Eating healthy is too expensive

[ByLoudSeal]

Big shop just cost £150. I don’t buy organic, and I will go for own brand if the taste/quality is fine. Includes fresh veg, tinned fruit, meat, eggs, milk, bread, a box of cereal, tinned meals, healthy snacks, toilet roll, fabric softener, disinfectant spray and washing up sponges, It won’t even last the full week and is unsustainable

How many of you are there that £150 won’t feed you for a week?

are you meal planning

initial suggestions would be to cut down on meat as it is expensive and eat more vegetarian food.

fabric softener, just don’t bother.

what are tinned meals?

I buy all of those things plus fresh fruit/berries, cook from scratch every day, and don't spend anywhere near £150 for a family of three, two cats, and two guinea pigs.

It all depends what you're cooking.

We eat chicken, pork, beans, lentils, chickpeas. We waste very little.

Tonight was homemade chicken fried rice with a bag of shredded chicken out of the freezer from the last time we roasted one, plus all the bits of veg that were hanging around.

A large chicken will do a roast on Sunday, Monday lunch, a bag of 'pickings' for another dinner, and stock.

£150 for a week is huge!
how many of you are there?

Fabric softener complete waste of money.

Bread, lentils, rice, porridge oats, tinned sardines, potatoes, milk, eggs, butter, cheese, courgettes (large, cheap and go a long way), cheapo bananas, bread. Pasta, olive oil (cheapest one), tinned tomatoes. Fresh basil pot especially if yellow stickered. Onion, garlic. Large white cabbage. Sauerkraut jar (costs £1.50 from the foreign food aisle, lasts for ages) and decent sausages. Peanut butter and low sugar jam for snacks.

What do you buy? I don’t feel like I bought a lot

Ditch the fabric conditioner and washing up sponges. Buy a bottle of concentrated disinfectant and dilute it.
Frozen fruit makes nutritious and beneficial smoothies or desserts. (£1.99 a bag which goes a long way.)
Batch cook veg e.g. cauliflower cheese/ carrot and swede/ mashed potatoes then freeze into portions ready for the microwave.
Add lentils and chickpeas as alternative sources of proteins.
Instead of tinned meals opt for cheaper cuts of meat, slow cook in batches then freeze.
Use left over meat for rissoles.
Eke out meals with veg.

My online shop was £90 for four people and a cat
Included toiletries and all laundry/cleaning 😬, but also had a lot of stuff already in the stock cupboard.
I agree about eating healthily though, fruit is so expensive.

I've never used fabric softener in my life - no one needs that!

I suspect the "healthy snacks". What are they? Snacks are not necessary, and "healthy snacks" are likely to be very expensive

washing up sponges? How many? I don't think they cost a lot, but are you replacing when you could wash and reuse them?

What fresh veg? Carrots, celery, lettuce, etc all very cheap right now. asparagus etc a lot more expensive!

Have a baked potato night! Fairy inexpensive with tuna and some salad?

Tuna & sweetcorn pasta -
Big batch would lunch next day too.

Meat wise I'm not sure as I'm a pescatarian!

Home made soup packed with loads of butter beans and left over meat.

Thats my go to's! X

Nah I hear you OP, fresh veggies and fruit is expensive. I can buy 6 apples for £2.50 or a pack of penguin bars for £1.50! Or I can drive to my nearest Aldi or Lidl, but my fuel costs negate any savings to be had.
I have three super markets to choose from; Sainsbury's, Tesco, co-op. Even with loyalty cards, my shopping for four is approximately £150 a week. Cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, apples and my luxury item grapes, have all shot up in price. It's not helped that both kids are very fussy, which if they were overweight, well tough shit, they go without, unfortunately both borderline underweight, so I have no choice but to make sure they both eat foods they can tolerate.
Likewise fabric condition, if I don't use it dh and dc moan and struggle to wear 'crisp' clothing (their uniform is particularly 'startchy' without softener). Sometimes when we visit family in wales we try and stock up, because it's soooo much cheaper there than where we live, but we are tight on space at home, so even then stocking up isn't easy.
I think mumsnet is divided into three distinct camps; large house with utility room / pantry and private school kids, and has no idea what they spend as not having to watch the pennies.
Professionals whose kids all go to grammar school, so live in decent houses near all the best schools, keep a vague eye on the pennies, but has decent chest freezer, good size fridge, one part-time parent so easy to batch cook, possible a cleaner, and has the time and capacity to buy fruit and veg and tinned goods from Lidl and meat from the local farm shop.
Then it has people like us; we notice every penny, because we know money doesn't actually grow on trees, live in an area with limited supermarkets, and smaller housing stock, so no space for normal stand up freezer let alone a chest freezer! Very limited cupboard space, so unable to do a super saver shop, as no where to actually put the groceries, and buying the cheaper multipacks is a no go zone. No shops like pound land or home bargains, so again limited cheaper substitutes for detergents, loo roll etc.
And finally people who haven't got two brass farthings to rub together and are 100% reliant on food banks and live in constant fear of eviction.
But you'll be told it's 100% your fault that you're struggling to feed your family, because c'mon anything more than 35p per head is a frivolous extravagance!

Have a baked potato night! Fairy inexpensive with tuna and some salad

Fairy in a baked potato? Dunno about that, I guess it might rot your insides, so you might not want to ever eat anything again!

Agree it depends what you buy!

Most dinners can be based off:

• Rice/ pasta/ potatoes (v cheap)
• Cheap cut of meat, lentils or pulses
• Tinned tomatoes/ stock if needs a sauce
• Veg (buy frozen/ tinned/ what's on offer)

Dinners needn't be expensive!

Then breakfast- some eggs, some bread, butter, porridge oats, tinned fruit. Maybe a big thing of natural Greek yoghurt.

Lunches- cheese/ ham for sandwiches & some chopped up veg.

Snacks- a bag of apples, packet of biscuits, pack of pitta bread & tub of hummus

Really inexpensive. It's not perfect health but it's not bad! If a family of 4 for example, most healthy dinners can be comfortably £1.50/ portion = £6/ night x 7 = £42

• say £15 on the breakfast ingredients, another £20 on lunch stuff & £10 on snacks = £87

Factor in rotation of tea, coffee, cleaning products, herbs & spices (not needed every week but there's always something on the list)

= weekly shop under £100

We use fabric softener. It costs us about £5 a year so it's not taking up a noticeable amount of anyone's grocery budget.

There's lots of healthy recipes that are cheaper than just about all convenience options. What were your 'healthy snacks'? Also the cereal? What meat did you buy?

How many people are you feeding and what can you afford to spend?

Don’t disagree with you op, it’s definitely cheaper to buy unhealthy and processed foods.

where are you shopping?

Im lucky we have options, Aldi and Morrisons are a few mins drive from home. Lidl is a 1 min diversion from DDs school and ASDA & Tescos are 15 min away. So I am able to pick and choose what I buy from where.

Things like cleaning products, washing detergent, sponges, toiletries I’d usually buy at home bargains every 2-3 months. So they don’t add to the weekly shop. The only time I’d buy them at the supermarket is if we were completely out or they were on special and worth it. These shops are usually expensive as I tend to add all sorts of other crap to the trolley and if the kids are with me it gets full of junk food too. Which is why I now do a big shop every 2-3 months rather than monthly.

All fresh food, meat, veg, fruit from Aldi and regularly go for what ever the weeks specials are as they are usually really cheap. I spent £35 today on maybe 4 days worth of food, fresh fruit & veg, bread, chicken breasts & mince, sweets for dd & her friend a couple of pizzas and even some flowers. Obviously no household stuff. There are 5 of us and a dog.

Anything branded usually from tescos, occasionally Morrisons but I find it overpriced, Tesco’s do more deals especially with the club card. The other supermarkets I may pop in but only if I’m there and need something. Any treat food tescos, I like their specially selected food but don’t buy it as often as we use to do as to save money.

This is a really stupid question but could you talk me through your shredded chicken please? Do you literally just cut leftover roast chicken up and freeze it, then defrost before use?

It massively depends on how many people £150 is for. I spend an average of £75 per week as a single person plus cat. That includes toiletries and cleaning stuff tho, and I'm a bit fussy on certain items (eg I refuse to eat cheap eggs).

@bugsybugsy there are lots of us who need to tighten our belts and shop cheaply.
I buy apples for less than £2.50. There's always one variety on offer.
I usually spend £20 on fruit and veg a week, £25 on meat, £15 on eggs, butter, milk and cheese.

some pasta, flour,baking ingredients, seasonings £10

Cereal, cans of tomato, other canned food
£5

Snacks like crackers, crisps (own brand), icecream, biscuits £5

I buy a 5kg bag of rice whichever is on offer (£7-8) a month and some oil.,

It would cost me more to buy a load of processed food.

@bugsybugsy you definitely got the 3 kinds of MN people 100% correct🤣

I spend £65 a week for 2 adults, a 12 year old grandson who lives with us, a nine year old who stays twice a week and the dog.

We use fabric conditioner.

Oh! I buy one packet of biscuits a week and lots of fruit.

What is your list

You need to meal plan OP….you are spending way too much

Live alone, don't drink and mine is at least 80 pound a week.

There have been many times I’ve been on the breadline and really needed to be careful with money.

One thing I use to do was only take cash with me, no cards. That way I had to buy within my budget. It also makes you more aware of what you’re buying. Having a list also helps, as long as you can stick to it.

Another thing is do you look at the unit price of things?

Supermarkets are very good at trying to convince you that your getting a deal when in fact your paying more for something you think is on special. An example would be a large jar of coffee on special for X amount, but if you actually look at the cost per unit/gram/litre etc.. you may find that it’s actually cheaper to buy 2 small jars, you get more quantity for less cost. You just have to be careful as they don’t make it easy to work out sometimes, they may mark the unit price as per millilitre on one price tag but litre on the other just to make it harder for you.