Timeline for Is $20/day and $603/month (USD) a lot, average or little for one person's "food and related" costs?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
29 events
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| Sep 8, 2023 at 8:04 | comment | added | JBentley | @gnasher729 (1) We've had 3 years of (high) inflation since this answer, (2) I did say that the basil was purchased at an ethnic store where herbs and spices are typically a lot cheaper than a supermarket. I buy my herbs/spices in bulk once every 6 - 12 months instead of buying them in small glass jars at the supermarket, (3) even so, it doesn't affect the answer much - £0.07 instead of £0.02 for the basil (albeit the other ingredients are no doubt a bit more expensive now too). | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 19:00 | comment | added | gnasher729 | A 20 gram bag of basil is £1 in my local supermarket. | |
| Jun 19, 2020 at 12:24 | comment | added | J... | @Ivana Sorry, you must simply be storing peppers incorrectly. They can absolutely stay perfectly fresh after being cut if kept in an air tight container in the fridge at the correct temperature. If you can't get at least three days of nearly perfect freshness out of a cut pepper this way then you're doing something wrong. | |
| Jun 18, 2020 at 11:20 | comment | added | Ivana | @JBentley Once cut and stored the taste of a pepper degrades, maybe also it's nutritional value. Even if 45p is a reason for someone to want to strech it over a few days instead of just eating it all right away, it is good to also realise our bodies store nutrients too. You are not wasting it if you eat it in one day. | |
| Jun 18, 2020 at 11:02 | comment | added | JBentley | @Ivana How are you storing your pepper? I keep mine easily for several days in the fridge, even up to a week. After a few days the skin will start to shrivel slightly but it is still perfectly edible. I'm not one for throwing out food unnecessarily, so your preferences might differ to mine. Also, whenever I've been living alone, I tend to make food in batches and store the excess in the fridge/freezer for future meals. Homemade pizzas store quite nicely in the freezer and can be kept for months. If you're living on a budget like OP you need to use every available method to keep costs down. | |
| Jun 18, 2020 at 9:54 | comment | added | Ivana | You cannot calculate using 1/8 pepper because it will not keep longer than a day once you cut it. Unless you are preparing meals for more people, you have to calculate using the whole pepper. Chop 1/4 for the tortilla, eat the rest watching Netflix but use 45p in your calculation. | |
| Jun 18, 2020 at 8:59 | comment | added | David258 | While an example can be nice to have; I think the links and resources provided in other answer are more comprehensive and cover the ground better. This is Money.SE not cooking.SE. | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 8:27 | comment | added | JBentley | To anyone else who objects to the prices, please check and give a realistic counter-example that doesn't misrepresent the quantities used. I'm definitely happy to accept constructive criticism and make changes to the answer if needed, but let's remember the aim is to help the OP understand that he doesn't need to spend a fortune on food. Assumptions based on what "seems" right are not helpful; verification of the actual numbers is helpful. Additionally, as I pointed out in the answer, you can get most of these things even cheaper if you shop at e.g. Lidl or other bargain-end supermarkets. | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 8:21 | history | edited | JBentley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 17, 2020 at 8:20 | comment | added | JBentley | @spacetyper I buy my spices and herbs from a local ethnic store, along the lines of this (£0.99 for 60g of Basil). 2 tsp of basil = 1.4g. 1.4/60 * 0.99 = £0.02. I will edit the answer to add the extra penny. | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 2:33 | comment | added | spacetyper | Are you putting a single flake of dried basil on your dish? No way it's only 1 cent. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 18:03 | comment | added | Eric | @jamesqf Not likely. At least, when I checked recently at my local supermarket, the store brand of grated cheese and blocks of cheese were the same price per ounce. I'm sure at some scale, there is a difference, but at the 8 ounce bag / 8 ounce block, there is none. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:15 | comment | added | JBentley | @jamesqf In reality, grated mozzarella can be bought for far less than that anyway e.g. this one for £1.70 from Tesco. The one Brondahl found for £3 is twice the size, so is actually even cheaper (equivalent to £1.50). His error was in assuming you would use the entire portion for each of the ingredients, irrespective of the size it comes in. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:11 | comment | added | jamesqf | @Brondahl: Re "Grated Mozzarella is £3 a pack", I suspect (judging from US prices) that it's £1.50 for the cheese, £1.50 for the grating. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:08 | comment | added | JBentley | @Nobody Agreed, I wouldn't recommend this as a regular dietary item. I only picked the example as OP said it is one of his go-to meals. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:06 | comment | added | Nobody | I'm not quite sure if it's enough vegetables to be healthy, but it's not bad for pizza, I didn't mean to say that. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:03 | comment | added | JBentley | @Nobody Again, try making it with what I just described before judging. My pizzas come out bulging with vegetables, certainly more so than a takeaway pizza. But I've edited the answer in any case. It's not really important to the overall point. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:02 | history | edited | JBentley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:01 | comment | added | Nobody | The "generous amount" is pretty misleading. Yes, traditional Pizza doesn't have much vegetables on it, so you can get a matching amount for the price you quote. But it's still a small amount of vegetables. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:48 | comment | added | JBentley | @Brondahl As for the rest: I allowed £0.05 for the pepper and assumed I would use 4x vegetables costing roughly the same, but if you want to nitpick: half an onion = £0.05, half a tomato = £0.06, a couple of mushrooms ~ £0.05. If you think that isn't too generous, try actually covering a pizza with all that and see what it looks like. I do actually make this regularly, so I'm not just making things up. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:44 | history | edited | JBentley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:44 | comment | added | JBentley | @Brondahl There's no need to be snarky. I did check all of the numbers before posting. To address the specific examples you've given, using Tesco: red peppers £0.45, of which I would use about 1/8 (try making a pizza with an entire red pepper and I think you'll agree that is an absurd amount to use); mozzarella I grate myself and will edit the answer to make this clearer - I used this one priced at £0.70 but there is also a slightly smaller one for £0.45 | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:16 | comment | added | Brondahl | (Pizza Price: sainsburys.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/… ) | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:15 | comment | added | Brondahl | and given that frozen pizzas appear to be around the £1 - £1.50 mark, getting those numbers wrong actually suggests that it's not really that much cheaper :(. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:13 | comment | added | Brondahl | I agree with the general principle of your answer "Making food is can be very cheap", but if you do that and get the numbers wildly wrong you're not helping anybody, least of all OP. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:13 | comment | added | Brondahl | Grated Mozzarella is £3 a pack, so that's wrong too. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:09 | comment | added | Brondahl | A single red pepper is 43p! (Link: sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/fruitandveg-essentials/…) A set of 3 is the same per-unit price | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:07 | comment | added | Brondahl | Where are you buying "a generous amount of various chopped vegetables" for 20p? | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:10 | history | answered | JBentley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |