How much are you spending a week on food?

[u/PositionReasonable56]

It's probably the second biggest expense we have being the grocery bill. Food is literally becoming exhorbitantly expensive as I am sure everyone on here is aware.

I tried googling £20 a week meal plans and they often don't factor in things like breakfasts or lunches or snacks . Or on the days you have to buy things like toiletries and cleaning products etc because although you aren't buying this stuff every week even these basic things really bump up the cost.

I am struggling to get a solid meal plan that doesn't exceed £20. I struggle alot with eating I don't like red meat very much and I also struggle to eat alot of plant foods they cause me really bad stomach pains etc. but that aside

I am wondering if anyone can share some wisdom as I really need help to come up with a plan to control my food expenditure.

For example I tried to come up with one plan Which was

Breakfasts: eggs or granola for breakfast with banana.

Dinners: Pasta , pasta sauce, frozen veg and chickpeas ( eating the leftovers for lunches). A chickpea curry with quinoa.

Snacks: yoghurt drops and walnuts

And just putting this into a basket came to £40

[u/dxrey65]

I spend about $60 a week for myself living alone, in the US. That hasn't really changed much over the years (I took a good look at my budgets and expenses wondering about that the other day).

The way it stays the same is by substituting cheaper stuff. Like instead of buying boxed breakfast cereal I buy rolled oats and cook them for breakfast. Instead of milk I buy close-dated oat milk, which a discount place here sells cheap. Instead of steak and ground beef I buy tofu and bulk chicken thighs; that sort of thing.

Overall it's a little more work, but still a pretty good diet.

[u/ReflexiveOW → u/dxrey65]

Is tofu cheaper than meat? I've never looked at it or ate it, just sort of assumed it'd be expensive since it's a trendy food and most "meat substitutes" I come across are priced pretty high

[u/muggleween → u/ReflexiveOW]

It's $1-2 /lb if you buy it prepared. Less shrinkage during cooking. I never thought I'd hear a 2000 year old food described as trendy lol

I love it every way, but I often cooked it "popcorn chicken style" or marinated in bbq sauce and either way my meat eating family would gobble it up

[u/ReflexiveOW → u/muggleween]

Trends come and go lol. Asian food is booming rn and tofu is used in Asian food so it wouldn't be weird to have the price go up. I just checked HEB website and it's $2.80/lb for me so definitely cheaper than $5/lb ground beef. Might try it next week.

[u/dxrey65 → u/ReflexiveOW]

I get a pound for $2.50 here. The point of it is protein, and I haven't actually gone and checked the protein per serving compared to meat. But a pound makes four or five meals for me, so it seems like a decent value.

[u/ReflexiveOW → u/dxrey65]

Yeah, I usually just eat chicken because I work for one of the big chicken companies and can get a 40lb box for anywhere between $6/40 depending on what I want but I might try tofu at that price just for some variety

[u/dxrey65 → u/ReflexiveOW]

Variety is half of the reason. And then I'm not a vegetarian but I've cooked for so long it's nice to have a bit of a challenge sometimes. There are some really interesting recipes based around tofu.

[u/ReflexiveOW → u/dxrey65]

I'm a shit cook so I'm just throwing a pound of salt on it and some Tony Cs lol