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.

I would have to feed 5 people for 35 a week. Absolute non starter.

But it isn’t a non starter as it is perfectly possible and many people do it, as evidenced by the thread.

Like I said I’m lucky to have lots of shops nearby and some skill at cooking and preserving, but I could create a rolling menu for 5 people for £35 a week. It would definitely be easier to feed 5,6,7 for £1 a day than it would a single person.

Yeah I could physically do it, but I would never want to. Luckily I don't have to.

I’ve done it.

But I’ve done it coming from a place of plenty, so have a vast freezer and a decent spice rack etc.

Can do the first 2 weeks without spending anything except milk for the baby.

After that it gets trickier as frozen veg and fruit starts to be used up.

But we did it for months when we had to. You get to know what time of day different supermarkets discount their meats (3pm on a Sunday is good for cheap joints).

Lots of pasta, lots of rice, lots of pulses. Any leftovers into tubs and in the freezer to avoid being picked at later on - in fact when cooking large batches, hiving off the freezer portions first.

This time of year we have hedges full of apples and blackberries. Local farm discounts pumpkins massively after half term - last year they were giving them away free by the end of November. Eating seasonally there’s usually some cheap fruit and veg available.

Taking the kids to Tesco so they can chomp on a free apple on the way round (from the box of “please let your children eat this fruit” stuff not just from the counter). Walking through another supermarket on a Saturday morning for the free samples.

Getting to market half an hour before closing andfilling carrier bags full of veg for a couple of pounds.

But all of that I could only do because I had the freezer already, because I’d been taught how to cook, and because I had too much time on my hands. It’s much more expensive if you have no freezer, or if you have one but the leccy’s on a pre payment meter and you can’t keep it topped up, if you are working three jobs and still have to turn every penny twice...

For anyone reading this who is desperate, I’d say look and see if your town has a community fridge or a community pantry. You don’t need referring there, anyone can use them, they’re simply an outlet for food which would otherwise go to waste. No one cares what your income is, you just turn up and take what you need. Ours has masses of fresh produce most weeks and fresh bread too. www.hubbub.org.uk/the-community-fridge

SE Asians women are the queens of budget meals, many family meals could be made for less than £1 pp BUT that is assuming you can buy rice/chastity flour/onions in bulk at an Asian supermarket. It was a running joke during the food shortage that Tesco's world food aisles had loads of 10kg bags of rice whilst people were fighting over 200g packets (which are much more expensive per 100g) Things like potato and aubergine curry, cauliflower and carrot curry, daal etc can all be made for a family of 4 for about £2. Rice/chapattis would be about 25p.

Chapatti flour, there is no such thing as chaste flour

Some MNers seem to be missing the point, which is sites like that, are there to help people who HAVE TO survive on £1 pp per day, not a theoretical discussion on whether it would be 'healthy' or 'enjoyable'

Of course it is 'do-able', because, if that is all you have, then you do what you can to get by. But clearly some people have no concept of things like prices. Of course you can get eggs for a LOT less ten 20p each. Of course you can get loaves for a lot less than £1 etc. You can pay about 15p for a can of beans or you can pay 70p+ for the same size can. Probably, in a blind taste test there would be a difference, but that isn't what the sites are for. The sites are there for those people who are on a tiny budget.

I could do it and I think it would be quite healthy - oats, cheap vegetables, eggs, pasta, rice. But very boring! And there would be no budget for things like coffee, which I can’t do without! (Only joking - I could do without coffee if I had to.)

@zatarontoast you know, this is so silly but I had totally forgotten this. I buy those huge bags of rice as we have a brilliant world supermarket nearby, it lasts absolutely yonks. Lentil daal and rice is cheap and filling and if you have the spices hanging around then you can use different mixes to make different flavours.

I am absolute shite at making chapattis or naans though, worse luck. Either burnt or raw with no in between.

@Notcontent I made space for coffee in my budget when I had to. Downgraded to the cheapest instant and drank it black, but caffeine is not optional here.

Plus, practically, when you’re really down to bare bones, a couple of hot drinks mean you can do with less heating and it can replace a bit of breakfast if it has to.

Not the cheapest, but I buy Aldi Colombian coffee 100g for £1.70. Works out at 5p a cup.

[quote SilenceOfThePrams]@Notcontent I made space for coffee in my budget when I had to. Downgraded to the cheapest instant and drank it black, but caffeine is not optional here.

Plus, practically, when you’re really down to bare bones, a couple of hot drinks mean you can do with less heating and it can replace a bit of breakfast if it has to.[/quote]
When DH was made redundant when I was on maternity leave, he took the coffee from the office for this very reason.

It is, of course, easier if you are cooking in bulk - so either for a larger number, or if you have the facilities to cook a larger batch and then freeze etc... if you have a slow cooker..... etc etc., which many people on these tiny budgets won't have.