In this topic I want a shopping lost for £25 p/w

I'm starting Uni and was wondering the most I could get for £25 a week?

I'd like to eat healthy-ISh, but I hit the gym so protein is a must:

So far I have:

Rice
Pasta
Chicken breasts
8p noodles

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Reply 1

ShadowWolf21

Original post by atastycrumpet

It depends on where you shop. Aldi (depsite everyone bashing it), is quite good for getting good food cheaply. Also, they do frozen vegetables and meat, so it'd last longer, too. But when I was at university, I made the long trip to Morrisons instead, as that's where I've always bought things from at home, too. And they've always got offers on!

Getting lots of protein for gym-goers is of course a must, but you also need the other food groups, too (says me, who although also trains 4 times a week, eats the worst diet anyone has ever seen!) And the other food groups can be cheaper :biggrin:

But seriously, £25 seems quite low? Or is that just me, maybe when I fully answer this below it'll make more sense? When I was budgeting for university, I generally spent about £50 every time I went to Morrisons (I saved quite a lot of money on a working gap year), but eventually, those kind of shops stopped, because my flatmates took all the fridge and freezer space (I could just about fit my frozen vegetables in there, and I had a shelf to myself in the fridge... everything else was in a cupboard of mine) so I generally bought as and when I needed it :frown:

Which consisted of 6-pack of noodles from the Chinese supermarket, bread, coffee (a must for me), Coca-Cola (an unfortunate addiction), rice, pasta, potatoes, various sauces to add to make food tasty, cereal bars etc.

It's difficult to advise on what someone needs to buy per week, as I'm someone who prefers to be impulsive with meal-planning. I generally lived on pasta and rice dishes though, with plenty of vegetables (it was the snack drawer I had in my room that became my downfall!). I generally liked to buy a variety of things so I could just grab it as and when I needed it. I even baked once or twice. I'm a sucker for herbs and spices, though, so I raided my mum's cupboard for that, and salt!

But, you wanted a shopping list that amounted to about £25 per week, so:
Veg packs generally cost: £1 (will last about 4-5 days)
Potatoes: £2 (will last about a week, or two)
Eggs: about £1 for 6 (good for gym-goers, will last about 1 week)
Milk: 4 pints for about £1.80 (if you drink it, I hate the stuff)
Pasta: about £1.45 for a standard 500g bag (lasts about a week or less depending on consumption)
Rice: about £1.20 for 500g bags (lasts quite a while)
Bread: £1.30 for a loaf (lasts about about a week or more, depending on whether you eat it before it molds haha)
Chicken Breasts: 5 fillets in a pack cost about £6 (depends on shop, lasts a week or more)
Cereal/Cereal bars: £2 a box (usually lasts a week)
Fruit Juice: about £1 for 2lt for un-diluted that you add to water (lasts ages)
Noodles: Blue-dragon do 6pk nests for about £1.50 (and they're healthier than the 8p ones, but obviously the 8p ones can be much easier to acquire as they're cheaper...)
You'd obviously need toilet paper sometimes and other little things that run out, but I could live off that list for a week or more and it only comes to about £19.75, but I did monthly shops to save time and money, and it made me less ready to impulse-buy. I know you said £25, but the extra I didn't think of things for can be for things like washing-up liquid, like I said, toilet paper, shower gels etc. Another popular thing people don't think about when food-buying is things you can just grab and nibble on, like ham slices, or crackers, which aren't generally bank-breaking. I classed them as snacks, and ended up having a treat-drawer full of crisps, crackers, chocolates and biscuits. I just dipped into it whenever, and none of my flatmates could nab them haha :biggrin:

Sorry if the reply was long, just trying to be helpful, as I actually found weekly budgeting much more difficult and restraining! Monthly-shops are much better, but then again, I don't eat much.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 2

madders94

Go to ALDI, my weekly shop this past year never came above £20, and I ate healthier than I do at home!

Reply 3

reginaldbright

Fruit and veggies - mostly veggies. Sensible basic stuff like brown bread and weetabix (not in the same bowl). Cheap protein like chicken, bacon and cheese - stuff you can 'spread out' in rice, pasta, baked potatoes etc. Dont buy expensive brands - go for 'basic' or own brand in things like beanz, tinned tomatoes, rice, pasta, cereal etc.

Work out when your supermarket marks perishable stuff down (and where that bargain shelf it) ie. after 4pm on a Saturday - only buy stuff you will actually eat and that you would buy anyway - dont buy 'treats' even from this shelf.

Reply 4

New- Emperor

Original post by atastycrumpet

Ok so far you have

Rice
Pasta
Chicken breasts
8p noodles

you need

pasta source
fruit juice
some kind of veg

and to send you on your way I have a dish for you to try (I made it a few times in uni it's lovely)

you will need

Rice
an Orange
Chicken breasts
Good Orange juice (think topcana or the fresh stuff that you can get in Salisburys do not use fron concentare stuff)

what to do

1 cut the Chicken breasts in to cubes and cut a small slit in each one

2. grate the orange to get the rind

3.begin to fry the chicken add the orange rind at this point begin to a squeeze the orange and put the juice over the chicken to infuse it with an orangery taste

4. as the chicken cooks some orange will be lost to steam top it up with the good orange juice now cook your rice.

5 when the chicken and rice are both cooked put the rice in the pan with the chicken for about 2 mins and serve put the reaming oil and juice from the pan over the rice and chicken.

you will know what else you need to buy at uni have fun try my recpy and enjoy yourself