So what's your weekly budget

[mccfluff]

How much do you spend on food a week and how many do you have to feed

I used to spend roughly £20 but that was just me and the cat, i spend about £50-60 now but that does include household & cat stuff

[NoMercy]

I spend what I can afford at the time. If I have enough money for something nice, I'll have something nice. If money is tight, I rein in my spending.

[pastafreak]

For just me,food is in the range of £50. I switched to a low-ish carb diet earlier in the year,so don't eat pasta or bread...and only occasional brown rice, and no processed stuff. I try to get every thing fresh-so meat is the largest expense. I always keep a look out for any deals-so if I see something like lamb in any form that's reduced-I buy it. I use a fair amount of mince-beef,lamb and pork,and rely on the slow cooker also. I also eat more cheese and dairy than I used to. I always have back up meals in the freezer-so if needed I can live on far less....like now,with 6 days to go until pay day. Then there's the dog and cat...they both like Aldi's petfood so I spend about a fiver on each of them-plus dog treats. My treat is decent 85% chocolate,and I don't really bother with booze. Some weeks it's less,or at least less for daily meals,but then tea and coffee,butter and such need topping up.

I'd love to know what exactly fluffy eats to spend only £20?..and is that for all 3 meals per day?

[B00]

Don't eat Pasta anymore? Name change then?

[ummmm]

Pasta - she corrected it. She then said she spent £10 on salads.

[Athley]

We average a weekly shop of about £80 for the 2 of us but that's breakfast, lunch and dinner all week - we usually get a takeaway on a Saturday night. Bill goes up if there's wine or John Smiths on there !! ..... that doesn't include the 2 cats either.

[pastafreak]

@B00...too much hassle-and it has sentimental value... ;-)

@ummmm...yes-true....but she still must not eat much...

[tiggerblue10]

£100 - 120. That includes my sneaky trips up to the canteen every morning for cappuchino. Can't function without it.

[China Doll]

I'm reliably informed that what I think we spend on food and what we actually spend on food are two entirely different things! However that said, we spent £105 on the big monthly shop today but about £20 of that was toiletries and such things as we'd basically run out of everything :-/

There will definitely be another shop of about £50 but I do buy bargains randomly if I see them (usually on meat and fish) and have recently taken a liking to 'kebab Friday'... And I like these kebabs whilst sober so clearly I'm a classy gal. Kebabs cost £8 but we didn't have one last Friday.

I'm going out for dinner twice this month (it's my sociable month) so I guess I will be spending more on food then as one of them is me taking my mate out for her belated birthday dinner.

I buy about £3 of fruit every Monday for the week as well as I can get a bag of pears and a pallet of plums which go in my lunch box... 'cept last week when the bloody pears took all week to ripen and I am now munching through them quickly before they go off.

[firewatch]

i spend 40-50 a week to feed two adults and a toddler, thats including fruit trips to the loacal greengrocers for Mis grape fix. Plus get extra in as we have an open door policy if you ring by three saying your here for tea then i will cook lol

[firewatch]

and yes i can do on 20 a week-just

[tiggerblue10]

Crikey! Looks like I spend a lot for just me and Little Tiggs :o(

[Buenchico]

I currently have a rough target of £20 per week for me and the cat:
About £15 per week on food (and some cans of 'Value' bitter!) for me
About £3.50 per week on food for the cat (which, officially, isn't even mine!).
Leaving £1.50 towards toiletries, etc.

[micmak]

We are fortunate in that we can buy what we want when we want it. Years ago when we were on a very tight budget Mrs MM had a book 500 ways with mince. I think we tried everyone of them. She also bought ham hocks. She had some delicious recipes for them. They did take a lot of messing about as I remember though. You can eat cheaply if you take the time to shop and the trouble in preparation.

[mccfluff]

pasta, £20-30 is ab fine for me on my own - this is just for food i haven;t counted anything else like houselhold good, wine or ciggies

and believe me come the end of the month i have lived on much much less :-)

[ummmm]

I cooked a really cheap dinner yesterday. In total it probably cost £6 all in. There's enough to feed all 4 of us for two meals. If it was just for me it'll go much further. The boys probably eat double my portions.

[rowanwitch]

I had a bit of a trawl round some supermarket websites and reckon £20 pw is perfectly do able if :
a) You use the cheapie own brands
b) you have access to a market for in season veg as supermarket basics are still quite expensive for fruit and veg
c) you can cope without decent tea and coffee
d) you cook from scratch and have a decent sized freezer
e) you have the sort of local butcher who does deals like chicken and small joint of pork for a fiver

It is easier if you have it as £40 a fortnight though as you can make use of some of the better offers and can get a few bulk buys that would be a big chunk from a weekly budget.. eg sacks of potatoes and bulk bags of onions.

One thing I did think though... if you don't have a car you have to factor in delivery charges for the heavy items and the cost of bus travel to and from a supermarket

[mccfluff]

or you can shop daily as i used to do and carry it home

[ummmm]

It's also doable if you don't mind eating the same thing. But if you're that hard up.....I don't think it's something you'd complain about.

[mccfluff]

well a 500g thingy of mince could last me 3 - 4 days and you can make loads of diff stuff with it. plus most of the supermarkets have offers on meat 3 for £10 etc which when divided into indiv meals gets you more than a weeks worth. plus i didn;t eat a main meal everyday, not through cost but becuase i couldn't be bothered to cook sometimes

[rowanwitch]

I reckon I can get a lot out of a medium chicken... roast the crown... sunday dinner and the rest chopped up in a little mayo for sandwiches for work, monday leg/thigh meat in a curry or casserole packed out with veggies and boil up the carcass with any scraps with lots more veggies as a base for a chunky soup... probably feed 2 people at least one meal a day for about 5 days