For the 1st time in my life i’m going to live on my own and i’m looking at a budget for food/electric/water etc

I’m thinking about growing some of my own veg in veg beds and trying to keep costs down as much as i can

Any tips? things you do to keep food bills down (not shopping when hungry)

personally i found that not having the internet at home for a while saved me some cash! no CRC access! public transport may also be worth a pop, i spend £86 a month on a superdupertravelsaver ticket – it’d cost me nearly £200 a month in petrol if i drove to work.

I cycle to work which is good. Although i have a very petrol hungry camper van!

The reason for budgeting so much now is now is i’ve always lived i house shares (and more recently with my girlfriend who i’ve just split up with) which was cheap rent and never had to worry about food budget as i could afford it. Now my rent/bills are going to be a lot more

Veg growing is great but easy to let it slide when there are bikes to be ridden – and veg doesn’t cost the earth anyway.

Generally better to avoid buying “added value” foodstuffs for the supermarket; ready meals, luxury foods, that sort of thing.

Instead stick to cooking from scratch, maybe preparing batches of food to re-heat when pressed for time.

Avoid take aways and “forget” your wallet when you go to the pub.

Last house we lived in (2 bed end of terrace)

£30/month gas
£30/month elec both of these obviously averaged over the yr.
£25/month Phone/Broadband
£90-110 council tax
£? Water/month. We were on a meter and think it worked out to <£20 mth, but other half dealt with that.
£25-£30/month (bit of a guess) contents insurance (assuming you will rent)

Plus add in anything like mobile contract/gym membership etc. as a monthly outgoing

You might find growing your own veg to be quite expensive (once you factor in tools, fertilizer, seeds etc.)

Cook in bulk, freeze and re-head as required.
Meat is expensive, so think of vegetarian options.
Go to the supermarket late at night and look for the stuff they’re selling cheap that’s on it’s best before date.

cheers, good tips

I thought growing veg/salad/herbs was a good way to save money

become a freeganists

Foodwise – I cook from scratch and always look in the bargain section. I generally buy mince, free-range chicken etc. Thursday evening and Sunday late afternoon are good times to get the bargains.
Buy food when it is in season so now for raspberries, pineapples. Things that do not grow at this time of year are more expensive and not as tasty.
Look at the recipe cards in Sainsburys, feed a family of 4 for a week on £50 etc you can use the information and shop elsewhere. Shop at markets to get better deals an hour before they pack away. Growing your own food is always good but it is not cheap. I would say it is not really cost effective as it depends what you grow and can freeze and of course the weather!
I check and if necessary chop and change our gas & elec suppliers every 9 months to get the best deals.
Direct debit usually means a discount and allows you to budget as does reading your own meters.
Collect points if your local shop does it so what if they keep information on your shopping habits.
Make your own beer – now that really is a money saver!
Somethings are worth spending money on some aren’t (like cleaning products I get the cheaper makes and 1 does all jobs).
outgoings 328 pcm and that is just bills not mortgage or rent
Insurance (house)20
life insurance 30
elec/gas – 65
water 31 (not on a meter)
tv/phone/sky 43
tv license 12
council tax 127
Good luck with the budgeting you could always try putting everything in a spreadsheet and working out where and when and what you spend your money on. I use to do this in a cheque book as I use to be clueless about how much money had and what was due to be paid.

I found growing my own veg to be a bit more expensive…. I do make my own butter though. That’s because I’m a bit poncey. That’s about the only cost saving exercise I indulge in as I’m hopeless at any kind of budgeting or fiscal aforethought.

£1300 per month but about £250 is service charges on the flat and £50 on a cleaner every fortnight so about a grand, so say £250 per week. Very little opportunity to cut down, no gym membership, no sky, no mag subscriptions etc just standard stuff water, electric, gas, council tax, home insurance, car insurance, BT, broadband, food, it soon racks up!

Eating veggie makes the weekly shop so much cheaper in my experience.

I thought growing veg/salad/herbs was a good way to save money

It is but it’s an investment and hard work. If you have to buy tool then it will take longer to pay off and you have to put in a fair amount of work / learn a lot. As with everything at first you will make lot of mistakes which will of course cost you money.

As above do the spread sheet to the penny then add 10%, will give you some idea of what( if anything) you’ve got left to blow/save. We do ours probably every 4 or 5 months and every time we’re left with very little to save! Our biggest outgoing other than mortgage is the shopping, I reckon it’s the only place you can make savings because most of the other stuff is unavoidable!

Wot “the brick” says is correct!! After nurturing my 10 sweetcorn seedlings from a mere packet to 2 inch shoots I then transferred them all from pots and killed all but 1 with my cack handedness!!! 🙄

£50 a month gas and electric.
Live in a shite old house to keep the rent down.
Cycle to work to keep the derv costs down.
Bulk buy meat for the freezer.
Bulk buy tinned stuff and stock the cupboards for a few months at a time.
Cook as much as possible.
Just serviced the motor (wheel bearings, engine mounts and loads of other stuff) to keep it on the road instead of having finance for another one.
The odd cash in hand job comes in handy now and again.
Be happy with the bike I have got and stop drooling over new stuff in mags.
Lay off the ale.
Don’t smoke.

Single biggest difference I made to CoL recently was to plan a week’s meals before shopping. Now, I go to the supermarket to buy what I need to make those meals, which means that there’s little waste. Before I was randomly buying food that I fancied, spending £100 quid on groceries, then the next day going “crap, I’ve nothing to eat.” I’m now spending a third of what I was, having some really good meals out of it, and not throwing half of it away a week later.

The other gotcha is curbing impulse buying. We’d go to Tesco for a loaf and a bottle of milk and come home with an Xbox game, a USB stick, three tops and a pair of trousers. Which is exactly how supermarkets make their money.

Per Month . single 2 bed flat.
GAS £16.- Equigas
Elec £16 .- equielec
Water £12 .- meter
BBand £22.- talktalk
Council £83.- single discount
INS £30 hse + contents
Food £120 – £200
no mtg / inheritance sorted that out.

HTH

I find it entirely surreal that up there ^^^ you pay 30% more to **** about on the Internet than keep warm!!!