How much to feed you for a day?

[Arch]

Prompted by a comment in the Do you want to buy a Warship thread about how much is budgeted for sailors' daily food, I'm thinking about how much I spend on food a day:

Breakfast: Two slices of toast. A Basics wholemeal loaf is 47p, and 22 slices. So, 2p a slice. 4p. Add in marg and honey or jam on each. That's harder to cost, but I suspect a few pence. Tea - half a bag, as I use each one twice, and a slop of milk. Perhaps 10p in total?

Lunch. If I'm being good, a ham sandwich (4p on bread, and 2 slices of Basics ham - that's 50p a pack of 10 slices. 10p on ham!) And a pack of Basic instant noodles, 10p. And a two finger KitKat - I think I paid a pound for a 9 pack. 12p ish. Total: 36p Although that's a good day. I may add an extra Samosa (70p) or Pasty (£1.08!, today's weakness) if I'm feeling weak.

Dinner. More tricky to price. I make a point of keeping my meat/fish/protein budget to 50p or less. Today was 50p worth of mince in spag bol. A quarter of an onion, a quarter of a pepper, an inch of courgette, all hard to price - 20p of pepper, maybe 20p for the onion and courgette? One third of a tin of toms - 15p. Portion of spaghetti (Basics again, it's all the same stuff) - a rough guess at 10p worth. £1.15 Glass of chocolate milk - 20p worth maybe.

None of this includes fuel, of course - I don't know how to calculate that.

So what's that? £1.61 if I'm good, over £2 if I indulge in extra lunch.

Of course, there are a couple of snacks - a couple of chocolate digestives, an ounce or two of cheese, cups of tea. It helps that I have simple tastes, and am not bothered about a bit of monotony - I can eat the same lunch everyday - although one day I week I buy a filled roll and cake instead (£3.60!), and at weekends I treat myself to some sushi or something. I buy cheap food, but like to think I can jazz it up to make it perfectly tasty - something I learned growing up in a home with little money to spare. Of course, it also helps that I can cook fairly confidently, and turn out a variety of two pot dishes (something on pasta, something on rice, stirfry etc)

I'm quite pleased to see how little I could spend, if I was good all the time.

Go on then, what do you spend?

 

[gb155]

at 40 stone ? around £20 a day !!!!!

 

[Night Train]

Based on your feeding habits, Arch, I reckon I would be close to £10 per day.

If I buy food at college then breakfast is £1.80, lunch is £2.80, Twix and Mars bar is £1.30, that's £5.90 already and I haven't even got the the two Twining's Earl Grey teabags and dinner when I get home.

 

[Arch]

Based on your feeding habits, Arch, I reckon I would be close to £10 per day.

If I buy food at college then breakfast is £1.80, lunch is £2.80, Twix and Mars bar is £1.30, that's £5.90 already and I haven't even got the the two Twining's Earl Grey teabags and dinner when I get home.

I think it all shows how much more food costs if you buy it ready made! Even if my dull ham sandwich had some mustard, or cheese and salad in it, I couldn't make it cost the couple of quid it would cost in a supermarket.

I have plenty of days when I splash out a bit more, but it's nice to know how little I can get by on if I pull my horns in a bit.

 

[potsy]

Always had you down as a cheap bird Arch but didn't realise just how cheap

I haven't worked it out properly but would imagine around £5 a day average, more at weekends when we tend to have a take-out or 2

 

[PBancroft]

Oh, god a fortune. Probably about £20 a day on average, sometimes more.

Usually no breakfast, but if I do its fresh fruit
6+ mugs of tea a day
Usually a panini, packet of crisps and orange juice for lunch - about £4.40 (sometimes I make my own lunch, but its the exception)
Tea is always freshly made, with local ingredients bought from butcher, farm shop or own grown where possible but that has a cost. I'm a big wine drinker too, about 2/3 of a bottle on average.

I reckon £20 is about right. I feel so dirty....

EDIT: This is all wrong. I'm feeding two here for breakfast and tea, and my wife usually has the leftovers for her lunch the following day. But still... bloody hell.

 

[2Loose]

Cheap? I'd pay a small fortune to have someone budget like you to budget and shop for me Arch. It would quickly pay for the investment.

A quick calculation suggests about 7 pound a day plus booze (which at least doubles it over a week...must cut back and save). Far more if I have Miss Loose staying, 5yr olds are so demanding and sweets are so dear.

 

[meenaghman]

well going on yesterday's feed
2 slices of toast with butter +cup of tea -> approx 1quid
dinner @ my sisters --> approx 10 quid (when you take into account wine and dessert and assuming I'd pay for my portion)10 pints of guinness @3.60 euros -> 36 Euros (although I spent over 80 so must have been buying for folk)
chips and burger --> 6quid

feeling like a boiled sh*te today -> priceless

 

[mangaman]

I've just worked mine out - about £7 a day on average - with the occasional blow-out!

£2 a day is seriously impressive!

PBancroft - £20 a day

I don't know if you drink 2/3 bottles of wine a day - in which case that'll be the expensive bit. (And a lot of alcohol - although I'm not here to criticise - it's your life

)

Yesterday I met a friend in the evening and had a 3 course meal in Pizza Express, which was OK - and we had a voucher for money off the pizza - for £16 a head.

I'd had no breakfast and a £1.50 sarnie for lunch, so I only spent about £20 when we threw in a tip.

Normally I spend about £6-7 I've calculated. Often less and sometimes a lot more when I feel like going for it!

Arch's £2 must be a winner though

 

[Night Train]

I have budgeted, like Arch, in the past and survived on very little.
That was about the time I first moved up to Manchester and had no work, no JSA and had to feed myself, wife, dog and 5 cats on a paltry bit of house keeping money.

My Mum budgets like Arch and makes her pension go a very long way.

 

[Arch]

Well, as I said, I do have the odd treat!

It probably helps that I don't tend to drink alcohol at home - I stick to water, or tea, or juice (or chocolate milk, my vice). If we go to the pub after work of course, thats a few quid. Sometimes I go really crazy at a weekend and buy a can of ready mixed G and T!

I guess if you added in my weekend treats and stuff, I might go up to 3 or 4 pounds a day, on average. And eating out obviously sends it right up. But it's because I'm tight most of the time, I can afford to eat out!

Also, in the past when I earned more, I spent more (mostly on takeaways). The trick is having the ability to cut your cloth to suit your means and all that.

 

[mangaman]

Well, as I said, I do have the odd treat!

I guess if you added in my weekend treats and stuff, I might go up to 3 or 4 pounds a day, on average.

Arch you hedonist

Also, in the past when I earned more, I spent more (mostly on takeaways). The trick is having the ability to cut your cloth to suit your means and all that.

I agree - it's takeaways / pre-prepared food and alcohol that rockets up your food bills. It's amazing what shopping around / knowing local suppliers / knowing how to cook can save an absolute fortune, although I still bow down before your £2 a day!

 

[Arch]

Of course, another key thing is knowing the best time to shop to get stuff reduced to clear! With my miserly meat budget, reductions are a godsend - I repack stuff into portions and freeze for later.

The other thing is to know what cheap stuff is worth having, and where it pays to get slightly better quality. I've found that the majority of Basics stuff is fine, but the wheat bisks are a mistake I won't make again....

(and I've realised, I over estimated the cost of my mince - it was a quarter of a £1 pack, so only 25p...)

 

[ColinJ]

If I averaged it out, it would probably be about £4 a day but I don't make any effort to save money on food and drink, and I probably eat at least three times what you do!

(That figure excludes alcohol! The number would be very different if that was taken into account.)

 

[marzjennings]

Tough one to work out, but for a working day, a fry up in the morning (3xbacon,2x eggs, tomato, mushrooms) maybe $3, lunch usually a salad from the deli, $9-$11 and dinner I'll cook something up for everyone and I would guess my share (as the biggest gut) would be about $10. So $22-$24 or about 15 quid a day. No snacks ( I don't need to snack) and no booze during the working week.