How much does a regular evening meal cost you?

[shylatte]

This year money is tighter and I need to cut back. We are fairly frugal, but good quality food is very important to us - our shop (for 5 of us) is approx £200 per week. I cook everything from scratch, buy value products where I can. Our main problem is that the two eldest are really into sport/fitness and protein is a big thing for them. Heavy carb meals don't satisfy them at all, and dc1 wants chicken breasts and cooked salmon fillets as snacks.
On a Thursday we have fish, usually salmon or cod, which costs about £12 for the meal (this is from Lidl, not a gourmet fishmonger). That is before veg and a carb side. As part of my 'cutting back' I bought 750g of prawns on offer for £5. We've just finished a stir fry, to which all of the dc have declared is more like a snack rather than a meal On Sundays the dc like a lamb leg roast, and that alone is nearly £20.
My question is, is this normal? What would be the average price of a meal and what size is your family? DH thinks this is fine but I feel it is too much, but don't know how we can cut back.

Can you keep their main meals to a standard portion and any extra protein they can consume as a supplement. They can then see the value/ worth of the meals.

You can do Greek yogurt/ eggs/ as cheaper sources or even protein shakes and whey powder if they really want to.

You can also make heme made protein bars.

I think the need to realise what is a meal and what is excessive.

It’s also not great eating meat every day, for both health, environment and money.

Two dishes we have made recently which are great for ‘veggie’ beginners:

Sweet potato and black bean paprika casserole with rice ( or baked potatoes)

Sweet potato, halloumi, chickpea and spinach curry, rice and homemade naan.

Get them on board.

Show them your receipts. Show them what that food made/intends to make.

Then tell them you need to reduce the budget. Have a list of what things cost at the butcher, supermarket/whatever.

Then get them doing a meal plan and budget.

How about a high protein beans and rice based meal once a week? A chill perhaps?

You can get a 1kg pack of chicken thighs for £2 or so. Large homemade lasagne made with turkey mince is relatively cheap and really tasty.

Cut back on the joints of lamb and steaks to no more than once per month.

My son lifts, and used to be fairly similar in terms of how much meat and fish related protein he'd eat, quite heavily influenced by Youtube/insta influencers tbh. The big difference is that I'm both tight and veggie, so he had to buy and cook his own (adding what he wanted to the tesco order within my budget, and buying the rest himself)

He ate a lot of egg whites, and got very good at costing out the best price per 100g for all meats and fish, plus using protein powder to hit his macros.

I was delighted when he too became veggie a few years ago. He still lives at home and it's so much easier and cheaper to feed us both the same meals. Turns out he could build muscle perfectly well on lentils and he still hits all his macros.

I'd be tempted to tell your kids how much cash you are prepared to spend on protein, and then let them shop for it. When it's gone, it's gone, and is a great life lesson.

If they're seriously sporty then offering them starchy carb to 'fill up' is unlikely to go down well. Have they actually calculated what they think their protein requirements for their sporting goals are? Might be worth having that conversation if you haven't already.

Assuming they have and the requirements are reasonable, there are loads of ways you can get protein rich meals more cheaply e.g.

• chillies or homemade burgers with turkey mince
• adding pulses
• slow cooking cheaper cuts of meat.
• tinned tuna rather than salmon fillets for small meals
• chick pea based dishes for vegetarian

And if they're training seriously, then good quality, plain whey isolate can be sourced quite cheaply online.

Quality fish and meat is expensive though and it's an individual choice and your circumstances as to whether you are able/want to buy cheaper meat that may be lower welfare. I do think quality food is often worth paying for, but quality food doesn't have to be £20 joints of meat every week.

The Roasting Tin books are really good for filling veg-based meals, some of which do include meat, but that are all fresh and healthy.

I think for five adult-level appetites, though, and considering all meals it's high but not absurdly so. We spend around £100 a week for two of us plus a toddler! But that could be less, it's just not a priority for us to cut back there as we enjoy the food we have. If we did have to cut back though, less meat and cheaper cuts would be an obvious place to start. Even just down-ranking from brand to supermarket will make a big difference.

If they want to eat low carb eg no spuds, try given them swede or celeriac chips or mash, roasted, riced or mashed cauliflower etc to bulk up meals and reduce the meat. Also as suggested, go down the environment route with neat reduction as young people are meant to be all over this. And tell them you will be buying free range meat if you don't already and so less if it. Can't get over the kids dictating the expensive lamb roast. My oh would 'like' that but he definitely isn't getting it

I grew up in a house that had never knowingly eaten vegetarian so I do understand some of the meat issues here. HOWEVER, a few things stand out to me - we had plenty of meat with main meals, but ONLY at main meals. After school, we could eat sandwiches with peanut butter, jacket potatoes with cheese (or, theoretically, beans, but we hated beans), or veggie soup with bread. As much fruit as we liked. Ham was not even in the fridge, never mind available, and we certainly didn't snack on chicken breasts or salmon fillets.

As for main meals, there are loads fo ways to eat higher meat-based meals that are less expensive. Chicken thighs/legs are a fraction of the price of breasts. Ditto, a whole chicken from the Waitrose Essentials range is £4.50 (M&S does a similar one at even less although the welfare of Waitrose Essentials chickens is, according to Which, better) - at the very least, that should feed the family for one meal. Mince is cheaper than other cuts and can be bulked up with vegetables, lentils, beans etc. Stewing cuts are much more reasonable and similarly, can be bulked up.

If I don't have enough sausages I use them in a huge pasta as they go further - a pack of 8 sausages easily does enough pasta for 4 generous portions over here, probably with some leftovers.

@shylatte

Should have said in my OP that they don't consider vegetarian food as 'proper' food. When they were very young I could have got away with lentil soup and lots of bread for a meal but not now. I make a white bean casserole but it has 1kg of red meat in it. Only one of them will eat potatoes.

It's their attitudes you have to challenge then.

Vegetarian food absolutely is 'proper' food.

My teen would eat like that too if he could. He eats a whole tin of tuna straight as a snack- which I find shocking!! When he was young that would have been the basis of a main meal, plus leftovers!!

I never facilitated him eating as much meat as he fancied, A - we can't afford it and B- I don't fancy eating meat at every meal. He had to get on board with eating dahl and pasta and veggie tagines etc because I didn't provide any other options. It has served him well now that he is at uni though. He recently explained to me very earnestly how expensive meat is, and that as long as you have a bag of lentils you can make a meal success!!

Do your kids a favour and take them shopping with you. Give them a budget of what you deem more sensible and help them to learn to shop and cook within it.

I'm a powerlifter so know a out hitting macros.
Some cheap ideas of protein...
Eggs, tinned fish (tuna etc), whey powder, beans. Look for deals on protein bars too.

Oh and chicken sausages and turkey

They like it, but they don't need it and sound a bit spoilt. Perhaps if they started budgeting for their own protein snacks it would help the message.

I should add - my DCs were 'seriously sporty', at a reasonably high level and whilst we of course listened to their nutritional requirements, they never demanded, nor were served, expensive proteins as snacks. I guess if your DCs are Olympic standard representing their country then ok I guess it's part of the cost of parenting a national sportsman. Otherwise I feel you need to take back control.

That is a lot! Tonight we are having lentil bolognese which even with garlic bread costs less than £1 for the two of us. Lentils and beans are high in protein but cheap so are worth trying on your DC.

It’s a lot. I cook everything from scratch too and we eat very healthy. This week has included salmon and chicken breasts, roast beef, fresh salads and veg, fruit etc. I spend around 80 - 100 a week for family of 6 which includes 3 teenagers.
But then mine eat pretty much anything served up so much easier when no fussy eaters.
How big are your portions? 200 sounds loads. Maybe bulk out portions with cheaper ingredients?
Also salmon and chicken are not really snacks.
Snacks for us is nuts or fruit.

For extra protein, eggs are good and a large quiche is not alot to make.

If you are spending that much I'd do hello fresh or similar .. it's costs me £42 a week for lovely meals .

They do sound pretty spoilt in a kind of oblivious way, Lord help them when they move out and can't afford salmon as a snack!

As PPs said, you can pad out meals by reducing the meat and adding lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans etc. Cheaper cuts, and possibly protein powder. Someone upthread asked if they knew how much protein they should be aiming for? I think a high protein diet is something like 0.9g or 1g per kilo of bodyweight (I may be wrong with those figures!). It won't do them much good if they're blindly overshooting the protein and eating too much red meat to boot.

I assume they do eat carbs, they just also want lots of protein? Because I'm not convinced that they don't need carbs. Agree with @Bookworm20 a quiche is not difficult to make and have in fridge for snacks. I also do Tortillas sometimes - better carbs and they keep well. DS is only 10 but considers a slice an excellent post-school snack. DH, who works out a lot, considers a (very large) slice also an excellent post work-out snack!

Absolutely shocked by the prospect 2 fillets of Salmon each!!!! There so much other stuff I'd rather spend money on!! And like nice tasting food

I tend to prefer meat but most meals cost between £2-3 for all three of us(two teens and me), meat included!!. Salmon is an expensive once a week treat £5 (theres a £4 pack of salmon in aldi does is all but ive also been known to fillet morrisons salmon and freeze it when it's on special offer). Meat is frozen in individual 83g portions so no waste. 200g portions of meat Mushrooms and peppers are fresh but most Veg is frozen so no waste there either (100g counts as a portion) but it is a bit repetitive. Not that that bothers the kids.

Protein is bulked up with eggs, egg whites, tuna, cheese and (lots of!) milk.

I sometimes have two salmon filets, but as I live on my own it's a choice I make, I'm not demanding it, and it's my money .

Meat and fish should be expensive - one of the many reason our plant is in trouble is because people think the should be able to eat cheap meat dusky. I am not advocating that everyone should be vegan or vegetarian - but there is absolutely no excuse for eating meat or fish daily.

My dd does a competitive sport and is very focused on having lots of protein but we get most of our protein from eggs, tofu and beans.

When both the dc were here we would spend about £140 a week.

I always buy boneless chicken thighs, they are cheaper than breast and tastier/more moist.

For protein offer them hard boiled eggs!