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Original poster

To think that £17,000 a year on food is obscene

377 replies

ChillySundays · 02/10/2015 20:22

Watching 'Eat well for less' on i player. The family are spending £17,000 a year on food. I'd quite like to earn that. The bloke is saying about saving them £100 a week - my food bill is that a week (4 adults) never mind saving it.

What is really getting my goat is the mother laughing about how little fruit and veg the family eat. Surely most people would be embarrassed whatever the reason was.

Am I being incredibly judgey?

OP posts:
Thelushinthepub · 02/10/2015 22:00

Sometimes MN is like competitive "how little I can spend on food." The family in the programme had clearly allowed it to creep up, were shocked at the amount and easily reduced it. No big deal.

blueteapot · 02/10/2015 22:01

Ps one pizza between 5! Even with garlic bread Id not get away with that! We make our own pizza and garlic bread pizza, generally make one normal sized pizza between 2 adults, one smaller garlic bread pizza / doughballs, and one side plate sized pizza for DS and let him top his own. Recently my weaning 8 month old also gets her own teeny tiny one too. Very cheap meal to make your own... thats what got me a bit about that show - theyd rather give the family a supermarket value range pizza than show them how to make their own cheaper and tastier version. It wasnt really about helping normal people reduce their spending, more about oggling that poor woman and her ridiculous spending habits.

Janeymoo50 · 02/10/2015 22:03

The Sainsburys own pilau rice pouches are 50p each. We have one each (just two of us), BUT...that's because we have a very saucy curry and I'll get a 500 gram chicken portion pack to do 4 meals at least. I always work out portions on meat (sorry veggies).... 500 germs equals 4 adult portions in whatever meals I cook, am I being tight or generous?

HopefulHamster · 02/10/2015 22:06

We use the microwave rice stuff fairly often, but we are two adults, a five year old and a baby and would only use one packet, so I don't mind paying £1 a meal for it. No way would I pay over £7 for five people. I've got a rice cooker for the real stuff :D

MyrtleMoaning · 02/10/2015 22:06

I'm dubious about some of the swaps too, I find it very difficult to believe they couldn't tell the difference between Asda super saver muesli and Alpen.

lifesalongsong · 02/10/2015 22:07

If I make a spaghetti bolagnaise with 500g of meat I wouldn't expect it to feed 4 adults, it doesn't sound a lot to me.

PHANTOMnamechanger · 02/10/2015 22:09

I disagree blueteapot there was a slot on how to make your own pizza this week, I think it was made with chickpea flour? there was a lot in it about improving intake of fresh food and nutritional value, cutting back on processed food. this week they emphasised that tinned fish and frozen berries are just as good as fresh, and far cheaper.

Bakeoffcake · 02/10/2015 22:10

I don't think they need to swap foods, I think they need to stop buying as much. They need to halve at least, their shopping trolley.

Iflyaway · 02/10/2015 22:10

Yes. But so is buying a car for XXX£££ too.

Think of all that pollution!

Janeymoo50 · 02/10/2015 22:10

Totally agree....500 grams of mince...4 decent adult portions (or more with added tomatoes/onion/grated carrot etc.

blueteapot · 02/10/2015 22:11

Phantom you are right I completely forgot about that bit!

PHANTOMnamechanger · 02/10/2015 22:12

myrtle I was suprised at the mayo one too, where the very cheap one romped home and they all said it was so good it must be hellmans. how can asda cheap museli taste like a premium brand? would it even look convincing?

Janeymoo50 · 02/10/2015 22:12

Tinned fruit (yep) is a huge money saver (even the most basic misshaped orange segments).

lljkk · 02/10/2015 22:13

It takes 6 minutes to boil rice to perfection. Okay call it 9 minutes if you need time for the water to come to a boil. Ex-boyf actually timed his basmati to perfection.

125 grams of meat per person is plenty ime.

annatha · 02/10/2015 22:15

Thing is, those rice packets take about 2 minutes to cook. By the time you've cooked 5 of them (and somehow managed to keep the first ones warm so everyone can eat together) you could've just cooked some bog standard rice?

If I had £325 to spend on food per week, I'd be eating out for every meal, not eating beige processed shite.

Asteria36 · 02/10/2015 22:24

Bloody hell!! That is a huge amount. I can't eat anything processed so we make everything from scratch and don't have juices etc, which does bring the price of grocery shopping down considerably, but even if I did all of our shopping at Waitrose I would struggle to spend that much. As it is I do Lidl and then top-up in Waitrose and rarely spend over £70 (today's shop was just under £50) in total (for 2xadults 3xchildren) unless we are having a party or guests staying.
I didn't watch the programme but I am presuming they reached that price with a lot of (mouthwatering) ready-made food?

Topseyt · 02/10/2015 22:28

If we had £300+ to spend on food each week we wouldn't be able to eat it all. However, we would be able to live like kings.

As things are, I have around £100 per week, plus a little for the odd top up, to feed four of us - 2 adults and two teenagers. Five when DD1 is home from uni in the holidays.

I cook most meals from scratch with the odd treat thrown in.

tobysmum77 · 02/10/2015 22:30

Sometimes MN is like competitive "how little I can spend on food." The family in the programme had clearly allowed it to creep up, were shocked at the amount and easily reduced it. No big deal.

I agree with this, there were 3 teens in the house, so it was 5 with adult appetites. I never really understand the mn 'I feed a family of 5 for 50 quid' brigade but I guess if money's tight then you shop accordingly. That said... It had got out of control...

gamerchick · 02/10/2015 22:34

I watched that one and the thing that got me is by the end of it they were still going to spend an insane amount on food. I couldn't physically spend that much.

I don't hold much stock by the program though after the butter vs margarine thing where it was implied that marge was better and butter was 'mumble' but didn't really explain anything Hmm

gamerchick · 02/10/2015 22:35

Just adding that clearly she just needed to be shown how to cook as well. It's something you have to learn.

ilovechristmas123 · 02/10/2015 22:41

i can buy a pouch of brown rice from Asda for 50p

has/have never heard of chai seeds

Saz12 · 02/10/2015 22:44

The olive oil thing was odd - it implied that they would save £7 a week (or similar) by switching to rapeseed oil, but they couldn't have been going through that amount of oil every week. Def a bit of stretching for "good entertainment", which is a bit cruel on the family taking part.

Given that there were 5 capable people in the family, would make more sense if each person cooked one meal a week (5 evenings covered) then have a treat night (pizza, whatever) and an argument for the remaining evening, rather than just one person having to learn to cook.

TheDietStartsTomorrow · 02/10/2015 22:52

How did they get a figure of ?325 a week anyway? I don't think that's realistic. They maybe just asked the family and wrote down what they said without checking it.

TheDietStartsTomorrow · 02/10/2015 22:54

How did they get a figure of £325 a week anyway? I don't think that's realistic. They maybe just asked the family and wrote down what they said without checking.
The figures don't add up.

gamerchick · 02/10/2015 22:57

They add it up from a roll of kept receipts I think.