how much did tonight's tea/dinner/supper cost?

[mwff]

not a "budget meals" type thread, more a question for anyone, foodies included, who'd care to answer.

what would you consider a reasonable budget for a main meal for (say) 2 adults, 2 children? "feed your family for a fiver" - is that ludicrous extravagance in your book or would it barely cover the starter?

i think i've totally lost touch with what food actually costs and whilst i feel i'm cooking reasonably thrifty meals (mostly home cooked cheap cuts bulked out with lots of veg) our food costs seem to have spiralled through the roof.

i'm not looking for budgeting/shopping tips there are many threads with that info that i've been reading keenly, but i was curious to find out what the average family meal actually costs these days.

We had an expensive one tonight, as it was a bought pie. With veg, plus pudding for DD it cost about £6.50 for the 3 of us.

one beef tomato stuffed with couscous,ham and herbs....webbs lettuce and rocket lettuce from garden...not a lot.....

I won't tell anyone. Actually, I hate making meatballs, but the children love them so I make them in bulk and freeze them.
DH secretly likes the tinned ones.

They weren't tinned! They were fresh "swedish style" ones - 99p. Organic passata about 90p (strangely cheaper than the normal kind in Tesco) and some pasta and cheese I already had.

the wraps/crumble sounds lush and what i'd probably make on an average day. my first priority is to get as much veg down them as i can, next is to stretch the expensive meat, and then something they're guaranteed to eat at the end to pad it out

We had roast chicken and potatoes, then pancakes made earlier with the kids. DH cooks (i did the pancakes), I don't know how much tonight's cost.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply, that I thought yours were tinned - just that my DH has odd tastes.

Oh, really, not offended - just trying to point out the bargainous nature of the purchase from Sainsbury's!

Fish in breadcrumbs on offer at £2
home made wedges bout 50p
broc/carrots/peas say 75p
jelly+fruit £1

total for 4 roughly £4.25

A popular choice tonight - perhaps because the meat balls are on offer in Waitrose
Meatballs and spagghetti - £2 meat, £1 veg and toms etc for the sauce, 50p for the pasta and about £1 for garlic bread. Add power 50p = £5.

That fed DH and I and left overs for DD dinner tomorrow and DH Lunch Tomorrow so £1.75 a person?

Kbear just made me hungry again [slurp]

will this be like the s&b threads where only the relatively frugal are prepared to post?

i think when i cost out my regular meals (which i will do), it will turn out i usually spend between £5 and £10 for a weekday meal, mostly because i would take pretty much everything that's been mentioned so far and at the very least add a salad to it, if not double the quantities of veg or add balsamic vinegar, marsala to sauces, olives to pizza etc.

see I just can't imagine making £3.80 worth of free range chicken (even with all the extra stuff added in) stretch to fill my lot.

Homemade chunky leek and potato soup, cheese and pickle on toast.
veg stock - 60p
potatoes - 1.00
leeks - 1.00
Bread - 1.30
Cheese - 2.00
Extra Special Pickle - 2.00

So 7.80 but that did do 2 adults and 3 teens (who all eat like adults) - and my BLW 7 month old

I normally try and keep it to about 5 or 6 quid per meal but like i said that is feeding 5 adults.

Shepherd's pie with broccoli and carrots = £4 ish.
5 people.

"add power 50p" is this some kind of waitrose computer game? sounds fun

£3.80 free range chicken would be a pack of thighs from the market which would easily stretch for mine, especially with afters.

Roast chicken - about a fiver (not free range though)
lemon 20p
thyme was £1.50 for the pot so maybe 20p
potatoes £1.20 for big bag, used about 1/5 (500g potato for 2 of us) so 20p
onion 15p
frozen peas um 30p worth?
chicken bisto maybe 30p worth again

So about £6-something for 2 of us but there's lots of chicken left over for lovely sandwiches

that leek and potato soup wouldn't be enough for my lot either - £1 worth of leeks - lets double that for mine.

I am quite frugal of necessity at the moment. I think us new frugalists post out of pride. Perhaps we are distorting the statistics.

imported meat and potato pies from oop north curtesy of MIL and FIL and a cool box.

i'd say about £1 each plate of 2 pies. ( i had salad)

Ohh the leeks were on offer (as were the potatoes) and there were LOADS for that amount - i made a vat of the stuff and they scoffed it all! I thought that given the fact they are girls they might have slightly more ... ahem ... delicate appetites but they eat like sodding horses teenagers. Get saving always

you know I splashed out the other week there were some really nice 93% pork sausages on offer in Morrisons, but they only came in packs of 6 so I bought 2 packs.

I added masses of potato wedges, fried egg, baked beans, tomatoes and mushrooms - and they still farking complained that they were a sausage short each and were still hungry (gave them blackberry and apple crumble afterwards which sort of appeased them.

I only do desserts about twice a week - i can cook anything but puddings (burnt some shortbread 2 days ago) and they are bloody expensive to buy so we dont eat them much That crumble is making me hungry now!

2.50 euros for two adults two children: fried (free range) eggs, cubed potatoes, grated carrots, raspberries from garden which DS complemented with a yoghurt

Good thread. A cheapie for us last night as we are skint post-holiday! Mushroom risotto:

Half a box smartprice mushrooms= £1.43/2 = 71p
Packet risotto rice= 93p
half a pack sundried tomatoes- £1
herbs from garden- free
worcester sauce etc- 10p probably!
drop left over wine in freezer- £1 but wouldnt have opened a bottle specially
veg stock- 10p
bread roll each- 20p

Actually im really shocked to discover that what I thought was a real cheap as chips meal was actually £4 just for me and DH!

Food for thought indeed.