Single folk, how much do you spend on food per month on average?

[BigMoaner]

Thanks

 

[BigMoaner]

Not including restaurants, take away etc

 

[kalidarkone]

Approx £200

 

[Elpenor]

Approx £200

Yeah in the region of this but that includes all my supermarket shopping (so also household stuff, toiletries etc but not alcohol)

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Don't know - I'd need to check.

 

[Lord Camomile]

It should be on a more regular schedule, but very roughly I'd say I do a £50-70 shop every couple of weeks or so, I think.

 

[gentlegreen]

Average UK adult male spends £32,30 per week plus £16.70 eating out - total £49 - so £200

In my head it was always approx £300 bills, £300 food, but maybe that's before I restricted my calories - it probably is around £200 a month including a good cup of coffee each day and a bottle of wine per week. I eat super-healthily, but the same food every day.
Recently I've been eating a crazy amount of fruit I don't actually need which will have raised the cost somewhat...

 

[metalguru]

At least £70 a week - ie a tenner a day.

I think keeping it down to £50 a week would be a lot harder now than a year ago, and would also require significant lifestyle changes.

 

[BillRiver]

I spend £50-£60 a week and I don't eat out. I tend to take packed lunches with me if I'm out and about during the day. I do treat myself to an Indian take-away twice a month though.

 

[BillRiver]

Why do you ask BigMoaner ?

 

[BigMoaner]

Why do you ask BigMoaner ?

because i am budgeting, soon to be moving out of my folks into a flat and just trying to work out how skint i'll be.

 

[BillRiver]

because i am budgeting, soon to be moving out of my folks into a flat and just trying to work out how skint i'll be.

Best of luck

 

[BigMoaner]

i need get into that cooking for the entire week bollocks.

 

[BigMoaner]

pack lunches def the way forward.

 

[BigMoaner]

i've got two kids i need to factor in as well half the week.

 

[DotCommunist]

get a chest freezer if you have room for it.

 

[BigMoaner]

get a chest freezer if you have room for it.

barely enough room for my own chest mate.

 

[Cid]

I'm terrible at this, but if it's purely food maybe £50-60. Tend to use fairly nice ingredients, but pretty much 100% home cooked. I could certainly get by nicely on less I think... It also depends on how much meat you eat, and where you draw the line ethically on that front. And is complicated by things like spices.

 

[existentialist]

On a rough calculation, excluding booze, etc., I think my monthly food budget is probably somewhere around £100-120. One person, and like a few others on here I cook most of what I eat from scratch, which definitely keeps the cost down, as does bulk-buying ingredients like dried pulses - beans and lentils, etc.

 

[gentlegreen]

I spend a lot more than I need to in terms of nutrients because I get my calories from veggies rather than mixing them with grain.
If I was strapped for cash I could probably get all the nutrients I needed from buying frozen veggies from Iceland and cooking grain and beans from scratch.
I've just added fruit to my diet at significant expense - and it provides nutrients I'm probably not short of as well as calories I don't need ...

 

[Lord Camomile]

i need get into that cooking for the entire week bollocks.

pack lunches def the way forward.

These are those things that when you do 'em are a real help both in terms of finances and time, but also definitely not instinctive/easy for a lot of us.

I got into a relatively solid routine with batch cooking a few years ago, but got knocked off and now slowly trying to get back into it. Requires some planning, obviously, but if you can sort that and just carve out the time needed it can be really satisfying to think "don't need to do much cooking this evening, just heat up X from the freezer".

If not eating some of whatever I'm cooking straight away, I try to do it on a Sat or Sun morning, get it done and out of the way

But aye, freezer space becomes its own issue. Mine is an ok size for someone who lives on their own, I think, but still find it limits just how 'prepared' I can ever be at any one time.

 

[kalidarkone]

i need get into that cooking for the entire week bollocks.

Cook big quantities and freeze. Chilli's and spag bol, so quick to make.

 

[Elpenor]

I’ve got a separate undercounter fridge and freezer.

My fridge is usually empty except for a few sauce bottles and limes.

My freezer is full. I struggle to eat fresh food quickly enough before it goes off (partly as I only cook one meal a day). All my veg is frozen bar onions and sweet potatoes which of course don’t go in the fridge either. Meat and fish I have frozen too and defrost one steak at a time.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Checked through the receipts - from 31 August through to a supermarket delivery next week, I'll have spent £238.15 on food. A fair amount of that was frozen and tinned stuff, which will last beyond the month - but I also bought stuff that's not really needed like gelato and ice lollies. I've got loads of food in stock anyway, so could probably survive without any shopping for a month at least.

I've excluded cleaning stuff and anything like booze from the above figure.

The figure has surprised me a bit - I thought it would be higher, but then I'm not buying shop-made sandwiches as I'm working at home.

 

[weltweit]

£220 in the last 4 weeks.

Including stuff for packed lunches.

 

[UrbaneFox]

Checked through the receipts - from 31 August through to a supermarket delivery next week, I'll have spent £238.15 on food. A fair amount of that was frozen and tinned stuff, which will last beyond the month - but I also bought stuff that's not really needed like gelato and ice lollies. I've got loads of food in stock anyway, so could probably survive without any shopping for a month at least.

I've excluded cleaning stuff and anything like booze from the above figure.

The figure has surprised me a bit - I thought it would be higher, but then I'm not buying shop-made sandwiches as I'm working at home.

It's all suddenly gone up. Oatcakes that used to be 99p are now £1.20

 

[spanglechick]

Supermarket deliveries are about £250-£300 a month, but that includes cleaning stuff, toiletries, the odd can opener or set of tea towels, and critically, almost any and all booze (I almost never go out to drink).
I always take packed lunch to work, too.
I probably get a couple of takeaways a month.

 

[xenon]

Probably is about 50 quid a week. Varies of course. i’d say that includes things like toiletries as well though. But then I have takeaways on top of that. And booze, well let’s not look at that at the moment.

 

[xenon]

Working from home, so every day is something boring I make it home. I could actually go over to the café nearby but haven’t done so yet.

 

[BigMoaner]

Average UK adult male spends £32,30 per week plus £16.70 eating out - total £49 - so £200

In my head it was always approx £300 bills, £300 food, but maybe that's before I restricted my calories - it probably is around £200 a month including a good cup of coffee each day and a bottle of wine per week. I eat super-healthily, but the same food every day.
Recently I've been eating a crazy amount of fruit I don't actually need which will have raised the cost somewhat...

3k a week? I'm fucked