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.

lol yay for sick kids

It is really interesting isn't it? I mean I thought mine was a really cheap meal (basically lentils and pasta) but it was more than I thought. That said it did make a vat of sauce and there was enough pasta for lunch for the dc left over. I had half the leftover sauce as soup with a roll (would never do that with a jar of sauce!)and froze the other half so I suppose it was 3 meals in the end.

Mental arithmetic? I used excel

Tonight I cooked chicken thighs with couscous. (Recipe here).

It worked out really cheap.

Marks & Spencer were doing 2 packs of (humanely reared) chicken thighs for £5. I froze one pack and cooked the other. So tonight's chicken came to £2.50. Add half a packet of couscous, a shake of the spice jars and a handful of olives and the whole meal was under a fiver. We grow our own herbs so parsley was free from the garden.

Crap forgot to cost in an onion. We are self sufficient in garlic though, had a bumper crop and haven't bought garlic for months.

When we have a fry-up on sat morning its really expensive. We buy the best sauasages usually from local farm, quality free range bacon, black pudding, toms, beans,mushrooms, fresh white bread think it works out £12 for the meal for 2 plus 1 child.

Hubby works so hard, plus we are p/t farmers now also run other big business. We know where the food comes from, we understand the quality and how important to put real food in our mouths.

Cheap food has its consquences and we must not shy away from that fact - its not sustainable. Too many food companies are putting cr*p into frozen foods and this will eventually have its comeback on our health and environment.

Personally I love mince think its one of the best products you can buy, its cheap and stretches out a meal. A 500g bag of lamb mince will feed 6 in one of Gary Rhodes receipes for sheppards pie. only contains celery and carrots, the red wine added is usually a cheap bottle. the spuds nothing I would say that that meal which would give 6 portions (say 3 adults & 3 children)works out about £7 - bargin! and people say they cant afford to feed their family nutritous meals.

Food is our fuel and its a shame in this country its no longer top of the list.