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AIBU?

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

642 replies

IceBeing · 27/08/2013 13:05

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.....
OP posts:
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Sallystyle · 27/08/2013 15:42

Well as a family of seven it does cost me more to cook from scratch. I have two teens who are always hungry, we don't get leftovers. A big chicken will just about serve all of us.

I could go to iceland and buy as meals for half the cost of what making it costs.

Maybe I am doing something wrong, but IME junk food is much more cheaper for a larger family. Well, at least for mine.

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FurryDogMother · 27/08/2013 15:46

Just wanted to add that I never snack (don't get hungry), though Dad does - he has his little pile of treats - Fox's glacier mints, mini cheddars, Pringles etc. Guess they come to another £10 a week. There's various cheeses (Stilton, Camembert, Cheddar) in the fridge for late night munchies, and we do get strawberries and/or raspberries from time to time, plus grapes if they're on offer. I don't buy ready meals at all - not cos I'm snobby about it, I just don't like them. If I'm out for the evening I'll leave a Tesco's ready meal for Dad - usually fish pie or cottage pie - but that's not a regular thing.

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AmericasTorturedBrow · 27/08/2013 15:49

Free range isn't actually much better than cage free to be honest, from a welfare stand point. They just have to have some sort of access to some sort of outdoors - but the outdoors can be a tiny piece of scrubby dirt, access restricted to an hour a day and all their food is in the barn so no compunction to leave.

It is expensive to eat ethically, so we're on mainly a veggie diet in order to afford to buy the meat (&eggs&dairy) that we're prepared to eat. There's a local farmer at my market who runs a pasture raised farm - it cost me £28 for a chicken and a dozen eggs the other week but IMO it was worth it (and I made it stretch out so we had chicken in some form or other 6days in a row and have a chicken risotto for 4 in the freezer)

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SunshineMMum · 27/08/2013 15:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AmericasTorturedBrow · 27/08/2013 16:01

Poster above comparing not just family size but age is important, my 4yr old already has a ridiculous appetite, god knows what he'll be like in 10yrs!

Also trying to teach him to snack when he's hungry, not just because he's bored, which should help with budget, obesity and long term good food relationships

I think if you're able to slowly build up a decent store cupboard then eventually it works out cheaper to cook from scratch - herbs and spices make bland food go a long way, frozen veg is quick and easy and nutritious, luckily our whole family loves lentils

I'm in US so it's hard to do a proper comparison as fruit and veg here is relatively cheap and available thanks to our climate and lots and lot of local agriculture

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ExitPursuedByABear · 27/08/2013 16:10

So maybe American free range is different to British Hmm

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Gracie990 · 27/08/2013 16:13

^^ on my god, how on earth are you spending £4 on a homemade pizza???

Pizza is super cheap to make. I batch make them and they cost less than £1. Even when I excessively load them with Parma ham they cost well less than £2.50

OP are you asking people to persuade you that good quality food with high nutritional value is not worth making an effort for?
probably extending you life by ten years

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AmericasTorturedBrow · 27/08/2013 16:16

Afraid not Exit

In America there are no government regulated welfare standards for poultry at all Sad

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cantspel · 27/08/2013 16:22

I bought a £4 special offer chicken on saturday and cant see how you would get any left overs from it which would make another meal. We ate the chicken sunday as a roast. The left over leg and leek tops and what ever whilting veg was hanging around made soup for yesterdays lunch but no way would there be enough for another meal.

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StanleyLambchop · 27/08/2013 16:23

Does using tinned tomatoes mean you are cooking from scratch? Or tomato puree? Surely if you are really cooking from scratch then you should buy fresh tomatoes and make the puree yourself? Otherwise why is it any different to opening a bag of frozen veg as opposed to preparing fresh?

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squoosh · 27/08/2013 16:27

I'm always amazed when people say a chicken povides meals for four days. Maybe four meals for a single person, but four meals for a family?

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Faithless12 · 27/08/2013 16:27
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LoopyLupo · 27/08/2013 16:27

Yes the age old question 'what does cooking from scratch actually mean?

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fatlazymummy · 27/08/2013 16:53

From my experience, it is cheaper to buy 'crap food' (and sometimes I've had to), but it isn't comparable and it doesn't fill you up for very long.
Having said that, I think it is possible to have a healthy diet on a low budget, but it does take a certain level of knowledge, resourcefulness and effort which some people may not have.
If this is about Jamie Oliver though I would take it with a big pinch of salt. The guy doesn't have a clue about poverty or how many people live.

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IceBeing · 27/08/2013 17:14

hmmm some more nice examples.

I think though that the real answer to this is if you are really really up against it then cheap calories are not nutritional ones. obvious really.

But you have to be seriously hard up for this to be true. If you can afford more like 40-50 quid a week than 30 quid a week then you can cook from scratch for the same price as mwave meals.

In fact if you can afford mwave meals you can afford to cook from scratch. It is the people who can't afford mwave meals that are stuck in the cheap donuts to fill you up territory.

On the other hand fresh fruit/veg is really really fecking expensive. So cooking from scratch with actual fresh ingredients is much more expensive than mwave meals.

OP posts:
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IceBeing · 27/08/2013 17:16

and erm no... this isn't about me at all. I spend about 80 quid a week on food for 3 so I am pretty much buying whatever I like.

I am just sick of people saying it is cheaper to buy crap or cheaper to cook yourself without backing it up with actual facts.

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AmericasTorturedBrow · 27/08/2013 17:34

Medium sized chicken did us:

Roast dinner for 3 adults and 2 children

Chicken and Chinese noodles for 2 adults and 2 children

Chicken sandwiches for 2 children

Chicken liver Cajun rice for 2 adults, 2 children + leftovers for one adult meal

Chicken risotto (using HM stock) for 3 adults and 3 children, + 3 leftover adult portions in the freezer

Enough stock still in the freezer to make soup for two adults

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nickelbabe · 27/08/2013 17:35

I'm vegetarian and I think that worrying about animals' welfare is NOT a middle class issue.

and I think it's incredibly rude to state that it is.

I think it's a middle class attitude to expect a meat meal every single day of the week.

I manage to eat healthily without having animals killed for me. If I did buy meat (DH eats meat), then it will be the high welfare stuff. Full stop.

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Octopus37 · 27/08/2013 17:40

I find that giving the family ready done food is cheaper and its true about the frozen veg thing to balance out ready meals. Also there is the simple (but obviously crucial factor) of whether your kids will eat what you cook from fresh. If my kids would eat anything, I would be inspired to cook more, I do try out meals which I think they will be likely to eat). To me there is nothing more wasteful than cooking a fresh meal (which costs quite a lot) than having your kids refusing to eat it. Personally also find that i get highly pissed off by this. Surely it is fine to go through phases where you eat cheap ready done food and then phases where you tend to cook more. Also depends on whatever else you have going on etc

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AmericasTorturedBrow · 27/08/2013 17:43

Should add the DC are young - 4yr old with a healthy appetite, toddler without!

Also the quality of the chicken was amazing, I've never got quite that many meals out of one bird before and it helped that gizzards and offal were included. Still, £20 bird went pretty far

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stressedHEmum · 27/08/2013 17:46

OK, so assuming that there is nothing in the cupboard, here is a meal plan that I have costed at £35.76 at tesco. This includes things like salt, pepper, cooking oil, tea bags, flour, sugar and 12 pints of milk.

breakfasts
toast and peanut butter, fruit juice
toast and scrambled egg
porridge made with milk and sugar

lunch
egg rice with peas
toast with sardine and soft cheese spread x 2
peanut butter and banana sandwiches
spiced potatoes and cabbage
toast and cheese with sliced tomatoes x 2

dinners
cauliflower, bacon and potato soup with bread and butter
potato, bacon and onion bake with carrots and peas
mac and cheese with cauliflower
pasta with onions topped with a little grated cheese
jacket potatoes, beans and cheese
pea soup and bread (using onions, carrots, potatoes and marrowfat peas)
pea dahl and rice (using left over soup, tinned toms, curry powder and an extra onion)

There are enough eggs, bananas etc left over to make 2 banana loaves for snacks.

Haven't clue about calories or anything else. works out about £1.20 a day per person for 3 meals and a snack, fruit and veg. There will be potatoes, porridge, flour etc to carry over to another week, also oil, salt, pepper, tea bags, curry powder, stock cubes.

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ILetHimKeep20Quid · 27/08/2013 17:55

That must be one big ass medium chicken

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ILetHimKeep20Quid · 27/08/2013 17:57

Stressed do you fancy going on to sharing your recipes and shopping list? Sounds fab!

I do £50 a week for 4 including toiletries, soap powder etc.

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CharlotteBr0nteSaurus · 27/08/2013 17:57

there's always one with a never-ending chicken

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LoopyLupo · 27/08/2013 17:59

I don't eat meat everyday nickelbabe.

I didn't say it was MC to care about animals. I said I am too poor to eat meat that has been 'ethically sourced' so I've given up caring about the animals welfare.

If you want to choose to not eat meat that's fine. The same as it's fine for me to say I do choose to eat meat and not really care where it comes from.

Apparently the chicken I eat gets a scrubby bit of dirt to run around on so part of its life, before it was brutally slaughtered and hacked up was happy.

I will take comfort from that, next time I'm boiling its skeleton to make stock.

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