Can you make a meal for a family of 4 for £5 or less?

[Jayne266]

I have just challenged my DH to this. I have got a spaghetti bolognese using value range were applicable (not the meat) and came up to £3.64.

Basil £0.61 (dried)
Carrot £0.08 (1 carrot)
Chopped tomatoes £0.62 (2 Tins)
Spaghetti £0.19
Mince £1.50
Onion £0.18
Garlic £0.30
Garlic bread £0.33

Have you got any ideas?

[FoundAChopinLizt]

Two large pizzas

Flour 500g max 50p
Yeast not even 5p
Olive oil v small amount (pennies)
Tomatoes chopped 33p basics
Mozzarella basics £1.40
Onion 15p
Garlic 30p but only a bit so 10p
Ham or left over meat or veg 50p

£3

So enough left for good salad to go with it.

[Trills]

Depends.

Do you have to start from zero and only spend £5?

Or are you allowed to buy (for example) a pack of carrots for £1 but only count 25p of it because you only used 1/4 of the pack?

This makes a big difference, but also leaves you with a lot of leftover ingredients that need using up.

[joanofarchitrave]

Yes, but not necessarily a very nice or interesting one.

Pasta with burnt onions: oil 10p, onions 50p, value pasta around 50p.

Frittata: oil ?5p, onions 20p, 12 eggs £3.10, potatoes 50p, salt 1p.

Baked potatoes with beans and cheese: potatoes £1.50, value beans 50p, cheese £1.

[MegBusset]

Yes, loads. Most of our meals cost far less. We don't eat meat though, and shop mostly in Aldi. I spend the remainder on wine

[Idislikemymil]

Loads,
Baked potatoes, tuna, sweet corn, salad.
Dahl curry and rice
Dahl soup and bread
Vege pasta (tin toms, onions, garlic, a veg, such as courgettes)
Any kind of veg/lentil soup.
Black eyed bean curry and rice
Fish fingers, mash, beans
Omelette and salad
Spicy rice and salad.
I'm bored now. But there's loads. In fact, most nights we feed 5 for under a fiver at our house.

[FoundAChopinLizt]

Tuna pasta

Pasta £1 for nice pasta on offer need 60p worth for four
Tuna two tins £2 again cheap or on offer
Onion 20p
Garlic 10p
Chopped tomatoes 33p basics

So £3 so can add extra veg e.g.
Frozen sweet corn say 20p worth
Mushrooms basics say 30p worth
Peppers
Cheese for on top

Still enough for salad!

[FoundAChopinLizt]

Quiche is very cheap, as local eggs can be £2 dozen free range.
Chickpea curries

We feed six fairly cheaply, today lunch was mackerel pâté (basics mackerel, basics cream cheese, pepper, lemon juice) with homemade rolls and lentil veg soup.

You can eat well for less, but it does take planning, effort and facilities to cook and shop.

[Awks]

Salmin and dill spaghetti - all Sainsburys

spaghetti 19p
salmon trimmings 1.50
creme fraiche 1.10
lemon 30p
dill 80p
french stick 80p

my favourite easy supper

[Trills]

I think that "not necessarily a very nice or interesting (or healthy) one" is the key here.

It's perfectly possible to make a meal for 4 people for £5, especially if you are don't have to count the cost of the whole packet of whatever you are eating, but it is not necessarily sustainable.

You wouldn't want to have to eat that way all the time, anyway.

[FoundAChopinLizt]

Awks

My sainsburys doesn't do salmon trimmings anymore

[Idislikemymil]

Yep, pasta dishes too. Cheap as chips. Or cheap as pasta.

Sorry, can't be bothered to itemise my meals. In a wine haze. I love sainsburys basics wine in a plastic bottle. Think it's only £3.50 a bottle.

[forevergreek]

Idis- I would find some of them things hard to keep under

Just tuna baked pototoes are:
X4 large pototoes -£1
X2 Tins of Tuna - £3
Sweetcorn -65p
Salad -£2 ( mixed leaves, some cucumber, tomatoes at min)

And I would struggle making an omelette as a meal for under

Eggs x8 - £2
Potatoes -50p
Onion -20p
Some filling ie spinach/ tomatoes/ peppers - £1.50
Salad - £2

Or am I not doing this properly? I mean where can you get mince for £1.50??

[Idislikemymil]

No forever! I buy a 7. 5 kg bag of potatoes at sainsbury's for £5. Tuna is about £1 per tin or less, basics sweetcorn roughly 25p, a squirt of mayo.
Salad is cheaper - basics salad with a good homemade dressing. Yum yum.

Trills, I eat mostly cheaply and healthily. Honest. And enjoy it.

[Idislikemymil]

Forever - I buy eggs from the milkman. 6 eggs are £1.20.

[FoundAChopinLizt]

Spinach is good for cheap salad, you can put it in the omelette too.Or grated carrot, cabbage with a little onion and a dressing. Vacuum packed beetroot is cheap, nice with a dressing.

[Alibabaandthe40nappies]

I think the odd meal I cook comes up at under £5 for four of us but not very often.

We eat mostly free-range meat and sustainable fish which is expensive, and veg is not as cheap as it was. I spent nearly £40 on just fruit and veg for the week for four of us earlier.

[MegBusset]

Some of you really need to get to Aldi! eg baked potatoes there are 90p for four, tin of tuna 59p, tin of sweetcorn 29p, salad bag 59p.

[Alibabaandthe40nappies]

Meg we don't have one, and I like to buy british where possible.

[BriansBrain]

Toad in the hole with sweet corn and gravy.

Garlic and herb Philly, bag of frozen chicken pieces (£2 feeds 4) pasta swirls.

Home made sausage rolls and coleslaw

Meatballs.

Growing your own herbs on the kitchen window seal really does make any mince, pasta meal a tasty.

It works best to have beans, eggs, cheese etc on toast for one weeks bufpdget and then spend the saved amount on store cupboard basics like

Flour
Stock
Pasta
Rice
Emergency dried herbs
Worcester sauce
Mustard
Pulses
Yeast.....

[Queen0fFeckingEverything]

Yes, but it would only be a 'nice' meal if I was able to use basic store cupboard stuff (oil, seasoning etc) and only count the cost of the amount I used iyswim.

Loads of our meals cost around that but we do have a decent store cupboard which makes that possible - olive oil, sesame oil, decent vinegar, herbs/spices, yeast/bicarb/baking powder for example - and huge amounts of herbs in tubs outside.

I could still do it without that if I had to though.

[BriansBrain]

Store cupboard is the key and things you can make to freeze.

I popped I to Asda last week and they had a stack of red peppers, courgettes and onions all in bags of 3 or 4 for 10p each bag I bought 50p worth of each plus 5 cans of value chopped toms and made 5 batches of red sauce anthem froze them.

Base for lasagne, spag, pasta, chicken and nice n healthy.

I also like freezing the reduced bread things that go down to 10p