Budge it

[j4]

I don't know what to do about budgeting for food. sion_a and I have been sharing evening meals, and basically he's been paying for pretty much everything, which is clearly unfair; but when I suggested trying to allocate a set amount for food he was unhappy about the idea & said he'd prefer to go back to the way we used to do it -- on a completely ad hoc basis, buying food roughly once a week but often more, and sort of taking turns to pay. I can understand why he wouldn't want to do that -- there's no reason why he should have to go without everything he wants just because I'm skint -- but I don't think I can cope with that kind of system and still claw my finances back to a sensible point.

On the other hand, I have no idea how to budget for feeding just one person, because more or less ever since I've lived out I've been sponging off one boyfriend or another, and cooking for at least two people. Basically I'm just not used to living a single life, but it's about time I learned.

How much do people think is a sensible amount of money to allocate for a week's food (lunches and evening meals) for one?

For ages I've been eating at the pub on Thursdays with the rest of the crowd -- is it stupid to try to build that into a budget? (The pub food isn't expensive, but it's still eating-out rather than eating-in. Last night's meal cost £3.25, and that's not quite the cheapest option.)


So far this week I have spent the following:

£ 1.19   5 avocados and 2 bananas
£ 0.99   1 bag of new potatoes
£ 3.25   meal at the pub
£ 2.40   1 pint of beer
£15.00   karate lesson

The potatoes and avocados between them have made lots of salads for lunches. I feel like I've been reasonably good about money, but the evening meals have mostly been covered by stuff that sion_a's bought, so really I'm just sponging still. :-(

Bank balance is looking more healthy, but there's still £86 owed to a friend to come out of that -- and no, I can't pay back in instalments, I just want to clear the debt in one go -- and money for a birthday present for somebody else. Salary comes through in less than a week now, but I know I mustn't see that as the point when I can start spending money again!

Food tonight is sorted: I'm working a shift at the pub so I'll have my usual sandwich or bowl of chips. And more money! Hurrah.

Comments

[liv]

I've lived on my own and mostly budgeted on my own for about four years out of the seven since I left home. I find that the best way to handle food budgeting is to set a budget and make sure it includes everything you eat. That sounds obvious, but what I mean is that a strategy of only spending a fiver on your weekly shopping, and 'not counting' buying snacks, alcohol, eating out (because that's 'entertainment' rather than 'food') and so on leads to spending more money than a strategy of setting a higher limit but including everything.

Following that rule I try to stick to £20-£25 a week (and usually succeed, I would add). That means I can either buy stuff a bit nicer than absolutely basic essentials when I go to the supermarket, or I can eat out occasionally, or I can allow myself a little slack for buying snacks from the newsagent or getting a kebab because I can't be bothered cooking one evening. But probably not all three of those things every week. If you really want to scrimp, you can probably survive on £15 a week.

Beyond that level, food really isn't a sensible place to economize. I really, really suggest going without other things before you cut your food budget so much that you aren't getting adequate calories or nutrition. £2 a day means you're doing most of the food preparation yourself; at that level you can't afford to pay someone else to cut and butter your sandwiches. If you're used to cooking for two or more, can you cook large quantities and freeze some?

[juliet]

I'd agree with those figures - when I was doing my MPhil I was managing to average just under £15/week, but that was pretty damn minimal (buying veg at the market, very rarely buying expensive things like cheese (wasn't vegan then), etc etc. And obviously, being veggie helps ). £20-£25 allows you a little slack for the odd nice thing. I don't think it's at all wrong to build in a cheapish meal at the pub to your budget - if you cut out all the socialising etc you'll just make yourself miserable, & will find it much harder to stick to budget.

I actually found that keeping snacks, eating out etc in the 'entertainment' budget worked better for me, but YMM and obv does V :-)

And seconding the comments about making sure you're eating enough - and healthily, not just sufficient calories. Also about making large quantities of things & freezing - also means that you've got a non-takeout option on evenings when you come in & can't face cooking, or have run out of groceries, or whatever.

With sion_a - the only other option, I guess, would be to suggest that you'd do dinner on certain nights, & he could do them on other nights, but that you'd have to stick to your budget for the nights you cook. Then you avoid sponging (because you're buying half the dinners, and he can choose either to cook at the same financial level on his nights, or spend more and accept that that's his choice), but you're also able to keep your spending in order.

And that budget-so-far does look like you're being pretty successful - yay!

[j4.livejournal.com]

the only other option, I guess, would be to suggest that you'd do dinner on certain nights, & he could do them on other nights, but that you'd have to stick to your budget for the nights you cook.

Well I'd be happy to do that (though it would be harder to budget on a per-week basis if I'm not cooking every night of the week), but he might not agree. And at the moment neither of us cooks, except to the extent of putting filled pasta in boiling water, or putting pizza in the oven.

Then you avoid sponging (because you're buying half the dinners, and he can choose either to cook at the same financial level on his nights, or spend more and accept that that's his choice), but you're also able to keep your spending in order.

I think his choice if I wasn't there at all would be (and was, before I came along and fucked up his life) to live on toast, sometimes with cheese. That's all he eats when I'm not there, anyway.

Budget-so-far -- yeah, I can keep up not-spending-anything for about a week, and then I just get miserable and end up spending money on stuff to make me happy, which usually does make me happy for a short time, until it starts making me guilty about having spent any money. I mean, at the moment I look at the stuff on my desk and think "Shit, I spent a couple of quid on half a badger just so I could have a badger on my desk at work. Argh, I spent over a quid on a box of tissues because it had a pretty pattern on the box and I like having tissues on my desk, when I could have just used work's loo-paper when I needed a tissue. I have a mug which I bought from thinkgeek and probably never paid Sion back for; if I did pay him back then it's a stupid expenditure, if I didn't then it's just sponging again. I have an expensive phone (which admittedly I didn't buy) and I'm paying a stupid tariff on it because I can't face going through all the layers of bureaucratic hell required to change the tariff, and I don't need a mobile phone anyway. I have four boxes of herbal tea which I bought when I didn't really need them because I could just drink water, and as it is I just drink the free coffee at work, despite the fact that it's Nestlé, but they won't switch to Fair Trade because it costs too much.

I just feel like everything around me is sitting there and accusing me. :-(

[juliet]

he might not agree

True. But if you'd rather share meals in some way, as opposed to both individually cooking, then maybe it's worth suggesting? He might choose just to eat toast & cheese, but he might prefer the sociableness of eating together - preferences like that do work differently if there's someone else around (I certainly tend to eat differently when I'm just cooking for me than when I'm cooking for Pete as well). As far as the cooking goes: I think, unfortunately, that's probably the best way to keep your food budget down.

I just feel like everything around me is sitting there and accusing me

Know what you mean :-/ But as people have said elsewhere, it's sensible to set a budget that includes room for the odd frivolity. Because making yourself miserable is counterproductive (& feeling guilty about money already spent even more so). You are doing something productive about your financial situation, which is great, so you need to make sure do it *sensibly*. A bit like losing weight: if you try to do it all at once, then it just goes straight back on again, so sorting things gradually is the way forward.

Working out a budget can also be freeing in a way - because you know that your herbal teabags or whatever *are* covered in your budget, so it's OK to buy them. Or that you've allocated £X per week for spending-money, so it's OK to spend a couple of quid of that on a badger, if that's what you fancy spending it on. If that makes sense?

The other thing to bear in mind is that it *does* become easier as you get into the habit of watching your spending (or possibly out of the habit of spending without thinking about it, whichever way you care to put it). It's not great, but it does become much less depressing with time. [hugs]

[j4.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice/info.

Beyond that level, food really isn't a sensible place to economize. I really, really suggest going without other things before you cut your food budget so much that you aren't getting adequate calories or nutrition.

Well, I'm not cutting a budget; I'm creating a budget. I'm not trying to work out "how much more can I reduce my existing food budget", because so far I haven't had one (and I have spent a lot of money on eating out, buying lunch in town, snacks, etc., all of which are unnecessary expenses); I'm trying to work out what a sensible (nutritionally sensible, financially sensible, etc.) maximum and minimum might be.

Going without other things: yes, I'm going to have to go without pretty much everything else for years at this rate. Which is going to be hard; I do a lot of comfort shopping, I need to stop that, but I also feel like I need a hell of a lot of comfort at the moment. :-/

If you're used to cooking for two or more, can you cook large quantities and freeze some?

Not easily -- the freezer is tiny, just two shelves, and it belongs to sion_a so it's not really fair of me to fill it up with my junk.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

How much do people think is a sensible amount of money to allocate for a week's food (lunches and evening meals) for one?

Dad and I had this argument back in about 2000, when I was gainful for the MSO (http://www.msoworld.com/) and earning your sort of money. Dad suggested £4 per person per day; at the time, I argued for a figure higher than that. Prices may be slightly cheaper in Middlesbrough than Cambridge, too; I would guess that we habitually shop roughly one-third at Safeway, Morrisons or Asda (unpretentious mid-market supermarkets), one-third at Kwik Save (working class supermarkets, but not Aldi) and one-third at independent greengrocers, butchers' shops, bakers and the like. If you habitually use Sainsbury's or M&S, add another 10% (???) again.

At the time we could exploit economies of scale because Dad was still working part-time, we could cook for three and so on. Nevertheless, if I had to put a figure on it, I would answer your question "£30-£35 for respectable but not rich living".

A page quoting NUS survey results (http://www.educationuk.org/pls/hot_bc/page_pls_user_advice?b=advice&d=costs) suggests that, in terms of typical living costs for students in the UK, "Food/household shopping: average outside London is £28 per week; inside London £33.40."

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

respectable but not rich living

Poor choice of wording on my part; anyone who gets by on less is at least as worthy of respect as anyone who spends any particular amount. Apologies to anyone who takes offence. I could delete, edit and repost, but that's not how real conversations work.

We're probably really getting into class issues here, which I don't profess to understand. I have no idea what class I am, or what class this family is, or what my quoted figure says about me; nor do I have a clue how much we actually spend. Still, I stick by my figure (no matter how much the chattering classes might tut and ask "who does he think he is?") and suggest that this isn't a competition to see who can get away with spending, or quoting, the most or the least, or who can get the best value for money, or who has the BIGGEST WAD. Worthington's Law! It's more fun than Godwin's Law!

Foot, mouth, hole, stop digging.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Respectable -- huh? I thought you were using it in a completely different context. "A respectable amount" doesn't usually mean that other amounts are dirty and smelly and not to be 'respected' in that sense.

I've no idea what "class" I am, I don't think it's relevant. My salary is a morally neutral amount of money, and isn't affected by whether I say "serviette" or "napkin", and whether I have flat vowels or not. And how I spend my salary is a lifestyle choice, not necessarily (and certainly not exclusively) a class issue at all.

Confused, sorry.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sorry about that. I was being disgustingly shallow and I don't really know what I'm on about here.

Nothing to see here. Please move along.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

I can feed two of us on about £15-20 a week. I buy staples from a supermarket (bread, marg, pasta, cheese, tinned tomatoes, quorn - all ultra-economy brand where possible) where they're cheaper; fresh fruit and vegetables from the market (because they're cheaper than the supermarket, and actually taste of something); and other stuff (spices, rice, milk, tinned fruit) from the assorted "ethnic" small shops on Mill Road (because they're cheaper and nicer than from supermarkets). I cook everything from scratch (well, ok, I don't usually make my own bread), basically never buy snacks or desserts or treats, and always make a list of what I need before I go out shopping and only buy that.

I should say that this doesn't include alcohol, which we both spend far too much on. Still, 3 bottles for £7 at Londis is possibly about the cheapest way to do it.

When I was an undergraduate I lived largely on packet soup, tea without milk, and toast with peanut butter. That was very cheap (£5 a week?), but I doubt it was particularly good for me :-)

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

All these comments have left me feeling both a bit embarrased at how much I spend feeding one person, and like I should reduce it.

I haven't worked it out in detail, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was above £50 per week. I probably spend £20/week just on lunches (4 sandwiches from shop + 1 pub meal + whatever at weekends).

…and that doesn't count beer, which is probably another £25-30.

Gah!

[juliet]

Why? If you've got it, and you enjoy spending it, and it's not causing you financial problems, why shouldn't you spend as much as you like on food?

For myself, I think by now I'd *resent* spending money on sandwiches from a shop, even if I could afford them, because I know how much more cheaply I can do it myself, and in general I find the sandwiches I make for myself much nicer than the ones you get in shops (if I wind up at work without lunch, which happens occasionally usually due to incompetent grocery-shopping, I tend to go buy bread & hummous from Sainsburys, which still works out cheaper than most shop-sandwiches). But if it doesn't bother you, then that's fine - it's your lunch & your money, after all!

[angoel.livejournal.com]

I think by now I'd *resent* spending money on sandwiches from a shop, even if I could afford them, because I know how much more cheaply I can do it myself, and in general I find the sandwiches I make for myself much nicer than the ones you get in shops.

I found that shop-bought sandwiches were about the same price. This is mainly because I live on my own, and only need about three days worth of sandwiches per week and thus loaves, lettuce, etc bought for making sandwiches invariably went stale or dodgy looking before that time was up. Similarly, it's horribly uneconomical to get a plausible variety of fillings. And I invariably went for intriguing nice sounding things when buying ingredients which ended up costing more than about a week's worth of sandwiches. (Ooh. Himalian Mountain Goats cheese. Want.)

[juliet]

Ah, buying expensive ingredients will take the price up, yes :-)

Depends what you put in them as to whether things go off, & whether you can get a variety of fillings. The things I most often put in sandwiches are hummous, carrot & lentil pate, & refried beans, all of which I make myself (& Marmite, because too often I'm lazy about making the stuff, but that's a different matter...). In fact, I tend to make & eat one at a time, & not be desperately bothered about eating the same thing for a week; but in theory, I think all of those are freezable (so half of each could be frozen for the following week), & all will last a week in the fridge. Back-of-envelope calculation indicates that that works out at around £4 for 2 weeks, plus bread at about 80-90p/week depending on which type & from where (or about 10p if you'll eat economy white, which I won't).

Mind you, it probably helps that I *hate* lettuce & similar salad-type things that are more inclined to go off :-) (except for rocket, which comes from the garden). And that I am reasonably happy to eat Marmite sandwiches on a regular basis when I've been too incompetent to remember to construct alternative fillings (though hummous at least is pretty easy to make).

Curses, now I'm *hungry* again, & I've only just eaten my pasta salad...

[j4.livejournal.com]

Do you have recipes for the hummous, carrot & lentil pâté, and the refried beans? They sound good. (If you've already given me these recipes then sorry for being crap & disorganised...)

Part of the problem with the make-lots-of-stuff-in-advance strategy has been that I'm busy most weekends; but that's less likely to be the case for the foreseeable. And they sound like the sort of things that will keep reasonably well even without freezing large quantities.

Oh and I'm quite happy to eat economy white bread. :)

[juliet]

All at the pate page on Kake's cookery website - might be worth looking at some of the others there, as well.

Note: if you make the hummous with fresh garlic, leave it in the fridge overnight before attempting to use it, otherwise it'll taste very fresh-garlic-y. I add olive oil, as well, to make it a bit less solid (or you can just add a little water). The refried beans & carrotlentilstuff are both very very good mmmm....

IME they keep fine in the fridge for at least a week, often 2. The hummous is pretty quick to make; the others don't actually require much time *doing* stuff, but do need to be left to cook for a bit.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought you meant (hummous and carrot and lentil pate) rather than hummous and (carrot and lentil pate). Sorry, parse error. :) Have made hummous before, it's nice, & seems to keep for a lot longer than the bought stuff, bizarrely. But it does take ages if you take the hulls off the chick peas! Might try not bothering, it'll probably just be more 'rustic' (lumpy).

The refried beans look like A Good Thing(tm), kidney beans are v cheap and I like them a lot. Mmmm.

Thank you!

[juliet]

Ah, right. Hmm, am tempted to try that now... [cogitates]

Refried beans are *ace*. As, in fact, is the carrotlentilstuff, although I acknowledge it doesn't sound like much (it's also *very* cheap). One of those things that I make & bring to picnics, & everyone goes 'hmm weird vegan shit', & I say 'oh go on, try it'. And they *do* and suddenly it's ALL GONE & they're asking for the recipe. In future I shall just say 'yeah, weird vegan shit, you wouldn't like it, it's all KNITTED TOFU you know'.

I like dehulling chickpeas (in the method as recommended by Kake, with the bowl of water). I think it catches my slightly-compulsive side.

Mmm food. Did I say that already?

[j4.livejournal.com]

I find the long-life sliced bread lasts for well over a week without going noticeably stale, but obviously if what you want is big fancy fresh-baked loaves then you can't get long-life variants of those! (Me, I'm happy with boring white sliced.)

Never seen the point of lettuce in sandwiches -- utterly tasteless vegetable which just makes the bread go soggy.

[aendr.livejournal.com]

How odd, we differ, I find lettuce prevents my tomatoes from making the bread go soggy.

[angua.livejournal.com]

I don't spend quite that much but I was still worrying that I spend far too much based on other people's comments.

As an example of me splashing out on a meal, last night I cooked (yes me, real cooking!) for two of us and it cost £17 for everything. I thought that was quite extravagent but I wanted it to be a nice meal.

[j4.livejournal.com]

It wasn't my intention to make anybody else feel guilty. Why should you reduce the amount you spend on food? The money's yours to spend as you wish. And there are probably plenty of things that I spend more money on than you -- clothes, for one! ;-)

And you're a fantastic cook, so it's unsurprising that you'd want quality ingredients to work with. I can't cook -- well, I can make things stop being raw and start being edible, but that's it -- so there's no reason for me to spend money on exciting stuff since I won't be able to use it.

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

Ha! The plan worked, now I simply can set up an endless circle of apologies for apologies and destroy the whole world in a cycle of regret.

Er... anyway. Yes, it's part of it that I like using good stuff to cook with, part of it is I'm just not careful about not being ripped off. Somethings do get significantly better if you buy the more expensive stuff, other things just get a matt-black box with silver ink.

[j4.livejournal.com]

part of it is I'm just not careful about not being ripped off

Well often it's a question of paying for the convenience of not having to go round hundreds of shops comparing pence-per-gramme to make sure you're getting absolutely the best value you possibly could. That sort of thing reduces me to a nervous wreck in next to no time, so if I can afford to pay the extra and save the time I often will. Probably need to be more careful now but I simply don't have time to spend the entire day comparing Sainsburys, Tesco, the Co-op, the market for every single thing I buy; and they do vary a lot as to which is better for what, because of offers and suchlike, & it's impossible to keep track.

Things like eggs and milk and sliced bread I find there's absolutely no discernable difference between the cheap stuff and the more pricey stuff. (With eggs I suppose the difference is that if you buy cheap ones they're less likely to be humanely extracted from the chickens...) Likewise rice, pasta, tinned tomatoes, kidney beans, in fact all the things that make up a student diet. :) Maybe the more discerning shopper/cook/eater would notice the difference, but I don't.

I wonder how long it'll be before I'm back to the eat-spaghetti-in-tomato-sauce-out-of-the-can stage again. Hey, at least it contains vitamins. Maybe.

[juliet]

General rule: market is better for veg, supermarket better for basically everything else. Over a basket of shopping, you are unlikely IME to notice the price difference between the different supermarkets, so it's not worth the hassle for the pennies you're talking about. Steer clear of anything involving packaging beyond the level required to keep it in (tins & tubs of marge OK, shrinkwrapped veg bad, sort of thing).

I seem to recall reading something about economy tinned tomatoes being not worth the saving because you get less tomato & more juice (so it's worth paying an extra 20p for the regular-own-brand, because it will produce more actual food) but I can't remember for certain. Possibly worth experimentation.

I will put in a plea for sticking to free-range eggs rather than factory-farmed - Sainsburys Online says that if you buy a dozen extra-large eggs it's 6p/egg more than 15 economy mixed-weight, 3p/egg more than a dozen regular extra-large, which isn't huge sums, even on a tight budget. But you probably knew I'd say that :-)

Lentils are your friends, generally. Lovely lovely cheap lentils. Fry up onions, tin of tomatoes, (cooked) lentils & (cooked) rice, & some kind of flavouring stuff, mmm. I lived on that for a couple of *very* impoverished weeks during my MPhil.

[imc.livejournal.com]

back to the eat-spaghetti-in-tomato-sauce-out-of-the-can stage again

Spaghetti hoops on toast… there was a time when I ate quite a lot of that.

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

It has been a long while since I was budgeting for food for one rather than food for two, but my sister is a single student at present and I can therefore suggest some stuff from her.

She uses the make-big-pots-of-X-and-then-freeze-it plan a lot; X itself varies somewhat but is very often chili-based. This is because she can get veggies cheaper in large quantities, likewise beans. Unless you do two or three different values of X, though, you can get very bored very quickly ;) (exactly _how_ quickly depends on your tolerance for eating the same thing a lot, obviously. I am married to someone who spent the year he lived out of college eating exactly two different meals, when he was cooking them; sausages with spuds and carrots, or pasta with tomato and cheese sauce). Sauce for pasta is, of course, something else which you can make in quantity and then freeze.

If you don't have access to a freezer, things will obviously be a bit more tricky.

I think it's absolutely reasonable to build the meal at the pub into your budget!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I have lived on less than ten pounds a week, I wouldn't recommend it. I do live on something more like thirty pounds a week (each) - I don't really recommend that either, we do seem to waste food somewhat and certainly could make economies if prodded. Fifteen seems like a minimum to me, I'd be happier around twenty, which gives you scope for a few treats.

What's currently in your cupboards - are you starting from a position of "I have no food at all" or do you have a base of pasta, rice, herbs and spices, tinned tomatoes, etc? If you have no stock cupboard, a reasonably-sized investment of thirty or forty pounds (when you get paid) on a decent amount of basics would ultimately save you a lot more. We buy a lot of meat etc (which drives our food bill up) but we do always have pasta and tomatoes on hand for forgot-to-shop moments. Should we suddenly become exceedingly skint indeed we could eat for weeks on what's in the cupboards/freezer (they might be quite dull meals after a while, but no spending beyond milk and maybe bread would be necessary).

[j4.livejournal.com]

Currently in cupboards: there's a lot of stuff, but mostly bought by Sion and therefore not mine. Also lots of stuff which is off or we will never use but he won't throw it away because that's wasteful, and I won't eat it because I don't like it / don't want food poisoning / etc.

The stuff that's mine is all cake stuff. Though I suppose I could live for a week on dried fruit, and use the flour and water to make sort-of-bread. Maybe.

Pasta is good. I could happily live on pasta and tomato and tuna for weeks but Sion doesn't eat tuna, and tomatoes make him ill. <sigh> He likes cheesy stuff, and cheese is more expensive. Though less so if you buy plastic economy cheese, obviously.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

he won't throw it away because that's wasteful
Hmmm, maybe recommend the Life Laundry book to Sion. I just read it and am trying to figure out how to apply (most of) it to our clutter-ridden life (she recommends getting rid of books so you can bet I'm skipping that chapter). I have the will if not the energy, at least.

I'll repeat my suggestion, when you get paid go and buy yourself a cupboard's worth of basic food - I could give you a shopping list if you wanted, I wrote articles on this kind of thing for the union paper when I was a student. It will probably feel like you're buying too much and all this guilt will descend upon you again, but forty quid now saves panic buying later. Or in your case, strong-willed self-denial instead of eating. Which is not a Good Thing, in case you hadn't noticed us all telling you that.

[sparrowsion]

there's a lot of stuff, but mostly bought by Sion and therefore not mine

This is a real part of the problem -- you regard anything I buy as automatically mine because it was paid for by me, so you're reluctant to use stuff I've bought to have in stock. And pretty much everything in the larder cupboard is stock, or yours. There are some old biscuits which I will admit being guilty to, and the Smash (which is definitely within date), and possibly the porridge and some of the peanut butter, but I'm not laying claim to all the pickled eggs, or cans of tuna, or the cans of fruit, or the instant Thai noodles. Then there's stuff like the cashew nut butter, which you've bought (or asked me to buy) because it's interesting, and will never be used, and eventually I'll get the blame for not throwing it out.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Taken to RL.

[kake]

doop does this too - I make something on an evening he's out and there's extra because cooking exactly the right amount of food for one person is *hard*, and I tell him to eat it but he feels guilty for "stealing my food", and so it just goes off. Which is silly. He's getting better, though. I think he almost actually believes me now when I tell him I really really do want him to eat the leftovers.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

When I was in a similar situation I found cutting out all luxuries was generally counterproductive; after a week or so I'd just go 'sod it' and splash out on something because I was feeling miserable. Having the pub meals in the budget rather than outside of it is a good idea IMO.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I think that an averae of a pound per person per meal is generally doable but boring. Buying rice, pasta and lentils in bulk helps, as does eating frozen veg, and not buying fresh veg in supermarkets. I've always found the greengrocer on Milton road to have good prices and reasonable stuff.

Are you vegetarian? I can't remember. If not, then frozen mince and tinned fish, while not the nicest of things are fairly cheap.

Herbs and spices are your friend, but I suspect you know that already.

So, if you manag eto use cheap stuff for most of your dinners and lunches, nd just eat cornflakes or something for breakfast, then you can probably manage to have your thursday pub meal, and maybe another nicer meal a week, and still be under 20 pounds (particularly if you can face a couple of dinners of spaghetti-tinned sardines-fresh tomatoes which wouldn't cost more than fifty pence, or lentils/onions/tinned tomatos with rice, or something, and if you can cope with lunch consisting of cheese or ham sandwiches on death bread, some fruit and maybe economy crisps, you can cut lunches down to less than a pound, too, and you can always have omelettes or other more excitin things at the weekend. That way you can have more in the way of yoghruts and biscuits without feeling guilty)

Personally, I sponge rather than do that, but I have no conscience.

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

The frozen mince is very adaptable.
chili, lasagne (with the supermarkets' cheapest nastiest lasagne sheets... ugh), shepherd's pie, burgers, dolmades. etc

[j4.livejournal.com]

Not veggie, no, but don't mind being veggie, IYSWIM. I have no moral or dietary problem with eating dead things but if I can't afford it I just won't eat it. Tinned fish? -- I don't mind tuna, but sardines are revolting. Can't think of any others except red salmon which is like tuna only more expensive.

I don't have breakfast, so that's okay. What's "death bread"?

[kake]

Tinned tuna is utterly marvellous for cheap quick meals.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

*nod* I hate sardines, and generally just add sufficient herbs that it doesn't taste of sardines any more. There's also herring, mackerel and pilchards, all of which are sometimes but not always cheaper than tuna.

Death bread is cheapest nutrition free sliced bread.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Oh, tinned or jarred anchovies, if you like them, make a good pasta sauce too. Soften onion and garlic in butter/marge/oil, throw in some anchovies, let that turn to a really fishy mush while you cook the pasta, then toss the pasta in the mush. If you can get hold of some fresh parsley, throw that into the mush when you drain the pasta.

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I find that £20 is easily doable, even if you buy lots of ready-made things (like pizzas, pies, etc). £15 is okay, but can be a bit boring. The real killers are anything "lifestyle": icecream, pre-packaged wattnots in those airtight containers. For most things I find the co-op good, but I'm not a food officionado. I tend to use the supermarkets, though, for their delis and butchers and things, because they're cheaper by the pound than in those silly presentation packs. It really helps, I think, to bake fill-er-up things like flapjack, which satisfies the need to snack cheaply, :). I'm currently investigating how to make ice-cream without buying silly gadgets (as homemade icecream existed before them), but ice cream is a silly amount of my grocery bill at the moment, :).

What's really costly, though, is doing the buy a sandwich/sausage-roll etc in town at dinner time thing, anbd buying goodies at work. That can add up to another £30 a week for me, or at least did till I realised what it was costing me, :). When things are really dodgy, tea is a good alternative to eating, :).

I go to the Naz for exotic stuff, but there aren't many differentiated shops this side of town. I usually go shopping on Sundays, too, which is a habit I should get out of because it means no market, or many of the small shops.

[angoel.livejournal.com]

I'm currently investigating how to make ice-cream without buying silly gadgets (as homemade icecream existed before them), but ice cream is a silly amount of my grocery bill at the moment, :).

It's not *difficult* to do, just horribly labourious. Basically, you stick your ice-cream mix in the freezer, and then every half hour or so while it's freezing get it out of the freezer and give it a good mix to break up all the ice crystals that have formed. And if you imagine the consistency of fully frozen ice cream, you can see that it's not exactly easy to stir it.

[imc.livejournal.com]

I'm currently investigating how to make ice-cream without buying silly gadgets

Well I was going to point you to Sharon Curtis (http://wwwcms.brookes.ac.uk/~p0073860/)'s extensive list of ice cream recipes (http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~scu/recipes/ices.html), but they seem to have disappeared. The Way Back Machine (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~scu/recipes/ices.html) can be of some help, though.

[claerwen.livejournal.com]

Hmm, sharing and food shopping dilemmas, that takes me back... If I'm being budget-y I buy Asda fresh pasta and Covent Garden soups. They sound like they should be expensive but actually aren't - two packets of the pasta costs £2 something and is enough for four suppers for me and doesn't need anything adding other than pepper and a spoonful of oil, and likewise the soup is under two quid a carton and equals two supper-type meals if you mop it up with loads of bread. And recently I've discovered that couscous (a) only creates one pan of washing up and (b) doesn't need much in the way of added veg to make it nice. The other day I did a cup of couscous, an onion and two red peppers and it was enough for two people, and that can't have come to more than a couple of quid all in.

I think the above suggestion about taking turns to do meals where you each shop and pay for the meals you cook is a good one.

[k425.livejournal.com]

I agree with bopeepsheep that £20 should be okay for a week's food - and yes, you really should budget that pub meal in, it's a treat and treats are important.

What I would suggest is
Decide before you go shopping roughly what you'll cook, and what meals you can have two days in a row, or what different meals you can make with the same ingredients. For instance, one tin of tomatoes can make a simple pasta sauce and a veg chilli. It takes organisation but beats coming home with a bagful of things that looked like a good idea at the time but then you realise you haven't a clue what to do with them.

Buy your fruit and veg loose. It's cheaper that way, you make sure you only get as much as you need, and you can check there aren't any manky peaches (or whatever) that you'll have to chuck straight in the bin.

Keep an eye in the "dead food" section. Sometimes you can find a real treat or bargain there.

Someone mentioned couscous. I think couscous is wonderful. Make a double portion, have one portion hot for dinner, and the other half cold the next day for lunch. I have a nice recipe if you're interested.

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

It's not just couscous that last L two days. All our takeaways (idea for tv series...) seem to turn out to be one meal for me but two for her. Mind you unless you have a remarkably cheap takeaway that's still stretching your budget.