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?

our menu this week,
breakfasts -cereal,fruit ,toast
lunches- sandwiches, yoghurts, something on toast.
sunday- roast chicken dinner
monday- chicken enchiladas (leftover chicken) and salad
tuesday- pork and noodles (chinese style)
wednesday- salmon, cous cous and babycorn
thursday- shepards pie and veg
friday- chicken curry and rice
saturday- steak and chips and salad

cheap biscuits, fruit,yoghurts and toast for snacks, squash or milk for drinks
shopping bill for 3 adults and 2 children £88 (excluding toiletries, washing powder, wine and toilet paper). We do have more frugal weeks but working a lot this week and too tired to economise,

Fatty, it costs me $10 for budget mince (just over six quid), about $30/kg for salmon fillets (19 quid), $4 (2 pounds fifty) for mid-range bread and supermarket cheddar is about $25 (15.50) a kilo. Is that in line with UK food costs?

Thanks all, by the way. Really good to hear from the Aussie/NZ contingent, you all make me feel much better (except Drfaywray, you eat like I do but with two teenagers, on the same budget, how is that possible).

I think I'm going to relax about this. Still not giving up the hair, though. Dear DH pointed out that the cable television bill, which is entirely for his benefit, could be cut down and he likes my hair. So that's sorted.

Hopefully that's the end of my angsting, you wonderful people.

Well Tortoise, I dunno. The other teen is a 13 year old girl who is very careful of what she eats. We rarely eat fish as DS is not into fish and I cannot be bothered to cook different things and I do buy meat on special. We do not eat much cheese but use it in cooking. I have found myself sticking to the menu plan and only buying what I need. I rarely waste food now which is great for the budget. So even things like DS eats a green apple every day so I buy exactly what he eats, no more, no less. I only buy fruit I know will be eaten. I buy the right ingredients for the meals. That sort of thing. I do not find the shops here to be that expensive and there is a lot of choice around where I live in Brisbane. I am planning to go to the West End markets on Saturday as the F & V are very good quality and fairly cheap too.

I would not give up the hair! My haircuts are very important to making me feel good.

Breakfast: bread (home-made) and jam for me, cereal and milk with fruit and a glass of fruit juice for DH, my milk plus yoghurt for DS (14 months)

Lunch: DH eats at work, usually salad or soup. For me, salad with smoked fish or cheese or avocado, or homemade soup (usually a leftover which I have frozen in individual portions) or pasta, followed by fruit and something sweet (yoghurt, an amaretto, two squares of extra dark chocolate or maybe a cinnamon biscuit or two). If I feel lazy or am in an hurry I might have two slices of bread with half an avocado and cottage cheese/ricotta or, even lazier, tapenade. This happens when I am in a rush (maybe once a fortnight). Most days I like to eat hot food with feet under the table (and the paper next to me).

DS tends to have either meat/fish or ricotta with potato or vegetables, followed by fruit and accompanied by the juice of 5-6 mandarins.

Mid-afternoon snack: Yoghurt or fruit for DS and often for me too.

Supper for DS tends to be pasta cooked in vegetable soup with parmesan over the top, followed by fruit. He then munches on some bread while we have our supper, which is usually soup or pasta (sometimes couscous or rice) followed by salad (often with cheese or fish) and fruit (and often yoghurt). Sometimes instead of the salad we have carrots or zucchini. If we have soup, sometimes we will have potato with the fish instead of salad. In any case, a lot of bread. We tend to get through a loaf made with 600g of flour every day/ day and a half.

DS then has a breastfeed after our supper, when he goes to bed.

We tend to have fish about 3-4 times a week (for example, seabass, smoked salmon, tuna steaks or pasta cooked with a tuna sauce) and meat once or twice a week (usually burgers, veal escalope or sometimes chicken in a curry).

I tend to make myself hot chocolate at least 3-4 times a week, as I am still breastfeeding

Home-made pizza once a week, usually on Sunday night and homemade cakes every weekend, as well as during the week when DS has a playdate.

We tend to have friends over for weekend breakfast, which will usually be pancakes with bacon or salmon, followed by pancakes with fruit and cake.

yes do relax about it tortoise, because if you stress and cut back, then I might start to feel like I need to as well, and I feel that we've already cut back on luxuries over the past few years as the DC have grown up and are costing us more!

Tortoise - couple of tips I can offer you - have you found the frozen turkey hind quarters in Coles freezer section? Ridiculously cheap and does a good roast dinner for DH, me and DS with enough left over for sandwiches for one of us. Might cut your costs on a roast dinner.

Kangaroo mince is lots cheaper than beef, and better for you - it has lower sat. fat content. Tastes a bit more peppery but will do a very decent "cottage" pie (we call it swagman's pie, ha ha)

We only have one meat dish in a day, even at the weekend.

we do have expensive bread though (spelt)

Some things I'm sure I don't need to tell you but anyway - look for the "market buys" - do Woollies have them? Coles do - fruit and veg are so much cheaper. If you really have to have cherry tomatoes (the most expensive option) can you try growing your own? Otherwise, switch to bigger ones - the pomodoro (roma) toms are sweeter than the big ones and usually only a bit more - sometimes they're even cheaper (although that's rare)

I admit I don't count the cost too much of food because it is my only real luxury - so I will buy the organic milk (it's something I won't compromise on), the fresh fruit juice, organic fruit and veg when it's available. We also have to have wheat free stuff so that costs more. But we do try and buy stuff like fish on special offer, and try to only buy Aussie - have you a fish co-op anywhere near you? They're often cheaper and almost certainly fresher.

I do resent the cost of some foods here though - I am very very happy that my local Coles stocks Boursin, for e.g. but the price of it!! For an 80g box as well! More than double what I'd be paying for the 150g box in the UK. But... it's one of the things that makes me happy.

Your weekends are extravagant, but your week days aren't. Re the pork - 50% of 1200g of pork between 2 adults and a child is far too much. It's 200g of pork each, and obviously your child is young so it's more like 100g for her and 250g each for you and Dh. I would make a fair guess that your dh takes the lion's share of that, but actually although men need more fat and calories than women, they do NOT need more protein. They just think they do.

You could skim another meal out of that sized pork joint simply by sticking some extra veg onto the plate.

TBH I'd say 1/3 of your meat budget went on Saturday, which isn't good really. You could have skipped the bacon in the morning and just had French toast (there's egg in there), you could (and maybe should, after such a heavy breakfast) have NOT had the expensive mince dinner at the lunchtime and had a cheese toastie or a hoummous and salad sandwich instead.

And there, you've just saved two meals worth of meat for suppers in the week.

Are eggs a cheaper option for you? Egg and chips is a favourite saturday dinner in this house.

Sunday again, it may have been cheaper to serve the leftover chicken in the stir fry and save/freeze the beef for another time.

I live frugally, and I certainly don't eat half as much meat as your family, despite being a committed carnivore, because it's expensive and NOBODY needs very much of it.

Your Friday night dinner is the type of thing I would serve for someone's birthday, not just because it's friday.

Is salad more expensive than root vegetables? You're eatng a hell of a lot of that too.

I don't mean to be critical, I'm trying to point out the differences between what you're eating and what we eat, in terms of extravagance.

And oh HELL Tortoise, I've just seen how much you actually have to PAY for your food

I'd cry.

And no, I certainly don't pay anyewhere near that for food. I pay about a third of what you do for similar quality items.

Im just going onto a strict budget (recently single parent).

I am planning something like a real meat dinner one day (last night we had chicken in gravy, 4 veg and pots), a kid on meat dinner the next ie something out the freezer (fish fingers and pot and veg) and a non meat the next, ie pasta with sauce and a side of veg.

Big on veg in this house, although neither me nor my son are that keen on fruit.

Sundays we'll have a fry up 'brunch', we make our own pizza so its a bit healthier and I make my own bolognase sauce with loads of veg in it.
I make lots of homemade soup, sandwiches and ice cream with fruit for dessert (he'll only eat pineapple!!)

Have chips around once a fortnight.

We eat things like stew, mince & pot, pork chops, this would fall into our 'real' meat night.

Does this sound healthy enough for a 6 year old, he eats lots of sandwiches and toast as well, I can't get him to eat cereal at all !!

Right, you might be horrified by this, but when we lived in Aus we took advantage of cheap Tuesday and got takeaway pizza every other week. $6 for a large pizza - you can't make them for much less than that. There was usually a couple of slices leftover for lunch the next day too.

Homemade quiche also a winner. Bung any last bits of leftovers in, and cheap Coles tasty cheese works fine and you don't need loads.

Turkish bread also great. Cheaper than normal and v filling. If you can find a Lebanese area, you'll be able to get huge great tubs of halloumi for $12 ish that can just sit in your fridge and bulk out salads for lovely weekend lunches that feel extravagant but aren't.

Finally, I'd agree that it's best to just buy seasonal veg, and meat at butchers not Coles/ woolies.

The biggest saver, if you have time, is to make your own bread. The kind of bread I like is about $6-8 a loaf here, but I could make the equivalent for 50c. You don't even need a breadmaker - you can use the no knead method where you just mix the ingredients together, let it sit for a while then fold it like a letter a few times.

what kind of bread is that then, tryingtoleave? would it work with spelt flour? How long does it last before it goes hard?

Tortoise the items you mention are definitely more £££ than the UK.

Is it not the case that lots of stuff is also cheaper like lamb and locally grown fruits?

Or Is it really the case that overall food as eaten by the locals is more than in the UK? And if so are you saving £££ on accommodation so it is swings and roundabouts?

Gosh, you're all making me hungry!

Fatty - no, I've pretty much stopped eating lamb because it's so pricey. Diced lamb, which I used to make a nice Rogan Josh from, is usually $25/kg. Fruit - not sure. In season I pay $2.50 for a punnet of strawberries, $8/kg for peaches and $6 for grapes, this is all from my local producers. More expensive in supermarkets.

My house, which is an hour's commute from the CBD of a small, historically cheap city, and is on a steep block of 600sqm is worth about $400-$450K. Rental on a One-BD apartment in a half-decent part of Sydney probably runs around $500/week. I don't know how that compares.

Not ignoring anyone else's responses, by the way, just too lazy to respond individually and that one caught my eye. Colditz you are totally right, I need to shift DH's thinking about Proper Cooked Breakfasts always including meat. The mince lunchtime thing is pretty frugal; small amount of mince, vegetables, rice, but I still take your point that it's three meat meals in one day.

thumb, I've seen a similar bread in a book called something like "artisan bread in 5 minutes a day". From a quick flick through a friend's copy, its your basic bread recipe, but a lot wetter. You just mix it all together, then bung it in a container in the fridge. Then when you want to use some, you get out a couple of hands full, sort of smooth it at the top by wraping it around and tucking all the 'ends' under the bottom (sorry, does that make sense?), and then let it sit for 40 mins before baking it. I think from memory you bake it a bit cooler than kneaded bread, and in a 'damp' oven (tray of water at the bottom? But not sure why?), though I;m not sure. It keeps for a week in the fridge IIRC. A friend of mine does it and adds feta and spinich and things to it, and keeps it all ready in the fridge, then had scrummy bread for lunch each day. Mmmmm.

Tortoise, I just, for thw first time, went to a large local grocer/deli and did a big shop there, and to my great surprise found it cheaper than woolies. I often pick up the 'specials' at a small local grocer next to DC's school, but find the not-on-special produce more expensive...but this grocer was cheap - also had specials on gnocci (4 bags for $5!) and flat bread. And then I went o Aldi, which I don't normally do as its a PITA to go to 2 stores. I wouldn;t do it every week (because of PITA factor) but it was certainly cheaper.

maybe everyone else knows this aldeady? But my mother ALWAYS shopped at supermarkets when we were kids, because she said grocers were too expensive. I believed her! Maybe things have changed.

thanks Astrophe - will look out for that. :)

Oh that bread sounds yum Astrophe - unfortunately I am a carb addict

I tried doing a sourdough starter recently and it seemed to be going nicely until we got a really hot day which killed it and I haven't got round to trying it again.

I miss rogan josh too Tortoise - I used to make it with frozen diced lamb from Sainsburys which for some reason worked particularly well. $25 a kilo for lamb for a curry - don't think so.

You know what I really miss though - diced turkey thigh. It was always in the Tesco Value range because I guess people mostly don't eat it that much - but it was brilliant for doing curries and casseroles and stuff. We ate a lot of turkey in the UK - it's a lot harder here to find (I don't eat chicken, it tends to make me sick but turkey is ok).

yeah, we've looked for turkey here too, to no avail (except at Christmas). I guess we should have bought up big after Christmas and frozen some.

Oz is incredibly expensive these days. I was there a year ago and amazed at how expensive it is. Add to all that the fact that the floods will have wiped out a lot of crops (apparently there are no bananas now for a couple of years?) so imports will add even more to the cost of fresh produce.

I totally believe that its now cheaper in the UK...