Single person grocery costs

[Hollyrose164]

Hi
Trying to look at my budget and wondering how much others spend on groceries per month if you live alone. Including cleaning products and food. I've set myself a budget for the month but would like to know what other people spend so I can see if I'm being too generous or unrealistic with what I've put aside.
Not including spend on pets as I've listed that separately on my budget
Thanks

Hi. I'm a singleton and spend £120-140 pm. I do (generally) 3 X online shop with Morrisons and use cupboard & freezer stuff on the 4th week. I buy long life milk so rarely have to shop for fresh. I also have a bread maker if I ran out of bread.

Can I ask what sorts of meals do you tend to make?
I haven't got a bread maker unfortunately, I have just looked at how much they cost and they're quite expensive, although I imagine it's a bit of an investment really. Do you just buy like a bread mix and pop it in?

Bump

Bread makers are usually cheaply available second hand in charity shops or on Facebook.
I don't think I would be able to only spend £120-140 pm if I lived alone though, even making my own bread. Bread mixes are very expensive too, I've never used one. It's just as easy with, flour, water, dried yeast and dried milk powder.

I’m spending £160-180 a month for 2 adults, that includes cleaning, washing, my shampoo, deodorant and conditioner (he buys his separately, fussy!) 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches and 5-6 dinners and 2-3 bottles of wine. I can cook economically.

1 child and 3 adults here and we’re spending £140 a week!😅

My dd at university spends 40 a week

I live alone and probably spend about £30 a week. I’m vegetarian and teetotal. My diet includes lots of chickpeas, spinach, broccoli, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, Richmond vegetarian sausages, porridge. I don’t especially enjoy cooking and batch cook on Sundays - mainly lunches for the week when I’m at work.

I shop at Sainsbury’s and use their Nectar prices to bulk shop too.

I've just costed up what the contents of our Trussell Trust box for one person would be (just the food as most non food items have to be requested) and it comes to just under £19. Technically they say that the food is for half a week but items like rice and cereal etc would last longer so at that level £30 should comfortably buy the basics for food. Not the most uplifting diet though. So £40 ought to cover toiletries and cleaning assuming you aren't starting from scratch.

Is she? I was spending £40 a week at university in 1997.

£40 a week in 1997?? I used to spend £15!

I spend more like £60. I buy nice food and eat well.

You're not a single person then are you?

I probably spend around £60-£75 a week, depending on whether I need to top up on basics. I work from home so that includes all meals. Oh and a bottle of wine each week.

I generally spend between £160 and £200 a month - it varies depending on whether things are on offer and what cleaning stuff etc I need.
I do often end up wasting a lot of salad ingredients as I can't eat them all before they go off, which feels wasteful but I like salad just not family sized portions of it just for me.

I guess we need to know if the goal is to spend as little as possible or to estimate how much you would spend without restricting yourself? Is alcohol included? Are you a vegetarien? Do you need gluten-free products etc? Do you shop at lidl/aldi or sainsburrys/tesco or m&s/waitrose? Do you rely on ready meals or pre-prepared veg, or do you cook from scratch? Do you want organic products or not necessarily?

Around $200 a week in the US.

I miss how cheap groceries were in London. ☹️

I probably spend about 60 a week on average. I eat a lot of protein and veg. I also used to throw a lot away but I try to be savvy about frozen veg, veg that keeps and buying smaller mixed packs of things that don’t keep to avoid waste (although I still resent the small package premium!)

I'm looking to reduce my expenditure in general. I haven't really budgeted for groceries in the past and have probably ended up with more food wastage through lack of planning and organisation to be honest. So looking to set a budget and stick with it. I was thinking around £250 a month, on a 4.5 week month that's around £55 a week. But I wanted to see if that's optimistic or giving myself too much really
I don't drink really, so no need to include booze in the grocery budget.not vegetarian, not got any food intolerances. Not bothered by organic food
I don't want to live off of beans on toast, I would like some variety. I don't eat ready meals everyday. Can cook from scratch

I haven’t done my normal Tesco delivery since DS went back to Uni in Feb. Then I spend £50 and another £10 £15 until it runs out.
I now wizz into Aldi for whatever I fancy that on my way home. I’ve just added it up for this thread : £83 since 1st May.

That’s wine (3 bottles) , 2 Tesco sandwich meal deals but not really any cleaning stuff apart from laundry liquid.

In that case I would say your 55£/week sounds like a good estimate! I’m pretty similar in how I shop :)

I’m a bit humbled by these posts. I think I spend about 500 a month including food out etc. if I didn’t eat out then I think it would be about £200.

Yep, I'm not sure if I could do £120 a month. Quite impressive others are obviously managing to, I'm wondering how much of it is due to my poor planning

My DS is single and he cooks home cooked meals from scratch 3-4 nights a week having the left over portion the next evening or if he's eating out the next evening he'll microwave it for lunch at work. He spends about £200-£220 per month. He buys fresh herbs, cream and wine for his recipes. He eats very well often chicken breast or steak. He takes in lunch to microwave at work, so his weekly shop covers breakfast, lunch, dinner, lots of fruit and a few snacks.

I do an Asda online shop fortnightly of just under £50. I use money off vouchers and do a weekly top up at the Co op, which includes yellow sticker stuff which I freeze if necessary. That's usually between £10 - £15. My milk is delivered and is about £20 a month. I don't drink at home.