to try and settle the 'which is cheaper, junk or cooked from scratch' debate once and for all

[IceBeing]

I have seen both sides of this recently on MN and on the box.

So. submit your meal plans here.

1. Choose junk or home cooked

1. Give a shopping list plus price for a weeks worth of food for a family of 4, assuming no reliance on a 'store cupboard' and no meal sharing.

1. Give an estimated weekly cooking time plus shopping time.

1. indicate if your plan relies on a local aldi/lidl etc.

Lets sort this the JEFF out please.....

jeffing hell we are on discussion of the day...well that actually explains some things...

No this is my experiance form travelling to france over the last 6 years and being shocked at the price of fruit and vegetables, this year I took food from home and only brought fresh food to keep the price down.

This year we were in a few different place (about 5) and over 500 miles apart but each supermarket was expensive for fresh food and I never saw melons cheaper than 4 euros. But 3 years ago it was so bad at easter - we drove barcelona to Calais via La rochelle that in the summer when we returned we stocked up with store cubboard food then only had to buy fresh.
As we travel around we are not in very touristy areas - il de re is very expensive and I would expect it to be, but this is just normal supermakret shopping and I am staggered as to how the french can afford it.

There is a marked difference when we hit Spain as the prices drop down.

Dad used to buy french cheese in UK as it is cheaper and then take with him (he is aways for many months at a time) You don't buy french cheese n france to bring home wait until you get home and buy it imported

I do agree though - the french food - lettuce and tomatoes have much better flavour and am envious over that

At the moment I have a good budget, but until recently, I had a £80 monthly budget, better than a lot of people- £20 oer week.

Breakfast: Every week, a 31p cornflake Tesco box.
Lunch: This is snacky-
Monday - cucumber, sliced by me (60p)
Pitta bread (22p)
Tomato, sliced by me (only half used in pack)
Ham (only half used in pack)
Boiled egg each (4 of 6 used in pack)
Tuesday
Roll (60p for four)
Cheese (50p)
Ham (used rest in pack, total pack cost 80p)
Some cornflakes
A banana each (total cost, 48p)
Wednesday
Boiled egg for the kids (pack costs 87p)
Cucumber (only half used in pack)
Tomatoes (for this and previous half, total £1)
Thursday
Cereal
A banana each, sliced (48p)
Friday
Sausages (1 each, half use of pack)
Potatoes, mashed up (only some used)
Sweetcorn (35p total)
Beans (runner) (£1)
Saturday
Pasta (18p)
Cheese melted over (50p)
Broccoli in it (only a quarter used)
Sunday
Pasta (different type,9p)
Onion (25p)
Parsnip (22p)
Sweetcorn (35p)

For supper-
Monday
Bacon (54p)
Carrots, boiled (78p)
Potatoes, only a few and not in pack (total cost, 98p)
Sweetcorn (35p)
Tuesday
Sausages (59p)
Potatoes, only some used in pack
Sweetcorn (35p)
Wednesday
Cucumber (60p)
Pitta bread (22p)
Remaining ham (total cost of pack, 75p)
Cheese (not all used)
Thursday
Cauliflower (60p)
Broccoli (40p)
Pasta (9p)
Saturday
Cornflakes from box
Banana each in cereal (48p)
Sunday
Mashed potatoes (rest used in pack, 80p, from Friday lunch)
Sausages, rest used in pack from before (pack cost is 56)
Sweetcorn (35p)
Some cheese in mashed potato (pack costs 50p)

Salt and pepper total cost is £1.20 and not used purely in this week. Water only.

That's the cheapest I got it down to- actual cost was £18.63 for a week, and it fed us. I used the remaining £1.59 on a chocolate Swiss roll (25p- I wanted the DC to have a special thing and it was across the weekend and the rolls were small) and strawberries costing £1.20.

This was a pittance compared to what we could get on ready meals or frozen food.

If each week breakfast is 31p cornflakes.
Then, each day-
Monday Lunch: Lasagne (75p)
Sweetcorn (20p)
Carrots (33p)
Supper: chilli con carne (80p)
Tuesday Lunch: 2x chicken with rice (£1.50 total)
Supper: 2x Shephef'ds pie (£1)
Sweetcorn (20p in can)
Wednesday Lunch: Meatballs and tomato sauce (68p)
Sweetcorn (20p)
Carrots in tin (33p)
Supper: HALF a pizza
Thursday lunch: chicken fillets (£1)
Potatoes, roasted (not all in pack)
Carrots (33p)
Supper: vegetable nuggets (60p)
Potatoes, made for chips (£1)
Friday Lunch: Macaroni cheese (£1)
Carrots (33p)
Supper: chips (65p)
Sweetcorn (20p)
Hotdog sausages (50p)
Saturday Lunch: Fishfingers (4 of a 10 pack)
Sweetcorn (20p)
Cucumber (30p)
Supper: REST OF PIZZA (50p total)
Cucumber (30p)
Sunday 2x sausage casserole (£1.40 total)
Carrots (33p)
Lunch: REST OF Fishfingers (60p)
Chips (65p)
Frozen mixed vegetables (75p)

Which saves about £1- not much, but we would usually use these meal plans over two weeks, doing alternate days and mixing lunches and suppers and whatnot, so that it was pure frozen or ready meal, but the second meal plan was a lot more filling. We used the remaining £2 or so on Kellogg's all-bran with a bit mixed into the cereal to make sure it saved. No, it wasn't heathy, but I think it's better they feel fuller but have junk and ready meals than fresh food!

Sorry- forgot my Friday:
Lunch (pitta bread, 22p)
Sweetcorn (35p)
Leftover ham (already counted)

Supper:
Cereal
Half a banana in each cereal (24p)

Total cost: 81p - not including ham, of course.

Aargh, didn't mean supper - meant, AS WELL AS choice of cereal/banana.

ivy that is fascinating, because it is just the opposite of my experience! I mean, buying French cheese in the UK, what???? I just bought a huge block of fourme d'ambert (blue cheese) at the supermarket for ?2, comte is as cheap as cheddar, goat cheese is cheap, especially at the markets.

I agree that overall food is more expensive here, but part of the reason we can cope is that we eat a lot of veg and bread and cheese, all of which seems cheaper to us than it did in the UK.

But we live in a very non-touristy area which is also not on the way to anything touristy (ie you can't get to calais from here) which helps a lot.

Anyway sorry for the tangent but actually it's interesting to see how people can have such completely different experiences, I'm sure it's the same in the UK.

My tiny contribution for the day - because I've just bought them and keep forgetting about them - is Aldi scotch eggs, my frequent standby. I'm too unwell to cook properly today. Aldi's Scotch eggs are 69p for two! That's adequate protein, no sulphites or dairy (which I can't eat,) and now I can just snack on carrots, fruit, and the veg risotto I made the day before yesterday.

I repeat, I'm endlessly grateful for cheap, ready-made foods.

Btw, baking is a massive issue when you're watching your electricity day by day. I couldn't possibly match the price of value or marked-down bread & biscuits.

I agree that dried pulses are over-hyped. I use them for bulk, but they're not actually that cheap and only the really expensive ones taste nice.

Dream I am very luck where I live in the uk - as I have a large tesco just 10 minutes walk from my home - but within a mile from my home aorund a large roundabout there are four supermarkets, lidl, sainsbury, morrisons and aldi. This means that they all compete for trade and therefore keep prices down

The thing I noticed about living/working in France (admittedly it was a looooong time ago) was that the French would eat less but better than us. Definitely much less "ready made" food. Patisserie is a (deserved) treat - not every day scoffing. Same goes for cheese and saucisson. A small amount to be appreciated - not a large amount of poorer quality stuff. Veg was bought in season at the market.

Oh and Amberleaf your question below was not 'genuine' as you later claimed and it was clearly spiteful and goady.

If you cared that much about animals, you would be a vegan

Why oh why don't you give a shit?

No need is there?

---------------

It was a genuine question.

The why don't you give a shit was a response to another poster who said that about eggs.

oh and as for spiteful, I suggest you go back and read some of your posts to the very patient loopy.

My posts are not spiteful Amberleaf.

But whatever.

Icebeing, the £47 I spent included fresh fruit and vegetables for making sauces, etc, not tinned.

I last had a macdonalds back in 2004 isn and dd get taken sometimes to macdonalds by her father and she hangs out sometime in the fast food place in town.

So in france this year we were a bit stuck for lunch due to car trouble - dd was given money to go and get herself some type of macdonalds, I gave her twenty euros. I decided I would wait but wanted to make sure she was not hungry.

Anyway she came back and handed me the twenty euros and said It is very expensive I am not buying anything - it was apparently 6 euros for a burger that would cost 99p in the Uk.

So does this stop the french eating as much macdonalds and why is there such a large price difference? Are there different country polices?

We moved on anyway and stopped and got the most delicious croissant I had all holiday even if it was better becuase I was hungry it was very good.

A croissant will be just as fattening as a Macdonalds. They are 90% butter.

Plenty of fat French people to be seen outside of Paris.

There probably are different pricing and product policies in different countries for McDonalds. After all, in Scotland you can get Irn Bru at a McDonalds !

You can buy beer in Europe in McDonalds.

Not helpful - but good to know!

wow thanks roasted!

So your conclusion was that you could feel more full on the 20 quid a week junk meals then on 20 quid a week 'cooking'?

and thanks lougle that is impressive for 'proper' cooking...but doesn't appear include breakfast or lunch...so you are probably in the 60 quid category....

I am making breaded chicken breasts tonight:
two chicken breasts from butchers - £4
breadcrumbs (3 slices of bread, whizzed up in mixer)
1 egg
couple of spoonfuls of flour/salt/pepper
olive oil to oven bake them with - approx. cost just under a fiver, all in?
At Iceland I could buy a pack of 8 Garlic and Herb breaded chicken breasts for £2 (just checked on website after reading this thread)
Am shocked, actually, at the difference in price. I reckon mine will be the healthier option, but if I was on a stricter budget, I wouldn't think twice about the Iceland option.

Icebeing, your summary may be accurate as far as the thread goes but otherwise not necessarily correct.

This blog has been recommended before, including on this thread, but it's worth repeating: agirlcalledjack.com/

She cooks from scratch for herself and her toddler on a budget of £10 a week, producing nutritious and varied meals. Most of her recipes give an exact breakdown of the costs, down to a splash of oil (2p). She lives in a rented room so it's not as if she has a massive kitchen + freezer to store things etc.

I've made her Curry with Apricots recently, for example. agirlcalledjack.com/2013/04/09/jardaloo-ma-murghi-curry-with-apricots-22p/ It was a big hit at home, though admittedly I mixed in extra chicken from a chicken soup I'd made earlier, instead of the chickpeas she used. We are lucky not to be on such a limited budget.
Cost of the original recipe is 87p for four portions.

harrietlichman - I have to agree with you on that one. I've recently had to start making home-made chicken nuggets as Lidl stopped doing their very good if somewhat misshapen frozen chicken nuggets (which used proper chicken breast pieces).

I could a 500g pack for £1.49 - no way can I replicate that with chicken breasts cut of up in to pieces, breadcrumbs (made from the crusts of a sliced loaf or left-over home-made bread if it's not all wolfed down ) and a beaten egg (and I also use grated parmesan to reduce the carb count).

But they do taste good and I know that it is "proper" meat. :)

PS. her meals are typically quick to make and she started doing this once she found she could not stretch her income to cover rent, utilities and ready made (budget end) food.

We are having Iceland herb and garlic chicken breast tonight, as harriet said they are £2 for eight, with wedges £1 for a pack of frozen think its 1KG and a bag of salad also £1. So dinner for me and two teenagers will be about £2, as there is enough in the packets for two meals, ant see how I would make that cheaper at home. I would if we had the money but we just don't at the moment.