To feed my family on £1 per person per day

[Dramatic]

I've heard about celebs doing this and finding it almost impossible but really it's not that hard, I spend £25 a week (or less) on me and 3 kids. Am I a cheapskate or do other people spend this much? I shop at Aldi if that makes a difference. Maybe I'm depriving my kids by spending £1 a day on them. How much do you spend per person per day? Surely it's not that unreasonable to think £1 a day is plenty to feed yourself, why are people making such a fuss about it?

£25 a week you say ? Pah, how wasteful. I have £25 a year - and i still have change.

I dont spend a great deal on food for dh or I. My dcs only eat at home 2 days a week. Im slim and have never in my life really eat fruit or veg so I just eat pasta, meat, potatoes but I like that kind of thing besr so doesnt bother me.

We spend £70 on a big shop, and probably £20 on top ups. But DH likes his beer and Irn Bru so that's about a 1/4 of the budget. Plus he has to have meat in every meal... I meal plan and pick up bargains, kids always have a supply of bananas, apples, grapes and yoghurts. I cook bulk and freeze portions, so making a chilli, I freeze 3 portions so one a week for the rest of the month. Some weeks we need to buy more food, others I have freezer portions to eat. Some weeks I need to buy cleaning stuff/loo roll etc.
we go through 4 pints of milk a day and a loaf every 2 days (DH eats at home for lunch)
My kids are 2&3, I thought I was doing well on my budget!

Yes they have milk on their cereal, that's the only milk they have. Interested to know how I sound like a journalist!

I read somewhere that kids portions (as a pp said) should be the size of their fist and they should have 3 portions in a meal, that's really not all that much and I reckon they have more than that in the majority of meals.

Your fine op I wouldnt worry. I agree with you on portion size as a lot of people have extra weight and flab these days and most comes from portion sizes. I see some big people eating in one meal what my entire family would eat as its piled so high. I dont know how they can look at it and feel appertised as it puts me right off.

In all seriousness, if you have easy access to a supermarket that reduces heavily then you can eat healthily for very little. I managed to feed our family of 4 adults and one child for under 15 one week because of bargains that i pick up. However, you do have to be prepared to cook and eat anything and you can't meal plan because you are eating what you can get. I used to be be a chef so this doesn't phase me. I work in a hotel and get lots of free, leftover food which really helps. I try to spend around £35-40 p/w but it is hard work and involves factors which aren't available to everyone (we live within 5 minutes of a lidl, an aldi, morrisons and asda). My parents have chickens so we have free eggs, we have an allotment so v cheap veggies

Last night we had chicken in bacon, aubergine parmigiana, courgettes and fruit salad wi frozen yoghurt. Chicken and fruit salad were function leftovers, aubergine was 39p with 10p whoops mozarella ball and passata so around 1.20. Courgette was 60p. I think the frozen yoghurt cost me pennies on a whoopsie.

I'm pretty much with Louse1956 on this. I shopped last night for the bank holiday weekend - will go again on Monday and the bill came to £77.00 - accept nice food but not exactly fillet steak and smoked salmon.

4 x salmon en-croute
new potatoes
bag of salad, pepper, cu, toms
cherry on the vine
black olives
basil
penne
mozzarella
lamb joint
leeks
brocolli
tart au citron
carton single cream
pint of milk
packet of Kiplings pies
loaf of bread
french stick
bacon
eggs
raspberry lemonade
bottle of leffe beer
bottle of wine
peppermint tea
instant coffee
sausage rolls
four yoghurts
bin liners
juice

We could live on mince and pasta bake but I often think it isn't the meals per se that cost the money - rather the bits (soap powder, shampoo, bog roll, etc) and notably this weekend's shop was pretty devoid of that stuff.

Its best to get all products from poundland. We get toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner etc from there

Not all the stuff in poundland is cheaper - you have to be very selective and know the supermarket prices

Blimey, some people doing alot of nit picking at the op here! Some people actually don't eat as much as others. We only have 1 dd and she's always had a smallish appetite. We spend more than you op but not huge amounts. I think we eat simply but well, no ready meals or anything like that, don't use gallons of milk etc. I don't spend time looking up the various vitamin requirements for us all. We just eat a varied diet.

Yeah I know I check prices to every supermarket and check boots/superdrug before I buy any item

The thing is, it's not really £1 per person per day because you, the adult, are eating very little. You ask why people complain about this budget - if I was living off half a sandwich and one meal a day, I would complain! I appreciate that you say you have a small appetite but you are eating significantly less than most adults would be happy with.

We shop in Aldi for two adults, a 3yo and a newborn. If we're being careful, we can get our weekly shop to £50 but we treat ourselves to more fresh fruit and veg, wine, ice cream etc usually which bumps it up - especially right now when I'm breastfeeding and ravenous! If we had to manage on £1 per person per day, perhaps we would but it would definitely be hard.

My only practical suggestion is to buy big tubs of full fat Greek yoghurt rather than individual yoghurts -it's cheaper and lower in sugar and could help to increase the children's calcium intake as you could get more of it for your money.

Thank you for all the suggestions, I will certainly look in to getting more calcium in their diet, I never though it was an issue as I have always just given them the same amount. I also never thought about fish at all, I don't like it so have never considered buying it and didn't realise it was so important. I realise that sounds rather selfish but it's just not something that's crossed my mind.

Yes they have milk on their cereal, that's the only milk they have

Do they get any other dairy products?

Does anyone else remember a thread like this a while back where a poster suggested shooting game??

Cheap but nutritious meals my son eats for ideas for you -

Eggy bread served with baked beans (mix one egg per person with milk)

Homemade hummus served with breadsticks, chopped up peppers, cherry tomatoes and chunks of cheese

Lentil bolognese with frozen diced veg (Sainsburys do best frozen veg and no waste)

Pizza bases with loads of added veg and homemade tomato sauce. I get Sainsburys frozen Mediterranean veg to top the pizzas and cook it slowly with tinned tomatoes and softened onions.

Homemade burgers. I add a tin of chilli beans to the mince and onions. Can get 6 out of half a pack of mince this way. Serve with wholemeal buns, sautéed onions and lettuce.

Even fish fingers would be a good addition to your diet to get some fish into the kids. Large pack in Iceland is cheap.

Look at thrifty living thread on MSE for more ideas. Also do you have anywhere to grow veg? Kids would love helping out.

I'm naturally a thrifty cook but I spent this week £79 to feed the three of us healthily. We will soon have veg ready in the garden which had taken very little effort or cost to grow. Good luck OP.

I was sorry to read that your childhood diet was worse OP. I'm guessing most of us learned a lot about diet and nutrition (good or bad) from our childhood experiences.

Could your HV get you referred to a dietician for some advice? It might be really helpful to have a professional going through things with you - or they might do classes. Then you could be really confident about getting the best nutritional value for your budget.

Good luck with resolving your debt problems.

I couldn't do that. Maybe for one week as a challenge but not every week as would be deficient in everything

How do they eat 24 weetabix with only 4 pints of milk? They soak up loads. I guess we use about 1/2 pint on each so 4 pints would last less than 3 breakfasts

We spend at least that on just breakfast items I think. Ok so we could prob save a bit here if needed, but i would only want to get rid/ swap a few items if needed. In the last week for breakfast we have all had:

Eggs
Beans
Spinach
Mushrooms
Bread
Porridge
Banana
Oranges
Grapefruit
Blueberries
Muffins
Salmon
Mixed seeds
Mixers nuts
Honey
Milk

That's a combination of porridge with fruit/ honey/seeds/ nuts. Poached eggs or boiled eggs, with toast or in muffin, with side of veg, or veggie omlettes.

I spend £8 per person per day and still my dd eats scarcely any fruit and veg .
OP I think you are doing well. Variety of diet is good for health though so sticking to the same things can be an issue over time.
Getting kids to eat new stuff can be hard imo especially if you want to avoid throwing out uneaten food.
Dp and I eat healthy home cooked food but too much of it so are overweight . Whilst I am spending a lot more on food than £1 I am still not achieving optimal nutrition for my family. I suspect few people are.

Healthy start vouchers, are they still a thing? £3 a week of voucher for each child under four, to go towards veg and milk.

I used to save mine monthly then buy huge sacks of potatoes.

At my local farm I bought a turnip, cabbage,big bag of carrots, cauliflower, two bags of potato's, punnet of strawberry, grapes, 2 punnets of raspberry, apples, pears, two bags of pea pods,peppers, and tomatos for less than 10.00

JasmineMaI - do you really not see the problem with giving diet advice and approval, particularly in respect to children, as an adult that doesn't eat fruit and veg? You must be vaguely aware how important fruit and veg is? It's fine to eat whatever you like, live on plain spaghetti or sugar sandwiches as far as I care, but really for the human species vitamins are not optional and eating just enough fortified cereal to stop your teeth falling out is hardly striving for optimal nutrition for your children to give them the best chance at good health.

So what do I say to the op? It sounds fine to me, I'm not overweight at all, I have coffee and B&H gold until dinner and a takeaway each night (shamefully this was my diet post grad) - whatever poor decisions you want to make are fine (unless we start looking at a societal level, then it costs everyone) but it's not acceptable to normalize obviously bad choices. They could 'be fine' on my diet too - but won't feel great and will get bitten in the bum in a few years, possibly do better on mine than yours as I got veg sides.
Children only grow once, only develop one set of adult teeth - slim is fine, rickets and scurvy in 2014? Not so fine.
The WHO recommend 400g of fruit and veg per day, and it's really not because they think people need to chew more.

If your appetite is small that's not wrong in any way but it does mean the lower the amount that goes in the more healthful it needs to be.
I am worried you aren't getting all you need though Dramatic and as we age it starts to catch up with us. There is a finite budget, your dc are only going to eat more and you can't reduce your intake any more, you'd be living on baked steam. You are important too you know.

Four pints of milk lasts a week?

I bought eight pints on Thursday, we've just run out now. I don't touch the stuff so that eight pints has been drunk by DH and the DSs who are only six and three.

Never really have but am ultra fit can do 5k in 24 mins at 18 weeks pregnant, low blood pressure, do 40 hours + exercise a week, never had anemia, low chlosterol etc.

Op will also save money if she doesnt drink alcohol, tea, coffee ever etc. I drink tap water about 2-3 litres a day and I also dont keep tea or coffee in for guests. I think we have some tea bags but they are very old!