to ask what your family eats?

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

The thing is, I have realised, is that talking about dollars/pounds is a bit meaningless, because it's not a straight conversion. Food is more expensive in Australia, and the dollar is really strong against the pound so in pound terms, my food budget has doubled in the last year, but I'm spending the same actual dollars, iyswim. Also we don't have much price difference between supermarkets (near-monopoly situation) and no BOGOF offers, so I have hardly any control over the actual cost of things.

So can I tell you what we actually eat, and can you tell me if it's on a par with what you eat or if I'm wildly extravagant? All food cooked from scratch unless specified.

This week is probably a bit more frugal than usual, because I'm trying hard, but not far off the norm.
Friday night: rotisserie chicken, cherry tomatoes, Brie and crackers, canned lychees. This is our post-supermarket-shop supper meal; this week just DH and DD, I was out.
Saturday breakfast: french toast with bacon and onion. Lunch: something my DH calls bobo, which is mince and rice and bits of vegetables simmered together. Dinner: 1.2kg pork roast with potatoes and carrots and pumpkin. Half the pork went to leftovers.
Sunday breakfast: boiled eggs for DD and me, muesli for DH. Lunch: leftover chicken from Friday, salady bits. Dinner: beef stirfry with rice, baby corn, beansprouts and sugar snap peas. Peach and strawberry crumble; the topping was a failed flapjack attempt mixed with flour and spread on top.
Monday dinner: chicken curry with potatoes, peas and cauliflower with rice.
Tuesday dinner: soup made from leftover roast meat and vegetables with pearl barley and more root veg added.
Wednesday dinner: cheese and cauliflower pie.
Thursday dinner: special fried rice with diced leftover roast pork, shrimp and spring onions.

Weekday breakfasts are toast (us) and porridge (DD). Lunches are sandwiches or leftovers from dinner. Puddings and snacks are fresh fruit or popcorn, I think we have a little bit of vanilla ice cream in the freezer as well. No chips or sweets in the house apart from that. DH drinks nice squash or fruit juice, I drink water, DD is allowed one small fruit juice a day and is still young enough to have quite a lot of milk.

What does your family eat?

oh dear... I'm all worried I could never offer such a nutritional option for my LO (currently unborn - 40w+1 pregnant atm). It seems like it must keep you busy all that cooking - to me it looks like a lot of effort but currently I only cook for myself as my OH doesn't eat meat and I do.

I was going to list what I eat and then I realized what a terrible cook I am and how limited my diet it. I think I'm going to have to take up a cooking class before LO moves onto solids

You haven't said what the cost of your weekly shop is ?
Think some of your meals at the weekend sound costly and you are eating meat most of the time and vegetables if you get a variety can be v expensive.

Most breakfasts even at the weekend are cereal - porridge or museli and sometimes boiled egg then fruit. Don't have fry ups often. Lunches are salads, jacket potatoes, rice noodles and salad, sweet potato, pasta Etc sometimes a sandwich but not often as we don't eat much bread.
Evening meals are stir Frys, roast chicken and veg etc, sometimes we have steak and chips on a weekend, pasta dishes, tortilla wraps, fish - we eat a lot of this - salmon, prawns, scallops, paella.
We don't really eat puddings - more like soya yoghurts, greek yoghurt and fruit, fruit. Sometimes have a cup of tea and a biscuit.

We also have a variety of veg which is very costly and this mounts up along with the fruit. I make sure we get 5 a day or more. Our shopping costs a lot. It seems like you could be more frugal at weekends judging by your meals.

Positive, I said in the OP why I'm not talking in monetary terms, because there's no equivalency to English costs. I don't mind talking money, but when I do a straight conversion to pounds everyone is utterly shocked.

Hi Tortoise, I see that you are still worrying! I'd say our weekday meals are fairly similar to yours, a balance of finish up meals, cheap meals and made from scratch meals (depending on how inspired dh is feeling).

Your post shopping meal is a little bit nicer than ours (we used to have lots of nice things, but money is a lot tighter now we only have one earner).

The difference comes at the weekend. So we might have French toast, or waffles or pancakes as a bit of a treat, but not with bacon too. With a cooked breakfast and a cooked evening meal we'd have sandwiches at lunch (this would have been bread and cheese in the UK, but cheese here in Canada is expensive and not very good). In fact at the weekend we tend to eat breakfast late, and then snack at midday (usually a sandwich) and then eat properly in the evening. Usually on Sunday that involves a fruit pudding (I'm glad I'm not the only one that messes up flapjacks!) as that's the meal I cook and I like pudding very much (plus we have fruit trees so our deep freeze has a lot of fruit in it).

I don't think that you are wildly extravagant at all, it sounds like you eat well and that you aren't wasteful. I wouldn't mind eating at your house :)

Tortoise I am in Oz too - agree it is waaaay expensive here. Our basic shop from Woolies - no organic, nothing flash - is still more expensive than our weekly organic Waitrose shop in London was... that might help with comparisons :)

As you started off I thought, wow, that's a lot of meat, but then you use it all in leftovers.

It sounds reasonable to me. It doesn't seem extravagant but you do eat well and seem to enjoy your food.

Breakfasts here are toast or cereal. Lunches in the week is soup or sandwiches, bit more special at the weekend e.g. baguettes and nicer fillings. Dinners are roasts/stir frys/fajitas/lasagne/risotto/curry etc.

I think you must cook a lot. Both dh and I work so we tend to cook quick meals. I also try and have fish twice a week rather than always having meat.

But ultimately, what does it matter what we think? If you can afford to eat the way you are and have the time to spend in the kitchen, then go for it!

Fox, the lovely MNers all agreed the other week that I should try and cut the food budget, which is why I'm worrying about it. We're not totally skint, but are trying to pay down a debt as quickly as possible.

Oh, and we both work as well, but I like cooking, so try and do a Sunday cook-ahead and prep for quick evening meals later on. The soup and the curry I did yesterday afternoon, and the crumble, and the ingredients for the fried rice are all cooked and stored in portions so that will be a v quick meal at the end of the week. It's more of a hobby than a chore, handily enough.

Fish is even more expensive than meat here - and where I am, hardly any variety.

It's a problem that I've only got one vegetarian dinner all week, though. And even that uses Posh Cheese.

I'm enjoying knowing how the rest of you eat. Am v nosy like that.

Sorry, what I mean is I asked whether I should cut food budget or hairdresser budget and all agreed the former - then I realised it was more difficult than I thought!

You could try doing what my dh does and have a set budget - ie he has $200 a week for all routine household costs (food, cleaning stuff and gas really). Cash only, as apparently (according to Alvin Hall) that helps to focus the mind. He does a big shop at the beginning of the week, holds back a bit for anything he's forgotten and then if there's anything over that gets spent on nice things (usually a bottle of wine of something extra for the children).

You'd need to keep track of what you spend over a couple of weeks to set the level somewhere you are comfortable at (it's no good if it's too low as you then get frustrated and blow the budget - or I do anyway!).

Ah I see tortoise

Thing is it's difficult to comment when different things are expensive. For example, I buy big packs of frozen haddock or mackerel fillets and that makes them v cheap. Your menu for the week sounds lovely I have to say. I think we also eat more frozen veg than you (I find for us it's a good economy of scale as we don't waste any and a pack lasts a long time) and we don't do puddings. Our lunches are always packed lunches so tend to be sandwiches. We also have some lazy meals thrown in like jacket potatoes or beans on toast or omelettes.

That's true, fox, that things are differently priced relative to one another as well.

Frozen veg a good idea.

Dammit. I really enjoy budgeting/food shopping threads, and I want MN advice, but don't know how to translate.

Its a very british diet isnt it

Hi Tortoise. I am aiming to have a mix of expensive and cheaper meals each week. The cheaper ones would be: sardine & tomato pasta, veggie lasagne, homemade meatballs & spaghetti, chilli, homemade pizza etc. More expensive meals are the Sunday roast (organic), poussins, chicken tray bake, jambalaya etc. We eat organic free range meat and dairy which is expensive. I aim to have 1 or 2 vegetarian days a week but haven't really managed it brilliantly. I am putting a lot of effort into reducing food bills to not much effect at the moment though.

I have a one month ahead meal plan which cuts waste and I use 3 different supermarkets. We cook from scratch which is lovely but time consuming.hth

I love reading what people eat. I second setting a cash budget for food - it's helped me not overspend and cuts waste. Only problem is that gets blown if people come round for dinner.

Our weekly meals are bit different to yours, we have lunch and dinner at home. Meat 2 or 3 times/week, fish once and the rest of time combinations of pasta, rice or couscous with veg and one of chickpeas, beans or lentils - curry or stew type things.

But it's hard to compare. Would it be good to make up a list of what's cheapest where you are and then work out meal possibilities from there?

Average:

-Sunday: Cooked breakfast (bacon, egg, toast, mushrooms) or porridge; lunch...pasta or homemade soup; dinner...Roast something (beef, lamb or chicken on the whole) with roast spuds, 2 or 3 veg and yorkshires.

• Monday: Breakfast cereal for DH, toast and yogurt for me and DD. Lunch...DD and I eat at home, ham wrap, omelette, pasta or something. DH takes lunch, generally a wrap or leftovers. Same all week.

Dinner is all that changes...so maybe something made with leftover roast, or jacket potatoes.

• Tues dinner...Chilli and rice, salsa, nachoes.

• Wed...Pasta

• Thurs...Pork steaks and roasted veg

• Friday...Homemeade chicken tikka masala

• Saturday...Homemeade pizza

Other standards are lamb steaks, stew, lasagne, souvlaki (just marinaded meat with tatziki), lemon and garlic chicken wraps with potato wedges.

We don't buy processed food as I am fussy and like to know what is in what I eat, and it's cheaper to cook ourselves.

I can't always afford the best of everything but we do try to have decent meat. We grow some of our own veg, but get through a reasonable amount so have to top up.

yes. stick to a budget. cut your cloth and all that.

we eat, well, breakfast is normally toast and cereal, sometimes we'll do pancakes for the kids.

lunch, normally soup or something (I make my own soup. very cheap indeed! I do a massive batch and freeze it in portions) or a sandwich.

dinner, anything curry, stew with ugali. chapatis and something, chicken and something. casserole, cottage pie, rice, pasta...

we eat anything

oh, Himself won't eat fish. He nearly died (his feeling about it) when he got a fish bone stuck in his throat a while ago, so now the only fish he'll eat is tinned and he won't let me give the kids fish anymore either.

We're in Aus too.
We'd probably have a whole bbqd fish once a week rather than a roast (except in Winter), in fact we would probably bbq at least 3 or 4 dinners per week.
Your shop doesn't sound extravagant to me. Maybe try buying some of the reduced-to-sell items (meats)?
Bill Granger has a lovely Dahl recipe which is a good vegetarian option.
My supermarket total's are astounding, so I'm probably not the best person to offer advice especially as I often top up that shopping with extras from our local fruit/veg shop, butcher, fish monger etc
I remember the very first shop I did when we moved back to Aus and I had to stock the pantry/cleaning products etc etc - I should have kept the receipt it was so ridiculous!

So to me your menu looks normal...

Breakfast all week are weetabix/muesli/porridge or toast. Sometimes we will have bacon sandwiches or egg on toast.

Lunch- eldest daughter has school dinners in the week, partner has lunchbox made up (pasties/pasta salads/sandwiches etc). Me and little one at home normally have sandwiches, yoghurt and fruit.

Some meals for this week are:

Monday- chinest style pork chops ,mashed potatoes ,vegetables

Tuesday- roast chicken, roast parsnips and potatoes, sprouts, carrots, yorkshire puds and gravy

weds -home made pizza with onion rings

Thursday- chicken escalopes with boiled pots and vegetables

Friday- not totally sure yet but maybe a ham salad with new potatoes and a crusty roll. Or lasagne and jacket potatoes

We are not big on puddings but fruit is available all day, we have yoghurts ,ice-cream, sometimes make a crumble or a pie,jelly etc.

We all drink water or fruit juices/squash.

We are lucky as shop from a few different places usually morrisons, tesco, the co-op and tuffins. I can do a weeks worth of food shopping for between "5-40 depending on what I have left in cupboards/freezer etc.

Other meals we sometimes do are cheese and potato pie, spaghetti bolonaise, curries ,fajitas etc

When doing mince stew/sausage casserole I usually use frozen veg as tastes nice in them

Brekfast everyday ......toast or cereal.....occassional pancake.

Lunch.... for me soup or sandwich....ds packed lunch.

Evening meal.....

sun ...roast lamb

mon ...homemade steak and mushroom pie/mash.veg

tues.....homemade quiche/salad

weds.....fish.chips.peas

thurs....cottage pie/veg

fri....takeaway

sat.....whatever my mum cooks.

this is this week.

other evening meals

spag bol

curry

cauli cheese

cheese/potao pie

stew

casseroles [beef/chicken/veg]

sausages with chips or roast pots and veg and onion gravy mmmmmmmmmmmmm my fave.

pasta

burgers [chicken or beef]

I find it easier and cheaper to plan ahead.
but not so easy to stick to it.....

We eat very cheaply!

Breakfasts are porridge, museli or toast with a piece of fruit each.

Lunches are either leftovers, sandwiches or salads.

Dinnners, well this weeks will be

Sunday. Ribs (reduced in the farm shop), rice and stir fried veg.
Monday Bubble and squeak with poached eggs
Tuesday Vegetable curry and rice
Wednesday Roasted veg pasta sauce, pasta and cheese
Thursday Leftover veg soup (veg box delivery on friday)
Friday Cauliflower cheese, veg and homemade potato
wedges
Saturday homemade pizza and coleslaw

Snacks are fruit, toast, oacakes and cheese, rice cakes, homemade cake about once a week.

We bring this in for about £40 a week, for two adults a 4yo and a 2yo.

we were eating a lot of meat but recently chaned my weekly shop to have more veggie in there
mon-vegetarian chilli con carne
tues- veg lasagne
wed-carribean chicken stew
thur-chicken in tomato sauce with peppers, onions and mushrooms with pasta
fri- chinese
ds is 8 months I make his food up seperate, roasted or steamed veg puree with rice or pasta and fruit compote for pudding, dh has a healthy pack up for lunches and im ashamed to say i dont do lunch for myself