is increased by having a teen boy!

Oh I am really surprised there’s a huge vegetarian community on here!

Between £50-£60 per week including washing powder and toiletries.

Maybe £30 (we spend about £100 for 2 adults and 2 DC).

About 10 years ago as a a student on a bursary I used to be pleased when I did a whole shop for £15/£20 for the week.

I live alone
It used to be £60 at Sainsburys with "nice" stuff thrown in. Now I shop at Aldi and it's still around £60

There's no point in people saying how much they spend per person, it's not the same as a single adult.

I spend about £50 and would struggle to get it below that.

Yes prices here are higher than in UK for many foods, though there are exceptions. Not necessarily much higher though these days with UK's prices rising.

It's partly due to high transport costs, given the hefty distances between population centres here. But also probably due to Australians being so used to higher prices, they don't actually think of them as higher prices.

There's no point in people saying how much they spend per person, it's not the same as a single adult.
It's £60 for two of us but would be about £25 on my own.

My 21 year old at uni budgets £30 a week and he eats pretty well from that.
As a family at home we have 2 adults and 2 children plus a 3rd every other weekend and half holidays. We probably spend about 30pp per week tbh. We spend £100-130 a week, including toiletries and cleaning products.

£50 - I eat from scratched, a mainly unprocessed diet and have lots of fruit, veg, nuts, seeds, grains and fish a couple of times a week.

Definitely. Some weeks I do a "cheap" shop as I only need fresh stuff and no toilet rolls/laundry stuff etc and that's usually more towards £40
If I'm batch cooking and stocking stuff up it can be £70 but that lasts over a few weeks
I allow for £240pm and £20 for takeaway!

This is right, I don't do packed lunches as I just eat oats/yoghurt fruit before I go into the office on the days I don't wfh and will eat some fruit while I'm there, but a typical wfh day includes lunch.

Today I wfh, had a smoothie for breakfast, half a packet of mini Thai salmon fishcakes with a salad for lunch and made pasta with Cavolo Nero, pine nuts, garlic and parmesan for dinner.

I never buy coffee out but buy a 1kg bag of beans on a subscription every four weeks.

I buy what I like to eat because I like cooking/eating nice food.

We spend £35-£40 per week per person all in. We eat well for that. Today was chicken curry, tomorrow is veg chilli, dessert both days. Lunch is sandwich, pate on toast, cheese on toast or similar. Breakfast porridge, cereals, toast etc. Always have fruits, crisps chocolate on the go too. Not much alcohol, but maybe a bottle of wine per week between the two of us.

I shop in lidl and a vegetarian and frugal but cook all meals from scratch and I spend £30-45.

We spend about 60 for two. Shop in Aldi or Lidl, don’t buy many brands, meal plan, always cook from scratch, usually one or maybe two meat items a week to do a couple of dinners (eg. Mince beef, a while chicken). Includes some sweet things, and a bottle of wine or pack of beers. We don’t buy ready meals, snacks like crisps, pop. And the only frozen stuff we regularly buy is fruit and veg.

Completely agree. It often works out more expensive as a single adult than a larger household.

I live alone and spend £40-50 per week but that includes all of my supermarket shopping so cleaning products etc as well as food. I tend to eat meat once a week to once a fortnight and the same for fish so mostly vegetarian. I don’t usually eat breakfast and usually cook double portions in the evening to have for lunch the next day as well. I could probably cut it down a little by having no meat or fish and taking out things like tea and coffee but they aren’t a huge expense so it wouldn’t make a big dent.

I live alone and due to mobility problems, I rely on supermarket deliveries. I get one every ten days or so, probably three a month. They include absolutely everything I need except clothes so food, toiletries, alcohol, cleaning materials etc as well as one off things like storage boxes, stationary, gift cards and even bedding at times. I rarely go shopping nowadays.

I had a delivery yesterday that cost me £85 but the previous one was £110 as I had friends round for dinner. My next delivery I think will be a bit less than £80 as I don’t think I need any alcohol ( bought some this week on offer) and I’m eating out a couple of days. I guess I spent £350 last month.

I could spend less but I try to eat healthily and find that fresh fruit, meat and veg add up. I also buy some items for a local food bank which I donate to each month because I appreciate that I am fortunate to have no real money issues but many people are struggling.