What's the minimum you could spend on food in a month?

[Hagal]

Well I'd imagine it would make you constipated and bloated as well as lower your immune system and make you more susceptible to colds and stuff. It will also leave you with no energy and it won't provide you with the nutrients you need. Do it long enough and you'll even get scurvy

Seriously though, don't live on a diet like that if you can avoid it (which most people can...)

Don't knock it untill you've tried it.

 

[SubZeroCat]

Don't knock it untill you've tried it.

Tried eating that 3 times a day for a month or longer?

Thanks but no thanks.

 

[Xanadu]

I spend ridiculous money on food. I know I could eat okay on £10 a week, but I can't be arsed

 

[toggle]

I spend ridiculous money on food. I know I could eat okay on £10 a week, but I can't be arsed

Oh definately. it is far, far easier to spend more money and have to put a lot less time and effort into making meals.

 

[spanglechick]

taking your own lunches is a good area to save money - and it's bound to be healthier, too.

 

[snoogles]

I probably spend about £20 - £25 a week on food and I think I eat like a king, I'm always getting tasty expensive little things I don't need, could easily do it for £15 a week and have managed on £10 a week for months at a time as a student. You don't have to be vegetarian either.

There were a couple of key ingredients though...

Roast chicken: It's less than £3.50 for a big chicken (I know the poor thing was battery farmed, but when you're skint you can't be picky and you could say it's better off dead anyway so you're sort of doing it a favour ), you can get 5 or 6 meals worth of meat off one, then boil the carcass and make soup or casserole with the stock. This works best if you're sharing though or the meat goes off.

Turkey: Don't go to supermarkets for this, but find a butcher - turkey's not that popular and I used to get an enormous turkey thigh for about £1 (a week's worth of meals). This might depend a bit on your butcher though.

Offal: liver is really cheap and nutritious, if you can stomach it.

Eggs: good quality protein and loads of B vitamins. Eat one a day + something like beans and you could skip the meat.

Beans/lentils: more tasty protein

Brown rice: again, buy in bulk from indian shops, make sure it's brown 'cos you need all the vitamins you can get.

Fresh veg: onions, carrots, turnips, whatever's cheap, tinned veg (e.g. tomatoes) from Lidl can be great too

Try to buy what you need only for the next few days, or it will go off and be wasted.

Don't go to supermarkets, buy from markets instead, they're cheaper. Also, be nice to yourself and don't eat 'valu' bread or crappy cheap flavoured noodles, they're gross and you can eat much better/healthier things like brown rice or pasta instead...remember junk food is relatively expensive (50p for a chocolate bar is a lot out of a £10 budget) so try not to give in to temptation...

 

[blues]

I know I could eat okay on £10 a week, but I can't be arsed

I'd love to know how. I spend more than that even though I bulk cook main meals and freeze (or the veggies would go off) as well as making my own lunches

E2A I can't eat eggs which limits things a bit.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Buy stuff from markets & Lidl. Eat loads of pasta and rice. Give yourself treats to make it bearable (don't get marg, get butter).

 

[Rohen]

60 quid... I know I was doing it earlier this year per month

 

[toggle]

I'd love to know how. I spend more than that even though I bulk cook main meals and freeze (or the veggies would go off) as well as making my own lunches

E2A I can't eat eggs which limits things a bit.

beans and rice.

 

[pinkmonkey]

Buy stuff from markets & Lidl. Eat loads of pasta and rice. Give yourself treats to make it bearable (don't get marg, get butter).

That's what we're doing - we're skint - we didn't work for months this year. Haven't bought butter for months though, it goes off so I use marg coz its indestructable. -still haven't got mains electricity - if we run the fridge it flattens the batteries in less than a day, so we do without. Having no fridge makes it harder to eat cheaply - I reckon we spend about 30 quid a week for two of us, I can't bulk buy fresh food, it goes off, if I buy meat its small amounts. I feel like I'm back in the 1970,s the amount of tins - buy now! At least now its cold outside I can buy 4 pint containers of milk - in the summer I had to buy 1 pint and they'd still go off before we finished them. I still cook properly though, just don't eat much meat.

 

[blues]

beans and rice.

But that to me isn't eating well, it's surviving. I probably use rice or pasta 5 days a week (in fact I'm sure of it) since I don't really eat potato, but I'd sooner have a dish made of veggies (meat optional) than a dish made of beans.

... And you'll never get me eating anything in tomato sauce *shudders*

 

[toggle]

But that to me isn't eating well, it's surviving. I probably use rice or pasta 5 days a week (in fact I'm sure of it) since I don't really eat potato, but I'd sooner have a dish made of veggies (meat optional) than a dish made of beans.

on a tenner a week, you can easily afford a few veggies along with your beans and rice. You wouldn't get a huge amount of variety, but you could get some. Cheap root veggies and brassicas at this time of year. i'm talking about the beans and rice being the major components of the diet, not all of it. i've spelled out above how i reckon I could feed my family and not have them get ill, for less than a tenner/week/person. YOu just have to know how to cook and how to choose good value foods.

And a diet of beans, rice and a few veg is fairly healthy, just not very adventurous.

 

[RaverDrew]

Our shopping budget for the three of us is £20 a week, although when you add up all the other little bits and pieces during the week, it maybe bumps it up by £5.

We eat healthy, cooked from scratch meals. The reduced section in the supermarkets is your friend also.

 

[blues]

Edit: In reply to toggle

but unless your £8 supermarket spend covers all breakfast and lunch, you're not covered. I'm not being intentionally thick or argumentative, but calcium, drinks....???

Sorry, I still don't see it as eating healthily, and up until now, I thought I was a pretty good cook even on a tight budget. On the whole, I think I prefer snoogles plan - minus offal and eggs

 

[toggle]

Our shopping budget for the three of us is £20 a week, although when you add up all the other little bits and pieces during the week, it maybe bumps it up by £5.

We eat healthy, cooked from scratch meals. The reduced section in the supermarkets is your friend also.

Definately, if you really hit it perfectly.

a couple of nets of satsumas for 10p each really keep the cost of fruit down. You have to resist the temptation to buy overpriced crap, just because it's reduced though. Overpriced, processed crap is still overpriced processed crap, even if it's 1/3 off.

 

[toggle]

Edit: In reply to toggle

but unless your £8 supermarket spend covers all breakfast and lunch, you're not covered. I'm not being intentionally thick or argumentative, but calcium, drinks....???

You CAN drink tapwater. I drnk quite a lot of that. And a couple of cups of tea. Children will also drink water if they are thirsty.

having seperate foods for breakfast is a cultural thing. Why is one meal good in the evening, but not acceptable for breakfast? i'm not normally a breakfast sort of person, I wake at about 7 ish and I generally don't want to eat until after 10ish. But by then, leftover rice and dahl makes an alright meal.

brassicas are a source of calcium and it is often easy to get them quite cheaply, and there is some in beans, not enough to be a sole source though. And there is always (ickky) cheap fortified white bread. I suppose that could be breakfast if you are fussy. The kids always get milk.

i tend to cut the meat out of our diet completely if there are real money problems, but keep spending a few quid a week on fruit. My kids accept a lack of meat as long as there is still fruit in the house.

I think I've already said that I prefer to spend slightly more on foods, i'll also say that making a massive change in your diet requires changing the way you think about foods and what is actually a necessity in your diet instead of just something you are used to eating. it is something that I prefer not to do, particularly for long periods, but I can, and i have eaten on that little in the past. I think it's a far better option than eating tinned spaghetti 5 days a week.

 

[blues]

I agree with you totally on the tinned spaghetti thing, however, I really can't drink tap water. I do accept I'm simply too lazy to distill it, and I could if really pushed fill a bottle from the dispenser at work, but realistically, taking away my coffee would be bad news. I also agree re not eating breakfast til you've been up a couple of hours, but then we get into the work environment vs appropriate food to eat at your desk. The majority of my food spend is on farm-shop veg and I'm happy with that, but if I really had to I could limit if not eliminate totally meat, and "bulk" out the veggies with beans. Salad is a constant problem though in that I eat a lot of it, and wastage vs cost is a definite issue when there's only one of you.

De-personalising, I guess I could eat for £10 a week if I had to, but when there's only one of you I think this is a seriously unhealthy diet, whereas with a family, £10 a person isn't so bad.

The reduction section really doesn't work for one person and fresh veg/salad. You might get something cheap, but you have to eat the whole thing that day which might be a treat, but doesn't fall into "economy" then.

 

[kalidarkone]

I'm thinking 100 quid but maybe that's too much for a single person?

I could spend £50 , for me and masterdarkone, but it would'nt be much fun.

I spend about £200 per month for the both of us.

 

[Callie]

De-personalising, I guess I could eat for £10 a week if I had to, but when there's only one of you I think this is a seriously unhealthy diet, whereas with a family, £10 a person isn't so bad.

The reduction section really doesn't work for one person and fresh veg/salad. You might get something cheap, but you have to eat the whole thing that day which might be a treat, but doesn't fall into "economy" then.

Im guessing that you've never HAD to live off a very small budget? With items like coffee and tea bags you have to buy them once a month (maybe less frequently), make it last and sacrifice something else off your budget to afford it.

Theres nothing unhealthy about living off of £10 per week - Im not sure where your getting this idea from? You personally may not get all the nutrients you need from living off that much per week but I think youre too fussy!

As for the reduced section - its great, as long as you have a freezer. I quite frequently see large pieces (like a whole side? half? don't know what you call it) of fish reduced to piddly amounts (£1.50) which you could easily get 3 maybe 4 meals out of.

Buying dried pulses and beans takes a bit more effort in preparation but its extremely cheap and for one person a quids worth would probably last a month.

You really have to think about what youre buying and how youre going to use it. You also have to know what youve got left in the cupboard (if anything) and buy things to utilise it.

Porridge is great for breakfast and cheap too

 

[subversplat]

£30 a month should do it, without any cheeky shoplifting or skippery, but not eating particularly well

I'm currently eating on about that, but I haven't got any form of cooker in my squat so it's all cold out of the tins

 

[subversplat]

That's what we're doing - we're skint - we didn't work for months this year. Haven't bought butter for months though, it goes off so I use marg coz its indestructable. -still haven't got mains electricity - if we run the fridge it flattens the batteries in less than a day, so we do without. Having no fridge makes it harder to eat cheaply - I reckon we spend about 30 quid a week for two of us, I can't bulk buy fresh food, it goes off, if I buy meat its small amounts. I feel like I'm back in the 1970,s the amount of tins - buy now! At least now its cold outside I can buy 4 pint containers of milk - in the summer I had to buy 1 pint and they'd still go off before we finished them. I still cook properly though, just don't eat much meat.

UHT milk lasts forever. Also for a sort of makeshift fridge if you get one of those big terracotta pots and fill it with water, put it in the shade then seal everything up in freezer bags and submerge them, it gets pretty cold (about 4 degrees or thereabouts, which is what a fridge should be) and stuff lasts ages.

You can also cool cans of beverage by hanging them up in a wet sock in the sunshine!

 

[toggle]

I agree with you totally on the tinned spaghetti thing, however, I really can't drink tap water. I do accept I'm simply too lazy to distill it, and I could if really pushed fill a bottle from the dispenser at work, but realistically, taking away my coffee would be bad news. I also agree re not eating breakfast til you've been up a couple of hours, but then we get into the work environment vs appropriate food to eat at your desk. The majority of my food spend is on farm-shop veg and I'm happy with that, but if I really had to I could limit if not eliminate totally meat, and "bulk" out the veggies with beans. Salad is a constant problem though in that I eat a lot of it, and wastage vs cost is a definite issue when there's only one of you.

De-personalising, I guess I could eat for £10 a week if I had to, but when there's only one of you I think this is a seriously unhealthy diet, whereas with a family, £10 a person isn't so bad.

The reduction section really doesn't work for one person and fresh veg/salad. You might get something cheap, but you have to eat the whole thing that day which might be a treat, but doesn't fall into "economy" then.

Oh definately. For a family of 4, we can eat very well on a tenner/week/person.

Oh yes, on the cheap skate stakes, making hummus from prepared, dried chick peas works out very cheap. I could do more than a week's worth of work lunches from a small pack of chick peas 50p, and about 1/4 of a bottle of lemon dressing (30p each), some garlic and bread. The weekly cost is about £1.50. the lemon dressing is really nice on other beany things as well, particularly green lentils, or to spice up cold leftover bean/veg stodges.

However, you don't really need salad if you eat other fresh stuff, and it is a luxury in the winter. I know it's nice to eat lots of salad, but when you are really reducing the food budget as much as possible, you have to look hard at the differences between what you need and what you can do without and what is seasonal. Salad can be cheap on the markets in the summer, they practically give away cabbages and root veg in the winter, plums and apples in the autumn are good cheap fresh stuff.

I think another thing with the reduced stuff is that you do have to get used to eating a lot of somehting one week and a lot of somehting else the next (or even per day). A balenced diet dosen't ahve to be perfectly balenced every day.