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...

We use a local green grocer/market for fruit and veg so eat seasonally to keep costs down.

We bulk buy meat from a local butcher too and use frozen fish

Typical meals will be

Potatoe and pea curry
Veggie Lasagne with pesto in the white sauce to zing it up a bit
Jacket potatoe skins stuffed with cheese and bacon with salad
Falafel burgers with wedges and salad
Cod and chorizo hash with bread

£18 a week per person would be pretty standard for us.

But I have access to Aldi, a full store cupboard, good equipment and the skills and time to cook nice food from scratch.

We eat things like porridge/homemade granola/own brand cereals for breakfast.

Wraps with protein and salad/homemade soup/eggs for lunch.
For dinner meat 3 or 4 times a week, fish once and veggie the rest. Meat is mostly a joint used for 2 or 3 meals; chicken, gammon, pork, lamb shoulder or brisket eaten as a roast then leftover meat used with pasta or for stir fries or burritos or soup.

Whereas dd has to cycle to Tesco & lives in lodgings with hardly any fridge space and minimal cooking facilities.

Comeromaway but you said she has her breakfast and evening meal provided for her. Why would she need a big fridge or cooker to make lunch presumably for one person?
Theres just a weird mindset on mumsnet that you need lots of money and lots of kitchen equipment to be able to eat a healthy diet, even though there's people with experience who say otherwise.
Jenny agree with you, (except that a lot of people used to add in sugar, to tea and coffee, and on cereal). I had to go back to eating in the old style way when I was skint, lost plenty of weight, got much fitter through walking a lot more, and since I've more or less stuck to the old way of eating even though I can afford more food now, I've got down to a healthy weight and stabalised, really without much effort or having to think about it.

Not exciting but tuna pasta and sweetcorn and mayo. Sorry you’re going through hard times

I've just thought of another chick pea meal my kids enjoy
Mash a drained and rinsed tin of chick peas or 1 1/2 cups of cooked ones. Add a couple of chopped spring onions, a teaspoon of dried garlic, a drained tin of sweetcorn, salt and pepper and two tablespoons of flour. Mix well, then shape into four or five burgers. Chill in the fridge for half an hour then fry for a few minutes each side until golden and crispy. Serve in rolls if you like with chips and salad.

If you buy a 5kg bag of potatoes, you can then use more of them to make spicy cabbage and potatoes. Cut potatoes into bite sized chunks and par boil. Meanwhile, soften two onions in some oil with a little bit of garlic. Add half a shredded cabbage or a shredded pack of spring greens. Cover until wilted . Add a tablespoon of curry powder and some salt and pepper, and cook until cabbage is almost done. Add potatoes and cook, stirring constantly until potatoes are done. Serve with bread and butter and tomatoes and cucumbers if you have them. Again, delicious, filling, good for you and really cheap.

I'm amazed people are spending £150+ per week

We eat well on a budget but it's all about adjusting your thinking..

Examples...

Don't buy expensive juice/ready made smoothies/fizzy drinks....we drink squash, water, kids have milk.

Buy cheapest versions of pasta, chopped tomatoes, etc

Buy cheapest block of cheddar if you are using it in cooking

Don't expect to eat salmon fillets, avocados and berries every day.

Don't make meat the main event...we eat meat in every meal but chopped up in stir fries/pasta bakes so it goes further.

Lots of cheap snacks for kids in holidays...they like carrot sticks, cream crackers, pitta and humous etc

Just look when you're shopping...6 apples can cost £3 in lots of supermarkets but you'll also find most do cheaper packets where 6 will cost £1 or less.

Cheap dinners include..

Jacket potatoes
Ham, egg and chips
Soup with cheese toasties

£30pppw is loads more than most people have, so I'm surprised that's what the food bank suggests. You can definitely stay healthy for a lot less than this, but the food would be monotonous.

I think £18pppw for all three meals is quite tight. Possible but not easy.

People say cut back on the meat - but it isn't meat that's expensive. It's the veg. The legendary MN chicken really can feed a family of four for two to three meals for £3.50. But add the veg to those three meals and the cost quadruples.

People say cut back on the meat - but it isn't meat that's expensive. It's the veg

It's true, I wanted to make a veg lasagne...but the cost of an aubergine, courgette, pepper...£1.70 in total for one of each was more than the cost of a packet of mince.

It depends how many people are in the house. If there are 4 people you can bulk buy and £90 is reasonable. If there is just one person it becomes much more difficult in my experience. I have never spent under £20 a week when living by myself-it would be very difficult to do so without compromising on variety to quite a large extent.

We spend about 70quids per week on food I would say (about 40pounds at ocado, 15pounds fruits and veg, 10pounds top ups at co-op, 5pounds fresh milk delivered). Family of 5 (3 young children though and they get food at school/nursery for lunch, on the other side they rarely eat the curries we make so get something else which is a pain). We eat well, we don't scrimp and I don't try to be cheap. I use ocado and buy fresh veg, we eat leftovers for lunch at work. Don't eat meat. We eat fish but only occasionally when we go to the fishmonger. So 18pwpp doesn't seem too bad.

We shop all at aldi and lidl. We eat alot of chicken breast so either buy 2.5kg deals from butcher or by the kilo bag frozen but use 1 breast for a meal like a curry, fajitas, stir fry.

Aldi have super 6 which we base meals around or that's the kids fruit that week.

Aldi reduce food first thing so get there for opening go to meat and fish and then fruit n veg and get all 50% off bits, my boys love salmon they only get it when reduced but we build a stash in freezer this way.

Lidl do the fruit n veg box for £1.50 by the tills needs using in next couple days and hit n miss if available but I had choice of 10 at lunchtime yesterday. Mine had cauliflower (using for biryani), red pepper chopped for freezer, 2 mangos chopped and eaten in my breakfast, 1 potato, 1 carrot, 1 pear, 1 apple, 1 banana, 3 plums, a lettuce.

Take the kids on a long woodland walk you will find blackberries growing ready to pick now and if lucky some wild raspberries but coming to end of season and birds may have beaten you to them. Often lots cherry trees and plum trees in wild too but birds mostly get there first.

Look up a recipe for baked eggs its great with pasta, rice or crusty bread.

Look for fareshare style community markets or junk food projects food that's gone past bbe date but perfectly edible where shops give to fareshare and places like salvation army and childrens centres have market stalls you go take what you want and put a donation in the pot if you can. No judgement and it's for everyone to prevent waste its not a food bank so dont need referrals.

Biggest tip is utilise the freezer and waste nothing.

Use the oven to its max when on so going to use oven for dinner can you batch cook something else for next day or makes some cakes or a crumble.

I dont know how much we spend on food we throw away minimal food ie toddler left overs and other than chicken breast try not to buy meat at full price we use the chest freezer and buy reduced meat when we see it.

I agree that meat is not automatically expensive, but you do have to switch to cheap veg. Carrots and frozen peas are cheap. Aubergines and mange tout are not.

Seems more than reasonable to me with a bit of planning and effort. You can cook very very cheaply. I can make a six to eight portion dish of veggie cottage pie or lasagna for around 70p per serving, dhal is super cheap as is homemade curry and soup, you’d have to be cautious about treats and couldn’t blow £3 on a six pack of Pepsi cans but if that’s all you had to work with it’s definitely doable (and I dare say would mean healthier more nutritious meals than just stocking up on more expensive ready meals, frozen pizza an chips, fish fingers and beans, takeaways etc).

One of the most expensive meals I used to make was fresh pasta and homemade pesto. It was delicious but parmesan, pine nuts, a big plant of fresh basil; it really added up.

So now I buy a little bag of basil (70p?) and use cheddar and value cashew nuts. And honestly, it’s still really, really good for much less than half the price.

I don’t buy cheap pasta though; I can tell the difference and the compromise is too much for me. I buy branded stuff like Napolina and stock up when it’s on offer.

Treaty things like really good orange juice, I buy one carton of. We have a “one cup rule” at the table for it. It’s not for swigging and quenching your thirst.

Meat is expensive if you're having prime cuts of beef or lamb.

I was in the queue once in the supermarket and the woman behind me was buying an organic chicken...it was £12

I buy a whole chicken in lidl for less than £2.50.

Veg can be expensive

Cheapest food is carbs, potatoes, rice and pasta

The trouble with cheap meat though is it really gives me the creeps. Why is that chicken £2.50 as opposed to £12? I'm not judging at all but I'd rather do without if it's not cornfed, free range and organic.

Are there any community kitchens/fridges near you? There are a couple locally where people donate excess food and then you can just go and get it from the community kitchen/fridge when it's open. The ones near us have facebook pages which say what their opening times are and what they currently have in stock - it's aimed at people who want to reduce waste rather than people who are struggling for food so there isn't any stigma in using it if you see what I mean, if that's an issue. it's donated by individuals, shops, market stalls and wholesalers who have excess stock that would otherwise go to waste but that's fine - the one locally has all sorts of different stuff in (MK if that's any good to you?). It seems to be a growing phenomenon so worth googling to see if there's anything like it nearby.

There are a couple of apps that connect people with restaurants that have surplus food they sell/donate cheaply - can't remember their names but have seen them mentioned on MN so hopefully someone can provide the info.

Good local market stalls can also be great - particularly at the end of the day, doubly so if they're not open the next day. My local one sells sacks of onions for £1,50 - great for so many savoury recipes, should last 3 or 4 weeks and still affordable on a bargain budget. They also do scoops of fruit and veg for a pound - the scoops get bigger as the day goes on if they have stuff they want to shift!! The trays they have packed up at the start of the day aren't quite such good value - but even so they're pretty good - often a tray of 8 peppers or 8 oranges or peaches etc for a pound. Hit it at the right time and you will stagger away with several bags of fruit and veg plus your sack of onions for a fiver or so, which if you bought it at the supermarket or Lidl would have cost you 5 or 6 times more. It might mean that you eat lots of one type of fruit at a time rather than lots of different things but when it's so cheap and you're not doing this for a long time, it's better than no fruit/much less fruit from the supermarket.

If you want a bit of a meaty kick but can't afford much meat, if you get a supermarket that has a deli, you can often find that there's some of their sausage/salami/deli meats that if you get them to slice it very thinly you have enough for a bit of a taste without much cost. For example if you like salami, my local sainsburys sells a pack of 8 thin slices of salami for a pound. If I get it off the deli, the last time I got 12 slices and it cost me 16p for pretty much the identical thing - only difference was it wasn't in a sealed pack that would have lasted a couple of weeks = not an issue in this case. But while you wouldn't want it as your only protein in a meal, it's enough to add to a sandwich or to chop up into pasta with some single cream and beaten egg to create a very tasty not-quite-carbonara which doesn't feel like budget eating.

I wouldn't feel right using a community kitchen etc. We are not particularly low income, have just planned badly and hit a rough patch. We will manage, but obviously need to tighten our belts a little for a few weeks.

There are a couple of apps that connect people with restaurants that have surplus food they sell/donate cheaply - can't remember their names but have seen them mentioned on MN so hopefully someone can provide the info

Olio and Too Good to Go.

It depends if you want to eat well, or 'be full'.
Eating well is more expensive than it is to scratch the itch of hunger.

There's a food bank on the same street I work, and have heard a few comments from customers and employees along the lines of, "Those people don't need a food bank - hardly starving, are they?"
There has been studies that show those on a lower income tend to be more overweight than those who aren't.
Probably because cheap food is not always good food, and making nutritious meals for a large family is more expensive than oven-ready, carb & preservative heavy, frozen food. Plus, the amount it costs in utility bills to actually cook fresh food from scratch, is higher than 20mins on Gas Mark 6.

My food bill (3 adults, 2 teens) is ~£150-180 a week (that is with dietary restrictions & packed lunches).
I think I'd find it very difficult to feed the family with that amount cut in half, and still be eating a balanced diet.

Haven't RTFT so not sure if anyone has suggested this yet but eating vegetarian a few times a week can save a fair bit. I can make a chickpea curry or lentil bolognaise for 4 for a fraction of the price if I used meat.

Also try shop later in the day when things get yellow stickered.

@cricketmum84 no shit Sherlock 🙄🙄🙄🙄

RTFT NEXT TIME

@Bumbags did you mean to be so sodding rude or are you just pissed off that it's Monday tomorrow?

Not everyone has the time to read all 175 comments on a thread.

I certainly don't need attacking for having more in my life than bloody mumsnet.