...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...)

in our local paper today a couple have lived in £1 each per day... so £14 a week for the two of them

(they did not cheat by using stuff from their store cupboards either!!!!)

They were sponsored to do this, and have raised lots of money for charity as a result.
They did it for 3 weeks, but originally only planned to do it for 2 weeks
they plan to do it for lent too apparently!

so on that basis i think £50 for 4 is do-able, and as we see, many families do do it

(they were having porridge made with water for breakfast)

Also it wasnt that long ago the Sainsburys were doing feed your family for a week for a fiver which if i remember was breakfast / lunch / dinner / a pudding, and i think they even did a cooked breakfast at the weekend
... and that was from shopping in Sainsburys!!!!!!

i mean for £50, not a fiver!!!!! (obviously)

can you still get stuff like hearts and shin?

i used to love stuffed hearts weirdly tho i cant stand liver

A butcher would sell you heart, I've heard hearts really nice too.

I've seen shin in Asda but I dont like their meat as much as Morrisons meat.

I think you can pretty much get hold of anything these days, a schoolfriend used to eat goat at home and I'm going back 20+ years.

I've done the "living below the line" thing before (during Lent). It's not easy but it can be done. Wouldn't want to do it forever, though.

Our shop for family of 4 is about £80 - 90 including washing powder, shampoo etc. We plan a week's meals ahead, try and do as much home baking as possible and buy the supermarket value brand. But our local supermarket is Waitrose! Sainsburys and Tesco both a 20 minute drive so then I'd have to factor in petrol, over savings made.
We've got quite inventive with homemade soup, home made pizza, omelettes and meals on toast. Also eat lots of pasta dishes. Meat reserved for once or twice a week.
I've found one of the things that adds up quickly is stuff for the lunch boxes - so ds and dd don't take drink cartons, crisps, chocolate biscuits, cheese strings etc. Cannot see how you could do it for £50 I find it hard to stick to this budget.

Took me a while to read throu all that, picked up some tips. Is there a thread somewhere for meal plans or can someone send me an example? Would like to cut my shopping down if I can!

The mention of hearts takes me back to when i was a child. Every so often my mum and I would go to an aunt and uncle's house for sunday lunch, and it was usually hearts, lamb or pig ones.

I do remember they did taste quite nice, but never quite got my head round seeing a roast heart on my plate with all the trimmings, and felt a bit squeamish cutting the edible parts off.

I don't think I would be tempted to try one again, and I know for sure my kids would never eat it in a million years. They looked at me like I needed locking up when I told them it was a regular meal for me as a kid!

There's four of us, five on nights when ex-H is visiting (twice a week) and I spend around £40-45 a week, £50-70 if I have to do a stock-up on meat for freezer, olive oil, flour etc. which is maybe once a month. 3 boys have packed lunches (sandwiches, 2 pieces of fruit, crackers and water) and I just have sandwiches. We don't eat much meat, maybe 3 to 4 times per week but we do eat mounds of veg, cheese and eggs. We don't eat snacks other than fruit, crackers or toast.

I think what keeps the bills down is that I don't buy bottled or fizzy drinks, expensive crisps, biscuits etc. and we don't eat much meat. I never buy ready meals or frozen food other than peas, sweetcorn and sometimes icecream. I never buy brand names unless they're vastly reduced and I make damned good use of reduced price foods.

The £40 doesn't include cleaning products but does include cat food, which is supermarket own brand as luckily he isn't fussy. Cleaning stuff and toilet rolls comes from Home Bargains as it's substantially cheaper than supermarket, and I only buy the necessities such as washing up liquid, washing powder etc. I don't buy branded floor cleaning gel wipes or useless crap and I make my own rather lovely anti-bac spray with tea-tree and lavendar oils in water in a spray bottle.

I know I sound like my head's up my arse but I have no difficulty in feeding everyone on that amount. I can do it on less if I have to but that's when it starts to be depressing. You just have to be a bit creative with meals (which I like anyway) and make good use of leftovers (freezer).

I fed 3 if us on £40 a week easily. And when I cook most meals I cook for 6-8 and freeze what I don't use.
That includes buying household stuff as long as I buy bits each week and don't leave them to build up.
Sometimes a food shop will last 2 weeks and then the next week I will do a big shop with the money I save

Can I ask when you buy reduced meat that is use by that day do you cook it and then freeze it, or just freeze it? If you just freeze it does it not then take hours to defrost making it potentially out of date?

sand the meat does not go bad at the stroke of midnight. I personally never buy and freeze chicken or pork if I cannot use it that day, and will examine it closely anyway, but I think beef is different, and I will happily freeze and thaw like you say. I make sure I use it very quickly though. I have to be extra careful as I am pg and also have young children. I am sure others are more brave. I think it depends on the store too. I have bought chicken well within use by date from Sainsburys and it has been off. Some stores have a use by date a couple of days after sell by, so there is no problem.

Ox heart is available in Morrison's, I made a stew with it.

I reportion everything into the right amounts per meal then freeze raw.

No. HTH. (you can defrost in microwaves, also a couple of hours is not going to magically make it switch from perfectly fine to food poisoning ridden - obey good food hygiene rules don't buy anything that looks dodgy already and check that everything smells okay before cooking)

I just whack it in the freezer. I defrost overnight in the fridge and then cook as normal. Meat doesn't become a lethal weapon at the stroke of midnight, so it's all good.

yesterday, I got 8 100% beef burgers reduced to 60p, 1lb of Icelandic line caught cod fillets reduced to 40p, 8 cumberland sausages reduced to 20p and 4 pies reduced to 10p each. Oh happy day! All of them are happily sitting n my freezer now, beside the 2 large free range chickens that I got in Marks a few weeks ago for £5 and my 7kg pork joint that I got for £7.

I freeze marked down meat too, then I defrost and cook.

Never made either of us ill yet.

DH is currently ploughing his way through marked down lurpak that was frozen and it's ok too.

MIL throws perfectly good food out if it gets too near the use by date.

My God please tell me how you do it. I spend £250 at the supermarket every month and there s only 2 of us. I am a bit worried what we,re going to do when we have our little boy. That's shopping at tesco and literally having an empty fridge for the last week until the next month starts. That includes food household stuff cleaning things toiletries and things for the dog and cat. Buy meanly own brands but lots of fruit veg and fresh meat. We do both like usual foods,too and buy cherizo and prawns and strawberries which are quite expensive.

It's a struggle to keep to that budget.

I've read through every single post, and I would like to be the first to say this...

Get a gastric band then get divorced.

Marvellous reduction in food bills!

I would be so much better off financially without DH!

Cleoowen, just shop at aldi/lidl and use astonish cleaners from the poundshop or savers or homebargains.

Simple.

Dont tell your dh though, they get a bit funny about this kind of thing, even the economy books from WWII say dont tell your husband what you're doing to reduce outgoings.

Mine would go nuts if he found out we have sainsburys basic teabags for the last 20 months, he still tells me you cant beat PG Tips.

That made me laugh fluffy! I want to tell DH just how hard I am trying, yet he gets daily packages from Amazon!

Lol at your DP Fluffy.

My dp is very funny about milk. So take the labels off the milks and mark it up, 1,2,3 for order of use. Then it only gets binned if it actually bad, not if dp has seen it is past its best before.

DH will not have eggs from caged hens in the house. I have considered buying value ones and just use the same egg box, but I feel guilty about the poor hens now too, so I do not do that. Thankfully he does not demand free range chicken

Aldi eggs are 15 for £2.09 free range.

We use them.

Thank you. I have not seen them fluffy