Work out how much you have to spend a week, and see if you need to make cuts here and there. Eating a lot doesn’t have to be so expensive if you prepare meals for a few days.

Buy some recipe books for quick but substantial meals, and go from there. Things like bread, eggs, chicken, pasta, veg, fruit etc can all be found for a good price at your local supermarket. I assume by your “cheers” that you’re british? Isn’t there a Morrisons or something nearby? They have good prices there.

Good luck

Budget is key for me as well. Is there an answer up here somewhere for Jay and I?
Cheers.

Shoulder pain is common among lifters. But that doesn’t mean that it’s OK to just ignore it. If the pain is in the shoulder joint, you have to stop what you’re doing and let it heal. Overhead lifts are important, but not as important as squats or upper-back exercises like rows/chins. Many long-term lifters have bad shoulders. This sort of injury is preventable, so let it recover between workouts, work on your range of motion and flexibility, and be careful.

I’d rather see you using a barbell or some dumbbells instead of the machines, but you have to use whatever you have access to.

There is a cult of squatting on the internet; lots of people will tell you that you must squat. But it’s just an exercise like any other, and if your personal circumstance dictates that you don’t squat, so be it. Having said that, I still think you should squat until you can full squat at least your body weight for reps. It’s not just a leg exercise, it works the lower back and spinal-stabilization muscles and build the sort of overall strength that can’t easily be duplicated with a machine-based workout. No need to squat 500 pounds, but you should at least familiarize yourself with the exercise and use it to build a base of strength.

You don’t need a spotter for squats. If you get stuck, just dump the bar backwards off your back. You might even want to practice it once or twice if you have some bumper plates or something. For bench press, you could use dumbbells to avoid the spotter, but be careful of your shoulder joints because dumbbell bench presses are hard on the shoulders. Good gyms have a power cage that you can squat and/or bench inside of; it’ll stop you from getting crushed if you fail during a squat or bench press.

I reworked the numbers in the top section of the article and put in a note explaining why they are now changed.

I can’t give a definitive answer about how long to remain on a bulking diet. Most of my experience is with teens who can remain on it for quite some time. If they lift hard, they gain quite a bit of muscle at that age; and if they gain some flab, it burns off very easily when they start eating normally. For older guys, I’m not so sure… If I had to give an answer, I’d equivocate and say to keep careful records and stop bulking when the fat starts to accumulate at too quick a rate. Sorry I can’t give a better answer, but I try not to overstep my bounds and talk about things that I have no experience with (or knowledge of).