Author Topic: Food budgets  (Read 6839 times)

ian

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #25 on: 02 January, 2021, 09:14:54 pm »
I’m pretty sure my cats don’t get by on £20/week.

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #26 on: 02 January, 2021, 09:17:56 pm »
I am in Sheffield, which is likely a contributing factor.

ian

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #27 on: 02 January, 2021, 09:21:00 pm »
True. My cats are in Surrey and only eat poached griffin. Organic griffin.

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #28 on: 02 January, 2021, 09:23:48 pm »
When we lived in Sheffield our rent was super cheap and yeah other things were too. One day I might manage to move back there! :)

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #29 on: 02 January, 2021, 09:36:42 pm »
I fancy moving to Surrey, what does poached griffin taste like?
Quote from: tiermat
that's not science, it's semantics.

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #30 on: 02 January, 2021, 09:56:00 pm »
I fancy moving to Surrey, what does poached griffin taste like?


Griffin is like extra rancid gammon...
Not fast & rarely furious

tweeting occasional in(s)anities as andrewxclark

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Food budgets
« Reply #31 on: 03 January, 2021, 11:07:51 am »
My shopping comes to £33.77 per week for the last year

I’m amazed anyone can be so precise.

But then my idea of budgeting is checking how much is left in the account before going shopping... this probably explains a lot.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #32 on: 03 January, 2021, 02:07:59 pm »


When I lived in the UK I was on a salary controlled diet. I would goto Sainsbury's with a £10 note, and knew that had to last me a week's worth of food. I'm no Jack Monroe, but I was pretty damn good at making that happen.

Since I moved to .NL, my income went up dramatically. I stopped caring about how much I spent on the supermarket, bought what I needed, etc...

Then I had a spell out of work, so went back on the Salary controlled diet again. Now I'm back in work again I am getting food delivered, which means I am doing bigger shops. So now rather than doing 3 ~€25 shopping trip over a two week period, I'm doing a much bigger order. I also am splitting it with a housemate. The other day we put an order in. It came to €264 from the supermarket, then another €22 from a veg shop (5kg of spuds, 2.5kg onion, 1kg carrots, 1 cabbage, 1kg apples, and delivery). The hope is this will last us at least 2 weeks. Making it 286/4, so €71 per person, per week. Including some alcohol (tho not much), and laundry detergent. But I think we may be able to make this all stretch to 3 weeks (we may need to go get more bread tho), in which case it's just under €50 per person per week. Which feels... a lot... Esp when you consider that we're still using stuff that's in the freezer from previous purchases (mostly meat, there's a load of mince and the like in there).

I think I need more data points...

J

--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

tiermat

  • According to Jane, I'm a Unisex SpaceAdmin
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #33 on: 03 January, 2021, 02:33:32 pm »
For three of us our weekly food bill is £80 in total.

It helps that I love cooking and we rarely have anything premade.

Our yearly cookbook bills are probably best not scrutinised though :)
I feel like Captain Kirk, on a brand new planet every day, a little like King Kong on top of the Empire State

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #34 on: 03 January, 2021, 02:38:36 pm »
For three of us our weekly food bill is £80 in total.

It helps that I love cooking and we rarely have anything premade.

Our yearly cookbook bills are probably best not scrutinised though :)

We don't do ready meals, the closest we come would be something like oven chips. Everything else I make from scratch.

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #35 on: 03 January, 2021, 02:51:19 pm »
I would consider whether food in NL costs more than the UK for the same items - especially fresh food for "from scratch" prep. It could be an interesting exercise to do some basic price comparisons.

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #36 on: 03 January, 2021, 03:03:35 pm »
I would consider whether food in NL costs more than the UK for the same items - especially fresh food for "from scratch" prep. It could be an interesting exercise to do some basic price comparisons.

I tried that when I first moved here, the problem is there aren't many foods I can buy here, and in the uk, in the same way. My local supermarkets do not have loose veg in the same way as in .UK. I'd goto sainsburies and buy 3 potatoes. Here I have to get 0.5kg 1.5kg, 2.5kg or 5kg. I'd often buy 1 onion. Here the onion sold in bags are so pissingly small as to be just annoying. Same for the spuds, they are so damn tiny in supermarkets. One of the reasons I ordered 5kg from a specialist online shop is that they are bigger. Esp useful if you want to make jacket potatoes.

Crisps, in .UK I'd sometimes buy a multipack, and then ration them to one pack a day. Here the only multipack is 7 ready salted, and 8 paprika. So I end up getting 120g big bags, and try not to eat them all in one day.

On a per item basis, it's impossible to compare costs. Hence thinking of it from a "How much to feed a person for a week" point of view...

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #37 on: 03 January, 2021, 03:14:36 pm »
Since The Event I've been doing a well-rehearsed forage at the local Aldi every Monday night just before closing time. Typically comes to about £20. No meat or alcohol, no ready meals, but a fair amount of processed frozen/chilled stuff as I don't really cook anything from scratch.

The pupper who refuses to eat dry food has consumed getting on for that much in a week when she has the fancy tinned stuff (Lily's Kitchen). I've tried explaining to her that's it mostly water, but she doesn't want to listen. Fortunately she's bored of it now.

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #38 on: 03 January, 2021, 03:16:09 pm »
..Ironically, I suspect it costs a lot more because we buy actual ingredients rather than ready-made stuff ...
I tend to agree with you, but what a strange world we live in, when cooking your own recipes at home costs you more than buying industrially processed food. I once checked that the price of flour, eggs, butter and sugar was actually higher than the price of a ready made cake.

A

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #39 on: 03 January, 2021, 03:18:51 pm »
..Ironically, I suspect it costs a lot more because we buy actual ingredients rather than ready-made stuff ...
I tend to agree with you, but what a strange world we live in, when cooking your own recipes at home costs you more than buying industrially processed food. I once checked that the price of flour, eggs, butter and sugar was actually higher than the price of a ready made cake.

A

Who would have thought it, the economies of scale actually work...

Same reason it's easier to buy a pallet of bricks, than it is to build your own kiln... same as it's easier to buy stuff from ikea, than it is to buy a tree and saw it yourself...

Cooking from scratch, for 1 person, is probably the most inefficient way of doing it.

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Food budgets
« Reply #40 on: 03 January, 2021, 03:26:26 pm »
I’d guess a lot of the price differences between countries come down to local dietary customs and preferences - if you want to eat in a fiscally prudent way, best to go native.

When I lived in France, you could get baked beans but they were strictly a luxury item. I also tended to eat a lot more couscous than pasta, largely for reasons of cost.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #41 on: 03 January, 2021, 03:29:16 pm »
I’d guess a lot of the price differences between countries come down to local dietary customs and preferences - if you want to eat in a fiscally prudent way, best to go native.

When I lived in France, you could get baked beans but they were strictly a luxury item. I also tended to eat a lot more couscous than pasta, largely for reasons of cost.

Recently cooked:

Hachee
Draadjesvlees
Stamppot Boerenkohl..

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #42 on: 03 January, 2021, 03:30:34 pm »
I once checked that the price of flour, eggs, butter and sugar was actually higher than the price of a ready made cake.

Butter is expensive. I would guess the typical Mr Kipling cake doesn’t actually contain any butter.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #43 on: 03 January, 2021, 03:31:38 pm »
I’d guess a lot of the price differences between countries come down to local dietary customs and preferences - if you want to eat in a fiscally prudent way, best to go native.

When I lived in France, you could get baked beans but they were strictly a luxury item. I also tended to eat a lot more couscous than pasta, largely for reasons of cost.

Recently cooked:

Hachee
Draadjesvlees
Stamppot Boerenkohl..

J

And you and your housemate are even going Dutch on the shopping!
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #44 on: 03 January, 2021, 03:35:15 pm »
My shopping comes to £33.77 per week for the last year

I’m amazed anyone can be so precise.

But then my idea of budgeting is checking how much is left in the account before going shopping... this probably explains a lot.

I keep a spreadsheet, broken down into categories.

The main reason was to work out how much income I need to be able to retire - ie, remove mortgage, commuting, etc, how much do I actually spend?

At the start I thought it might indicate areas where I should cut down expenditure, but the opposite is true - I saw how much I spent on gifts and charity over a year and realised I could increase those.
Quote from: tiermat
that's not science, it's semantics.

ian

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #45 on: 03 January, 2021, 07:02:00 pm »
Today was £198. I've no idea why, there wasn't even that much booze, about six cans and some cider because I sniffed some apples yesterday and got an urge. No gin. The cats set me back about £14 (two packs of posho cat food because the won't eat the cheap stuff and a bag of cat litter for them to kick about the house). My wife did that thing with a box of cherries (£5) where I tell her to put them back and so she takes them out of the trolley twists and makes like she's putting them back on the shelf but instead just puts them back in the trolley. She also puts stuff in when I'm off messing with the Daily Mail (I wait till no one is looking and then put another newspaper on top, usually the Croydon Guardian, so it looks like they've run out). I sometimes try to put her stuff back when she's not looking but it turns out that she's always looking.

A chicken cost me £11 and some duck legs about £7. There's a small ocean of fish (Icelandic cod, salmon, smoked salmon, prawns) which cost shedloads but think of the vitamin D. I'm not risking rickets. Sausages. Fruit and veg is never cheap (broccoli, courgettes, peppers, tomatoes, leeks, spring greens, potatoes, shallots, turmeric (so, so middle-class), all sorts of chilli peppers, garlic, chestnut mushrooms oranges, melons (x2), blueberries, kiwis, those bloody cherries, apples and pears). Pies are expensive (£4.50 each) but Wednesday is pie and mash night and I can't be bothered with the palaver of making my own. Sliced ham, olives, butter, double cream, creme fraiche, and a big tub of plain yoghurt, tuna pate and bread rolls (for lunch), some pastries (for tea), tonic water (medicinal, we've been self-medicating with a daily g&t since the current unpleasantness started and we've not caught covid yet, coincidence, I think not). Some random toiletries and a big pack of kitchen towels. Mini-Cheddars because they're the king of snacks (the red leicester ones though, they're the best).

There was a plant (£10) and two bunches of flowers (about £12). Apparently not for eating.

Some other sundries I've forgotten about, but it all evidently adds up. I'm not sure how some of you get it so cheap. I have tried living in Sheffield (it's true, by Ecclesall Park), it wasn't that helpful.

We're not entirely mental, we do go in with an idea of what we plan to eat the following week (fish curry, pie and mash night, Hainanese-ish chicken, duck leg curry, smoked salmon lasagne, pizza, sausage ragu pasta thing).


Re: Food budgets
« Reply #46 on: 03 January, 2021, 07:10:04 pm »
Between £60 & £80 (depending on how much booze we buy) a week for the two of us at the supermarket. Includes cleaning materials and bog roll, kitchen roll, shampoo, etc.

And every few weeks we do an online shop for the bulky and long life stuff, and more alcohol, that varies between £100 & £200.

We certainly could spend less but we like to eat well. And whilst we never threw much out we've been even better the last several months at using everything up. Mostly this means if the veg is a bit too sad for anything else I make a soup.

Don't keep records but I expect we've been spending more lately but that's countered by not eating/drinking out or going anywhere.
Miles cycled 2014 = 3551.5 (Target 7300 :()
Miles cycled 2013 = 6141.4
Miles cycled 2012 = 4038.1

Re: Food budgets
« Reply #47 on: 03 January, 2021, 07:44:16 pm »
Since I've been working at home our drink food bill has increased.
We click & collect or get deliveries and it's somewhere between £50 & £150.
We don't buy ready meals but One of us has a brand problem. If I've recently collected a care package from work it's much cheaper.
We did a whole 30 for June, and that was more expensive - 3 meals every day seems an awful lot.
ETA: that doesn't include the stuff we get on Subscribe&Save.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #48 on: 03 January, 2021, 07:58:59 pm »
One of us has a brand problem.

That’s a whole other topic... fortunately, there are only a few things I’m really that picky about, where I’m adamant the difference is noticeable enough to be worth the extra cost.

Pet food is not one of those things though. I don’t know if the dog is happy with Aldi own-brand dry dog food, but the choice is that or going hungry.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Food budgets
« Reply #49 on: 03 January, 2021, 08:01:17 pm »
I keep a spreadsheet, broken down into categories.

I’ve tried doing that - or at least using apps like Quicken - but I don’t have the self discipline to keep it up for more than a few weeks at a time. Probably should make more effort. I know it would be beneficial.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."