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....).

Might be frozen? We buy loads of frozen fruit, makes great smoothies, home made granita, and the berries go into porridge or yoghurt for breakfast (I am not spending £4 on a punnet of fresh raspberries for a five year old’s porridge, but I’ll spend £2 on a bag of frozen raspberries that will last all week).

I guess it can be done if the quality is really low.

Own brand baked beans on own brand toast and cups of tea 7 days a week could be done but isn't a realistic long term healthy diet.

I feed two adults for £55 a week, including a good mix of fish, meat, fruit,veg and dairy but it takes planning, cooking everything from scratch and absolutely no waste. No alcohol or branded goods.

I saw this op as well. It's always lentil ...my family don't like lentils

Also they are little mouths to feed so it could be doable ?

It's utter bullshit. Unless she's got an ED and the kids are fed breakfast, lunch and dinner at school/nursery and her husband eats breakfasts, lunches and half his evening meals on expenses.

You can feed 4 people on £50.
It is stuff like 4 chicken/mushroom frozen pies and half a bag of chips for dinner, cornflakes for breakfast and peanut butter sarnie for lunch
Feck knows how you get meals out of that list

Cherries are cheap on this list and I can ensure chestnut mushrooms don't cost this either at aldi. I'd be starving on this shopping list and that's just me without the kids in tow!

They're free range, not organic.

It's quite easy and cheap to make fishcakes.

Who wants to eat eggs all the time?!

My husband apparently!

He has eggs every day for breakfast 🍳 🍳

Well, yes, buying frozen fruit is what I'd do. But the shopping list said: pineapple
and blueberries.

Two meals is not 'all the time'

People tend to eat chicken quite a lot and no one complains 'who wants to eat chicken all the time'.

I eat eggs most days, I eat lentils and beans and nuts every day. They become bases for meals that you can change up by different flavours and different additions.

My husband and I spend £78 a month on food. Between batch cooking, never buying brands and going grocery shopping late to get the heavy discounts it's very doable. Not fun or exciting but keeps it affordable for when the little one is born.

A month

Come on now

You're going to need to show your workings, breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, portions sizes in weight not guessimates

"Cod fishcakes? That's at least £15 alone to feed a famiyl of 4. Maybe £10 if you get really stingy with the fish!!!!"

Got four cod fishcakes in M&S on Sunday for £2. Add some chips and frozen peas, how on earth did you get to $60 for four people?

I could feed my family quite well on £50 a week.

It is a skill though, that lots and lots of people don't have. People don't know how to stretch things, how to bulk out meals, how to make a cut of meat stretch to four different meals, how to make something out of very little.

And I don't mean that in a condescending way, I truly don't. But it's a skill that if you've never really struggled, you simply don't learn, and then when you suddenly are struggling, you don't know what to do.

I am fairly comfortable now, but believe me when I say I have been on the absolute bones of my arse so I learned. You could give me £5 and I'd produce a good healthy meal for four people. With a dessert.

If you haven't been there then that's nothing to be ashamed of. We all learned different life skills.

Cheapest cod fishcakes are £1.60 for 2 at M&S on Ocado so don't know how you're buying 4 for £2 unless you happened to find them in the reduced section because they were about to go out of date. That can't be relied on when trying to meal plan.

So assuming each person needs 2 fishcakes (because these cheaper ones are also smaller than the more luxury ones) then that's going to cost £6.40

My daughter lives alone in supported living and her food bill is about £70 per week at least.

Id be interested too
Less than 10/wk per person!

Im not sure measuring prices by M+S is a good idea!!

You can get quality fish cakes for about 4 for £4, not sure how that compares to making your own.

we are pretty good with budgeting and food shopping.
2 adults 4 kids so a family of 6.
we do however have some of our own produce so total our food shop is probably around
380-400 for 6 ( 1 just weaning, 2 primary aged children and 1 teen )

The poster did say it was not exciting and that they were good at bargain shopping. I can believe that it's possible to get quite lot of very cheap food if you know when supermarkets discount to their lowest amounts and have the time and energy to be there frequently. My local supermarket often sells very cheap bread, for example. If you had a freezer you could stock up and that would be toast for breakfast (with cheapest of cheap spread to make it palatable) mixed in with porridge made from the cheapest oats and water and a bit of foraged (frozen ready to cover the off season) fruit for variety; bread and cheese (say) for lunch and then dahl and rice or a veg chilli (from those turnips and other veg in season no one wants) for dinners. Hopefully they would be able to vary it from time to time with judicious use of the discount shopping.

Not the way I'd choose to eat, but not the worst.

🤣 we have our own eggs and so eggs are probably over consumed in my house and the surrounding neighbours !

I dont think theres anything wrong with eating like that actually, our most healthy time was in the war when we ate lots of carbs, fruit, veg and not very much fat .

I want to know how she is going to set that out is all.

I buy cheese every week. And fruit and veg.