"Normal" people who cook from scratch everyday - tell me this gets cheaper

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By normal, I mean excluding those who can feed a small African village with one can of chickpeas, an egg, and a tomato. Normal people, who eat normal portions of normal foods.

We've canceled Hello Fresh to save money, so we've started meal planning with a recipe-building app instead, otherwise, we just cycle through the same 5/6 meals all the time.

One child is away this week. The remaining child has picked;

Cheesy broccoli pasta bake, Piri piri chicken wrap “fakeaway”, easy creamy chicken curry, penne arrabbiata with roasted peppers and pancetta, easy chicken jalfrezi curry.

£75 fecking quid.

It's not even a full shop. I'm not eating breakfast or lunch coz the price now just for evening meals is way too much. I've added a couple of yoghurts and crappy pizzas for the kids lunches and breakfasts and we already have cereal in.

I bought cat litter and cat food earlier or that would have been added too.

Admittedly, we had to buy a lot of spices because Hello Fresh used to send them in handy little packets and DD has used most of the ones we did have jazzing up her instant noodles. But, the spices only added around £10ish. That's still £65 without breakfasts or lunches.

Obviously, next week we won't need as many spices and should have some butter and oil left but still...

If this is the best we can do I am going to have to consider rehoming a child.

It does depend on what meals you go for. We had a chicken and potato dish last week and the four portions of chicken were enough for us two and some for the toddler. However, their pasta dishes or curries last forever.

I do agree though, the packaging is an issue but a lot of it comes in paper packaging now but there is still more plastic than cooking from scratch.

I can give you a discount code to prove that it’s cheaper 😂 but we’re using an offer that was 60% off our first box, then 40% off for the next 2 months, which is now £35 a week and there’s no way we could do a food shop for £140 a month.

I aim (and) maintain £3 or less per meal for 2 people, with no difficulty. People who think food cannot be prepared for less than £35 for 4 meals (small) for 4 people shopping at Waitrose M&S or small independent shops- I have catered upmarket weddings for far less per head than that. You are definitely not using good shopping strategies.

Or they're falling for the Hello Fresh marketing of 'you save money because if you bought the ingredients from the supermarket you'd need to spend ££££s on spices that you'll never use again' which is bollocks.

I cook with spices all the time and because I get the big Asian branded packs and things like tubs of Thai pastes for a couple of quid, frozen garlic and ginger and block coconut, it costs hardly anything, probably a quid a week on average if that.

Loads of people feed families of 4 a main meal for less than £5 ….or less than £4.

Some people seem to struggle to differentiate between what in their weekly shop is the cost of main meals and what else they are buying. Cutting the weekly shopping meal is managed partly through controlling what you spend on main meals…..but also on the other stuff too. Of course people need breakfasts, lunches and snacks. There will always be a need for some toiletries and some cleaning products. But as with everything, some people will manage packed lunches for £1 per head per day and others will spend far more, or less.

The simple and obvious main meal savers are to include cheap meals a couple of times a week. Theses could be under £1 per portion without too much difficulty. The other is batch cooking and portion control. These are things that people in the past did regularly to keep control of spending, when they genuinely had little or no choice about it. One thing that has changed is that there is more expectation of exciting meals and exciting meals on a regular basis. Firms like Hello Fresh clearly have a vested interest in pushing the idea of a different newly cooked meal each day, and selecting as if you were in a. Restaurant choosing from a menu. When people expect to have side breads, other specialist side dishes or ingredients like cream, avocado or smoked salmon as more than an occasional treat, then meal prices will be higher.

Perhaps people spend and have spent less time in the supermarket or market these days than in the past….they don’t know the price of things like a large pack of mince which would do multiple meals, or how cheaply potatoes or some other vegetables can be bought.

I think it’s shopping as much as cooking that has changed and people have lost a bit of control over. Especially when you do online shopping, you don’t see the aisle in the same way as in the shop - you don’t see the different products and range of prices available for each category and you don’t linger comparing and pricing up in your head.

It all comes from a place where people have been more affluent. They haven’t needed to think so much about the cost of portions or how to stretch things. Or they have felt more affluent, even if they weren’t. Basic shopping skills that the post-war generations had seem to be lost to some.

My children are adults now, but obviously it's very different feeding young children to adolescent boys. I had to have vast quantities of inexpensive snacks in the kitchen for them to have when they got home from school: cereal, porridge, noodles, bread or whatever.
We always had a proper meal together later, but they did need a substantial snack to keep them going. I did cook from scratch because there were at least six of us every night and often a couple more so ready made food was too expensive. I don't know how I would have managed today as most food seems to be astronomically expensive at the moment - I think we would have eaten a lot of mince and chicken and variants on the following days.
My daughter tried several delivered recipe boxes recently and they were OK when on offer, but there was always spare from the little pots of ingredients so she used this to make new meals herself using chicken or whatever. She still uses some of the recipe cards but says the boxes were too expensive for every day, even though her children are quite small and don't eat much.

Basic shopping skills that the post-war generations had seem to be lost to some.

@WombatChocolate I'm a 70s kid but I was reared by two very frugal post war parents and it's stood all of us in excellent stead. We siblings are quite foodie, and we have the extra cash to try out different things now (or some do!), but it's quite nice the way that we all have drifted back to our roots in lots of ways growing /harvesting our own produce, some even butchering or fishing for our own food and using the frugal ways of our childhood by habit.

I've started to take my son (11) to do the grocery shopping with me. I go to Lidl, butcher, greengrocer, the posher supermarkets and ethnic markets to shop around like the old days. He's learning why I shop in each place, and how to pick out the best. He's learning the price of his food - and he's a lot more conscience about wastage. I'm a very particular bag packer and he's learning those skills perfectly too. We've started on some simple recipes that he can cook - learning how to do a roux, or an apple crumble not just opening a tin or a box. I'm passing on those frugal life skills whether he wants them or not.

What gets me is that there's people I see who begrudge paying more than €60 for their weekly grocery shop and yet... they've got expensive Sky packages, several streaming services, and would spend multiples of that grocery budget on a designer item without blinking because they feel it's worth the value. Whereas for me, I could meet that grocery budget if I wanted but I'd rather spend more because to me, fuelling our bodies to good health and well-being stands to us.

You are definitely not using good shopping strategies.

@Laurmolonlabe could you share your shopping strategies?

Of course it's cheaper when you're using a discount code, you won't be able to get them forever even if you're switching companies and switching names etc.

Or maybe you will, but if you manage to avail of those offers forever you need to realise that the discounted deals are only there because they're subsidized by those who pay full price....so if loads of people started trying to take advantage of all the deals then the deals would become less and less.

It's kind of like someone only buying the really cheap stuff at the supermarket, the loss leaders like the cereal etc, yes you can shop cheaply if you only buy those things but you can only buy those things at that price because other people are buying the more expensive stuff.

Your maths isn't mathing anyway by saying you pay £35 and couldn't do a food shop for £140 because you're surely paying more than £140 anyway.

You said in the other post that the £35 is for 4 meals for 4 people. It's just you, your husband and your toddler so you get lunch out of that and can normally freeze a portion for your toddler. Presumably you're also eating the other days in the week??

Sure.
Use charter markets if you have one -I live near one , it has changed since the pandemic but still well worth a look.
Check out food waste projects in your area-(it's not like food banks you need no referral and there is usually a small charge. I often get the best part of a weeks shopping(not much meat or fish though) for £2.
Supermarket wise, never use brands, always supermarkets own-use at least 75% ingredients, meat, fish dry goods, canned goods ,vegetables fruit. So not many jars, packets cereals, or baked goods.
The ingredients you use the most meat, fish, flour, rice, potatoes, onions buy in larger quantities-for example Tesco sells atta four in 10kg sacks in the world food isle-medium and wholemeal for under a fiver, large sacks of potatoes turn up in Morrisons and I usually buy my onions in 4-10kg sacks from the Indian supermarket-much cheaper than the regular supermarkets (although at the moment I am working through the 15kg I bought for 15p a kilo when they were on offer at Easter.
Everyone talks about yellow sticker-but I have never found it much use. For meat I wait for offers in the supermarket-or the Halal butchers at the market, or the discount butchers a little further away. I buy large joints and cut them up and freeze them.
Chicken I get a 10kg box of legs at the market-about 2/3 the price per kilo compared with the supermarket.
For everything else use the app Trolley, which will tell you which supermarket is cheapest for any product you put into it's search.
Make a meal plan every week- draw up a shopping list from it, adjust if you find a bargain or get something from the food waste project.
Should you find yourself using only a handful of old familiar recipes, buy a student cookbook from the charity shop (they often have them) the recipes are simple and cheap, and generally have family appeal. Good luck.

People think curries are cheap, and they are in India, but in the UK there are other, cheaper options available too.

I would like to know what is cheaper and tastier than a curry made of cheap root veg or lentils.

I know. I made dal the other day.

200 g of red lentils - about 50 p
1/2 tsp tumeric, about 2 p (100 g costs under a pound and it's used in all curry recipes)
1 tsp chilli powder 5 p (as per turmeric - the 'I never cook so I need to count the cost of the whole pack' doesn't wash here, dal is easy, quick, cheap, nutritious, tasty, I make it at least once a week and always have it in the freezer)
1 tsp salt (too cheap to count)
25 g prepared garlic and ginger (5 p - always in the freezer)
1 grated courgette about 50 p if that, it was a bit wilty, most people would have thrown it away days ago
200 g basmati rice (about 50 p for not even the cheapest rice available)

You can add a tarka of butter, garlic and cumin seeds but I didn't bother this time

So under £2 for 4 decent portions, you could add a piece of naan if you wanted

I put a bit of salad with it, just lettuce, cucumber and tomato, it's still a very cheap meal, probably half what Hello Fresh costs per meal even with the discounts.

Thank you for these great ideas ☺️

I hadn’t thought about or known about a lot of this (and am currently on statutory maternity pay so am definitely feeling the pinch).

I agree that shopping habits, as well as cooking habits have changed.
I noticed shopping changing first, there is also the fact that there is so much more prepared food available than there was even 20 years ago, and the rise in popularity of TV chefs and eating in restaurants-which has raised expectations without any reference to cost.
I have always shopped and cooked in the same way- I'm 62, but even my mother's generation have changed their shopping habits, buying expensive ready prepared food from Waitrose and M&S. As the last generation with final salary pensions they can afford it, but most people who have retired in the last 10 years or later can't.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the prepared food market as the 70+ generation dies, will it become cheaper?
It can because profit margins are huge, or will the range of businesses producing it shrink?

I agree that shopping habits have changed. People now shop for dinners/meals rather buying and stocking ingredients so you can make different things.

But equally we have generations of younger people who do not know how to cook from scratch and only know how to cook ready made meals whether a microwave meal or prepared items.

And like my mum I keep the basic foods we eat all the time in freezer, fridge and cupboards so we can make anything we choose. So weekly shopping is mainly fresh things Milk, bread and produce. And then anything that may be needed for meals. And yes the items we keep have changed over the years as the meals we make have changed.

Yes, people don’t seem to want to think and plan. Planning a shopping list and looking at what’s in the freezer and cupboards and deciding what could be made with it and how things could be used up - not in the current mindset or seen as too much hard work, or simply not a skill people have developed or retained.

Lots of people pop into a shop in the way home and get dinner for that night - not necessarily a ready meal, but quite likely including some pre-prepared items or stuff to just make the single meal. They choose what they fancy at that point. It’s quite different to looking at what you’ve got and going from there.

Perhaps there has been a move to thinking along the lines of ‘we’d like Thai one day and pasta another and fajitas another day’. Now let’s see what we need for those, or what kits are available so we can make those portions for individual meals.

Do most people have stuff in the freezer like bags of chicken pieces or mince or a joint of meat, or all kinds of different vegetables….that aren’t labelled to be a particular meal, but can be used for multiple different dinners when combined with other ingredients? Or instead do they want to feel like they are cooking, but need a complete kit for an individual meal?

I think people like convenience. They like variety. They like not having to think too far ahead or to work out how to use left-overs or to be too flexible. And many people in the last decades have been able to afford the buy ore-prepped stuff or started cooking that way and haven’t developed further or have lost skills they previously had….and which are perhaos seen as a chore and a bore and not what you do these days. The move has been justified by talking about less waste. It’s true, that without careful planning, buying a range of ingredients without careful planning or knowing how to use stuff up, can lead to odd vegetables rotting in the fridge, little portions of something going off before used etc etc….but again it’s about both shopping and cooking skills and thinking ahead. People feel they haven’t got the headspace for it.

But cost of living pressures force people to re-assess. They know they need to spend less. And as people discuss, we come back to batch cooking, meal planning, simple ingredients which can be used for multiple dishes. It’s different and it needs at least one person in the house to have their head round what’s in the cupboards and to be thinking ahead, more than simply clicking on a few dinners on a website that they like the look of and waiting for the stuff to arrive.

It’s interesting isn’t it how shopping and cooking have changed over time. It reflects changes in lifestyle, what’s felt to be important and affluence and marketing.

when do people throw out frozen meat? I feel terrible but I have stuff that’s a year old! I just can’t bear to throw it out.

I'm very leery of frozen meat that's been in there too long.

Honestly I would defrost and cook for any pets you might have then start again. I recently hung up a whiteboard in my kitchen where i listed what I'd put in the freezer and the dates so i can keep on top of it. But meat- I'd be a max of 2 months (I think the rough guideline is 1 month?)

I found myself totally agreeing with Laurmolonlabe, then realised we were the same age!

I can't believe people would throw out the meat! I'd just defrost and cook as usual. 😄

We don't eat meat but if we did I would also just defrost and cook. I guess it may not be as tasty but other than that I am sure it's fine.

I absolutely hate food waste and would not be throwing meat away

defrost - sniff test - cook here as well

unless the freezer is broken or the packaging is damaged the risk for poisoning from food cooked from frozen meat is tiny.

I wonder if better fridges and freezers have ironically added to food costs? They should make it possible to bulk buy and extend food life, but it’s really easy to keep buying and stashing food until you eventually chuck it because it has become inedible.

People have a lot less time than they used to. I don't have time to shop in various shops or spend more than an hour or so on meal planning and shopping.

I'm a single parent who works full-time, studies part-time, and has a dog to look after too.

I used to shop around online but even then I don't have time to spend hours looking for deals online and I can only order from places that will deliver during the times I am home.

There are people who go through their cans & dried goods to throw out the ones past their use by dates. But I thought particularly canned goods last forever. And I definitely use out of date spices & bags of lentils/Quinoa etc.
Surely you can tell if food is ok by the look & sniff test? Pre the days of refrigerators & pantry's/meat safes.
Then again I'm 60 & would never throw out frozen meat that's been in a long time, unless I know the freezer's dodgy.

No, it lasts a lot longer than that.
https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/cold-food-storage-charts