...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...)

Hmm, your first comment on this thread is to say you're not going to get involved... Now you seem determined to pick over everything I write a bit over-involved.

I am very interested in how people manage on £50/week, especially when it includes ALL meals (not just ones eaten in the house) as I do struggle to find economical packed lunches that aren't over-heavy on carbs. However, as mentioned above, I do think a lot depends on what shops you have available and how much time you have. For example, I'm pretty familiar with all my local shops and haven't seen anywhere selling wholemeal Hovis at 69p a loaf since around 1997.

Aldi 69p for wholemeal or that 50/50 stuff.

Next.

As mentioned above. £4 train ride to nearest Aldi, so I rest my point on 'what shops are available/how much time you have'.

Feel free to keep picking away at me, MrsKeith, but I'm fucking off now.

Do you think you'd save more than £4 by going?

I know I do on a weeks milk alone.

No. I would struggle with a week's worth of shopping and a crutch on the train.

And now I'm really fucking off back to work now.

Well we do it. So op YABU. It can be done, but you have every right to be dubious, but that's maybe because you can't do it? Our local shop reduces meat at 3pm, so we get a lot of meat etc of good quality for very cheap. I work from home so can shop around. No big deal. Who cares how much other people shopping costs. We all eat!

would some kindly MN'ers post their shopping reciepts, so I can see what eople are buying and how they use the food

llkjj, in here I count all meals except lunch for Dh, which he buys out of his own money at work. During term time DS1 and 2 get their own lunches at college/uni from loan/bursary, during holidays they get lunch here with the rest of us. Other kids are HE, so fed everything at home. We don't go out to eat/get takeaways/eat at family except on special occasions, so that doesn't count either.

I could make Dh and the boys packed lunches but they don't want them so they buy their own. I do count everything else into the budget.

I can easily feed the 3 of us, 2 Cats & a Hamster on that & often less, its not boasting for us its just fact & its far from a rubbish diet too, but as others have said its about how much time & effort you want to put in.

We do however have Morrisons on our doorstep, Aldis & a good market within an easy walk, so its easy to get good cheap fruit & veg & we do shop around, also taking in ethnic supermarkets which can often be much cheaper than say getting your soy sauce or sweet chilli from a supermarket - you will likely get a litre bottle for the same price as a teeny supermarket one for & we never buy processed stuff & do eat an exceptionally healthy & varied diet

I love to cook & cook everything from scratch, always batch cook & freeze the extra portions to make my own ready meals, I also bake some bread & all cakes, biscuits pies etc. we also don't eat meat, which probably helps keep the cost down, though we do eat fish & I have good stores of grains, seeds, pulses etc that don't get replaced every week, so that helps with the cost too, but if you break down the percentage we do use, its still well within that budget

Sorry but I do think DP and DCs lunches count. The OP was asking how people manage to feed 4 people for a week on x amount. You can't say 'oh I CAN do it on 3.50' but not include certain meals for certain members of the family! DP and I used to get lunches free at work, but I wouldn't have said on a budget thread 'oh WE manage on x amount a week' without accounting for the free lunches that most other people would have to pay for!

I struggle because we have very little freezer space, and we aren't in a position to buy a bigger freezer at the moment. If I could freeze a decent amount of stuff rather than just one loaf and a couple of packs of veg, I'm sure I'd find it a lot easier. There have been weeks when I've come in at around £50 out of necessity with a few corners cut, but it takes about £75 for me to feel like we are still eating a truly balanced diet by the end of the week.

I think YABU to doubt people can do it, but YANBU to think it is to some extent dependent on the facilities you have and where you live.

And btw yes I am jealous and also slightly incredulous. I also cook from scratch, do loads of stews and cheap meals, buy very few branded products but still manage to spend over 100 pounds a week for four of us. But in that I do include nappies, all household cleaning products and toothbrushes/toiletries etc.

I also wonder if these threads don't account for location. Last time I was in Leeds, for instance, I was amazed at the market and how cheaply good quality products were being sold at. Ditto parts of London. We have nothing like that round these parts.

average £60 a week family of 6 here, 2 adlults, 10 year old,3 year old,2 year old and 6 month old, breastfeed and cloth nappy so no extra costs there and thats every meal inc packed lunches, i make everything i can from scratch tho,bread,cakes,biscuits etc

Libeluule, my DS and " are 22 ans almost 20 and have funded college/uni places so they have all their own money. I feed them, clothe them, do their washing, buy all their toiletries, etc. etc., don't take any dig money from them, so I think that buying their own lunch is not really a big deal and isn't part of my household budget. DH won't take food from home to work so he buys himself a sandwich and a coffee every day out of his own personal spending money. So, that's from a completely separate budget, although it would still fit in the budget if he wanted to take food from here.

I feed 7 people on an average of around £50-£70 a week not including toiletries etc., less than £100 a week counting everything. The fact that my adult children choose to buy their own lunch doesn't impact on whether I could feed my family for less than £90 a week.

I think YABU to doubt people can do it, but YANBU to think it is to some extent dependent on the facilities you have and where you live

You've hit the nail on the head there Spotty its definitely easier for some than others & where you live & whats on your doorstep is the key to that, I think also "needs must" plays a part too - DD had pretty awful intolerances to deal with, so cooking everything from scratch was something I had no choice in, but a bonus has been its a much cheaper way to eat - a good example is a Stew & dumplings I make for school fetes - costs about £7-8 to feed about 40 people, yet its a good nutritionally balanced meal

I'm really trying to cut down my shopping bill but with a family off four struggle to do an evening meal for less than a fiver.
I would really like to see a breakdown of what posters who spend fifty pound or less eat and how much each meal costs and I seen to being going very wrong some where

Thanks MrsKeith

If we HAD to feed our family of three on £50 or less a week, then I know we would be able to. We'd have to. You cut back in areas you never thought were possible. Value range on most things, few or no treat items, smaller portions, using the leftovers, using ends of meat to make soup etc.

But we don't have to, so we can't comprehend how we would manage. We are two adults and a 2 year old, and we spend probably about 80ish a week on food, loo rolls, cleaning items and some toiletries. We don't really keep a tally, though, so that's a guess. I'd love to start budgeting it because that money would be so much better in the savings account...

Just to add: we buy our meat from the butcher and some of my toiletries are quite pricey (salon shampoos for eg). We get a lot of our cleaning stuff from the wholesaler. We cook from scratch, but also buy snacky stuff. We don't buy value stuff (my husband does have value soups for his snack at work). We live in the SW. We have just moved house and have a big allotment at the end of our garden, so with any luck, we will spend much less on veg soon.

Shinyshoes I was close to doing that the last time one of these threads came up. I might just do it this time. Doing my meal plan etc tonight and shopping tomorrow so will post then.

Carrie If you buy cleaning stuff from wholesaler do you have to buy a whole ton of stuff, or can you buy manageable amounts? I would be really interested in this.

I make all our cleaning products. Every one. And bought a packet of those IKEA towels to use as cleaning rags.

Expat - I would be even MORE interested in making them! Please share.