...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...)

Will search out a bread maker

NOOooooo, IMHO they are a complete waste of space & money, mine is stuck in the attic having been used only a handful of times - I find its easier & nicer to make bread by hand - quite therapeutic too & loads of great recipes on the net - check out the artisan breads for example, you can't get easier & tastier than those :)

I'm another which will advice against a breadmaker, we got freecycled one, the bread was hard and stodgy it was like a brick with a massive hole in the bottom from the paddle. For a while we just used it to mix the dough, mostly for pizza bases. Then sense prevailed, for the amount of room it took up it was almost as easy to mix it up by hand and stick it in the airing cupboard for an hour. Plus it really is therapeutic, its the best stress ball ever. Its since been re-freecycled, I did feel quite guilty.

Our shopping budget is £120 a week for 8 people, 3 adults, one teen, 3 kids and one 15 month old. We never spend that much. We eat more than our 5 a day and the fruit bowl is always full. That includes cleaning stuff and nappies.

Yes it can be done, but you have change your expectations. We dont eat salmon steaks or huge roasts for example, but we do eat well and very very healthily (I have 3 rubgy playing girls in the house, I wouldnt get away with offering them crap!)

It was me that did the cheapy meal planner ages ago.

It was about £55 for two weeks shopping I think.

It is possible. You may not be eating huge slabs of meat or fish but you can eat a balanced diet cheaply, it just takes a lot more planning.

I couldn't do it for £50 a week as there is me, DH, six dc (including teenagers) and not forgetting my huge hounds. But I do manage it fairly cheaply

I'm also severely disabled but I actually find that works a little bit in my favour...

As I rarely go out I live my entire life online and that does come in handy when shopping around online. I can compare supermarkets but I also buy things like nappies, dog food and even household stuff in bulk from places like amazon. I also use approved foods and the bargains there can be amazing

I do think it's sometimes a case of just doing what you need to do. At the moment I'm just pleased we can afford to feed the dc, with all the cuts coming I'm worried that won't always be the case

Wow couthy. Hats off to you.

Ok I won't get a breadmaker- wouldn't fit in my kitchen anyway!

I need to start meal planning and budgeting way better as I'm due to go back to work full time so need to be organised and save money (all of ours will be going on childcare!!) but I have a dp who is a proper carnivore so won't eat veggie meals more than about once a week... I have a slow cooker so need to try and get into the habit of using that.

There are two adults and two teenagers here and I don't spend £50-£60pw. However, DH and I both work full time and a round trip to the nearest Lidl/Aldi would take me at least three hours through London traffic and that is not a good use of my time. Occasionally when we need to stock up on household stuff I might go to Asda and confess it is significantly cheaper than Waitrose or Sainsburys when I do go and the quality is good too - our one is just exceptionally unpleasant.

Once when DH was away, because of all these threads I did feed the two teenagers and me for £50.00 ferretting out reduced stuff in Sainsbury's on the way home and buying things like Club biscuits on special offer. That did not, though include dinner money or my lunch but I did it even though the children looked askance at the bottle of Sainsbury's Basics Shampoo and conditioner I brought home. Usually though I don't have time to spend an extra 20-30 minutes doing that after work and just pick up what I know everyone likes. Actually nowadays after all these threads I feel guilty if I do actively look for heavily reduced stuff because I know that is how some families cope. But I did snap up a beautiful rolled leg of Berkshire Pork in Waitrose when I spotted it at 4.45 on Sunday which was reduced to £4.50 from about £16 and that's in the freezer and will come out when the cooking apples are in the shops for home-made apple sauce because it's worth it.

If you have to I think you can do it. I try to be "sensible" in the shops and that keeps the bills down a bit. I do think once you have two teenagers rather than one three year old you have to expect the food costs to double at least though. Teenagers really don't stop eating and eat in industrial quantities - especially when they are built to play "front row" .

I spend less than £50 but were vegetarian and veg is cheap,especially when bought from the market.

Yummymummy - one 500g pack of mince does one meal, working on 100g per person here.

I still spend around £170 a week in the holidays, and £135 a week term time. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get it below that.

This month my ex is having to give me an advance on my maintenance, as after 3 full sets of brand new uniform (both schools changing to Academies and changing uniforms, all at the same time FFS), my Child Benefit and maintenance is GONE, and I still need to get their school shoes (well, two pairs, anyway, DS1's are holes held together with a few bits of shoe, and DS2 has grown out of his.)

Doesn't help that DS1 is in a 'G' fitting with a very high instep and can only wear one style of school shoe that costs £35 a pair, and DS2 has to have special boots that cost nearly £75 a pair, due to his muscle problems.

Food is just one of many areas where disabilities and medical problems cost me more...

couthy Approved Foods often has stuff for intolerances, Gluten free etc. Could you stock up? It would be an initial outlay, but could save a fortune in time. Also have you spoken to your MP about what seems to be a postcode lottery for the prescription issue? I would personally kick up a stink over that.

Several times I have noticed on this thread comments about people spending less on food because they have smaller children, as if that does not count. Younger children have to have quality calorie rich foods in order to grow, and mine eat loads and are far from fat. There are also additional costs in nappies, extra washing etc, plus childcare fees. If I was not having to spend up to £1300 PCM for childcare, I could afford to spend more on food!

As this thread has shown, 'four people' varies considerably due to appetite, dietary needs etc, so comparing is really difficult. I still think OP is being very unreasonable doubting the word of those who say they do. It is effectively saying we are lying, which I take offence at. If it was worded as 'AIBU to wonder how people can.....' then that would be very different.

it's doable, when you have to, if you've got access to the right places. where we used to live we had a co-op and that was it and it was very very dear. when Lidl opened it made a massive difference to our shop.

now i look back on those days and laugh at how much money we had and how poor we felt. NOW we know what skint is and just learnt to get by. planning all the way to make it work, Lidl has just closed down waaaaaaahh! so now we have to go to aldi, which is ok but so busy. it's 10miles away but well worth the petrol if i have it.

i dont think there's anything to doubt. it's definitely possible but that doesn't mean it is for everyone. if you dont have time or access you have to make do with a tesco delivery. the times i do that i am left very sad at the minuscule amount my £50 has bagged me. i couldnt do it without a car.

So of to do my shop my list is -

Cheese
Smoked sausage
Bagged salad
Coleslaw
Whole chicken
Ham
Fresh burgers
Sweet and sour sauce
Eggs
Curry paste
Chilli sauce
Crisps
Skips
Chocolate directives
Two other biscuits
Three breakfast cereals
Bread
Cartons of apple juice
Lemonade
Potatoes
Spring onion
Tomatos
Lettuce
Two froZen pizzas
FroZen chicken
Selection of fruit
Shampoo
Conditioner
Deodorant
Shower gel
Toothpaste

Three big cartons of milk.

From my rough estimates its going to be under £45 but will let you.know!

Menu for week

Macaroni cheese with salad and smoked sausage

Fresh burgers with cheese coleslaw and wedges

Pizza, wedges and salad

Fakeaway Chinese

Roast chicken and all the trimmings

Chicken noodle soup

Beef chillI and rice

Breakfast is cereal, porridge or toast

Lunches are soup, leftovers or baked potatoes for me and dh when he's not at work.

Sandwich, fruit and crisps for ds lunch and snacks at school.

Bacon rolls at weekend.

Forgot rolls!

Someone asked above is it doable shopping in one place & I would say unless you really do eat basic & bland - NO - this last few weeks I've been ill, also school hols of course with a whiney, I hate food shopping 9yr old so my normal walk to Aldis/Market/Poundland etc hasn't happened - & even though Morrisons is our local shop I have noticed a BIG difference in our food bill these last few weeks - thankfully we don't do it because we have to, but because I'd rather save the money to spend elsewhere, but without the access to shopping around I don't doubt it would be impossible to eat so well as we do on £50 & less.

The other thing that I'm not sure has been mentioned, is waste, theres a big campaign here - Love Food Hate Waste & one that I whole heartedly agree with - it might be worth checking your areas too, as I've noticed from the e-mails I get they have great tips on there - eating seasonally & cooking with waste foods, we do that anyway, which definitely helps, but if not, it could be a great source of info, advice & recipes.

Good examples that I do are sunday roast - left overs become "Sunday Curry" - this usually makes a big batch that has extras to freeze - Bananas always end up as cake, as do most fruits on the turn & bread, becomes crumbs for topping macaroni - (good for left over cheeses too) or various other dishes, such as white fish & leek bake

I think it depends what shops you have near you as well. To go to our nearest Aldi it would cost £7 return in diesel in the car (and we have a car that does 54mpg).

Equally, I'm coeliac. So yes I can eat rice and potatoes, but ANYTHING specifically gluten free costs about 4x more than 'normal' food. Baby is highly likely to get this too as it's genetic and have been warned off even trying gluten until he's two. That increases our costs as even if I live off potatoes/rice and never have bread or anything like that, the cheap sauces etc all have gluten in them.

Add to that both working, long hours and getting home too late to cook much completely from scratch (if you get home at 8pm and need to be asleep by 10pm then quick wins!), market only being on days we work (not helpful!), and it's not easy to make the bills tiny. We'll manage 2 adults plus one small child for £50 pw easily incl non-food items, but that's the best it gets...

i can't do it all in one place. i get meat from one place, bulk of stuff from aldi. aldi nappies dont fit her so tesco for them and wipes. milk delivered - not in itself cheaper but supports local dairy farm and stops us doing top ups midweek! because that's where dh can somehow spend £35 on bugger all when that's a full aldi trolley of real food. all the supermarkets are 10miles away. only got a Booths here so the £5 on petrol pays for itself 3x over!

Whoop!

£47.18 in Aldi but that includes £3 bottle of wine as I was doing so well!

Well I finally went to Aldi again after a disappointing experience a few years back where I thought the choice was crap.

It ain't changed much...

We wanted veggie sausage, mash and gravy for tea. I got the potatoes. That was it. They don't do veggie sausages, they don't do any specific veggie foods, or the veg gravy. Oh, and they over charged me for the potatoes. 2.5kg bag, and was charged £1.79

I'm not bothering again. We get 10% staff discount in Morrisons anyway (DP works there). I'd go to Aldi for the snacks and cheap pop which on average seem about 25% cheaper than the big supermarkets, but tbh, home and bargain are cheaper for those, and I don't want loads of crap anyway.

So back to the supermarket for me it is! But not Tesco. They are ridiculously over priced now, even Sainsburys is cheaper these days.

I could have made the sausages and gravy from scratch, but tbh, I prefer not to!

Can I just say that last night's meal - 4 adult portions of ratatouille and rice - came in at £1.70 of bought ingredients.

On the other hand, it did take all the ripe veg in the greenhouse.

As I have said previously I only have £50 to spend. I didnt mention that I low carb due to health problems. It doesnt cost any more, all I do it is add a bit more veg/salad instead of having potatoes or pasta. I dont eat fruit so all the fruit we buy is for the kids (hubby just doesnt eat fruit) so that probably saves us some money.

Toothpaste - my dentist told me to give my kids 7, 6 and 5 adult toothpaste instead of kids toothpaste as they are old enough to use it.

aamia WTAF??!! I was actively encouraged to give mine gluten at six months because if they're coeliac this is the only way you'd be able to get a diagnosis. In addition, my daughter has been tested and is fine, there's apparently 1 in 10 chance of them having it nut it's by no means highly likely. 1 in 100 of the population has it,

Postcode lottery? or talking rubbish?!

Tesco ARE ridiculously overpriced. But it's the only shop that is accessible to me with my disabilities. It's Tesco or don't eat, basically. Even if I hate putting money into their tills on a moral basis, in my circumstances, that has to be put to one side, for the sake of my health.

Multiple disabilities in a family affect finances in so so many ways!

PS Don't you get prescriptions?