AIBU to be annoyed at this suggestion that £50 per week for food for 4 is realistic?

[MageQueen]

This article about feeding a family of four on £50 per week has annoyed me a lot. https://www.thetimes.com/money/family-finances/article/we-earn-six-figures-but-feed-our-family-of-four-for-50-a-week-fx8w5t9lw

If you can't see the piece, here's a picture of her shopping list.

I mean, the piece is about how a family on more than 100k might still struggle which is fine, although I'm sure some people would take exception to it, but if they're going to profile a family that are a good example and doing a complicated job of managing, surely pick one whose food bill bears some resemblance to reality? That would feed our family of four for about 3-4 days. Tops.

I get that there's a whole narrative about people who seem to earn well but dont' feel rich. Hell, I'm ONE of those people. But this just feels so ridiculously stupid it has irrationally infuriated me! (And don't even get me started on the weekly cleaner and nanny for a SAHM who is skimping, supposedly, on food....).

That’s alongside a box from the butcher for sure

What kind of cunts actually sell their stories for this type of article?! Do they no realise it looks muggy and weird. Whether it's the Times or the Sun it's always misrepresenting the actual genuine costs of things.

Like making the rich family look poorer and the poorer family look even poorer because they spend £50 on lunch in Costa. Like who even does that?!

I can't read the article but I suspect the thing that would annoy me is the thing that always annoys me on "how much do you spend on food" threads on MN.

People only ever include their "big shop" cost. Sometimes they think to include any top up shop. They virtually never include that their children have school meals, the adult have meals at work; snacks whilst out aren't included and they have a takeaway once a week. Etc.

My SIL once told me some such similar rubbish about how little her family spent on food. Turned out she was only counting 5 evening meals as everything else was in a different "pot".

I agree OP. A family of 4 x 3 meals per day x 7 days a week is 84 meals per week.

Bollocks can anyone do that on £50 .

I grew up poor and am now relatively comfortable (or as I think of it I am poor by MN standards, well off by my standards!) and the one thing I will not scrimp on is food so admittedly my food budget is relatively high as a percentage of my budget, but I do think there is a lot of utter bullshit on here about food budgets - and the same for this , no sensible person can feed a family of 4 for a week on £50. Thats less than I spend of fruit and veg !!

Don't forget the meatballs! Pack of 12 so that's 4 each...

My teen DS would want more protein than is here, without even considering anyone else.

Im always intrigued by articles like this and some MN posts in similar types of thread where they say they spend eg 50/wk for 3+ people...sometimes they include meal plans, but only ever list food. (There are no drinks on the list above, I suppose they only drink water, all week?) Every week my supermarket shop includes toiletries/toilet roll/cleaning products/dishwasher tablets/kitchen foil etc. Obviously I dont need everything, every week.....but id usually need something!

Are their kids at boarding school or something?
Is it an MP who gets subsidised food in Parliament? It's such bollocks.

The Times is full of rage bait.

Imagine putting in all the effort and time to earn 6 figures and eating such a miserable diet. You may as well do a stress-free job on a supermarket checkout. 12 meatballs between 4 people...I think my DD would cry if I tried to serve her 3 meatballs and called it dinner.

How utterly ridiculous! They expect me to believe that I could make 84 meals (3 meals a day, for 4 people, for 7 days) from what's on that list?! 😂😂😂

This. Pre COVID and with small kids I did £50 a week okay.

But the increase in everything is realistically £80 a week now and that's being very frugal.

So for 28 (or 84!) meals the protein is eggs, a bit of tofu, 3 meatballs each and a chicken? Maybe mushrooms etc if they count?! And I don't know what the lentil sharing bag is, assumed they were crisps but maybe not.

These articles are always absolute bullshit.

Accessible link here for those who want to read this nonsense

archive.ph/PwsKy

I wonder what the 7 dinners are from that?

Meatballs?
Chicken?
Maybe some sort of bean ...thing?

That's 4 at maximum? 5 if you wanted to stretch the chicken out...

And they only have a pint of milk each per week?

ETA; eggs! They might do 2 meals? Like an omelette or something.

There's butter beans and eggs TBF.

Yikes, just realised my maths was wrong and it is in fact only 3 meatballs per person 😭

It's complete tone deaf BS. They probably know it's shite but it increases their traffic.

I thought i was doing pretty good getting ours at or under £100 a week! Holidays it's around £130

What year was this done in. Shopped for olive oil and if you get the minuscule bottles which are over priced and don’t last long then yes there is EV olive oil for £2.75

I would think this was 1/2 per weeks shop

WTF is a lentil sharing bag?!

It’s all performative-poverty bobbins, of course.

It says they have a 2 and 4 year old - there’s no kids snacks, no nappies or wipes in their shop (I know the 4 year old will be out of nappies, but a 2 year old is likely to still be using them overnight if not in the day). There’s also no cleaning products (maybe because of the cleaner?), no loo roll, washing up liquid, toothpaste or shampoo?

18 of those items are fruit or vegetables - seems a bit excessive to me. The whole scenario is so joyless - not one item containing a little bit of sugar, no butter, no potatoes. Not for me.

I'm willing to bet it's one of those "MN chicken" people. I bet they can stretch a small chicken out to do "big dinners" that last the full week. Whilst also being absolutely stuffed by breathing fresh air so they only need 1 meal a day.

3 X meatballs is enough,? So between 4 people 12 is plenty?

Although, unless they're having them with bread, I'm curious as to no pasta or rice or potatoes?

Oh wait, I see the packet rice now. 🕵️

I assume that chicken is going to last them 4 for a week? sure. I buy the equivalent in Aldi for 3 of us, me and two teenage boys. I am very lucky if I have a few scraps left to make a pasta or a pie out of. I guess I should have made chicken stock out of the bones if course