To those who are not sure you can feed a family for less than £100 a week

[Metoodear]

I posted a few pictures on the other shopping conversation of the food I cooked as people simply refused to belive you can weekly shop for less than £100 and not just eat pasta all week

Just come back from shopping and just wanted to show you my list and weekly plan Monday is not on their because I already have the dinner we are having salmon baby roasted potatoes and squash wedges with green beans

I have 3 kids and a cat no less Sp 5 of us in total this list includes stuff for lunch as well for me and husband

I it can be done if you don’t allow grazing and make a meal plan the

And you didn't eat the mice
But then again the mice could be for the cat, seeing as there's no cat food or litter on that receipt.

Diggerty I think I love you a little.

It's not grim at all Sprinklesinmyelbow, actually really tasty. I was vegan for years so I don't buy into the 'every meal must contain meat' brigade.

Of course you can feed a family of 4 for less than £100 per week and eat well!!!
We are a family of 4 and spend less than that a week and that includes wine, laundry and cleaning stuff and toiletries.
Cook from scratch, buy seasonal products, meal plan, freeze or use up leftovers.
We don't live on pasta and have a varied diet.

DiggertyDam that was really useful for me, thank you. I'm rubbish at cooking meat for DC so that's given me a really good starting point. The portions of mince/chicken dishes that are put into foil containers - do you freeze and then oven cook from frozen? Or defrost first?
Your bread sounds great and really easy.

Sprinkles you're being unnecessarily mean! That is more than plenty of mince! People eat way too much meat and think they need more protein than they do.

A lot of people do have empty fridges and cupboards when it comes round to the next food shop though OP, a lot of people can afford to only live week by week or month by month. Not every kid gets free school meals. Not everyone will eat toast or porridge or whatever for breakfast. Most families do go through a load of milk each week especially with very young kids. So whilst I get the point you're trying to make, it really doesn't cover a budget for a week for the average family.

@JavaJava

It's me, DH and 2 x 6year olds. Works for us.

Diggerty it's roughly what I do too but never with such a brilliant list right there. I'm copy and pasting it for future reference. I'm a huge fan of batch cooking things. We are having spaghetti bolognese from the freezer tonight. A family favourite!

TattyFrench We take out the next days when we put that days on to cook, so defrosted.

With the spagetti bolognese we have have spagetti obviously. With the chilli con carne, curry and gunbo we have rice, and with the pies we ususlly cook some peas and/or carrot.

DS refused all meat until we started cooking like this. Now he loves the meals. It's so easy.

Lunch - DD2 - Aldi's halzenut and chocolate spread on white bread, monster munch (from Iceland which is next door to Aldi), apple, Aldi squeezy yoghurt, Aldi fruitshoot, Aldi's version of Jaffa cakes x 3.

Sorry, but I also think that that is a shockingly bad lunch. I can make a packed lunch for each of my DS and DD (who are quite fussy eaters) for £1-£1.30 a day each. This includes fruit juice (diluted with water and packed in a reusable bottle), fruit (small portion of something like grapes, blueberries, satsuma etc) , small packet of raisins maybe then choice of bread sticks and soft cheese/hummus or pitta bread with grated cheese and carrot, or felafels or quorn picnic eggs, and a small piec of home-baking (which normally incorporates some fruit eg a fruit muffin and which I make in batches to freeze). In the winter they often get a flask with some homemade soup (broccoli, lentil broth, tomato and red pepper etc). If you are really short on time or equipment, I admit that the soup or homebaking may not be achievable but the rest is easy to buy and assemble.

I'm sure that some MN people will find fault with this nutritionally but it has a basic mix of protein, vitamins, calcium etc and allows a bit of variety.

For breakfast during the week the kids have organic porridge (made from a muesli base and organic milk) with fruit juice. It costs about 20p tops a serving (including the fruit juice) and takes about 5 minutes to cook (while I am packing their lunch boxes).

Getting back to OP, we eat well and would be hard pushed to spend more than £100-£125 per week for two adults (one of whom is gluten-free and therefore needs more expensive g/f pasta and bread etc) and two hungry children. This includes all breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks and household items such as soap powder and dishwasher tablets etc. We are veggie, however, which means that we can eat better quality for less. Apart from the odd jar of pasta or curry sauce, everything else is cooked from scratch, with lots of fresh veggies.

We are not aiming to be frugal but we don't have unlimited funds either. We could probably spend less but we buy organic milk and free range eggs for ethical reason and try to buy organic fruit and veg where there is a choice.

Having said all the above, if people can afford to spend more and want to, I think that is fine. As another PP has said, I don't think that it should be a race to the bottom.

Am waiting for the pics...

Pretty sure it was op on the £280 per week food shop thread who posted loads of pics of her meals.

I've sort of lost sight of what a normal food shop is here as I'm always well stocked up.
We have 4 of us, 2 adults, a 15yr old boy who eats like a horse and dd who is 7 but is vegetarian like me.

We spend a fortune but don't tend to eat out or get take aways.
2 of us are on slimming world and I make 15 packed lunches per week.
Add in a few stray cats that dp feeds, toiletries/cleaning products and were easy over £150 a week.

I have got a thing about not running out of food though, often feed my friends/neighbours if I make a big traybake or pasta dish etc.

Our weekly food bill is more than our weekly rent.

Thanks DiggertyDamn! You should do cooking lessons in 'How to cook easy meat meals for people who don't/didn't eat meat' - maybe with a more catchy title 😁. I used to be vegan too and really struggle with meat now DC are older and have chosen to eat it. Saying that, at 10 and 11 they're better cooks than me so maybe I'll just show them your recipe and let them get on with it (I'm joking ish but I've taught them to cook the basics but using soya/pulses so it's the introduction of meat - and getting it wrong/food poisoning that worries me).

The BBC series Eat Well for Less quotes the average grocery shop for a family of 4 as somewhere between £80-90 per week.

I'm single and when I'm being careful I comfortably eat for around £25 per week, without getting bored either. Bear in mind as well that buying smaller amounts of fresh food tends to be more expensive e.g. 2 pints milk 79p, 4 pints £1.10.

I'm glad others have come on to say it is easy. We just had the shopping delivered (£6 a month- cheaper than the petrol for us) and at £72.52 (including the 1.50 delivery share) for 4 people (2 adults and a 15 and 17 year old)

7 breakfasts - bread, cereal, milk, eggs, spread and jam
7 lunches - salad (lettuce, tomatoes,cucumber,peppers, salad onions, radishes), wraps, chicken, ham, cheese, more bread, quiche, crisps, fruit
7 dinners - pasta, potatoes, oven chips, pizza, stewing beef, mince(x2), chicken, salmon, turkey chunks,
veg+ for dinners - bag of mixed beans, 4 tins tomatoes, cabbage, cauli, carrots, swede, broccoli, bag mixed frozen veg, bag frozen peas, bag frozen green beans, gravy granules - chicken and beef, onions.
Additionally - a double sleeve of digestive biscuits, milk x 3 litres, 200 tea bags, bottle of squash.

I must admit to having a box of stock cubes, some cornflour, jar of paprika and a jar of mixed herbs in the cupboard, but won't use anything else this week other than tap water.

So ........ you get free school meals, already have higher priced items like chicken and fresh fruit and have only meal planned for 4 main meals. Then, you’re not planning meals for a week for £100. You are coming across as very stupid.

(and the fruit is a bag of green apples and of red apples, bag of conference pears, bananasx2, bag of plums, bag of grapes)

Of course you can feed a family for under £100 pw.

I can feed 3 adults and two teenagers for £100pw including wine. Cat food and toiletries are usually in the same shop.

However, they have to take packed lunch and no Friday take away.

It's the "I only spend £40 a week on food"brigade that piss me off. Because it turns out there are only 2 people in the family and they only eat carbs and no fruit or veg.

This is like one of those "eat well for less" episodes where a family are utterly clueless about budgeting and menu planning.

£100 a week isn't too hard for 3 dc's, especially if you're mainly veggie, have no allergy issues and have one parent at home or working part time to batch cook and prep meals.

Frequency I winced when I saw you’d been brave enough to post your meal plan. I was very sure you were going to be hammered by the food police and the dont have a clue brigade. But it’s not turned out that way and it’s been a real eye opener.

My mum was a single mum way back in the very early 70’s. We were ok for meals because my granny and grandad were a really big help but I can still recall her very often walking to work (with a serious heart condition) because she didn’t have money for her bus fare that day.

We lived in a tiny flat and the three of us shared a bedroom. Our kitchen was a scullery and our bathroom only had a loo. We got washed at the kitchen sink and we’d squat over a washing up bowl of hot water to wash our girlie bits. Once a week we’d go to my grans for a bath and a hair wash. We were always clean though. But I can’t say I ever did the girly teenager thing of having a bath and listening to the top 20.

The older I get, and I’m 60 now, the more I love my late mum.

Here’s to better days in the not to distant future for you and your girls who love you to the moon and back and always will.

TattyFrench Every time before cook off we ask the DC what they want to keep and what they want to chnge.
Cuury, Gumbo (or our version of it), Chilli con carne and spagetti bolognese they always want to keep.

They wanted a change from the cottage pie this weekend so we changed it a bit by frying a couple of leeks and some bacon and mixing that with the mince mix. For the topping we mashed a swede, a couple of potatoes and put some cheese in it. They loved that.

V good recipes Diggerty 👍I’ll be nicking some of those as currently in a rut.

Ninch is he too Neanderthal for chopped meat/chicken? Because by slicing or chopping say, chicken thighs, you can make them go further. Or, if funds permit, slice 1 piece of steak or chicken breast for a salad to serve 2.

Sorry, but I also think that that is a shockingly bad lunch. I can make a packed lunch for each of my DS and DD (who are quite fussy eaters) for £1-£1.30 a day each. This includes fruit juice (diluted with water and packed in a reusable bottle), fruit (small portion of something like grapes, blueberries, satsuma etc) , small packet of raisins maybe then choice of bread sticks and soft cheese/hummus or pitta bread with grated cheese and carrot, or felafels or quorn picnic eggs, and a small piec of home-baking (which normally incorporates some fruit eg a fruit muffin and which I make in batches to freeze). In the winter they often get a flask with some homemade soup (broccoli, lentil broth, tomato and red pepper etc). If you are really short on time or equipment, I admit that the soup or homebaking may not be achievable but the rest is easy to buy and assemble

A few things:

1. Her lunch doesn't cost me £1.30 a day, it's probably closer to £1.30 a week. The monster munch is on offer 2 x 24 packs for £3, they last a fortnight including using for after school snacks and weekend lunches. When they're not on offer she has something which is on offer. The chocolate spread is less than £2 and lasts a month or more. The apples are £.1.29 for eight, so includes weekend meals. The bread is £ but needs topping up through the week. The drinks are 89p for 6 and the yoghurts are 70p.

2. We can't afford blueberries or grapes and she doesn't like raisins which are also very sugary. We are growing strawberries and have a pear tree and a cherry tree but atm the fruit is still growing.

3. She doesn't like hummus. Do Aldi even sell hummus? No-one but me likes it so we never get it.

4. She has fruit juice with breakfast but wouldn't drink it diluted with water. She has water or milk the rest of the time but likes to take a juice drink to school. I can't afford to buy extra fruit juice.

5. She likes quorn, we use it in chilli sometimes but it is expensive. If I gave her it for lunch, we'd be down one evening meal.

6. She doesn't like soup and we don't have a flask. We do make soup sometimes for evening meals but DD2 has something else instead.

7. We do bake occasionally and she will take whatever we make to school but I work fulltime, I am at college full time and I am single handedly raising two kids. Jaffa cakes take three seconds to pull from a cupboard.

Bear in mind as well that buying smaller amounts of fresh food tends to be more expensive e.g. 2 pints milk 79p, 4 pints £1.10

Milk freezes and due to the bonkers milk pricing it's worth buying a 4 pint bottle and freezing some in smaller containers, eg pound shop clippy tubs.

Where is the meat in the shopping recipts? Also where is the weekend and breakfast and lunch ?! That’s a top up shop.