How much do you spend on food per week?

[Rave]

The cheapest thing I can have on the go is a sandwich, which costs at least £2 upward, and I reckon they aren't too unhealthy if you pick wisely. I find that making my own sandwich is not necessarily cheaper.

Well, you're not doing it right then. Even the poshest loaf is £1.30-1.40 and that should last one person for three days. I'm happy with those spreadable butter mixes which are £1-ish for 500g but even 250g of proper butter is only a pound or so if you shop around. Then yer fillings- say a tin of tuna, some mayonnaise and some sweetcorn- well under a pound. So, per day, that's a pound or so for two rounds of sandwiches, which is usually enough to see me through until dinner (I'm not a big fan of breakfast, coffee and a cigarette is more my style). When I'm being lazy I just use Lidl peanut butter, so two rounds costs me about 50p.

Supermarket pizza can be had for about £2.25 each when bought in pairs,

Lidl do numerous two packs of tasty pizza for £2 or less, so less than £1 per pizza. Even cheaper when they're on offer, as they frequently are.

though they are typically horrendous health wise (a whole pizza often exceed 100% of the for RDA fat).

Are you fat? I personally worry far less about the fat in my food than the fat around my stomach, which I find to be far more easily measureable. It's still reasonable at the moment (I've had the same 32" waist for about 15 years).

In practice though, I only eat like that when I am really busy (revising for exams etc.). If I have time to eat outside, I can't expect to spend much less than a fiver for lunch or dinner. Lately, I've been going to my local pub for dinner quite frequently, because they often have specials during the week. For instance, Tuesday is the one day of the week I allow myself red meat in the form of a steak (which I take with salad and potatoes - I am trying to cut down on chips these days) and together a drink only costs me a little over £6 quid. I consider that a bargain, and I am not sure if it would be any cheaper to make my own 8oz sirloin steak or 12oz rump steak with the sides.

My local Wetherspoon only do a 10oz rump- am I getting scammed because of where I live?

Anyway, again, it certainly would be cheaper to do your own. The going rate for rump steak in the supermarket is about £10-12 per kilo, so a 12oz steak should cost four quid as an absolute maximum. I rarely pay that much as I snap up the reduced stuff and freeze it for when I need it. Lidl's rump steak is £11 a kilo right now (although it used to be quite a lot cheaper) but they frequently slap a 30% off sticker on it when it's still perfectly fresh- in fact it seems to be the steak with the best marbling that gets reduced; I guess most people round here have no idea what makes for a tasty steak (my best friend who claims to be a steak afficionado rejected a steak on the basis that it had too much marbling- idiot!).

Onion rings are £70p a bag a Lidl, a bag of very nice oven bake potato wedges about the same, a single baking potato should cost no more than 30p. A four pack of beer is about £3. So, assuming I've got a deal on the steak, I'd be paying about £4 max for a Wetherspoon-Tuesday-deal-esque steak meal.

It's still a great deal if you're going down the pub for a couple of drinks anyway, but it's not a moneysaver.

On the other hand, I am also a sucker for smoothies. They aren't cheap in the least when I think about it, but I don't think I have gone a week on average without having one.

My wife got into buying frozen bags of cubed fruit for smoothies. I'm pretty sure they were about a pound a bag and would do about 4 smoothies if you added a banana and milk, so about 60p per smoothie. You need a blender of course.

So how much do you spend on your three meals per day, and what are they made of?

Back when I lived on my own or in a shared house (1999-2001) my weekly shopping bill including toiletries, washing powder etc. etc. was rarely more than £25. Nowadays my wife and I probably spend £70-£100 a week between us on shopping/eating, and to me, that seems a lot. Still a max of £50 each tho. You could easily make considerable savings.

[Stewart]

Like Hex our food bills are low because we... wait for it... wait for it... COOK THINGS!11!!1!

See, we get food, put it in pots and pans, heat it, then plate it up and eat it, just like they did in the olden days. In doing so we save money and don't have to eat 4 pounds of salt per meal.

Amazing, huh?

[CaseyV9]

Are you fat? I personally worry far less about the fat in my food than the fat around my stomach, which I find to be far more easily measureable. It's still reasonable at the moment (I've had the same 32" waist for about 15 years).

That's bad. Too much saturated will clog up your arteries. So you may not get fat but it'll clog you up on the insides

Still, you could do worse and binge on Trans fat form your local Chip shop take away thingies.

Although, if you die of a heart attack at an early age you will certainly be spending a lot less than the rest of us

[Rave]

That's bad. Too much saturated will clog up your arteries. So you may not get fat but it'll clog you up on the insides

I would believe this if I saw any evidence of slim people regularly dieing of heart attacks.

But I don't.

[Theo]

We have a limited budget of £40/week on shopping (inc delivery). We tend to buy cleaning products toward the end of the month, so the last week's meals are usually in more of a peasant, sort of style (corned beef hash, mass-cooked chilli, etc).

We shop online and pay for delivery. I find we spend less when shopping online, as we aren't spotting random offers that take our fancy and we have a running tally of the total cost.

Having a look at offers, then planning meals around them helps a lot too! Next week, we will mostly be eating chicken breasts for lunch. Asda have an offer on!

[TAKTAK]

our weekly supermarket bill is £160 for 4 of us. so £40 each.. but that includes everything (i.e. deodorant ect)... and we get alot of fresh stuff like meat and fish, but we get alot of own brand stuff cos it's very decent quality... we use waitrose (they deliver it too ) because it actually works out cheaper (for us) than tesco or asda

[LeeP]

£20-30 a week - living on my own, take my own food to work and cook all my meals pretty much, very rare I have a takeaway. My main downfall is pizza and posh orange juice. Oh and burgers. Still. Tropicana can't be beaten!

[Lucio]

....posh orange juice. .... Still. Tropicana can't be beaten!

lol That is *not* posh Orange juice!! it's made from concentrated exactly the same as all the other cheap ones!

[handscombmp]

lol That is *not* posh Orange juice!! it's made from concentrated exactly the same as all the other cheap ones!

It tastes much better what ever it is

[Funkstar]

I buy Tropicana as well because I like the taste. But I should really do to Lidl and get a few of their glass bottles of orange. It is thick with bits, so much so you are actually better putting a little water in it to thin it down. Damed tasty though, and dirt cheap.

As for how much I spend on week in a week I really have no idea. A decent trip to the supermarket is about £30, but thats just for a full basket (can't be arsed with trolleys), how long this lasts varies. I usually get stuff for sandwiches at work, but then end up having to go to Tesco instead as I forget to make them at night and don't have time in the morning.

Basically I'm lazy. I also eat out quite a lot when I'm at home, makes up for the megre portions of terrible food I'm eating for 6 weeks straight down here.

[Hyuukai]

Atm im leeching of my parents but soon im going to uni at lancaster, then i will feel the pain of shopping, specially as they only have a sainbury's

[TooNice]

it's made from concentrated exactly the same as all the other cheap ones!

I am pretty sure they claim that it's 100% pure so I'd expect them to be done for false advertising if it isn't. Still, my definition of 'posh drinks' would be Innocent smoothies. Which I am guilty of consuming (though usually when I find it on sale).

[steve threlfall]

Atm im leeching of my parents but soon im going to uni at lancaster, then i will feel the pain of shopping, specially as they only have a sainbury's

Feed your family for a fiver

Freeze three of the portions or share with your housemates. Noodles and Pasta are cheap and filling

Go to the supermarket about half an hour before they close and pick up some bargains.

Innocent smoothies ftw. Tropicana may be 100% pure but that doesn't mean it isn't made from concentrate im afraid. We get cartons of real juice fairly cheap

http://beverage.foodbev.com/ManagedI...imon-range.jpg

Your should only have one small glass a day so they last a fair bit anyway.

[.Style]

Im only 16 but i know that my mum spends about £150 to £200 a week for 4..1 18, 1 16 and two adults....

[format]

About £20-30 for me a week, depending on how skint I am

[format]

I would believe this if I saw any evidence of slim people regularly dieing of heart attacks.

But I don't.

Despite the negative side of saturated fats they provide benefits. Coconut and palm oils are examples of beneficial saturated fats although very little testing has been done on these fats the FDA will claim that they are bad for you. Diets high in saturated fat are correlated with an increased incidence of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease according to a number of studies, both African green monkeys[4] and human, such as a study of infant diets [5], 22 hypercholesterolemic men [6][7][8] Some studies have suggested that diets high in saturated fat increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Epidemiological studies have found that those whose diets are high in saturated fatty acids, including lauric, myristic, palmitic, and stearic acid, had a higher prevalence of coronary heart disease.[9][10][11][12] Additionally, controlled experimental studies have found that people consuming high saturated fat diets experience negative cholesterol profile changes.[5][13][14][15] A 2003 meta-analysis published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that diets high in saturated fat negatively affected cholesterol profiles — predictors of a heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases.[16]

Good enough?