To spend £30 a month on ALL food and drink?

[Jumell]

I’m single and live alone. I want to set myself a good budget and admit I’ve overspent /been wasteful in the past.

As a single adult female living alone - is £30 per month on food doable do you think ? Includes eating out etc

JUST good and drink

eVery thing else COMPLETELY separate

food not good

My father, whose portions were miniscule, spent £25 a week, not including his milk delivery.

Is it possible to eat on £30/month? No.
I would spend a min of £25/week to feel healthy. At the moment I spend about £90/week for two people and we eat well.

Your food purchases are terrible whatever your budget. If I had such a tight budget I'd be eating a lot of jacket potatoes, beans, carrots and apples.

Credit where credit is due at least you have recognised you have wasted money etc in the past and are tackling it. Your budget is unrealistic but if you look at someone the links people have kindly posted you'll find lots of meal ideas. Cooking from scratch is your biggest saver. Things like pre sliced cheese etc ( instead of a block, but this is only an example, as you said you only got the cheese for the nectar points- also a bad idea, making purchases you wouldn’t normally just for points) will decimate your budget in no time!

So what have you actually eaten for meals?

This is basically snacks.

Thank you - some of the ideas on here have been really helpful

Nothing apart from this, I’m afraid

How come you had nothing else in your cupboards or fridge before you started this? No herbs or spices? Tinned food?

Before this did you eat fruit and veg? Cook meals from scratch?

I don’t think so. £30 a week is doable I live alone, vegetarian, don’t drink and I can probably get away with £100 a month if I put my mind to it.

Then yes, you are being really bloody unreasonable and clearly have some kind of disordered eating.

It is possible to live off a low food budget - probably not £30 for a month, but maybe £60 (which is basically what you will have spent by the time you've actually done a month.

But buying ready prepared hard boiled eggs, scones, ready to eat tuna pasta etc is obviously not the way to go about it and you know it.

Just buy some proper food, including vegetables, and cook proper meals.

I admit I’m very lazy re cooking from scratch and I need to organise myself and address this

When you say you've wasted money in the past, there is a huge difference between wasting money (and potentially food, if you bought stuff you weren't going to eat) and coming up with an arbitrary budget which will be hard to stick to.

Even if you do need to stick to a strict budget the types of food listed are much more expensive than making things yourself. What is your normal eating (if not on a budget) like, and do you generally cook your own meals?
That's generally (not always) cheaper than buying processed foods.

Money spent per day £1.57
Calories eaten per day 650
Entirely in snacks

Have you been going home for dinner?

I honestly wouldn't expect anyone over the age of about 10 to make those choices with your budget. You're either trolling or have a serious eating disorder.

Ok totally admit I haven’t got into the good habits of cooking meals from scratch

too lazy - and j TOTALLY need to address this, admittedly

Start small but reasonably healthy e.g. beans on toast, eggs on toast, jacket potato and tuna, chicken breast and veg, pasta, tuna and veg, some of the nicer supermarket soups etc. cooking doesn't have to be fancy when you live alone but it should still be reasonably healthy. Even starting small like the above will get you in better habits of eating 3 meals a day.

And you’re not eating meals, your list is just carbs with a lot of sugar.
On about £120 a month I have home made soup, lots of fresh and frozen veg, fruit daily, yoghurt either shop bought or home made. At the moment I have lentils, chick peas and I’ve bought protein powder as I’m not eating eggs or cheese bc of a health problem.
You need to look at some sites like Thrifty Lesley to get meal ideas.

Not trolling nor ED just 1st month of serious budgeting and it’s been a serious case of trial and error - admittedly with the error element prominent.

no WAY will I be making these choices next month. Just NO

@Jumell What was your diet like before 12th November? Can you give us an example of what you’d eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day? What was your normal average monthly spend on food like and what would you spend it on?

Thanks this is good advice

Ok I was overeating and vowing to start diets tomorrow all the time - VERY bad

NO!! I’ve been literally AT home !

@Jumell you need to learn the basics first. Learn healthy cheap recipes, then try the budgeting.

That’s a horrible list and contains so little real food - protein, healthy fats, ingredients for hone cooked meals. If you really have little money pr are trying to be frugal and lose weight, buying Pringles and biscuits is ridiculous.