...to doubt posters who say they feed a family of four on £50/week

[twofingerstoGideon]

I'm really broke myself, so I'd love to believe this is true, but that works out at £1.78 per person per day (£50 divided by 7 days divided by 4 people).

Some people go even further and say they 'run their household' on this amount, implying that they manage all bills, buy loo rolls, cleaning products, sometimes even nappies, etc., for fifty quid.

I'm really good at budgetting, freecycling, buying second hand etc., but I can't help feeling a bit about some of these claims. It's just a kind of one-downmanship, isn't it?

(Awaits flaming...)

Our meals today -

Breakfast. I had toast, ds had crunchy nut cornflakes and a banana. Dh doesn't do breakfast.

Ds is away with a cheese sandwich, packet of raisons, carton of orange and a peach with a packet of skips for snack.

I'm having baked potato with last nights chilli and salad.

Dh buys his own lunch.

Dinner is Gannon with pineapple, homemade wedges, corn on cob with yoghurt for pudding.

Dh makes up for not having breakfast or lunch by eating his body weight in crisps and biscuits every night.

Ds has toast and milk at supper, I usually have another bowl of cereal at night.

Fruit bowl open all day.

^^
and is that really less htan £1.78 per person? I would have though the gammon alone would cost that.

I might make a mid years resolution about budgeting!

Yeah it was manic and thanks, that's interesting.

I suppose that's the difference, I just don't buy fruit at that price. I have blueberries just now but they were 69p a pack. I wouldn't say £2, when they are that dear we don't have them! More so because ds demolishes them in 5 minutes flat!!

Drinks wise it's milk, water or diluting juice with cartons for pack lunches. I might buy 2 or 3 bottles of pop but once they are gone that's it.

I think that it would depend, really, Manic. I bought 2 4kg gammon joints at Easter both reduced to £5 and a 7kg pork joint reduced to £7. I still have them in the freezer.

If you get something like that it's quite easy to make a meal with them that fits into a £1.78 pp/pd budget. The pork joint up above will do us for about 10 meals once I cook it and divide it up, both ham joints will do perhaps 6 meals each, so it takes up less than £1 of the overall budget per meal.

,I don't think of it in terms of 1.78 per , person. The Gannon is £2. Everything else is very cheap, I gave up on fresh corn on cob ages ago, 8 frozen for a quid.

My potato cost about 18p with last nights chilli on it. Toast, well a loaf of of wholemeal hovis is 69p. How many slices do you get in a loaf? I'm guessing it cos about 10p?

You can't do a reduced carb diet that cheap, most of the cheapness comes from eating much less meat/having pasta or bread at every meal. This is fine for the children perhaps, but not ok if you find a reduced carb diet (plus lots of protein) helps you stay slim/good weight.

Having said that, beans are cheapish, so are lentils. But it's all very bulky stuff that's cheap. I'm trying to stop my children eating toast/cereal twice a day (once in the morning, once at night) plus large amounts of pasta/bread/rice at every single meal, and get them to eat more eggs/nuts/fruit as snacks, but it does cost more money.

manicinsomniac everything you have on your list can be brought cheaper also in my view most alretive are much nicer i find the tesco healty brand of wraps much nicer than weight watchers ones 6 salmon stakes for 10 is very dear i can get a whole slamon for about £7 at the fih mongers and buying min filetess is just mad i buy chkem brest and just cut them up

MrsKR - thanks for the breakdown, makes sense.

Mrsbojangles - I'm sure you're right but (and here comes the madness I have tried to keep hidden ...)
the tesco healthy wraps have 23 more calories than the weight watchers ones
I hate touching raw meat or fish, the thought of cutting it makes me sick. Seriously, until I had children I wouldn't even buy raw meat, I always got ready cooked (then I found out about the salt content and freaked out even more than I do about the rawness!)

Being crazy is expensive!

I would also struggle to find time to get to a market or a fishmonger. I work 60+ hours a week and I'm a single mum. It's late night supermarket shop or nada in reality.

No idea, wish I could.

I know my sister spends about £50 a year - sacks of flour, rice and grows own vegetables.

'dh buys his own lunch' - doesn't that count in the budget then?

Nope, he buys his lunch 3 days a week when he's at work out of his own money. To my knowledge it consists of a bacon roll.

Mumsyblouse you're right, it's hard to do a low carb diet on a low budget. However, if you have a small portion of rice or pasta then it shouldn't be too high in calories. DH and I are on a strict budget and have rice or pasta with pulses and/or veg most nights. We have 50g rice each, which is about 170 calories. And I've worked out that with all the other ingredients including cooking oil, very few of our meals are over 500 calories. Some are quite a bit less :)

Yes it is doable.

I spend between £40 and £60 a week on necessities.

I meal plan, we make our own bread, 90% of meals are cooked from scratch.

But, I am a SAHM, with a 2 and 4yr old. This means I can get milk from Iceland, veg from the market, toiletries and cleaning stuff from Savers or Poundland. My children don't eat large amounts either.

I also have a large freezer, so will often stock up on reduced stuff - meat, bread, crumpets, etc. I popped into Asda the other day and they had sirloin steak reduced to 50p, lean beef mince reduced to 50p, Waitrose nearly always have bread reduced to 30p a loaf, crumpets for 30p, teacakes etc

I cook bolognese once a week (one pack of mince

Oops!

Pack of mince feeds us all for two meals, bulked out with bacon, veg and lentils etc.

I don't have to be quite so careful, but it seems silly to waste money or food if you don't need to.

I don't know about other people, but if I want to cook cheaply, I'll cook the way my grandmother did - traditional 'peasant cooking' from the Pyrenees. Lots of casseroles with a heck of a lot of lentils / beans / rice / veg in them, and then a tiny amount of cut up bacon or sausage. They're also incredibly easy for working parents, as you can keep the one casserole on the go for ages, adding more ingredients in as necessary.

People often say on Mumsnet that you should aim for a low-carb high-protein diet, but I'm dubious myself - my family and I are all very slim and healthy, and we eat the exact opposite.

There is some selective accounting, sometimes, when folk list their shopping expenses. DP's lunches or kids school dinners somehow don't count, or corner shop top ups of less than £5. Not meaning anyone specific, just have noticed it on occasion.

I've noticed that, too, lljkk!

Whats selective about only buying and paying for what's needed?

My Dhs three rolls a week wouldn't blow my budget he does all his eating at night, always had.

Op you're the worst kind if aibu poster. You only pop up to agree with someone who agrees with you!

There's always enough there if dh did wa.t ti take lunch, he just never does! If I made him one I'm sure he'd take it though, lazy git!

It's definitely doable. I have followed the grocery challenge on MSE for the last 3 months and £200 a month is my target for 2 adults 2 kids. Every receipt must be counted, even top up shops. Booze and cleaning stuff is included for me but not toiletries. Last month I was almost £50 below target, this month I will just about scrape through because the kids are home all the time and eat eat eat (although packed lunches were included anyway). I cook from scratch 99% of the time and don't buy much snacky stuff, I bake instead. We've drastically cut back on alcohol which DH wasn't very happy about but until he finds a job (was made redundant) there isn't much choice. We're doing it out of necessity but even when he's earning again i will try to keep it up and save more money to pay off the mortgage, since we're eating better and more healthily (less ready meals) than before. It just takes some planning. TBH I used to spend so much I wouldn't have believed it was possible either, but it is.

Oh get a grip, MrsKeithRichards, I've been away from the thread because I have a JOB! Just catching up. Am I meant to respond to everyone/everything. Are those your rules?

Oh a JOB, how interesting. Is that more important than just a job?

Anyway, it would appear that you're not really that interested in how people do it, just trying to prove they can't. Have a read through, loads of tips. Give it a try you might surprise yourself.

We are a family of 4 - me, DH, DS1 (3.8) & DS2 (16 months) & 1 DCat, and I spend anywhere from £100-£200 per month, so £25-£50 per week, on everything (including nappies for DS2, cleaning stuff, toiletries), depending on what stores we have in already. This includes all meals except breakfast, lunch & dinner for DS1 2 days per week, which will change in a couple of weeks.

I keep costs so low using a few different tactics:

Never buy meat/bread/bakery goods eg cakes, croissant/fruit & veg at full price unless unavoidable. I go to Tesco once every 3/4 weeks at around 7pm, kids in tow, and buy reduced items (75% off of original price) when they are marked down. These go straight in the freezer (we have 2) & means that the meat part of our meal is rarely more than £1 & I never pay more than about 40p for branded bread eg Hovis.

We make use of our local farm shops & farms. I buy a 25kg sack of potatoes for about £7 & store these in the garage, they last about 3 months. For the first time this year I also bought half a lamb from a farmer, this was £45 for about 20 meals, if you include heart etc - and I have the added bonus of knowing these goods are fresh & local & the kids love the visit to the farms

I buy Value everything!

I get loads of freebies by signing up to test products on various different websites. In the last 6 months I have had at least 4 packs of nappies, 4 lots of laundry detergent, 3 lots of cat food, 1 full bottle of cleaning spray & 1 full bottle of Ambre Solaire suncream and more besides! All I have to do is fill in a short survey with my opinion of the product.

If I see a bargain grocery-wise, I buy it! So when a local store had tubs of Utterly Butterly on its date for 20p, I bought 3 & froze 2, saving a fair bit of money - most stuff can be frozen!

I forage a little. We are lucky enough to have a public park with an orchard on our doorstep, where we can pick plums, apples, blackberries, sloe & elderberries. The DC love to go & help me pick fruit for jam/stewing & freezing.

I would say we eat well. Today's menu is B - cornflakes (Sainsbury's Basics, about 30p/pack), L - sandwiches with yellow label naice ham, hm banana cake, avocado, raisins, value choc biscuit bar, D - lamb casserole (lamb 88p, carrots - 1 kg for 10p, so about 1p worth used, ditto parnsip & swede, 1 onion say 10p if that), which will feed me & DH, DS1 tomorrow & DS2 for 2 meals & jackets. We don't really have alcohol except what we make with our foraged fruits & biscuits/crisps are value & bought about twice a month.

I used to shop this way out of necessity & while I still couldn't afford to spend £100/week on groceries, I could spend more than I do, but I prefer to pay off credit cards with the spare money or go on a nicer holiday than I could otherwise do

Jen that's well impressive!