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....).

She said she's been doing this £50 per week for five months so she's definitely lying somewhere. They're not living on that every week. They wouldn't be able to build up a store cupboard with that.

The nanny must be taking another £50 shop in on the fly.

This reminds me of Jack Monroe and her ‘I can feed 3 big eaters with leftovers for £20 a week’. Not including fully stocked cupboards and the meals are so tiny you need seconds.
Ive spent £70. I have quite a lot of things in and I need to pop elsewhere to get a few things.

I dont know to be honest, its a bit disingenuous to use people ong a good income as the example, however notwithstanding that and also as you say OP if there is food in the house they talk about in the article (havent read it) which isnt on the recipe that is also confusing/misleading

However not withstanding that, even those reciepts I feel have things on them which are unnecessary and can be swapped for cheaper things, melon, pineapple, fresh basil and parsley etc

Probably more if I could be bothered to focus.

I think people can often shop for much cheaper than I often read on here. Perhaps not this family exactly

She obviously doesn’t have teenagers eating her out of house and home… the kids are 2 and 4.

The amount of fruit, yoghurt and pasta my teenage DS gets through makes £50 for the week impossible.

So hard to compare "the weekly shop" nowadays. I am constantly flooded on SM algors about the "£50 p/w family shop" and it's not a hard and fast rule. Yes you can make a lot of meals from scratch with fresh veg and bulking etc etc but your weekly shop and mine are different. My "weekly shop" is all food, toiletries. sundries, cleaning products we need or want to use, that week. We don't do top ups for anything, it's that shop and that's it, except if we decided to eat out or get a takeaway one day. So when I come in at £80 or under and i know it's including 3 people's lunches as well dinner and breakfast, snacks, sauces, drinks, juice, washing detergent, dishwasher salt, bin bags, tea etc. I am usually pretty pleased with it. Like others made a good point of - this not someone's receipt starting from scratch either. They have a pantry / cupboard / freezer - they're maybe sitting on frozen meat these bits are going to top up. There's always something you need that ran out (loo roll / kitchen roll / bleach / foil) that people don't seem to count! Also for kids - Calpol, Nurofen, Vitamins / sanitary products. The list for the "weekly shop" is endless.

Wow that’s one healthy shop

This seems like £50 a week just for fresh stuff, or £50 a week not including daily trips to Sainsbury’s local. I would also expect a weekly food shop and “feeding” people to include breakfasts and snacks for all, and lunches for at least the adults.

I would struggle to get more than 5 proper meals from that list and can’t work out what she’s using the cream for. By the end of the week they must be having the most awful bubble and squeak of random veg left in the fridge! I know everyone should be entitled to treats but I don’t think people who are seriously struggling are prioritising pineapples!

A couple of years ago, I would have said £50 a week was possible, if you were moderately careful. But at today's prices, you'd have to try really really hard to cope on that, baking lots of compromises. I'd say £75 to £90 a week is at the very lowest end of living comfortably at current prices.

I think I could manage to do a week on £50 without using stuff I already had but it would be bloody boring (porridge every day for breakfast, then jacket spuds, tomato pasta type stuff every night) and I certainly wouldn't be buying blueberries, cream and sourdough. The list in the article is laughable.

I follow this woman on Instagram. The article misrepresents what she's doing- she does a £50 shop at different supermarkets and then compares what she managed to buy at each, what was good value and what wasn't etc etc. She doesn't claim that they survive just on the £50 shop- in fact she's totally honest about not doing and that while she's set herself a challenge to keep costs down she often explains that she's bought X not Y because they already have lots of Y (not covered in the posts). It's less "We live on £50/week" and more "what can you buy for £50?" So one week it's Lidl, next week M&S and so on, and she talks about what was better value (eg cheaper veg at cheaper supermarkets but it tends to have a shorter shelf life).

I imagine she has some childcare because she works part time on her Instagram presence.

I spend £20 a week just on the two cats. 🤣

Thanks for the share link.

I think this is a really good example of a family claiming to live frugally because they've heavily cut down in one area that they don't much care about, whilst spending liberally in others that they consider to be essential.

I mean they have a SAHP but spend £400 on nursery, £110 a week on a nanny and have now employed a cleaner.

It's a less interesting headline but "we've cut our food bill so we can pay for other people to do the tasks we find dull" is probably more accurate.

And english muffins, garlic bread and pitta.

From the article.

Breakfast
Toast
Banana pancakes
Porridge with berries

Lunch
Cod fishcakes and pea puree
Cheese Quesadillas
Marmite and cheese pinwheels
Roast chicken wraps
Tomato soup
Cheese toasties

Dinner
Spaghetti bolognaise
Mac and cheese with broccoli
Veggie chilli
Butternut squash risotto
Thai green curry
Tuna pasta bake

Sorry haven’t RTFT so someone may have already said this but I follow her on Instagram, she’s a small scale “influencer” mum. She’s actually quite nice and fairly relatable (as relatable as a middle class SAHM in Twickenham with a husband on over £100k a year can be 😂) but I’m guessing she must bring in some income from her insta (I’ve seen a few ads or gifted things) and also explains why she uses childcare as she actually puts out a fair bit of content so it must take her a while. On her IG she also admits that she does keep a well stocked pantry and she was trying all the different supermarkets to try to get her spend to £50 ish but every week she says she’s just topping up what’s already in the cupboards. I can see how that might work for a few weeks if you were literally trying to eat the cupboards bare but not sure how she’s managed to do several months of it.

I agree. It's like the cookery programmes that assume you've got cupboards full of basic staples, and don't include them on the shopping list.

Or do include them by telling you it's only the equivalent of 2p per person 😏

Oh year, around here it's at least 8 pre-made meatballs per person. So maybe they're feeding two toddlers who only want 2 each!?

I'm going to guess she had a major stock up at Christmas and Easter (and possibly in between times) but has not mentioned that.

At any rate I'm sure she increased her budget to more than £50 at Christmas, unless she went to someone else's house for a few days. (And going to "someone else's house" is also a way of saving cost of food).

Influencers never disclose the amount they're earning from Instagram! She's also not only eating the food from that list as I would describe her as slim-ish but not thin undernourished.

Also they say 'over 100k' salary but with a 3k mortgage and a SAHM, I reckon that means 'closer to 200k'.

Remember when Gwyneth Paltrow did the dollar a day thing and was all smug about it then caved as she absolutely had to have some organic Kale 😁

That's such bollocks.

Our weekly shop is three times that most weeks for four and we are, in my opinion, relatively frugal and waste very little. We buy own brand, but I do buy organic dairy (and organic meat usually once per week). Which probably adds max £10 to the bill.

There's three protein sources on their. There's no way to make meals from this.

Last year I could feed my family of 6 on £75 pw at a real push ( don't think that's possible today) but it's lots of pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, chicken and mince. There's no fresh herbs. Also you can't sustain that every week gor a year.

One leaf of bread? FML

I could make three meals out of one large chicken but it's roast, biryani and soup. That requires potatoes and noodles with no meat left for the soup.

Our income is less than half of this, I feel we eat better. Very trendy to plead poverty while driving a flash car in a massive house in a nice area? It's a bit nuts and I can't take this seriously. I bet they get their clothes from trendy outlets.

Similar to us, although mine is just a gannet not an exerciser, although he does work outdoors, so burns it off. It also includes cat food. We do have a well stocked cupboard re tins of beans, toms, pasta, herbs etc, and do a butcher's run once a month. So probably 60 ish per week plus 15 of the monthly run which is normally about 60. No way is she spending 50, and that list looked sad. I plan nice things, then shop well to get them. Leftovers make good lunches, batch cook and freeze.

She's talking bollocks.

We shop at lidl for 4 (kids 14/11) and its generally over £100. But also every few weeks somewhere else like tesco/iceland etc
we eat way too many snacks though and thats easily £20 a week.

we do have the 12 meatballs for 4. The kids probably have 3 each. But they arent that bothered re meat.

Id have to recheck her receipt but dont remember but monthly say butter £2 /loo roll £9-13, bin bags £2

we go through
almost 12 apples a week (school lunch or snack) £1.69
raspberries £2

Probably her kids arent the gannets mine are. At the weekend dc2 ate a ice cream, packet of crisps, raspberries, apple, trifle and muffin.

im definitely more conscious of not overbuying fresh foods as they go off. So fewer apples/fruit/veg.