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Food/recipes

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

130 replies

mwff · 29/09/2009 21:50

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.

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Frizbe · 03/10/2009 21:14

Hmm pasta, prob 30p's worth, creamcheese 30ps worth, creme frache 85p, bacon £2.50, Peas, 40ps worth, broccoli 45P, additional chedder cheese & garlic bread £1.00 total £5.80 for 4 people.

mwff · 03/10/2009 21:19

i'm a halfway house between my mum (war baby) and the modern world with this leftover lark. i always intend to use them, and keep them neatly filmed in the fridge, but yeah, there are times when reality doesn't live up to intentions. tis most entertaining when you can't work out - let alone remember - what it used to be

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FiveGoMadonTheDanceFloor · 03/10/2009 21:21

DC's had cottage pie so £1.50 for mince 50p for tomatoes, stock cube and some carrots and potatoes and will do for about 8 more meals for DS. Say total of £2.50.

We had crab that cost £4.30 from local crab fisherman, spaghetti 30p, creme fraiche say 30p too, chilli and half a lemon and a few peas so maybe £5 in total.

Fleecy · 03/10/2009 21:25

Ours was quite a cheapie today:

half a chorizo sausage thing from the market 60p
pasta 50p
roast veg pasta sauce (home-made in bulk and frozen) £1
bit of grated cheese on top 50p

So £2.60 for 2 adults 2 children

I am trying to cost meals at the moment to work out where all the money goes!

mwff · 03/10/2009 21:27

forgot; dc had beans on toast, 85p, so total under £3 for 4 - can i hold my head up on the thread now? lol.

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redsofas · 03/10/2009 21:31

i was lazy tonight and got a chippy!
2 adults and ds1 - 3.5
£10.10p including cod for everyone, chips, p fritters and gherkins, mmmmmmmm naughty but nice
ds2 still on the breast so his was free

Horton · 03/10/2009 21:32

£5.50 v good for a free range chicken, thanks for the tip, mwff. May pick one up and freeze it if there's room in the freezer.

One particular ingredient I've found good for cheap meals is those little tubs of cubes of pancetta or cooking bacon. They're a pound for two little tubs of nice pancetta and one tub is plenty for three people (two adults and a child in our house) as an extra meaty flavour for a bean/pulse stew or pasta sauce or risotto. Plus, they last for ages so they are really handy to have in the fridge. Also fab in a vegetable soup, if like me you like just a bit of meat in every meal.

mwff · 03/10/2009 21:37

i get those when they're on offer (£3 for 2) but normally £2 each at sainsb and don't like tescos - doesn't taste any better than streaky bacon. where do you get them for a quid?

i've noticed co-op seems to be particularly good for good quality meat at decent prices - mental note to go more often.

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mwff · 03/10/2009 21:37

pea fritters? [boggles]

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SixtyFootDoll · 03/10/2009 21:40

I made a fish pie
fish - £7 inc prawns
pots - £1.50
peas - £1
Cheese sauce ingredients - £ish
carrots - 60p
So abour $10 in all Expnsive but we dont all sit and et together in the week so like to make an effort on weekends.

mwff · 03/10/2009 21:47

btw i hope no-one feels they have to justify what they spend on this thread (except to themselves). it was a nosy genuine enquiry with no judgement attached (as i hope my own contributions have proved). thanks everyone who's replied, it's been properly educational

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SixtyFootDoll · 03/10/2009 21:49

it has been very interesting mwwff

redsofas · 03/10/2009 22:01

its like a blob of mushy peas inside a batter!!! far more delicious than it sounds lol

CaptainNonentity · 03/10/2009 22:05

Ours was actually really inexpensive- mainly because we were still fairly full from eating out at lunchtime

We had soup- 99p (covent garden on offer at sainsbury)
and a baguette (38p) between 3 of us, and dd had a yoghurt afterwards (so 1/4 of £1.30)

mwff · 03/10/2009 22:09

anyone else finding this thread is testing their mental arithmetic?

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SausageRocket · 03/10/2009 22:10

nothing.

was left overs

mwff · 03/10/2009 22:11

naw, not fair, like saying it cost nothing cos it came out of the freezer. i divided my chicken into 3, you can do the same :P

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Horton · 03/10/2009 22:40

mwff, Sainsburys often have a 2 for £2 offer on the pancetta and also the much larger pack of lardons of smoked bacon in Sainsers is 99p. These are perfectly nice, although not really as nice as the pancetta. Good for skint weeks. You can't use the whole pack of lardons in one go in our house as there are only three of us but it freezes well.

I do courgette and cheese fritters a lot - an egg, some flour, a bit of milk, grated cheese and grated courgette makes enough for me and DD to have with salad/veg etc. Not sure what this costs as my mental arithmetic is also being tested. Maybe 30p for an expensive egg, 50p for a courgette, 50p for some cheese and 10p for the flour? I am not going to try and cost a splash of milk.

Remotew · 03/10/2009 22:43

That's easy, £5.10 for a chinese takeaway, for two but we get one to share. Then some fresh strawberries and expensive ice cream so that would be £2 more. £7.10 for two.

gigglewitch · 03/10/2009 22:44

£4 for five of us

gigglewitch · 03/10/2009 22:46

chicken marinaded goujon thingys (supermarket chicken breast and thighs, my marinade), potato wedges, salad, home grown tomatoes, most of a jar of mayo between us

Giltz · 03/10/2009 23:12

Kashmir lamb

Lamb neck £3.00
Rice £0.50
tumiric, Corriander and cumin powders 10p
cream 10p

This served two people. Cooked by my lovely DP and very nice it was.

snorkie · 03/10/2009 23:22

Most of it was home grown, so really difficult to cost. We had aubergine curry with mushrooms, red cabbage & apple, and squash (bit of an odd meal, but it was quite tasty & I was using stuff up).

homegrown elements:
squash
cabbage
aubergine
tomato
onion
garlic
apple
Very difficult to price these as the seeds cost (but last several years & some are given to me, swapped or saved) and there are other costs in growing things too: compost, manure (haven't used any in the last 12 months, but just ordered 8 tons at £60, hope it will last 2 years), allotment cost (£10pa), canes, netting, tools etc. (no idea, but it adds up). The overall cost is still probably quite low per meal (haven't bought any veg except mushrooms for months) and if you regard the growing costs as a hobby then maybe you could argue it's free. On the other hand, you could estimate £10 per week & say ~£1.50 per day.

bought elements:
spoon of curry paste (?maybe 25p)
a little olive oil for frying (umm, 10p?)
small piece (~cm cube} of ginger (dunno, 10p?)
rice (just cheapo value rice today, about 40p max)
splash of vinegar (dunno, 5p?)
mushrooms (seem to remember these were 35p on reduction)

We had muffins after too, but I can't be doing with thinking about what they cost (flour, egg, sugar, butter, home picked blackberries).

so maybe £1.25 for 4, £2.75 if include growing costs & that's still excluding the muffins. Considering I was thinking it had cost next to nothing, that's quite a lot really - more than half of the fiver thing and could easily have been quite a bit more with posh rice & normal priced mushrooms.

snorkie · 03/10/2009 23:26

Oh scratch that £10/per week veg costs - that was based on ~£50 per year, so should be £1 per week or 15p per day (too late for mental maths for me). It's probably a bit of an underestimate though. That does make things a bit more reasonable.

CrankOfTheScrew · 03/10/2009 23:36

Leftover roast (fr) chicken 50p?
Leftover Jus roll pastry 30p?
1/2 chicken oxo (leftover) 10p?
1/4 onion 7p?
Splash of wine 50p (although it was a bottle someone bought us.)so 0

Veg 50p?

Small chicken pie for two.

Children sick so not eating!

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