Is £40 a week for a single person for food, too much?

[Virinreiber]

I started living alone as of December 2021, and have been on my own since, I wasn't taught much of anything about budgeting, but I always endeavoured to stay under £40 a week. I did previously do £20 a week but I found this to be limiting in terms of what I could manage to get given inflation at the moment, and I also gravitated towards takeout when I got hangry or rather depressed, which of course just ended up more expensive.

My orders vary, but what I tend to always buy is as follows:

Chicken/beef for curries and chilli stews in bulk, including the tomatoes/beans for those

Bread for sandwiches/toast

cheese

milk

oats, as and when I run out for breakfast

honey (see above)

spices as and when I need them

lentils (for soup or to make into daahl for curry)

rice for curry/chilli

carrots/potatoes

And then I'd probably say my biggest expense is sweets/snacks, spent about £11.10 on sweets because I have a terrible sweet tooth, and then a further £2 on scotch eggs as a small snack for lunches if I so want one or just feel like I can't cook etc.

I should probably explain, another reason why I like to get my order to £40 is I use ASDA (no car, so can't drive anywhere), is because any delivery under £40 adds £3 automatically, and I don't like wasting money needlessly.

Do I need a kick in the teeth, is this unreasonable? I'm relatively new to budgeting and kind of aloof, wasn't really taught well if at all growing up what to look for/how to plan meals ahead of time which I find very difficult.

Thanks for any advice all.

I wish my food shopping was only £40 a week! Well sometimes it is but those tends to be the weeks when I'm only shopping for 5 days rather than 7 or 8 because I'm away or going to use something from the freezer. That said, I take all my food and snacks to work and apart from maybe a coffee and bacon roll or cake in a cafe at weekend that's all I spend.

I’ve got it down to £100-110 a month doing a monthly shop and freezing everything in portions.

Thats me and the cat.

But you don’t buy tea or squash every week, or stuff like butter. A loaf of bread lasts me over 1 week. I tend to buy more vegetables - but also I am vegetarian. Processed meats can be costly.

@DontdothisDothat but on the weeks I'm not buying butter I'm buying cheese or washing powder or toilet rolls
My point is that's fuck all for £40
I like to be able to buy berries, avocados etc and eat other nice things and you can't do it now on £40. Unless you're a veggie and eat very frugally/not a big range of food

So in the summer I eat a lot of salad and by the time I've bought salad, spring onions, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, stuff to make dressing, chicken/feta...
I can manage it on £50, some weeks are £60 if I need to stock up/cleaning stuff but I don't think that's bad for all my meals (WFH)

My basic list is usually )/ for either not both) and I don't think it's extravagant but now I'm thinking it is?

Milk
Bread
Butter or cheese (always need 1!)
Tuna/ham/chicken (sandwiches)
Crisps
Mini choc bars/biscuits/something sweet
Yoghurt
Batch cook ingredients (cottage pie/pasta bake/chicken dish/beef stew) including meat
Veg to batch cook
Salad
Fruit - apples/bananas and berries/grapes
Washing up liquid/toilet rolls/laundry stuff
Tea/coffee/squash
Potatoes/rice/pasta
Tinned tomatoes/sweetcorn/herbs
One ready meal/pizza
Frozen veg/ice cream/frozen chips/beige food
Jars - peanut butter/jam/pickles/red cabbage
Then the bits like tomato purée, stock cubes, salt, pepper, sweeteners/sugar, garlic...

You’re right, it doesn’t look like much for £40.

I’m trying to think what I don’t buy, for my costs are almost half.

Hardly any dairy so no milk or yoghurt but I do get oat milk but that’s cheaper. I don’t get meat/tuna, barely any crisps, choc or beige food. I do get reduced bread & pastry stuff on yellow stickers, and grow apples, pears, etc. and veg but only in summer. I wfh so just eat leftovers or frozen soups.

My most expensive things are eggs, cheeses (cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan), sugar, coffee, some berries, avocados & fruits. I drink water & only get fizzy drinks occasionally because am teetotal.

I prob spend £25-30 and up to £50 on every 3rd shop or so, when I get cleaning stuff & toiletries from Savers. The rest is Asda yellow sticker red or Aldi, but when I get £8 off £40 in Waitrose, I get fewer things but nicer ones in there.

Cheese is so expensive now, I love feta and eat it all summer so I need to find the cheapest!

I don't drink either but I like to have cordial and the odd fizzy drink. Found b&m quite cheap for those. Tea is my main vice
WFH too but short lunch so usually a sandwich or scrambled eggs

If you haven't used Ocado before they have a decent first shop offer, then don't use them and they often send £10 off £50 shop vouchers

Op, if 40 pounds is what you have, it’s what you have. Can you reduce the amount of sweets you eat by 3 pounds and buy more vegetables or fruit instead. Even an apple a day and a mandarin would be good for you. Or some broccoli. And I think the buying every 8 to 10 days is good advice? Can you bake at all?

Your diet seems very unhealthy, @Virinreiber
How come you don't eat any fruit and vegetables, apart froma few carrots?
Not to mention all the sweets.
I hope you do at least take vitamin supplements.

Oat milk isn't cheaper than dairy milk and I cannot see how you can buy the list of things in your post for 25 (berries???!!) unless literally everything is yellow stickered

Meant to read -

I can't see how you can feed yourself three healthy meals a day for 25 a week if you include the things on your list .

Your budget looks reasonable to me as it's just you and for regular meals you can keep within as I assume you make your curries and stews for at least 2 portions. It becomes a bit more difficult when you add toiletries and household cleaning products. e.g laundry, dishwasher, fabric softeners, deodorant, toilet roll etc.

No, it's fine. But you could try budgeting £70 over 2 weeks, and buying food where half goes in the freezer, if you don't already.

I think £40 is bare minimum if you want a variety of fresh veg and fruit - that's where the money goes.

40 is fine if you can afford it. If you're struggling financially then you could either try to stretch it out to buying every 8th day, or aim for 35 on food and 5 on a rotating list of toiletries/cleaning&laundry products.

I spend that sometimes on a asda delivery

The sweet bill seems excessive how much fruit and veg do you buy

£40 a week for a single person sounds great! I don’t think you could do it much cheaper to be honest. I spend more than that per person and I’m really cutting back.

Sounds about right to me. DH and I spend about 125pw for everything, including very good meat from the farm shop, a veg delivery and milk/bread/eggs/dairy delivery.

If you can comfortably afford it then there aren’t any rules on what one should or shouldn’t pay on groceries!

Add some more veg and a little fruit, is my only suggestion.

It sounds about right to me and it won't always all be on food to get up to £40 anyway. Toothpaste, shampoo, bog roll, washing powder all add massively to the shopping bill.

I spend very little on snacks and don't buy many luxury items but just buying meat, fruit, veg, grains, breakfast cereals and bread for me and DD can easily get our shop to £40.

I don’t eat breakfast, & it’s perfectly do-able!

It’s cheap in Aldi & far less than dairy milk, but also it lasts me longer than 7 days as it doesn’t go off in the same way.

Yes, I said - I base mine in whichever veg are yellow stickered in Asda in winter & grow my own in summer. I add full price berries from Aldi. Tbh I don’t get berries every week anyway as I’m working my way through stewed apples from my garden. But yes, I do it around yellow stickers. Just having kale & blue cheese pasta - both kale & cheese were 20p each!

My student daughter says she spends about £30 a week and doesn't eat loads and would be being quite tight so £40 doesn't sound silly at all to me.

This is nothing at all. Even when I was a super frugal student, 20 years ago, I used to withdraw £50 a week. To be fair, that also covered going to the pub, but I might only have a couple of drinks. Basically, fresh veg and fruit cost a lot and I think we should all eat a lot of that every day. Ok, you can buy cheap fruit, like a bag of six apples for 90p, but it’s good to mix that up with berries (£££), and nice things like grapes, broccoli, leeks, salad, avocados, all of which add up! I’m still careful with money, but I still spend way way more than you do. Then again, I think spending on good food is a good (excellent) use of money….

One thing I find invaluable ( I'm a 57 year old woman ,divorced 25 years & I have Multiple sclerosis/ 80% blind ..I've been vegetarian for 49 years & sometimes it pushes up costs ) .Because I'm really sick ( did 20 months in hospital due to catching Covid on the Neuro ward & got 5 more pneumonia s) ..I try to batch cook & freeze my own version of a ready meal..I have sectioned freeze & microwave containers ,cook my chickpea & vege curry& steam a huge amount of rice & freeze in bags ..works out at 10 p a bit portion.I've discovered that Amazon is a brilliant place to save a fortune on groceries ..For instance Ambrosia or Morrison's ready to eat cream custard is sold in cards of 6 for £6 ..Uncle Bens microwave rice also £6 for 6 ..chickpeas work out 1\2 price ..They have a Morrison's full supermarket because they've joined forces..but it you just to on your normal Amazon there are brilliant savings to be had it you're prepared to do a bit of bulk buying.I've just bought 750 Yorkshire tea bags 1\3 off the shops & R Whites lemonade ..£1 for 2 litres ,about 80 l off per bottle .
Hope this helps ,I've lived alone for years you'll be fine xx🤗

The cheapest way by far to buy good quality of milk like Oatley or All to is on Amazon..works out £1-1.25 a litre.Berries can be pennies a portion..I.but huge have of mixed frozen berries ( BlackBerry,black cherry ,blue berry & black currants ..about £1.30-40 a bit bag.Great for frozen fruit smoothie & quick desserts & overnight porridge

Sounds reasonable