British families that go on these BBC save money shows can't be real

[Rufusgy]

Eat well for less.

A mum sends three children to school with shop bought microwaved pancakes laced with nuttela everyday

They spend 5 mins explaining how to use a bit of left over chicken in a stir fry, basically just chop up eveything and stir fry it. As if stir fry and woks are some newfangled invention

They can't afford a house deposit and have zero savings, but won't even consider not buying a brand

Slicing chease is 'too much work"

Seriously is any British family actually like this? Who the fuck is stupid enough that they need a prime time BBC show to tell them proccessed food is expensive and its cheaper to make it yourself.

[LibrariesGaveUsP0wer]

Kew - 12 quid was the ready meal price for 4 . I don't think the poster meant hers cost that, just that it was lots cheaper.

[Cherryblossomsinspring]

For the record I totally think you can cook from scratch way cheaper than ready meals and processed crap.

[LibrariesGaveUsP0wer]

I use a pound of mince for four (three are kids) when feeling flash. More likely it would do us and some left. I think 100 g is quite a lot of meat for bolognaise?

[LibrariesGaveUsP0wer]

I think part of the problem is expectation. Ready meals offer things like pies or lasagne often cheaper than you could make. Other similar choices like pasta and sauce etc, not much

[BoffinMum]

I can get a family lasagne for between £2.69 that is fine.

To cook one from scratch I need (Aldi):

1 lb mince £2.69
Jar passata 99p
Some herbs from a jar that costs 99p
Onion 17p
Clove from garlic head that costs 17p
Packet of lasagne sheets 59p
Flour from a packet that costs 45p
1/2 pint milk 14p

So basically just the mince comes to the same price as the entire lasagne, which also frees up time for me to faff about on MN talking about people who eat too many ready meals.

[SingingSamosa]

Cherryblossom When I make spag bol it does my family of 5 for one meal and then leftovers for me and the three kids for another meal later in the week. I use 500g of beef mince in mine. Same when I make chilli. I very much doubt that mine costs anywhere near £12, or even £8 though! Where are you people buying your ingredients from?! I'm not buying bargain basement meat either - it's either from Sainsbury's or our local butcher.

I am a bit at Kewcumber's suggestion of CURRY POWDER in a spag bol though!!!

[ouryve]

No, Cherry, 100g is a perfectly decent meat serving, particularly if you're making spag bol and are likely to add cheese.

200g might be nice for a juicy steak, but it's excessive every day.

[BoskyCat]

I'd use a 400g or 500g pack of mince to feed four, with a leftover bit for lunch the next day (for one).

But if I wanted to save money I could bulk it our with bean or lentils and make it go twice as far probably.

Cooking form scratch can be cheaper but it depends a lot on knowing what you're doing, how to buy ingredients and budget/plan so you use things up. DP is hopeless at it because he will buy all the fanciest ingredients for one meal and never use them again, and that isn't cheaper. It's cheaper if you do it long-term, habitually and efficiently but that's not what people do as a one-off or the first time.

[Pico2]

2 meals plus 4 adult portions from 500g of mince is verging on homeopathy.

[BerniceB]

Yep, I meant that the ready meals cost £12 in total. The homemade version would be significantly less than £12.

[SlightlyAshamed1]

I'm watching this on demand now after seeing this thread.

!!!!!!!

Mind you, I spend @ 100 easy for three for a week, but there is a serious diet coke habit in this house.

[SacredHeart]

I think that a lot of people who eat on a budget and cook their own food live closer to the old way of eating. Less meat, using leftovers, bulking on vegetables and carbs.

Even home cooked meals can be expensive if you have chicken one night (a large breast a piece) one night, salmon the next, steak (8oz) the third, etc, etc.

If you ever see the portion guides I think people would be shocked. A potion of meat is the size of a pack of cards, cheese the size of a match box, carbs a closed fist. Now we feel "cheated" to share a chicken breast or to skip meat altogether one night.

Not only is this tough on the pocket, it also impacts on resources as more meat means more feed meaning more farmland needed.

[BabyGanoush]

Boffin

Does that not make you wonder how the ready made lasagne can be so cheap?

... Horse meat, slaughterhouse waste, soy protein, ground up collagen, past its sell by date meat, etc etc

If the whole lasagne is cheaper than the beef mince, it should make you think!

[RJnomaaaaaargh]

You can get 4 portions of spag bol from 500g mince as you don't need so much sauce on the pasta, but you wouldn't get much in the way of chilli unless you add lots of beans. 500g mince tin sweet corn tin kidney beans and tin haricot or black eyed beans would do 4/5 at a push round this way.

[Lightbulbon]

This thread needs to be merged with the "should 15 year olds cook dinner" thread.

So many DCs are growing up never being allowed to hold a sharp knife or use a hob to boil water that's it's no surprise they become adults who buy ready chopped veg and microwave meals.

There was another thread last week where someone said schools should teach cooking but if DCs are growing up with parents who don't have these skills how is this cycle ever going to end?

[BoffinMum]

Nom nom

It's Aldi and as such I trust it.

[BertieBotts]

But really, they wouldn't have as entertaining a programme if they had someone really resourceful and money savvy, would they?

[BertieBotts]

Cheap food doesn't make me worry. It's food, it's cheap, they'd get sued if it was poison. I'm not particularly bothered if I'm eating horse bollocks TBH. Obviously agree things should be labelled correctly for allergy and general informational reasons.

[Kewcumber]

Ha ha - no those are my store cupboard extras generally - not specifically for spag bol! I don;t add any herbs to lasagna or spag bol - I like the taste of the tomators garlic meat and cheese not a big fan of basil or oregano some I'm a cheapskate when it comes to herbs.

I've eaten that lasagna from Aldi - I like Aldi and I decided never to buy it again - they "meat" in it was ground into sawdust consistency.

But yes I think its very entertaining.

[BoskyCat]

Agree SacredHeart. We are not poor and I do buy nice things, and I buy free range meat where possible, but it's so expensive that we only have proper meat or fish about 3 times a week. Some nights are veggie - just pasta and sauce, baked potatoes or pizza and salad ?? and sometimes I make something like a pasta sauce with just a bit of bacon in it. At the weekend it might be just beans on toast. I'm not complaining at all, I love all that food but I can't imagine how expensive it would be to have a large amount of proper fresh meat/fish every night.

[Bolograph]

A meat serving is 200g i think.

You eat nearly half a pound of meat as one serving? Seriously? Christ. I thought I was a pretty unreconstructed meat eater and our waistlines say we're not starving ourselves, but even I would regard a pound of mince and a couple of tins of tomatoes as making a very large amount of spaghetti bolognese sauce.

[Feckingfeckfeck]

you eat nearly half a pound of meat as one sitting?

I ate a whole chicken today

[Philoslothy]

I get really fed up with people saying cooking from scratch isn't cheaper as that's bollocks. 500g mince to make 2 meals for 4 plus an adult portion left over.

If I gave my family 50g of mince they would leave home - after eating a loaf of bread and drinking a pint of milk each.

[EmeraldKitten]

I get really fed up with people saying cooking from scratch isn't cheaper as that's bollocks. 500g mince to make 2 meals for 4 plus an adult portion left over

500g of mince makes 9 individual meals?

Like the mythical MN chicks that feeds a family of 6 for a week.

Agree with the pp - I think my 7 year old would be unimpressed by a 50g serving, never mind DH and me!

[cremedecacao]

Jeez, I think my portion sizes are too big! I use 400g of mince to feed DH and I, and a small lunch sized portion! We like a larger sauce:pasta ratio though. Neither of us are remotely fat (well, I am but I'm 16weeks pg...) if it makes any difference! I would say our meat portion is usually around 200g each (a little less for me, a little more for DH). I'd say our dinners cost around £5-£6 a meal, always cooked from scratch.