...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...)

puddlejumper im with you on that compleatly. people often claim they can but its fairly rare that they really can im guessing its different if you rely on processed stuff.

but so many people would be if they realised how many brand companies also make the supermarket own label stuff.

i dont compromise on food but i do compromise on cost they really arnt the same thing

I think it's doable if you eat very basic meals with hardly any fresh stuff....ie lots of pasta and tinnned tomatoes and white sliced bread.

If I had to I reckon I could, but I would have to be really forced to as I spend about £150 a week on three of us (we eat and drink well)

It is possible, I regularly have to stick to around that for 5/6 of us per week, sometimes it includes stuff like kitchen roll, dog food, loo paper etc. I usually spend about 75/80 though all in, but at the most skint of times i have fed us all for the grand total of £37.

it isnt fun, but it can be done (though doing it week after week could get sould destroying), especially if you make most things from scratch.

There's 3 of us but I only spend £50-£60 (usually under budget) a week, which includes toiletries and cleaning stuff.

We rarely drink, rarely eat takeaways, bulk buy where possible, make my own bread/cakes/biscuits/scones/pizza dough (doesn't really have any effect on my electricity as I do it all by hand except the baking), shop around for the best deals, buy value items and meal plan.

1 400g packet of mince or chicken will be used for 2 separate meals. We eat 2-3 vegetarian meals a week or substitute meat for quorn which I think lowers the bill.

I don't think it is unhealthy - we usually reach 5 a day easily. I don't think it compromises on taste either.

Sweet and sour Pork - £5.90 feeds 4

500g diced pork £3 (bought from farmshop, 4 food miles)
Tin pineapple 50p
Cornflour 10p
Carrots 20p
Rice 50p
Spring Onions 50p
Sugar 10p
Ketchup 10p
Red Pepper 40p
Rice wine vinegar 10p

Spaghetti - £3.40 feeds 4

500g beef mince £1.50 (bought from farmshop 2kg for 6 pounds, 8 food miles)
Onions 20p
Stock cube 10p
Tin tomatoes 50p
Pepper 40p
Cloves Garlic 20p
Spaghetti 50p
Herbs free from garden

That's two main meals, both reasonably healthy with decent ingredients, both easily under the £1.78 pp you've set.

I'm living as an individual and find it hard to exist on £28 a week on just food but I do it by eg buying a big pack of frozen chicken breasts, cooking big casseroles and freezing in small portions.

I buy a pint of milk twice a week (for breakfast cereal). If I were to buy 2 pints, it would be 'off' by the time I could have another 1 pint box.

I have no experince of buying for more than a husband and two children but it really means a lot not alot of organisation - which is not rocket science.

You can all do it if you think about it. Discount pop, crisps, takeaways, burgers, ready meals etc. Give up buying them and get into cooking simple meals. Shepherds pie does not take a lot of thought if you follow the recipe. Cook that a couple of times and it will give you (wow! I've done it) the motivation to cook something else from the recipe book.

From reading this thread, I think there's definitely a time/region/area effect. A couple of people have mentioned being able to budget better when they're on (for example) maternity leave and have time to plan/shop around and others have mentioned farm shops, etc. (none around here). The only shop I could get to at lunchtime, for example, is the student union shop on the campus where I work (vile, expensive instant coffee, pot noodles and biscuits! - wouldn't touch any of it with a bargepole.) Aldi has been mentioned loads of times, but not everyone lives in spitting distance of one (or Lidl). They'd make a fortune if they ever decided to do online shopping service I reckon.

Having a freezer seems to figure large, as does bulk buying. But where do you keep a 15kg bag of rice and a large freezer if you live in a small flat?

Age/appetite of children seems to be a big factor in people's responses, too. My DC is always hungry between lunch and dinner - comes home from school ravenous every day. As someone else said: economical meals seem easier when you're at home (baked potatoes etc) but nourishing packed lunches etc are less doable on a budget IMO, particularly if you don't want to eat pasta salad every day of your life.

lljkk I guess I'm lucky then and can cook. There's no way my family get strange cheese on toast (what is strange cheese anyway?), baked beans and the other thing you mentioned for dinner every night.

The last shop cost me £40. Tonight we're having a full roast chicken dinner, tomorrow is a big chicken salad with potatoes (not old I hasten to add). We also have three bean salad planned with chilli beef, home fried fish and home made chips and various other delights.

Amothersplace what's not healthy about tinned tomatoes and cheap British veg like carrots and onions? Yes we aren't eating mangos and sugar snap peas but there are very cheap and British ingredients that are fresh.

The same goes for fresh mackerel against tuna. If youre eating from scratch and all fresh for 150 a week then you are either eating a lot of very high end meat or an amazing amount of bagged salad which is a particular bugbear of mine. Or artisan bread.

And we eat well, I just make a lot of it myself and know how to do it cheaply. Granted if your idea of eating well is having 5 varieties of cheese in the fridge then no, we don't do that, that only happens at Christmas. But then I would see that as overconsumption tbh. But that is my mothers protestant frugal training coming through that I can't shake off, I will be squishing soap bits together before long.

Christ I've just seen the op's onedownmanship comment. How I missed that I don't know. Here, have a cheap, under budget

I used to feed myself and my son on about £18 a week when I was really skint, although he did have lunch five days a week at nursery and it was a few years ago.

Paha - I spend £130 at least a week on a family of 3!!!

I really need to budget more!

I agree with you, OP. We are 5, inc 3 teenagers. It's bot £1.78 pp per meal. It's 1.78 pp per day. When people talk about packed lunches they seem to only include a sandwich. Our DC need more than that. They need a mid-morning snack and something to go with their sandwich. The amounts of pasta people talk about for 5 aren't enough for our teenage DSs. When I see the amounts of food on some savings websites I know it wouldn't be enough for our very slim DSs who walk nearly everywhere. Also cheapest shampoo, shower gel and washing up liquid harm this family's skin.

What do you agree with? That the people that do it are being economical with the truth or do you agRee that it is possible, just you can't - or haven't had to?

Mine includes my lunches at home and ds packed lunch which is a carton of orange, raisons, sandwich, crisps and one other bit of fruit.

couldn't agree more op I have 4 DC and a husband who likes to train and so eats like a bloody horse and honestly even with buying bargains and bringing shopping lists etc etc my weekly bill is never under £120! I dont even like to think what it all adds up to by the time I count in daily add ons from the local! I can often be heard complaining that if i didnt have to buy food I'd be a millionaire by now!

I'm certainly not lying when I say we get by on less than that for food shopping. Only one adult and two children here though.

I agree it does take time. My DSis and her BF spent less than £50 a week including bills when they were unemployed. They had the time to spend walking from one shop to another. They also didn't have any kids, so could save on electricity and water and eat the most basic meals for months. BF is French, which of course helped! He was able to create lovely meals from very basic incredients.

My weekly food shop comes in at about £45 for 2 adults and 1 child. I meal plan but still eat nice food. Not much meat but what meat we do eat is normally organic. Eggs also organic. We shop in Sainsburys.

An average weeks dinners normally looks like this;

Shepherds pie- 2 nights
salmon, green beans and potatoes-1 night
home made pizza (dough with bread maker and home made sauce), normally with chorizo topping- 2 nights
Vegetable stir fry and noodles
Pasta tuna bake

Bread in Bread maker

Toast or porridge for breakfast.

Salads, sandwiches, eggy soldiers or beans on toast for mine and DSs lunch.

Oh dd's lunch box always includes a sandwich, some fresh proper fruit (not the strings or whatever), something dairy so yoghurt or cheese off a block and maybe a nice treat like a choc snack or crispy snack.

I eat a lot of fresh fruit and veg. Some on this thread seem to be questioning whether that is possible, it is! I just don't buy all the little extras like crisps, biscuits, alcohol, cordials...

Op you need to come on to the credit crunch thread, austere august with us.

We'll get your budget down.

Btw I use aldi toothbrushes and no bristles or teeth have falled out.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1532193-Put-those-purses-down-and-enjoy-an-austere-August-instead.

Were friendly with it too!.

This is what we ate today:

breakfast: porridge with full fat milk and raisins
lunch: fresh tomato and basil soup with toast and butter. DH took leftovers from yesterday's dinner for his lunch (and does everyday). Chunk of cheese.
dinner: Fish and sweet potato pie (sweet potato, courgette, carrot, river cobbler fish, onion, butter, egg, coriander, chili powder and paprika) with new potatoes
Snacks: orange, apple, banana, walnuts.

I just did the maths to see if it would come on on budget with 4 adult portion suzes and it just did at £7.11 for the day.

Granted there was some reduced food in there, but that's part of living cheaply, it was still all from tesco and the co-op in walking distance.

There's also blackberry crumble in the fridge from yesterday, we picked the blackberries when we took the kids out for a walk.

Yabu. I have 4dc and if I have to, I can feed us all on £50 a week curtesy of Iceland.

fallen out. ffs.