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.....

Don't know how to do a calorie breakdown, but it's quite balanced, I think, over the course of the week

It is very time consuming but simple. You see how many calories per 100g (or slice or whatrever) on the nutritional infomation which you can see on Tesco's website, then work out how much of that product you are using and add it all up.

I was surprised at how low some of my meals were comming out at, and a
lot of the lunch calories come from the butter on the toast. I was also reminded that cheese has a seriously high amount of calories!

Interesting that the passata is cheaper for 500ml than a tin of chopped tomatoes.

I used to feed 2 adults on £15 per week pretty easily BUT I was on maternity leave with no other calls on my time, living in the NE. I had tons of time to scour the clearance sections. I'd say it was a 50/50 split of convenience food and "real" food.

But I was also taught to cook.

MrsKoala, I was just doing some Ebaying and an advert popped up for a PayPal credit card linked to a PayPal account, I presume. It is a Mastercard. Would that be any use to you?

Cheese does have an awful lot of calories, doesn't it. It's a good source of calcium and protein in a veggie diet, though. A lot of the calories in the lunches above come from cheese or mayo, tbh, but then some of the other meals are fairly low fat.

Don't think that I could be bothered doing all that to work out calories

Boffin, I've got one of those. It registers as a credit card, but has to be pre-loaded. You can do this with a transfer from your bank, and it also uses any funds in the PayPal account. Very handy sometimes.

MrsKoala, I'm sorry to hear Canada's still trying to starve you :( When can you get back here? Is that too desperate a question?

I love this thread and have loads of ideas to look at...wish I could cook properly.

This website I found on Money Saving Expert years ago and thought what a good idea. Originally you could feed a family of four with proper nutrient filled food for £100 per month that was in September 2010 wonder what it would cost today ?

I like to think I,m not out of touch, considering we are a middle income family of 4 (2yr/1yr old) but I was truly astonished to find how so many people are so resourceful and pre plan to enable them to save right to the last pence. I was analysing our monthly food shop and it stands at 500.Considering we don't buy organic/ free range I am certaintly going to try to make some savings as per the suggestions however not at the expense of good nutrition.

Can't we do it for individual meals? Or per day of food?

I'm spending about £4 on protein, £2 on veg and carbs, and £2 on puddings and fruit.

That's for the evening meal, but when you add breakfast, tea and coffee, juice, a packet of biscuits or snacks, lunch, you are looking at at least an additional £3 per person per day. Unless of course you want to live like a pauper.

So I reckon we spend £20 a day on food as a family of four. We could do it for a bit less (I hate spending more than 30p each on pudding) but £20 a day would be safe, and covers things like petrol to get to the shops.

I'm going to make some scones and see if I can do it cheaper than the shop bought ones.

When we are broke i can feed the family of five with 5 $1 cheeseburgers and a $1 fries. if the kids are still hungry two apple pies are also $1. there is not one thing that i can think to make from scratch that would cost less. the most expensive things here are fresh fruit and vegetables. probably the cheapest made at home meal is chicken legs with potatoes and frozen peas, at about $10.

I've just seen that Jamie Oliver has a new cookbook and TV show out bases on affordable meals and leftovers.

Will be interesting to see how affordable it actually is.

Just wanted to say that my eBook is free from lunchtime tomorrow for about 24 hours if anyone wants a copy and missed the last promotion. Details are on my blog. It's compatible with Kindle, iPhone, iPad and PCs. Austerity Housekeeping

Reviews very welcome if you do download a copy, either on Amazon or direct to me via MN!

A couple of years ago we had some building work done which involved the kitchen being completely out of bounds for 2 months. Instead of my usual cooking everything from scratch (I'm a SAHM and keen on cooking) we had to live off microwave meals for this time. Food was definitely saltier and fattier (and less nice) but the difference in my food bills was astonishing...it was far, far, cheaper.

Okay thank you to the people who posted such lovely recipes and lists!

No one has come close to the cheapest ready made crap weekly shop though.

Really when you think it about it it is obvious that the supermarkets can make portions cheaper than can be made at home. Everyone here has emphasised making a load in one go and freezing...or mass production as it is also called.

The not at all surprising news is that it is cheaper to make 12000 portions than 12.

The other key aspect is that the ready meals contain cheaper more horrible ingredients than customers will buy individually. We wouldn't put that sort of meat in anything...hence they are using cheaper base ingredients.

I suspect that in charging £1:50 for 4 steak pies Iceland are still raking in profits. That number is what they can get, not what it costs.

So at the end of the day you can get your recommended calorie intake more cheaply buying crap than making from scratch. You aren't getting anything like good nutrition...but in a choice between good nutrition and empty bellies it isn't surprising that people get stuck into the value sausage rolls.

SO IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE TOO POOR TO COOK FROM SCRATCH.

but if you are spending more than £35 a week for a family of 4 then you CAN afford to cook from scratch - see recipes appended!

Just posted up Whois's fantabulous menu plan.

Whois menu plan

Thanks again, Whois.

Here's a Sainsbury shop for under £50 for a family of 4 for a week:

1 Sainsbury's Beef Steak Mince, Lean 575g £3.33
1 Sainsbury's Apples, Family Bag x9 (minimum) £1.85
8 Sainsbury's Loose Fairtrade Bananas £0.87
4 Sainsbury?s Carrots £0.45
1 Sainsbury's Cucumber, Whole £0.80
1 Sainsbury's Curly Leaf Lettuce £0.70
1 Sainsbury's Mixed Vegetables, Basics 1kg £0.75
1 Sainsbury's Mixed Herbs, Basics 13g £0.30
2 Sainsbury's British Fresh Whole Milk, 4 Pints 2.27L £2.58
1 Sainsbury's Ultimate Pork Sausages, Taste the Difference x10 690g £3.33
1 Sainsbury's British Chicken Thighs & Drumsticks 850g £3.34
1 Sainsbury's Stock Chicken Cubes, Basics 10x10g £0.20
1 Sainsbury's Mushrooms, Basics 400g £0.97
2 Sainsbury's Courgettes (loose) £0.38
4 Sainsbury's Red Onions, Large (each) £0.68
1 Sainsbury's Crusty White Bread Mix 500g £0.80
1 Sainsbury's Pasta Shapes, Basics 500g £0.39
3 Sainsbury's Chopped Tomatoes, Basics 400g £1.05
2 Sainsbury's Red Kidney Beans In Water, Basics 400g £0.42
1 Sainsbury's Barn Eggs, Basics x6 £1.00
1 Sainsbury's Cayenne Pepper 38g £1.00
1 Sainsbury's White Fish Fillets, Basics 520g £1.75
1 Sainsbury's Crunchy Peanut Butter, Basics 340g £0.62
1 Sainsbury's Beans In Tomato Sauce, Basics 420g £0.25
2 Sainsbury's Pancakes, Basics x6 £0.40
1 Sainsbury's Sweetcorn In Water Salt & Sugar Added, Basics 198g £0.25
1 Sainsbury's Spaghetti, Basics 500g £0.39
3 Sainsbury's Wholemeal Bread Medium Sliced, Basics 800g £1.50
1 Sainsbury's Long Grain White Rice, Basics 1kg £0.40
2 Sainsbury's Mozzarella, Basics 125g £0.88
1 Sainsbury's Bake at Home White Baguettes, Basics x2 300g £0.45
1 Sainsbury's Mixed Vegetables 1kg £1.00
1 Sainsbury's Strawberry Jam, Basics 454g £0.29
1 Sainsbury's Butterlicious Spread 500g Buy 2 for £2.00 £1.30
1 Gia Garlic Puree 90g £0.80
2 Sainsbury's Anya Potatoes, Taste the Difference 1kg Save 50p was £1.50 now £1.00
1 Sainsbury's Red Label Round Tea x40 £0.74
1 Sainsbury's Roast & Ground Coffee, Basics 227g £1.69
1 Sainsbury's Porridge Oats 500g £0.65
1 Sainsbury's Cornflakes, Basics 500g £0.31
2 Sainsbury's British Medium Cheddar 400g Buy 2 for £5.00

It's really healthy. There's a choice of breakfasts and lunches, and it assumes you have nothing at all in the larder to start off with (except salt. I forgot salt but basics salt is about 20p.)

Breakfasts:
choice of porridge, cornflakes, scotch pancakes or wholemeal toast with jam or peanut butter. Freshly brewed coffee or tea.
I chose full fat milk because you use less of it in tea and can water it down slightly for cereal, to make it taste like skimmed, so it goes further.
These foods double as snacks if people are hungry.

Quick Lunches:
cheese sandwiches
PBJ sandwiches (can't take them to school but adults can have them) beans on toast,
freshly made mushroom soup,
baked spuds with beans or cheese (usually these would be baking potatoes but designer anya spuds were cheaper this week, so it's those instead. Can still be microwaved with cheese or beans.)
An apple or a banana for four days of the week, carrot sticks for 3 days of the week.

You could add some biscuits from the basics range for about 40p a pack, or some 30p basics choc and make choc krispy cakes to go with the lunches.

Dinners (assuming no veggies in the family.)

1. Spag bol - make a double lots using 2 packs of chopped toms, the minced beef, 100g of mushrooms, 1 courgette, 1 large onion, garlic puree and mixed herbs.

Use 400g of the spaghetti for 4 people Serve just over half of the sauce. Add grated cheese if wanted

2. Chilli Add kidney beans to the left over sauce, add cayenne pepper and serve with 200g dry weight of rice, cooke don hob or in microwave

1. Chicken thighs with savoury rice.

Rub chicken thighs with garlic puree and herbs and cook in oven or on hob. Add a little water and chicken stock cube to keep them juicy. Fry half an onion and 200g rice in a pan, add chicken stock and when cooked for 5 mins add half pack of the frozen mixed veg. Bring back to boil. Cook through for another 5 mins.

1. Chicken noodle soup.

Boil up the drumsticks from the chicken pack with 3 pints of chicken stock. Remove drumsticks, take off skin and strip meat. Cut into chunks and return to the stock. Finely chop 1/2 onion and fry. Add to the stock, add frozen mixed veg to the stock and a tin of sweetcorn. Add herbs and 100g spaghetti broken into short pieces. Cook for ten more mins. Serve with the french bread sticks which you can make into garlic bread if wanted with garlic puree and spread mixed together.

5, Sausage, spuds and beans.

Boil the spuds. If bakers (which they?d normally be) you can mash them. With these smaller potatoes just slice them and fry if you want, in oil with a bit of garlic & cayenne.
Cook all 10 sausages.
Chop an onion, fry, add tin of beans, pack of chopped toms and some herbs and spice. Serve with some of the basics frozen veg.

1. Veggie Pasta bake

Fry ½ onion and tomato again, with garlic and herbs. Set aside 4 tablespoons of this mix. Add the other courgette and a few mushrooms. Add some of the frozen veg. Cook the pasta. Stir in the veg and grate lots of cheese on top and grill or microwave to melt the cheese.

1. Home made pizzas (can be used for lunch instead)

Make up the bread mix, Divide into 4-6 balls and roll out. Use the set aside tomato sauce from yesterday as tomato topping then add mozzarella cheese. If any saussies left over, slice them onto the pizza too. Serve with the lettuce and cucumber and carrot sticks.

1. Kedgeree

Fry ½ onion with rice and then add water to cook the rice, along with the frozen white fish, cayenne pepper (ideally would be curry powder but I?m not assuming anything is in larder) and then add the last of the frozen veg. Hard boil two eggs and chop on top or if preferred just beat them and stir them in at the end to make a creamier kedgeree.

1. Mushroom soup

Finely chop mushrooms and slow fry with garlic and herbs. Add chicken stock. Cook for 10mins. Puree if possible, add splash of milk to make it creamy.

That's more than enough dinners and hot or quick lunches, plus tea, coffee and a few tiny treats such as pancakes. But monotonous, but if each week you added a different flavour to the shopping trolley (curry powder, black pepper, lemon juice etc you could build up more variety of flavours.)

It may not be as cheap as the junk food but apart from the sausages it is all lean protein, high fibre and gets in the 5 a day. It won't put you in hospital with a bad heart or make you obese, constipated or malnourished which junk food, even if eaten in excess, can do.

Ah - I missed getting in before the gavel and anyway was way over cheap as chips budget, but is still another cheapish weekly budget for a family of four.

That's excellent racingheart

I am a single mum with 3 dcs. We are veggie. Nothing with a face! Mainly for animal welfare and you have no idea whats pumped into meat, but also because we save loads! I or my 14yr ds makes sauce for the lasagne and i use tinned toms NOT jars. Pizza i make on a whim and use normal cheese if no moz. I hardly ever do midweek shop. My view is this. MY HARDSHIP HOPEFULLY WONT LAST LONG BUT MY CHILDRENS GOOD HEALTH SHOULD LAST A LIFETIME. We eat really well on very cheap. Proud mummy and maybe slightly smug!!!

Oh and i sometimes go farm shops!!

Right, after looking at the tesco website, if I could shop for a fortnight in one go, I reckon I could bring feeding 4 in at about £60. So £30 per week.
Using their 3 for a tenner meat, I would buy 1 chicken, 750g mince beef, 750g Gammon, 10 pork sausages, 6 pork loins and 15 eggs.
Also
5kg Pots £3.49
1kg Carrots £1
750g Parsnips 90p
Celery 80p
Onion 1kg £1
Garlic 40p
Ginger 40p
Value apples x2 90p each
Value banana (about 8) £1.15
V. Sultanas 84p
Sugar 99p
Red lentils 1kg £1.69
V. Tin Toms 34p
V. wraps (8) 92p
V. rice 40p
Chickpeas about 60p( ? couldn?t find them on my search tho)
V. Penne 29p
V. lasagne 32p
v. sweetcorn 35p
frozen peas 900g 89p
Self raising flour 45p
Veg oil £1.25
Coconut milk 99p
Crushed chillis £1.89
Cumin £1
Oregano £1
V. kidney beans x2 21p each
v. cheese £3.36
v. butter 98p
passata x3 29p each
Value bread x2 47p each
Porridge 1kg x2 75p each
V Ham x2 75p each
V. Mayo 40p
Whole milk 6 pints £1.99
V. beans x 3 28p each
With that there could be lunches of Ham/egg/cheese sandwiches & mayo & Red lentil and tom soup or Beans on toast. Breakfast of porridge.
Dinners would be:
Roast Chicken, Sausage & apple stuffing, Pots/Pars/carrots/peas, Gravy
Left over Hash & beans
Chilli & rice
Enchiladas
Toad in the hole & peas
Veg curry & rice
Roast Gammon, Pots, carrots and sweetcorn
Spag bol
Gammon & wedges & beans
Frittata
Pork loins & jackets & veg
Pork & egg fried rice
Lasagne
Soup

oh and that includes making 2 apple and sultana loaves for treats.

It's not that hard to understand. If junk food comes from take-aways it will be more expensive that cooking from scratch. If the junk food is supermarket convenience food, then cooking from scratch will be more expensive.

But muddying the waters, if you were to cook from scratch and applied the food ingredients/standards applied to making the supermarket convenience food, then cooking from scratch would be cheaper again. But no-one will do that as it would taste awful and be completely disgusting mentally once you realise what goes into it. We don't have access to the chemicals that they pump into these foods to make them half decent tasting.

As an example, take the lasgne you would make at home, use half the ingredients (except a tenth of the meat) and double the amount of water and pour a bucket load of flour, salt and cooking oil into it. That will undoubtedly be filling, cheap and also explain why it tastes slightly of wallpaper paste (despite all those extra chemicals).

One thing about this is that we're not comparing like with like. I finally found Ice's one day meal plan and it doesn't have any of the five a day on it, except beans. Cooking from scratch could be far cheaper if we just made stodge, but the scratch-cookers automatically search for healthy and tasty food.

I could do a dirt cheap menu if it was just heavy pastry smeared with a bit of brown stained flour glue gravy stretching miniscule amounts of mince. But wouldn't really want to eat it. The pizzas I make are very cheap and massive. But it would be boring to eat them every day, even though they are much nicer than cheap ones. (Not nicer than Pizza Express chilled counter ones but those are almost take away prices.)

I'd choose to eat several of the meals from my menu even if there were no budget constraints.

I meant to add, some of my meals sort of 'feeds' into the other.
So roast chicken would be
Heat oven to 400 (hot). Take 2 of the sausages skinned and mixed with a chopped stick of celery, chopped apple, chopped onion, some oregano. Stuff this into the bird. Drizzle oil over, crush 2 cloves of garlic and put under the chicken in a roasting pan. Wash the spuds, parsnips & carrots but don't peel. you should have 4 medium parsnips in the pack - use 3. Remove the biggest 4 spuds from the bag and keep for jackets later in the week. Take 6 medium spuds and 3 decent sized carrots and the parsnips and cut into similar sized chunks (i make the carrots a little smaller and parsnips a little bigger as they cook at different speeds). put veg in a bowl and drizzle oil over. Put chicken in the oven on the highest shelf for half an hour. After this add and another roasting tin on the shelf below to heat. about 5 mins later chuck veg and oil into the hot tin, shake and put back into oven. Keep checking and turning for 25 mins while it all cooks. Remove chicken after 1 hour (depending on size) and remove to rest. put tin and juices over the hob, add a couple of tablespoons of flour and stir in to soak up juices, add boiling water (or stock from last week if you have it) and whisk in till thickened and gravyish. Cook some frozen peas. Cut the breasts off the bird and slice up. remove stuffing and divide between 4. Dish up but retain half the veg for the hash tomo. Keep left over chicken gravy (there should be quite a bit)

Remember to keep all veg trimmings aside apart from pots and parsnips (i don't peel but keep carrot tops and bottoms). I put onion bums and celery bits and even the roots of garlic in an old ice cream tub in the fridge as the week goes on.

Hash: chop all meat from legs and thighs of bird and keep any scraps of stuffing, chop all veg to a small size and chop half an onion. Heat butter in a non stick frying pan and add it all, turn it over to fry and heat thru. Serve with baked beans.

Scrape every scrap of meat off the carcass and freeze meat and bones separately.

Chilli: Split 750g beef mince in half, fry 375g beef, 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 stick celery, garlic, tsp cumin, tsp oregano, chilli flakes (depending on taste), garlic clove. Add a carton of the passata and a pint of water and a mug of red lentils. Simmer till reduced. Add 1 tin kidney beans and a chopped green pepper (if you can stretch to one). Serve half with rice (cook 200g per person and retain 60% of the rice for 2 later meals).

Enchiladas: in a big bowl mix the remaining half of chilli with 1/3 the left over rice. In a square lasagne dish put the tin of chopped toms, a chopped onion and chilli flakes to taste. fill the tortilla wraps will chilli mixture and put in the dish on top of 'salsa'. sprinkle over grated cheese and bake for 45 mins.

Pork loins and jackets: Take the biggest spuds kept aside and bake. Sprinkle oregano over all 6 porkloins and roast. Boil carrots and peas and serve 1 loin each, and 1 pot with veg and gravy retained from the Chicken roast. Keep 2 pork loins aside for

Pork and egg fried rice: Chop pork loins small, Fry 1 chopped onion, 1 -2 carrot and 1 stick celery chopped small, a clove garlic, chopped ginger and some chilli flakes. add left over cooked rice should be equal to about 75g dried weight per person) and pork and heat thru. Whisk 2 large eggs and a tbsp milk. move all ingredients to the side of the pan and turn up heat - scramble the eggs in the space left then stir thru the rice. Drizzle over soy if you have some.

Roast the Gammon and veg as before, use frozen left over chicken gravy with this too. Cut a thickish slice of gammon and chop small and freeze. Cut remaining into 8 slices, and serve one slice each and keep one slice each for;

Gammon mash and beans. (self explanatory really!)

Soup: Done at the end of the fortnight, using any leftovers. Boil bones and all veg trimmings to make stock. chop veg, fry in butter, add half stock (save rest for gravy next week), add 100g of penne or rice. Add chicken and ham from freezer, maybe some milk. Take 1/4 out and blend with a hand blender. Return to the rest of soup. Serve with bread/buttered toast.