To think £3.25 isn't cheap for a dinner every night?

[MatchFound]

DD (18) has a Caesar salad every night for dinner, I batch cook but she doesn't like any of the stuff so I buy her the stuff for Caesar salad. It works out at £3.25 (she likes this certain fresh hot and spicy chicken that goes on it.) She thinks this is quite cheap, I did mention that she is expensive with the food shopping and she got defensive saying that she eats cheap foods and that it isn't fair to say she is expensive! AIBU to the £3.25 every night is quite a lot for dinner?

Regardless of the cost eating the same meal over and over again is never going to be healthy.

Sorry, missed the Parmesan from the shopping list.

No it's not cheap. I spend £20-25 per person per week for all meals, snacks, drinks etc.

Why are you letting her dictate to you OP?

Yes she is expensive. I certainly don't spend £13 on dinner for the four of us every night. Sometimes I do, but not most nights. And we are well off.

There is no way I'd be catering for an 18 Yr old in this way unless there are significant problems that you are not telling us about.

Presumably she has a job & can afford to pay for such cheap meals herself

Even do it for a week & see how cheap she thinks it is then

It's cheap in comparison to eating out but it's not in comparison to batch cooking. But I think people don't really know how to calculate this. For example when I say we need to have a cheap shopping week DH always suggests frozen pizza because that costs about €2 per person. But if I was spending €2 per person for every meal (that we eat at home) that's €127 a week - around double our shopping budget. (Not to mention you can't just eat frozen pizza for every meal.)

"It's relative to your income, no? Some would think it cheap, some expensive."

No, cheap or expensive is not relative to income, it's relative to what the usual price is for something.
I'd say it was cheap for a meal eaten out, but pretty expensive for a meal where you buy the ingredients and prepare it yourself.

Ceser salad is one of the cheapest things to make tho. Why does it cost you so much?

It's not that unhealthy I don't think. Many people eat the same thing for lunch or breaj#kfast every day.

It's a lot. If you think of the cost of say, an onion, a clove of garlic, tin of tomatoes and a handful of pasta and a sprinkle of cheese on top each for 4 people you're talking....£1 - £2 for a simple evening meal for the family.

Yes, i think it's expensive. Assuming everyone had the same cost per head in a family of 4, that would be £13 per day, £91 per week before any other food and groceries.

Works out about £100 a month just for one meal a day, thats about 2/3 of my monthly food budget for 2 people.

3.25 should make you an 8 generous portion ceser salad if you buy everything from scratch and cook it yourself. I

How is a Caesar salad for one, made from scratch, £3.25?

@Teddybear45 how?

How could you buy enough chicken to feed 8 people for £3.25?

N

Roasting chicken stripped and used would be £3.50.

You,could go a bit cheaper if you used frozen fillets. The value ones, but they’re vile.

catinboots99 This is a MN chicken we're talking about. I'd expect to get 35 portions out of it. Obviously some poster's aren't trying hard enough.

It's expensive on top of family meals, but not so expensive thatt she wouldn't be able to pay for it herself, if she wants to eat it every night in my view.

I do think that's an expensive dinner to have every night, but if you buy romaine lettuce, caesar dressing, cheese, bread, chicken and spices all separately then you can make it for half to 2/3 of the cost. It's a healthy dinner but she should get more variety, how about suggesting a houmous and salad pitta with spinach leaves, or cooking the chicken up in a stir fry with a range of veg like peppers, grated courgette, mushrooms etc. To get her into very minor changes she could also make up a different spicy mayo dressing and have the leaves, tomatoes and spicy chicken in a wrap to add some carbs and skip the expensive calorie-heavy dressing.

It's all relative, I spend more than £200 a week on the weekly shop, not included all the top ups. It doesn't sound expensive if that includes the chicken.

You could still lower that if you don't buy a ready-made pack. If she eats the same everyday, you might as well buy a bottle of sauce, a big salad and so on. Will work out cheaper over a week.

Depending on how much dressing and croutons she has, I'm not sure if it is a healthy dinner. Caesar salad always comes up as one of those 'this salad has more calories than a Big Mac' type examples.

I can't believe she eats a chicken salad every evening! That's not healthy! I'd be so bored of that in no time. Yes it's expensive and quite frankly, at 18, i would say you either eat what everyone else eats or she can pay for her own salad! Obviously with the exception of the odd meal, she could find something to make herself.

Whole chickens in Tesco can cost from £1.87 per kilo (£2.62 for the cheapest whole chicken)

to £6.95 per kilo (£11.82 for the whole chicken)

The cheaper one will have not taste and be pumped with water, but it's still cheap.

Tell her if she thinks it's a cheap meal from now on in she can buy her own!