£5 Food Week Challenge

£5 a week is not a lot but I would imagine it's possible for a student.

My wife and I have a food budget of £25 a week which includes food for us (and also to an extent the dog). With proper meal planning and budgeting it's definitely possible to make massive supermarket savings - we used to speand £40-50 a week.
 
My housemate and I spend maybe £30/week between us, £50 when we need to buy a lot / include alcohol.

We eat fine, I don't understand how people can spend so much more. Or, equally, not be able to make good meals on a £20/week budget - the key is cooking in groups!
 
I find shopping online can save some cash as well as it stops you walking round picking up random crap you really dont need although i only use it when i can find a free delivery code which isnt too hard
 
£100 a week?! :eek:

£5 a week is really, really pushing it. I can and have done £1 a day but it was really, really bleak. £10 a week is significantly better both in terms of the quality of the food you eat and some variety so you dont get scurvy :p
 
I think 3 cheap loaves of bread (£1.50)

Then as many eggs and beans as you can get for £3.50. (you can probably get 7 x 20-25p value beans, then 24 battery hen eggs (:() for £2)

Toast for breakfast.

1/2 tin bean on toast and an egg for lunch.

1/2 tin beans on toast and 2 eggs for dinner

Get a packet of value chocolate biscuits for snacking (£0.25).
 
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DRZ said:
£100 a week?! :eek:
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Well my mortgage isn't much at all, the missus and I both pull in 'good' money. spend between 60-120 depending.

We eat a lot of fresh food (fish, veg, meat etc), and get a lot of stuff for lunches, family round for meals etc. Why shouldn't you if you can? I lived on bugger all for months and now I like to enjoy being able to get what I like to eat.
 
Im on about £5 a day now but when i was a student-

2 packs mince meat £2.50
pasta/rice £1
tinned tomatoes 50p
load of bread 50p
a couple of apples/other fruit/jam 50p
 
£5 per week on food is really not good for your health. You simply cannot eat anything like a balanced diet on such a low budget; that doesn't even flicker on the poverty radar, it's far lower than that.

My advice would be to forget about getting recipe suggestions to fit around the £5 and instead get a supporting job/spend less on booze/do something else to allow you a chance at not ******* up your body.
 
[FnG]magnolia;11329824 said:
£5 per week on food is really not good for your health. You simply cannot eat anything like a balanced diet on such a low budget; that doesn't even flicker on the poverty radar, it's far lower than that.

My advice would be to forget about getting recipe suggestions to fit around the £5 and instead get a supporting job/spend less on booze/do something else to allow you a chance at not ******* up your body.
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mine has it all. Meat carbs and vitamins. Its better than buying 5 £1 pizzas anyway!
 
Biohazard said:
Well my mortgage isn't much at all, the missus and I both pull in 'good' money. spend between 60-120 depending.

We eat a lot of fresh food (fish, veg, meat etc), and get a lot of stuff for lunches, family round for meals etc. Why shouldn't you if you can? I lived on bugger all for months and now I like to enjoy being able to get what I like to eat.
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Here here. Couldn't agree more with 'why shouldn't you if you can?' If you can spend £30 a week on rank student nights getting ratted why only £5 on food.
I'm the first to admit my budget is different to most but still:
student loan is like £3k isnt it?
student term is how many weeks? I dont do maths, but that should mean you can spend more than £5 a week on food. In london £5 gets you a pack of crisps, sandwich and drink with one random item in the union.
If you get a part time job in the union behind the bar that means free drinks + if you're shifty/sly extra money from short changing.
Making money is easy if you want to and eating is such a great pleasure in life that it's worth every penny. Its like women like spa days and shopping. I like going to a nice supermarket/ department store in London and buying some top quality ingredients and always feel satisfied. My wardrobe however, has suffered because of said indulgence.

Student overdraft + student loan= enough to spend sufficiently on your wellbeing and happiness: both of which are directly effected by what you eat. Plus if you eat well you wont get spots or look like a typical geek as such, your health is more important than the other random carp you spend your cash on.
/rant
 
I suppose that saying "spend more" isnt really all that helpful if he doesn't actually have the money to spend out on food, and £5 a week really is all he has to live on and he cant do away with other things because he already has!

With that in mind, £5 a week is probably best spent buying a loaf of bread a week (freezing it to minimise waste!), noodles or pasta (or both) and veg. Buying meat in this sort of pickle is FAR too expensive and depending on how long he has to go on £5 a week before he gets some money, I would guess that the lack of protein would be alright for a while. Vegetarians substitute things in for meat that are quite high in protein so I would hunt one of them down and ask.

If you have any change at all from the above I would save it up and buy some multivitamin tablets!
 
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