I think the more pertinent question is WTF do you buy as a single person for you to spend around £120/week in food?
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Mortgage Rate Rises
- Thread starter glenimp617
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I think the more pertinent question is WTF do you buy as a single person for you to spend around £120/week in food?
He must be getting Pret everyday and takeout every night, it would be the only way i'd reach that expendure
If you're good with managing money (which it sounds like you are) and have good self restraint, then I'd be tempted to take the mortgage out over a longer period (say 20 years), but overpay at your planned rate (12 years).
If you go get your maths right and stick to the plan, then you'll still pay off your mortgage by your original date and it'll cost you the same amount, BUT if your income takes a hit you have a safety net in that you could fall back to the minimum monthly payments and not overpay until your income is back on track.
Of course if you're tempted to drop your overpayments in exchange for a car/holiday, then it'll cost you a lot more in the long run.
You'd also need to ensure the mortgage allows overpayments and you don't exceed any overpayment cap.
Soldato
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Mortgage £354 basically stopped me in my tracks. What you need to do is earn more money, and you should focus on that and do not make any calculations about mortgage interest rates or so forth.
Holy smokes, are you eating a steak every night? For 2 of us I reckon our food bill is around 300-350 a month, and that includes the odd takeaway.
That works out about a tenner a day / fiver a day each.
Yours works out as £16/17 a day.
Why should he do that? Perhaps he likes his job?
Not all of us are motivated by money. Being happy in your job is worth more than a higher wage in a more stressful job.
As long as your outgoings are covered with a little bit to spare.
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How is that kind of attitude going to help this government’s vision of a high pay, high skills workforce you heathen!
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Really isn’t that hard. It’s way more realistic than the other poster who reckons he spends £40/ week.
We are a house of 2 adults, child and small dog and we spend between £150-£200 on food/ household shopping. Granted circa £20 of that is beers / wine. And I spend about £8/ day on lunch 3 days a week when I’m working in London. The posters that always post such frugal lists of expenditure like it’s some kind of weird Bragg either get it wrong or live a very ‘tight’ not normal/ typical lifestyle. £15 on pet food? I have a westie who eats pretty cheap cesar which is £20 a month and that’s just dinners. Then has some better quality dry food for breakfast which is about £16/ month. Then there are some training treats etc. So say £40 a month on a small dog. What pet food is £15/ month?
If it’s fish food or say something like a lizard then fair enough i stand corrected.
How does your circumstances relate? The OP lives alone, you are a household of 3.
When I lived alone, my food shopping averaged out at £120/month as well.
To me - @MatsyLR seems to have his head screwed on and is being extremely sensible which is why he can afford his home on minimum wage and have £10k in the bank (equivalent to almost a year of basic expenditure if he loses his job)... Fair play to him
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We spend ~£400* on food & groceries/month. 2 adults, 2 kids, and we definitely don't live on a very "tight" or "not normal" lifestyle. Well. Unless "normal" is takeaway 4 nights a week, ready meals the other 3, throwing away huge amounts of waste, and spending 3-4x the amount on branded products which are exactly the same thing just with a different label.
As for pet food - we have 4 cats and feed them Purina One and Gourmet Gold - sure it's not high end premium stuff, but it's not bottom of the barrel cheap rubbish either, and we pay £60 every 6 weeks - so ~£10/week. So we're paying the same for 4 cats as you're paying for 1 dog (and it would be half that if it weren't for the older one who needs the wet stuff!).
While your £200/week isn't "unrealistic", it certainly doesn't sound like you're shopping smart or getting good value for money; I could easily feed myself for £40/week if I was on my own, but then I do have the abiltiy to actually cook, which seems to be lacking these days...
* granted in the last few months it's crept up a bit so probably closer to £450 now.
3 adults here. Around £90 a week so roughly 3 x what MatsyLR spends as a singleton. Most of shop is at Aldi (yes i know a lot on here snub their noses but im happy with most of Aldis stuff) , remainder at others like sainsbury's or asda etc.
Fruit and Veg is fairly cheap all things considered. So eat plenty of those. Meals are prepped, bit of batch cooking for things like stew and cottage pies etc. No takeaways. Don't drink alcohol or smoke. Make my lunch for work night before instead of buying at work. Take my own drink (squash).
I am under £30 a week on food i reckon, including 2 bottles of wine, i cook fresh in my ninja or batch cook big curry's and chilli's ,wholemeal Italian ect ,dinner at work is 2 massive vegan cheese sandwiches crammed with salad and v mayo in wholemeal bread ,and assorted fruit
Also i drive past Tesco on the way to work they have a discounted 5 a day display that rotates fruit and veg and i check out the Clubcard deals ,on the whole though i find Lidl (rubbish for vegans) and Aldi cheaper, especially oat milk (need to try making it)
edit/ coffee from b and m
Also i drive past Tesco on the way to work they have a discounted 5 a day display that rotates fruit and veg and i check out the Clubcard deals ,on the whole though i find Lidl (rubbish for vegans) and Aldi cheaper, especially oat milk (need to try making it)
edit/ coffee from b and m
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I appreciate the circumstances are different. I was thinking back to when it was just me and the other half and we used to spend and £90/ week and that was 7 years or so ago. Prices have gone mad recently.
For avoidance of doubt, whilst I don’t bargain hunt I don’t shop completely stupidly either.
You always seem to have lived well though. We're a family of three, with a cat and small dog, and spend about £100 a week. And that's not scrimping.
£30 a week (i've just taken his food portion since my numbers don't include a pet) per person seems realistic to me. My average grocery shopping per month over the last 6 months has been £196.33 for 2 adults and 1 child. Across the same period we had a spend of £39.42 a month on food/drink things like cafe's/donuts/random food things while out. So call it £60 a week for everything related to food. We are aware of the costs and try to keep them low but don't "skimp" either, (eg i'm often in the cheese isle just grabbing all sorts of speciality cheeses, my wife likes to buy some soft drinks like spirit and other stuff like dried mangos etc - all unnecessary if we wanted to reduce expenditure further)
Soldato
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£500 a month on food? Are you American?
I budget £100 a month for myself but within that I am out 2-3 nights a week at parents or seeing my boys and so eat out those 3 nights. This includes all household cleaning and toiletries. Batch cook on a Sunday 4-5 different dishes divided into 5 portions each and you have enough to rotate around the month for me being out the other days and that is about £10 per dish option which solid amount.
Breakfast I have at work, I don't in fairness always eat lunch mind but then on an odd day where particuarly feel hungry if at work I will pop and get a meal deal from Tesco so maybe 2-3 times a month just cause and at home soup with bread generally is more than enough tbh.
Also Hellman's Ketchup is much nicer thank Heinz which I think has gone down in quality over the years, plus its about half the price and still better than cheap own brand stuffs.
Breakfast I have at work, I don't in fairness always eat lunch mind but then on an odd day where particuarly feel hungry if at work I will pop and get a meal deal from Tesco so maybe 2-3 times a month just cause and at home soup with bread generally is more than enough tbh.
Also Hellman's Ketchup is much nicer thank Heinz which I think has gone down in quality over the years, plus its about half the price and still better than cheap own brand stuffs.