spending
According to the Office for National Statistics’ 2011 report on Family Spending, the average weekly spend on food and non-alcoholic drinks by a one adult, non-retired household was £26.20. The lowest 20% income group spent £21.30 and the highest 20% spent £38.30 (the figures are for 2010, the latest available)*. A few things struck me immediately about these amounts:
This is pernicious stuff. Presumably it’s these statistics, or similar, that, in part, inform the decision on what amounts to set for the Job Seeker’s Allowance and other benefits. Although for the life of me, I can’t find out how the JSA figure is arrived at.
Let's imagine someone who has 200ml of orange juice of a morning, enjoys fresh coffee, has two Weetabix and milk for breakfast, eats a halfway decent bread, a little fruit, has fresh fish twice a week and a quarter of free range chicken as a Sunday roast. Hardly a picture of excess. Shopping at Asda, that'd be: £2.07 (1.4ml juice), £2.50 (227g coffee beans), £1.92 (cereal and two pints of milk), £1.15 (granary bread), £3.00 (fruit allowance) and £4.76 (1 x trout, 1 x salmon fillet) and £1.37 (chicken quarter). That's £16.77. Out of the ONS's £26.20, that leaves £9.43. Or 85.7p for each of the remaining eleven meals (if no sundries like butter, sugar, salt etc. are bought). The top earners can blow a whopping £1.95 on each meal.
Yet take a quick browse on MoneySavingsExpert.com and you'll find plenty of people spending £20, £15, or £10 per week. Some of the claims made do rather strain credulity. One animal lover says she spends £5 per week on her cat, but only twice that on herself . A man gives a detailed breakdown of his £1,025.94 monthly spend which includes only £25 for groceries or £6.25 per week. But look at this:
"By going at the right time to the supermarket I can get a week’s worth of food for around £5. I try and make my meals at around £1 a day.
Sunday afternoon I got the following:
Pack of 6 sausages x 2 - 19p each
Pack of mince - 30p
French Bread - 30p
Bag of carrots - 20p
Bag of potatoes - £50p
Cheese - £2 (instead of £4)
Loaf of brown bread (stays fresh longer) - 30p
The above totals £4.18 and my meal plan for this week is:
Monday Breakfast - Cereal with milk (repeated everyday)
Monday Lunch - Cheese and Mayo french stick.
Monday Dinner - 2 Sausages and mash with gravy with carrots.
Tuesday Lunch - Cheese and Mayo french stick.
Tuesday Dinner - Curried Cottage Pie with carrots.
Wednesday Lunch - 2 sausages in french stick.
Wednesday Dinner - Left over cottage pie.
Thursday Lunch - Jacket Potato with cheese.
Thursday Dinner - Carrot Soup.
Friday Lunch - Left over carrot soup.
Friday Dinner - Cheesy Chips - made with potatoes/cheese”
That is both heroic and horrendous at the same time. Sadly, that level of weekly spend is the reality for far too many people.
The Minimum Income Standard research project 'aims to set a benchmark for minimum living standards that we should be aiming for as a society, based on what members of the public think is acceptable'. The weekly food allowance for a single person in their latest report is £46.31. I try and budget for around £40 per week, out of a total household allowance of £60. But I'll often spend more, so the MIS figure strikes me as being just about spot on.
*There is a line item for 'Restaurants & Hotels' in the OFN's report, with an average figure of £11.20; but the MIS report has a similar one for 'Social & Cultural Participation' at £43.71.
- They’re complete bollocks.
- The top single earners (a group defined as earning over £1,015 per week) only spend £17 more than the poorest on food.
- Really? Was this report approved by the Statistics Authority's Board? Did neither the chair, Sir Michael Scholar, nor the two deputies, Lord Rowe-Beddoe and Professor Sir Roger Jowell, think to point out that £38.30 barely gets you a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Brut NV champagne? Has no one at the ONS been to Waitrose on a weekend?
This is pernicious stuff. Presumably it’s these statistics, or similar, that, in part, inform the decision on what amounts to set for the Job Seeker’s Allowance and other benefits. Although for the life of me, I can’t find out how the JSA figure is arrived at.
Let's imagine someone who has 200ml of orange juice of a morning, enjoys fresh coffee, has two Weetabix and milk for breakfast, eats a halfway decent bread, a little fruit, has fresh fish twice a week and a quarter of free range chicken as a Sunday roast. Hardly a picture of excess. Shopping at Asda, that'd be: £2.07 (1.4ml juice), £2.50 (227g coffee beans), £1.92 (cereal and two pints of milk), £1.15 (granary bread), £3.00 (fruit allowance) and £4.76 (1 x trout, 1 x salmon fillet) and £1.37 (chicken quarter). That's £16.77. Out of the ONS's £26.20, that leaves £9.43. Or 85.7p for each of the remaining eleven meals (if no sundries like butter, sugar, salt etc. are bought). The top earners can blow a whopping £1.95 on each meal.
Yet take a quick browse on MoneySavingsExpert.com and you'll find plenty of people spending £20, £15, or £10 per week. Some of the claims made do rather strain credulity. One animal lover says she spends £5 per week on her cat, but only twice that on herself . A man gives a detailed breakdown of his £1,025.94 monthly spend which includes only £25 for groceries or £6.25 per week. But look at this:
"By going at the right time to the supermarket I can get a week’s worth of food for around £5. I try and make my meals at around £1 a day.
Sunday afternoon I got the following:
Pack of 6 sausages x 2 - 19p each
Pack of mince - 30p
French Bread - 30p
Bag of carrots - 20p
Bag of potatoes - £50p
Cheese - £2 (instead of £4)
Loaf of brown bread (stays fresh longer) - 30p
The above totals £4.18 and my meal plan for this week is:
Monday Breakfast - Cereal with milk (repeated everyday)
Monday Lunch - Cheese and Mayo french stick.
Monday Dinner - 2 Sausages and mash with gravy with carrots.
Tuesday Lunch - Cheese and Mayo french stick.
Tuesday Dinner - Curried Cottage Pie with carrots.
Wednesday Lunch - 2 sausages in french stick.
Wednesday Dinner - Left over cottage pie.
Thursday Lunch - Jacket Potato with cheese.
Thursday Dinner - Carrot Soup.
Friday Lunch - Left over carrot soup.
Friday Dinner - Cheesy Chips - made with potatoes/cheese”
That is both heroic and horrendous at the same time. Sadly, that level of weekly spend is the reality for far too many people.
The Minimum Income Standard research project 'aims to set a benchmark for minimum living standards that we should be aiming for as a society, based on what members of the public think is acceptable'. The weekly food allowance for a single person in their latest report is £46.31. I try and budget for around £40 per week, out of a total household allowance of £60. But I'll often spend more, so the MIS figure strikes me as being just about spot on.
*There is a line item for 'Restaurants & Hotels' in the OFN's report, with an average figure of £11.20; but the MIS report has a similar one for 'Social & Cultural Participation' at £43.71.
how much i spent a week on food for a month
The last time I made a detailed recording of my spending, my weeks’ spends were: £61.13, £26.42, £33.19 and £45.04 for an average of £41.45. Below is absolutely everything I ate together with the weekly shopping lists.
[I've been told by someone looking at this page on their work PC that this Scribd reader is blocked. If you can't see it below here is the file.]
