to think £18 a week for food isn't that much of a "tiny" budget?

[Oakmaiden]

I just downloaded a free recipe book. It is actually a very good recipe book, and I am dead impressed by the author making a budgeting recipe book and then providing it free to people who need it. But.

It is subtitled "Eat well for £18 per week", and all the recipes are costed, and they have recently redone the costings etc, so I am quite impressed with the idea. But, as I say, there is a but. It is £18 a week per person. AIBU to think that is not actually a very tiny budget? For a family of 5 that is £90 a week. Sure, it is not a luxury budget by any stretch of the imagination, but it is not tiny, is it?

Also - I need to get through this month with a family of 5 on a genuinely tiny budget. I am aiming for around £50 a week if I possibly can (though I am not completely certain where I will find £50 a week, but I am sure something will come up. It generally does.) Anyone got any genuinely cheap recipe ideas please? I have a feeling we may be in for a lot of scrambled eggs and vegetable soup...

Buy yourself a large pack of mince. 500g of 20% mince in Lidl is £1.50 I think? Then make 3 meals from it - spag Bol, cottage pie and chilli.
If you're only temporarily skint though you probably have enough already in to see you through a week. Shop your cupboards and freezer first.

Shop in a supermarket on a Sunday at 3pm- loads of stuff reduced to a few pence. I can easily spend less than £20 for one person (if I'm not stocking up on toiletries and pet food) e.g. a loaf for 19p, I freeze it and it lasts for a week, taking out 2/3 slices a day, lots of fruit/veg/cakes reduced to about 25p. I never pay more than £1 for packets of chocolate bars or 6 pack of crisps, I just buy whatever is on offer that week and make it last the week. I don't eat a lot of meat though.

£50 a week shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Have porridge or toast with peanut butter or eggs for breakfast.

For lunches make a big batch of veg Pasta salad with a tin of black beans. That should do a couple of days. A pot of Lentil soup with bread should do another couple of days. Beans on toast, fritatta and a batch of sweetcorn fritters would do the rest of the week.

For dinners go mainly veggie.
Make cauliflower macaroni cheese one night, cauliflower and chick pea curry with rice another night, using a bag of frozen cauliflower
Bean chilli and rice
Beans and greens with crusty bread
Lentil stew with toast and greens
Taco spiced tomato rice with a tin of kidney beans
Toasted sandwiches, chips and carrot or cucumber sticks.

There's no room for snacks but if you have the stuff, you can make pancakes, plain muffins and breadsticks really easily.

I actually think £18 is OK for one person, but I'm vegan and don't mind eating the same food a couple of times in a row.

Fresh fruit and veg wise I tend to buy whatever is on the special buys in Aldi- for example last week they had melons for 79p and punnets of plums too. I am trying more and more to eat what's in season. Eggs are great you can get 15 for about £1.20 in Aldi. Aldi and Home Bargains also do packets of Biscuits for under 40p so you can have the odd snack. I also go to Farm Foods to fill my freezer. I use the coupons that come through the door and get another 10% off.

Fav in this house which is actually really cheap and quite healthy is our savory rice. An onion, chuck in some froze mixed veg (or the scraggy odd carrot in the bottom or drawer, potatoes any veg really) curry powder or parika a bit of time puree and any leftover meat, be it the famous MN chicken, sandwich ham or just more veg and cheapo dried rice. Big pan whack it in with water or stock cube if you have it 20mins later tasty dinner and full time.

So 72 pound per week for a family of 4? And that’s excluding all other non-food items from the weekly shop such as nappies/laundry products/toiletries and cleaning stuff?

Sounds just about doable to me. I really can’t relate to people spending minimum of 200 per week on food alone for a family of 4. Personally we would have A LOT of food waste by the end of the week!

We are a family of 4 and spend about 110 on the weekly shop but that’s including all the cleaning bits and toiletries etc

Glad you now have some suggestions as well as people talking about the amount.

My dc, as students reckon they spend less than £20pw on groceries (incl things like toilet roll / washing up liquid - although we do set them up with those at the start of term), so it can be done living as an individual.
But agree that it is cheaper per person when you are cooking for 4 /5/ 6 or more.

Our budget for 5 of us is £60 but we often spend less.
Mostly veggie main meals.

Fridge always has sandwich ham and we always have cheap bread so growing teens can have a snack.

I buy super cheap biscuits eg ginger nuts are 22p in asda.

I plan meals especially around what's in the sad cupboard with the yellow stickers.
Today they had 2 pizza bases for £1. I make marinara from garlic paste (b and m) and a tin of tomatoes.
(I try to have a jar of dried thyme and stock and paprika in the cupboard and soy sauce. Thyme was employed.)
So approx £4 for 2 pizzas for 5 of us. Comparatively costly but it felt treaty.

I try to have tins like kidney beans and chickpeas as well as tinned tomatoes. Cheap in aldi or asda.

If I get bread in asda cheap it can go in a stew once stale.

cookingonabootstrap.com/2019/05/29/pasta-e-ceci-recipe/ this is great but I use proper pasta cheap from Aldi.

Or her shakshuka recipe with chickpeas.

It would be tough to do every week; replenishing spices, olive oil, buying meat and "nice" protein stuff like nuts can get expensive. £18 is 85p/meal,

I'm an over-shopper, so we can easily live out of the cupboard and freezer for a long time. Check carefully for anything you can use. Then focus on cheap ingredients to make up meals:

• Self-raising flour and salted butter to make tortillas (bread too if you like); tin of cheap refried beans and whatever cheese is reduced in price / spread on tomato and cheap cheese then cook in the oven for pizza
• Eggs and milk to make omelette (stretch it out with milk), pancakes (with the flour and butter, buy berries that are reduced at the supermarket and cook in the pancake / use as topping), muffins (carrot and spinach are tasty)
• Mixed lentils and any cheap root veg plus stock cube for soup
• Pasta with tinned tomato, onion, garlic, frozen spinach
• Baked potato with butter, garlic and baked beans
• Beans on toast with a little cheese
• Steam then quick-roast cheap root veg along with rough-chopped onion, garlic, rosemary from the garden; potato, beetroot, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, squash (plus anything on offer therefore cheap e.g. sweet potatoes / yams)
• Porridge for breakfast, get packets with honey already included
• Stuffed larger cheap veg (e.g. big tomatoes) cooked in the oven; use rice, spices, a little egg and a little cheese to stuff
• Soya / quorn chunks to use sparingly as extra protein

Jack Monroe - A Girl called Jack is her best book in my opinion. Most recipes are online but the book should be in your local library.

Just got her latest book 'Tin Can Cook' from my local library. It uses tins from your store cupboard.

I think there are too many factors to consider to say if it’s enough or not. Food prices vary a lot depending on where you live and access to shops. Growing teenagers obviously will eat more than a 7 year old. People working very physically active jobs will require more calories (ie more food) than people who have an office job. Some children get free lunches at school so that’s 5 less meals out of the budget. Some people have to eat more expensive options due to medical conditions/allergies/food intolerances etc.

So whilst £18 a week is enough for someone like me (vegetarian, no food issues/allergies, relatively small appetite, non breakfast eater) it wouldn’t be for someone like my BIL who works a very physical job, does weights and eats a very high protein diet (lots of meat) to help bulk up, also is Gluten free so pasta/bread etc are more expensive as it’s from the free from section.

I suppose if we all had no choice then we could all survive on that, maybe even less, but I do think a lot of people would struggle.

Sometimes I have to do a family food shop on £15 a week. But I will do two 'big' food shops of £40-50 each time a month. Then two £15 ish shops a month.

Pasta is your friend especially value pasta. And potatoes for jacket potatoes. Try meat free dinners as much as possible. Frozen mince will go further. Although you can batch cook fresh mince. Buy things you eat on offer or value brand. Sometimes a branded item on offer is a better buy. Look online shopping before you go into the shop so you know exactly what you are planning to get and how much it is. Meal plan.

Hope it works out ok 🤗

18/7 = £2.50 a day that’s nothing

Bags of dried beans and pulses can be turned into very filling veggie burgers. That's the cheapest meal I know. Have a look a jack Monroe's 9p burger recipe. You can adapt to use whatever beans and veg are cheapest

I think carrots are quite cheap and last a reasonable time in fridge. Onions are reasonable too. Carrot soup? Potato and leek? Adding lentils bulks portions up. If you have a freezer and containers then people’s comments about economies of scale aren’t that relevant as you could freeze extra portions. But I am ok with the same food each day (though you’d need to make sure it has a range of nutrition).

I'm a member of a group on Fb called feed yourself for £1 a day. It's amazing how cheaply people can feed themselves for, some of the meals are really dire but I have also had a lot of good ideas.

I found when I was on a tiny food budget I mostly ate pretty well, and actually lost weight because I wasn't buying junk or take aways.

Www.cookingonabootstrap.com for Jack Monroe.

She’s the best for what you seem to want.

YANBU, average food budget for the 3 of us is £25-£30 a week.

Cheap meals wise, this might be a typical weeks dinners for me when money is tight (obviously only 3 of us so you'd have to double it but should work out under £50 still)

Pasta bake (Aldi Cheese and bacon pasta sauce 62p, Pasta 45p, half a pack of bacon lardons 99p)
Spag Bol (half a bag mince £1.99, Spaghetti 45p, pasta sauce 65p)
Vegetable rice (boil in the bag rice £1.10, half a bag frozen veg- 80p, the other half of the bacon)
Chilli (using the other half of the mince and rice, chilli con carne sauce £1)
Fish cakes (Iceland fishcakes £1, oven chips £1)
Pizza - ( Aldi pizzas 79p each)
Roast chicken - (Aldi chicken breasts £3.50, Iceland roast potatoes £1, rest of the frozen veg)

I don't eat breakfast, the kids usually have toast and jam or own brand cereal

Lunch is often bits like noodles, soup, beans on toast, scrambled eggs

Slow cooker is your saviour when you are skint, basic tomato sauce, add whatever veg you have grated up with onions, garlic & herbs, serve some with pasta. Next day add mince, serve with spaghetti or pasta. Next day add cumin, chilli & red kidney beans, serve with rice. Get your mince off the reduced, use basics tinned tomatoes & kidney beans, basics passata, cheapest spaghetti, pasta & rice. The key thing is having a good pantry of things like herbs, dried & tinned stuff, buy loads when you can afford it so if you have a skint week you don't need to buy much, cook more than you need to on weeks when you can afford it & freeze it. Always have potatoes & bread in if you can, tins of baked beans are cheap & filling, Farmfoods is great for multi packs of tins, breakfast cereals as well as their frozen food & they often have a tray of 24 eggs for a couple of pounds as well, if you get their leaflet through the door there are often money off coupons in it.

www.facebook.com/groups/651859231575794/
Feed yourself for £1 a day group on Facebook, it has sample shopping lists for really tight weeks and general ideas about how to get the most for your money x

There's a couple more links here which might be helpful
www.reddit.com/r/budgetfood/
www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/

£18 per week is low for a single adult. Child budget probably half that so cannot just multiply up for a family. Realistically it would be less.

Hard to buy herbs, seasoning and store cupboard basics starting out on that amount, would have to build up slowly. Just buying milk, butter/spread, cereal etc for one takes up a big chunk of that. Difficult to make bags of veg, spinach etc last long enough to use them all up and hard to batch cook without store cupboard basics.

My recommendations are.......

Visit small co-op stores around 7pm for reduced bread. This week I've had seeded bagels for 20p, sluced sourdough for 33p (makes amazing cheese toasties) and baguette for 19p.

For famiies or batch cookers on a budget, Lidl do big fruit and veg boxes of stuff nearing date for £1.50. Our has them near the tills on certain days/times...ask the produce manager. This week mine had new potatoes, cauliflower, courgette, celery, oranges, 3 pink lady apples (perfect condition), a large red little gem lettuce, punnet of red grapes (still fresh) and (why?) one musgroom!

Top tip for OP getting through this week.is home made pizza (various base recipes on BBC good food) . Strong bread flour and dried yeast are cheap in Aldi/Lidl. Use basic cheap pasta sauce for the tomato.layer, any old grated cheddar to use up, mixed with grated mozzarella ball (46p Lidl). Few shreds of pepper, slice mushroom, sprinkle of sweetcorn etc. Delicious...much better than supermarket/takeaway!

Make extra for lunch next day...if dough left can store wrapped in fridge for a couple of days or shape into loaf/rolls and and bake.

Forgot to mention, check out the moneysavingexpert forums, they used to have loads of cheap recipes and meal plans, I think they're stickied so should still be on there.

We spend less than that Household of three and we spend under £50 a week including cat food, toiletries and cleaning products. But we don’t eat animal products so this is mostly in season veg, lentils, beans, cheap fruit (we grow strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb, greengages and gooseberries at home and freeze some for winter) and we are on very comfortable salaries. I was once on a very very tight budget and even now DH is a v high earner I can’t kick the Lidl habit or stop going to the market at the end of the day for cheap fruit and veg.

I do think it can be done. I find the moneysavingexpert old style boards inspirational for keeping grocery costs low. I do think, however, it’s much more fun when it’s done by choice or for a short while.