Can you really feed your family for £1 a day?

[wishthiswasreallife]

I'm on a social media page where they advise people how to feed their families for £1 per day with handy tips,pictures,recipes etc and people add their advice.It just came to me when I was going through the page is that really possible?I meant it's just me and DD but she is so so fussy I really doubt I could feed us both for £1 a day!can you do it?im always looking for ways to save money as it's very tight at the minute and genuinely would try if it was possible!Very boring topic but I'm really interested to find out if it's possible.

Oh I just recalled as a student I lived on a mixture of rice and millet with a sauce of tinned kidney beans, frozen veg, chilli flakes and tinned tomatoes.

And tinned sardines on toast as a regular breakfast. I was probably the healthiest i have ever been in my life. And it was cheap.

(I did suffer from wind though).

My sister had to when her ex left. Luckily I was working FT and only had myself to feed so I was able to help her and my DN.

I wouldn’t do it by choice but some people don’t have the choice.

£14 a week for myself and my teenager? I think I could do it, I have before when he was younger. Porridge, bananas, rice, beans, lentils, carrots, onion, sweet potato, tinned tomatoes and so on. Tinned coconut milk costs a bit more but it is high calorie and keeps you full. Assuming I can calculate the cost of foods that last longer than a week based on what I've used, so £60 for a month, rather than £14 for a week with empty cupboards.

Ha ha @AstiniMartini I bet you did

I'd really struggle with this. I feel very sorry for people on very low food budgets for long periods of time. It ok for a week or two. My sister really struggled for a few years (i was still a child).
We do too many lets have a cup of tea and an apple or a biscuit as a snack on top of the meals.

No, I couldn't

Re: lentils in spag bol - I was taught to do this by an Italian chef!! She has 5 dc, and does it for nutrition rather than economy.

I think I could do it.

Cottage pie
Beef stew (some people bulk that out with barley)
Chicken casserole
Tuna pasta bake
Chicken pie with mash topping
Baked potato and chilli
Just pasta with pesto or tomato sauce other days.

Breakfast
Branflakes and milk or porridge

Lunch
Cheap bread with ham, chicken, tuna, turkey, tomato/lettuce/spring onions.

Economies to scale when you've a large family. Smaller families are more expensive.

I live near a market street with loads of traders selling large fruit bowls £1 each, so maybe spend £5 on fruit over two weeks (plums, kiwis, apples, bananas, oranges). Be buying fresh every few days.

So say a family of 2 adults 2 children (young) over 2 weeks
Breakfast cereal of maybe two large boxes and 4ltrs milk £7

Fruit £5

Lunch
7 x cheap brown bread sliced pans £2.80
Tomatoes £1
Lettuce 50p
Ham £3
Tuna £2.50
Turkey £4
Chicken £3

Dinners
750gr stewing beef
750gr minced beef (the fatty one if you can't afford the 5% one)
4 Chicken breasts (Lidl)
Fish fingers/sausages/frozen fish in batter
Frozen peas/carrots/sweetcorn for casserole and cottage pie
Kidney beans

Pesto sauces £3
Tomato sauces £2
Parmesan £2.5
Mushroom soup can to be sauce for chicken pie

It's doable I reckon. Tight, but doable.

Lidl/Aldi are so cheap for some things.

Men eat an awful lot though, so it's a lot cheaper to feed girls/women.

Ive done it in extreme circumstances but it's tricky and boring, not healthy. That's £1 per day for whole family and ALL food. £1 per dinner is easier. £1 per head/day. Yes.

Yes to the men eating a lot, especially meat - my shopping bill would probably be halved for 2 DDs and myself

If I only had £1 per day, I wouldn't spend so much on food that goes off quickly. So more cupboard staples (pasta, rice, pulses) and tins (sweetcorn, tomatoes), more frozen food including frozen vegetables and more food that lasts for ages like eggs. Less fresh meat and fresh fruit and vegetables. I've always used fresh mince, for instance, but if I was really on a budget, I'd probably try to use frozen instead.

5 packs of ramen for £1. Doable but very unhealthy

I guess you can but it will be horrible.

And why should it be necessary to feed any first world family on £1 per day? That's what I don't understand. Benefits should make it not necessary to scrimp this much!

You can. I had to do it for years on end. A lot of beans and lentils, a lot of veg, not much meat, a lot of baking and snack making, many one pot meals.

I could but I'd have £6 a day to play with and I'd have to scrimp on quality as well as extras such as five a day.

But I have access to cheaper supermarkets and can shop around for offers. I also have the fuel to cook whatever needs to be cooked and the electricity to run a fridge-freezer, as well as all the store cupboard staples such as herbs/spices, condiments, stock cubes, etc. I have a passable level of cooking skill and the capability of looking up recipes on the internet via my phone, nice library around the corner too with recipe books aplenty.

It all becomes a damp sight harder if your only shopping options are the overpriced corner shop, you have 40p on the gas/electricity meter to last you the next three days, and you don't have the skills or resources to look up low-cost recipes and then cook them.

I could but only if we assume it’s only for a short time and that herbs and spices are not included in the price.

Doable, yes. Some meals like vegetable soup (1 large carrot, 1 onion, 1 large potato, stock cube plus whatever's going bendy in the fridge) served with bread, or meals like mixed bean chilli (can mixed beans, can tomatoes, stock cube, pinch chilli) can be surprisingly cheap.

I've had to live off next to nothing before- think £5 a week as a single person for 3 meals a day. However it was boring, monotonous and even the smell of tinned cream of tomato soup (23p a can at the time iirc) makes me want to heave. The only 'meat' I was able to afford was canned beans and sausages (33p a can that did 2 portions) that I served on toast

I think food prices have gone up a lot recently. So its only going to become harder for people to do this.

Eating cheaply as a challenge can be fun, long term, it is soul destroying.

Red lentils break down completely in spag bol - you wouldn’t even know they’re there. I always add them, not because I can’t afford more mince, but because we’re cutting down on meat generally.

More veg bases options would help, we generally eat too much meat.
I’d be inclined to do, slow cooker curries and stews tho

Sounds soul destroying. I don’t understand why people “bulk things out” with lentils. I mean when was Spag Bol ever made with lentils! Just feel like it’s tight

I make a lentil bolognese on average once a week, I'm not veggie but hate mince. It's less than £2 for 2 large portions, including a very generous serving of cheese on top!

I'm a member of the £1 a day group and that level of spending is meant for an emergency only. The shit hits the fan files give emergency shopping and meal plans, a lot of the meals are pretty dire and everything is very tightly portion controlled.

I saw they have a sister group with is feed yourself for 50p a day, I've never looked at it but don't see how that is possible.

It's not actually soul destroying, though. It's a grind and takes a lot of thought and work but, once you get into the swing of it and adjust expectations it's not that bad.

I used to cook 2lbs of dried beans on a Sunday and then use them in different things all week. Obviously, it depended on the type of beans but an example would be pinto beans.
1, rice, beans and greens
2, bean burgers with wedges
3, refried bean quesadillas
4, bean chilli
5, bean and ham soup
Then the other two nights would be some kind of pasta thing and some kind of potato thing.

Or, using the same 7 ingredients
1, cauliflower and bacon soup with crusty bread (hm)
2 potato, onion and bacon bake with carrots
3, macaroni cheese with cauliflower
4, baked potatoes with cheese, onion and grated carrots
5, mixed veg curry made from whatever cauli, onions, carrots and potatoes are left.

Breakfast would be things like porridge, hm pancakes or breakfast muffins, toast and peanut butter with banana, other baked things.
Lunch would be leftovers, hm soup, sandwiches, tomato rice, creamed tuna rice and peas, caramelized onion pasta.

Snacks were either basic fruit or things I made like potato cakes, garlic bread sticks or yoghurt loaf.

As I say, a lot of work, a lot of planning but everyone was fed, nourished and happy.