AIBU to be confused when people say it's cheaper to cook from scratch?

[Blueskiesandcherrypies]

(Sorry another 'weekly food shop post'....)

I just don't think it is! I struggle to get our weekly food shop below £140pw. That's for me, DH, ds9, dd7 and dd1 (and soon to be newborn ds). We all love our food, though I tear my hair out every week planning meals everyone will enjoy rather than refuse and sulk about tolerate, and cook from scratch (just things like spag Bol, curry, carbonara, puff pastry 'pizza', roasts...) but I often think blimey if I could just chuck a few ready meals in the trolley and loads of bits from the frozen section (burgers, nuggets, kievs!!) we'd be quids in! But then we wouldn't be eating so healthily and I wouldn't know exactly what we're all putting in our mouths.

Weekly food shop includes packed lunches, loads of fruit for snacks, cat food, household bits, nappies.... but not alcohol, that comes out of DH's 'own' pocket rather than our joint account even if it's wine for me. We never have leftovers so can't stretch a meal over 2 days (DCs have growing appetites).

I am green with envy when I see people saying they can feed a family of four for £50 a week! Just....how?!

And ok, before you ask, I have been shopping at ocado lately but I haven't seen a huge price diff than when I used sainsburys.

Please help me see where I'm going wrong!

Sorry here's a clicky link

utterlyscrummy.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

Just looked at the latest meal plan on that blog and it's not her normal style - worth going back to a previous one as they usually include her own recipes along with an itemised shopping list with prices

I think you're doing very well. Our weekly shop is double that for me, DP, teenager, 2 under 14 months and the dog!

Must try harder.

I think the trick with Lidl and Aldi is to do a shop elsewhere every 3/4 weeks. I do a Sainsbury's or Ocado shop one a month to get meat in the freezer and stock up with dry goods. Once you are used to Lidl/Aldi, you will be so horrified by the prices in Sainsbury's, you won't want to go there more than once a month.

Ooh posh lidl. Must look out for one of those.

I don't get to Lidl as often as I'd like, because its further away than almost all the other supermarkets. However there are two in our city and I might be able to go to one when I see DM at the weekend.

However, the other one is on the edge of one of the naicest areas of the city (which oddly, butts up to one of the worst areas), so would be perfectly located for poshing up. Must check that out one day.

YY to being horrified by other supermarkets prices Flirting. I now have an Aldi on the way home from work, so go there all the time. I'm so shocked by Tesco's prices, I don't see any point going there unless there is no choice, or they have a spectacular special offer which will have sold out anyway.

Waitrose/M&S are good for a treat, although that might not be necessary if this posh lidl thing takes off, and Morrisons and Asda are OK and quite cheap, but otherwise I don't see any point in going anywhere except Aldi, except to get the small number of things that they don't sell.

I think the great thing about ALDi & LIDL is they have good continental supply chains that even places like M&S and Waitrose don't have. Much like Asian shops have great mangos and cheap spices, so too to Lidl sell good continental meats, cheeses, olives sun dried tomato, antI pasta etc.

I think it's cheaper to cook from scratch especially when you're starting with cheap ingredients. Not poor quality stuff but good things that are naturally cheap i.e. pulses, seasonal vegetables, grains, eggs and the less popular cuts of meat. It really doesn't matter which outlet you choose.

However, I also think there are some elevated ideas of what a 'meal' constitutes. For us some home-made soup or a chunky sandwich or an omelette/frittata is plenty but I know many families that have to have the full 'meat and 2 veg' or they think they're missing out.

I agree with that Cogito, we had a thread a while back about soup. Wing a meal or not and so many people sad that no it wasn't a dinner meal it was a starter or a lunch, we also had a lot of "I think it's a meal but my husband wouldn't be happy with just having soup!"

"my husband wouldn't be happy with just having soup"

Same husbands that aren't happy with the massive grocery bill, very often. :) I was also once soundly flamed for suggesting home-made soup as a good way to eat healthily and economically because... and I paraphrase.... 'people on limited incomes don't have the right skills or equipment'. Skills = peeling, chopping, boiling. Equipment = knife, pot, wooden spoon.

My soup maker is the best thing ever, granted it's no different from a pan and a knife to chop and a hand blender to whizz, but I'm currently in hospital with DS and I've brought it with me! I just empty in a bag of veg that DP has chopped at home, cover it with water and a stock cube and voila! Soup all blended and warm for dinner in 20 mins, beats the chips and toast I usually eat from the cafe here.

A soup maker? I have never heard of such a thing.

It's a Morphy Richards thing, FIL bought it for me for Christmas, it's a big flays with a blender attached to the lid, you don't need to dice, sauté, or blend because it does it for you then keeps it warm. It makes enough for 4-6 and has a chunky or smooth setting. It's very portable.
I expect it's quite a gimmicky thing but I use it a lot. Sunday roast always becomes next day soup for instance

*flask goodness knows where flays came from

YY Cognito

It seems that even basic cooking is a skill that it is no longer reasonable to expect people to have, hence the widespread belief that it is cheaper to eat processed food and it is not reasonable to expect anyone, especially those on limited incomes, to cook from scratch.

Any suggestion that people make cheap and basic meals with things like eggs, seasonal vegetables, pulses etc is met with endless reasons why this is not acceptable, citing special needs, mental health issues, lacking ‘specialist and expensive’ equipment like pans, knives etc, the miserableness of ‘having’ to eat disappointing food like stews and omelettes, the ‘vast expense’ of things like flour, oil and spices and how ‘people don’t have things like that in’ and on and on.

Jack Monroe is often criticised when she costs her meals and puts things like ‘oil, 6p’ and everyone goes ‘so I’ll just go into Tesco and buy 6 pence worth of oil then shall I?’ as if the concept of having a basic storecupboard of basic and simple ingredients is something that no-one ever does .

Yes, people might prefer to eat shitty processed food, but with the tiniest amount of thought and effort, there is no way that it is cheaper than cooking from scratch.

Yes, a frozen pizza costs a pound, or a dirty takeaway chicken and chips costs £1.99 or whatever, but a bowl of porridge made with water costs about 10 p. A huge pan of lentil dhal costs less than a pound, scrambled egg or beans on toast costs about 50 pence.

Half the world feeds themselves adequately on these types of foods on much lower incomes than in the UK, and yet here we are generally so spoilt that we expect nothing less than to eat as much as we want of anything we want, without needing to make any effort whatsoever.

This thread has been so informative. Just about to do my massive shop in preperation for having two dcs on easter hols next week - one of whom is a very sporty teenager

Jack Monroe is often criticised when she costs her meals and puts things like ‘oil, 6p’ and everyone goes ‘so I’ll just go into Tesco and buy 6 pence worth of oil then shall I?’ as if the concept of having a basic storecupboard of basic and simple ingredients is something that no-one ever does

I think the point people were trying to make, is that when you are truely skint, a store cupboard of basics is not something you can necessarily afford to maintain. Many people just don't seem to grasp that though.

You can decide to cut back because you'd like to, then on the other hand, you may have to cut back because you just dont have the money to do otherwise. Many of these food economy tips are great, but lots of them require an initial, or even ongoing financial outlay.

So to answer the OP, YANBU, in some cases [ie you need to fill tummys, not simply lower expenditure] it is not cheaper to cook from scratch.

I only cook from absolute scratch of there's significant leftovers. Someone mentioned early on in the thread about making a pie and buying chicken breasts/leeks etc. In that example I would only bother to make that pie fr scratch if I had leftover chicken aand veggies. Ingredients for the pastry would be in the stock cupboard.

IMO, cooking from scratch means you need a good store cupboard of spices, herbs, lentils, flour etc and you then buy the fresh as and when using up leftover things from the days previous. You also need a meal plan. Of course it's not going to be cheaper to say, make a pie if you're buying chicken breast/veggies on that day. You need to use what you already have.

FYI - we buy fresh, frozen, jars and tinned food. I couldn't be arsed to cook from scratch all the time but we eat according to our budget. We shop at Aldi and Sainsbury's.
I often find the people most upset about their good bills are the ones unwilling to swap to a cheaper supermarket, eat less meat or whatever.

"I think the point people were trying to make, is that when you are truely skint, a store cupboard of basics is not something you can necessarily afford to maintain. Many people just don't seem to grasp that though. "

I grasp it but I don't accept it. A bag of potatoes is technically a store-cupboard item... few people by potatoes individually for each meal. A box of cornflakes, ditto.... nobody's buying individual portions of cereal. So OK replacing the bottle of oil that ran out might cost £1.75 that week and I can see how that makes the rest of the budget £1.75 tighter, but there will always be something else that doesn't need replacing.

I don't actually find aldi any cheaper than Tesco but I think a lot of people find they spend less as the more expensive choices are just not there. Poster above mentioned cottage cheese being 45p in aldi and over a pound in Tesco, when value cottage cheese is around 50p. Yes there is cottage cheese that is over a pound but it's not the only option.

I have found a great deal of Tesco value to stuff to be perfectly fine.

I'd never go down the meat route with it, but maybe that is okay too? anyone know? :)

I grasp it but I don't accept it. A bag of potatoes is technically a store-cupboard item... few people by potatoes individually for each meal. A box of cornflakes, ditto.... nobody's buying individual portions of cereal. So OK replacing the bottle of oil that ran out might cost £1.75 that week and I can see how that makes the rest of the budget £1.75 tighter, but there will always be something else that doesn't need replacing

You clearly don't grasp it.

It probably costs less than a pound a week to maintain a basic store cupboard of flour, lentils, porridge, one or two basic spices, oil etc etc. All these items cost pennies per portion and last for weeks, if not months.

This then enables you to save several pounds per week buy not buying processed food that costs 2/3 times more per portion than home cooked food.

Sorry but I still can't see how it is cheaper to eat processed food that usually costs at least a pound a portion. There are dozens of things that can be cooked for less than this.

On a genuine budget. You will never be able to allow for olive oil though cogito

It would be like this: buy the olive oil...no potatoes!

In fact many items on the list would have to missed off to afford the oil.

shoppers with true financial hardship have that problem all the time.

Lots of us want to save a bit, perhaps shave a bit of the weekly bill. In that case, those economies normally have enough to make a 'store cupboard' :)

If it helps anyone this is a sample of a weeks food in our house,

Sunday - roast chicken (large one from the market)

I build out roasts but giving a small amount of Meat and loads of veg and potatoes, a mixture is sewer potato and regular, roast squash when it's in season, seasonal greens steamed with some garlic, carrots, broccoli, sprouts, tinned sweetcorn or frozen peas. If I've made pancakes for breakfast I'll use the remaining batter and make Yorkies and gravy from chicken roasting tin juices.

Next day any left over veg and half the left over chicken goes into a white sauce made with stock instead of milk, a big tbsp of mustard and salt and Pepper, it's covered with a brought puff pastry sheet and put in the oven until it's golden. Served with whatever veggies are in int he freezer. This is my family's favourite meal.

The rest of the chicken is then chicken in hone soup maker with the sad looking celery, onion and carrot from the fridge drawer and if I've got a tin of chick pea shoe beans I'll use them too in the soup maker to make lunch for ds3 and me for the next 2-3 days.

The carcass of the clean is then boiled up to make stock and I use that for a veggie risotto in day 3 for dinner.

Day 4 (wed) I'll whizz up veggies and herbs to make pasta sauce, usually I'll make the pasta but I have issue using dried if I'm out of time/energy. A sprinkle of grated cheese and a side salad to make dinner.

Day 5 - left over pasta sauce will top a homemade pizza base from the freezer, with a value ball of mozzarella and any left over meat/peppers/mushrooms/sweetcorn we have in the fridge, served again with a large side salad and occasionally garlic bread if I've got any in the freezer that I've batch cooked previously.

Day 6 (Friday) large veggie curry, made in the SlowCooker with beef stock cube to give it a meaty flavour. I serve with rice then leave enough rice for leftovers. We'll have left over curry on a jackets for Sat lunch,

Day 7 (Sat) - for dinner I'll use the leftover rice to make a big salad with boiled eggs diced pepper, peas, sweetcorn and some tuna if I have a tin. Served with crust bread and salad.

It's a fairly cheap menu and they are big portions.

I buy a tray of 15 eggs and boil them all at once for healthy snacks, I also make hummus from tinned chickpeas and keep some chopped up carrot sticks in the fridge for snacks.

I bake once a fortnight and I do 5-6 lots of tray bakes, flapjacks, muffins etc to keep in hone house, nothing fancy or expensive though!

I do grow salad leaves, because they come back one you cut them and we get some cheap tomato plants to grow in the garden in a grow bag in hone sun. They cost £50 from the farm shop and produce hundreds of tomatoes.

I buy flour in bulk packets from Makro but they do them on Amazon (although I know it's frowned upon) I buy yeast/flour and mixed seeds in I bulk so I can make a daily loaf of bread minus the chemicals, I find it relaxing to sit and knead it and it tasted 19x better than shop loaves and it never goes mouldy because it's being used daily.

DP makes peanut butter as we eat a lot of it, he uses bulk bought lightly salted peanuts from Makro again though you don't have to use bulk ones, Aldi so bags of them fairly cheap and there is no other ingredient, it's just sticking them in a food processor and letting them go until you have a peanut butter consistency.