6000 meals under 50p in 2010; feeding your family on a low budget

Penelope_Penguin

weezl74 wrote: »

I can dig out which veg were the cheapest in each category if that would help at all?

That would be great :T

Good luck with the new bump - you'll have your hands full

Penny. x

k.o.d

nikki20022008 wrote: »

ok let me explain my budget I have 6 chickens that lay 42 eggs a week on average, I swap these for fruit, veg, milk and meat. I will account for the chicken feed which is £6.99 a month in my budget when i used either the swap items or the eggs themselves. I also grow a lot of veg and swap some of these for other veg and will account for these from seeds I paid for so thats how my budget will be kept down. i don't think I am risking my daughter health as I just wanted to do this to use the assests I have and make more from them it's more a of a kick up the backside for me to see what i can do with what I have.

That is where you have the advantage over lots of people, because you have ready made nutricious meals and also a barter system that works for you, and you are right to use the assets you have, make the most of the advantage you have, but 50ppppd is (without the leverage you have) imo harsh.
We, like you, have hens, there is no wastage as everything (within reason) is fed to the hens alongside their normal layers pellets, wild bird seed and cracked corn (not pampered our hens :rolleyes:)

nitr02007

nikki20022008 wrote: »

ok first day is as follows:

breakfast: toast with butter and orange juice

Lunch: cheese spread sandwich, youghurt, raisens

Dinner: Chicken, roast potates, carrots, jelly and fruit

bread £0.0587500
butter £0.0059400
orange juice £0.0570000
chicken £0.2785714
carrots out of my garden
potates £0.1544444
jelly £0.0400000
strawberries £0.0960591
bread £0.0783333
cheese spread £0.0490000
raisens £0.0396000
yougurt £0.1125000
total £0.9701983


I've costed this as best I can the carrots are a bit of a cheat but apart from a bit of time they cost nothing so thought I would add them I will have enough jelly for tomorrow too. I have costed it so it's only for today so the same budget will show tomorrow for the jelly if that makes sense.

Had to laugh at your accurate figures.. Thats to a 10 thousandth of a penny. Even I'm not THAT careful with my money.

weezl74

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

That would be great :T

Good luck with the new bump - you'll have your hands full

Penny. x

Hiya penny thanks for the good luck message, I'm sure I'll need it :rotfl:

here's what I wrote back in July:

wrote:

Originally Posted by weezl74
... to get all your colours(if buying all from Asda at the moment):

tomato 1/5th of can 6.6p
80g onion 4p
raisins 20g- 2.4p
20g marrowfat peas 2.56p
80g sweetcorn-8.5p

total 24.06p to eat all your colours in a day :money:

but can be cheaper if you don't (which NHS don't say we should each day but is a bonus for antioxidant balance)

I wonder if the costings are still right... wonders off to investigate.....

k.o.d

We have 12 hens (admittedly not bred for laying hybrids) and get approx 6 eggs a day, so an egg a day fromm each of your hens is bloody good going!!! You are definitely doing something right with them

weezl74

... to get all your colours(if buying all from Asda at the moment):

tomato 1/5th of can 6.6p still the same
80g onion 4p 3.12p
raisins 20g- 2.4p 2.6p
20g marrowfat peas 2.56p still the same
80g sweetcorn-8.5p 7.6p

total 24.06p to eat all your colours in a day :money:

revised total 22.48p per person per day

funkydresser

Hope you suceed, wish you all the best, will be watching with interest and hope to follow some of your ideas.

Good Luck:o

weezl74

nikki20022008 wrote: »

thank you weezl I am thinking I will use what I have in the allotment etc and use the money to buy other fruit ie bananas, grapes, and oranges but I know I will need some from the supermarket eventually. I know I have an advantage over some other people and I know I'm lucky for that but this is a challange for me to see if I can do it

oh yes, your allotment will definately help keep veg costs down sorry I hadn't picked up on that. We're soon in nettle season too, so another free source of lots of antioxidants

nitr02007

nikki20022008 wrote: »

It's the best way I could work it else I would have loads of £0.00 which if I'm being realistic is not good as a lot of food wouldn't be accounted for lol

Its just something that I remember from an old boss who told me off for quoting calculation results to a large number of decimal places.. something like "calculations are only as accurate as the numbers going in"

Although I see your point about lots of zeros being useless for budgeting.

Kimitatsu

I didnt mean to offend anyone and Nutty I wasnt having a go at you at all.

As Penny says as money advisers I see people every day who are in debt (sometimes not of all of their own making) and the first thing to go is the food budget. Many times their diets are not balanced to begin with and so cutting down and using value everything makes their health even worse.

My point was that you dont HAVE to live on 50p a day, and as has been clarified if you have other resources at your fingertips then you are actually not doing that if you went out to a supermarket to buy these things anyway. For some people they would try to live on that amount a day without the resources that others have on here.

Nutty no-one was saying that you should not pay back your debt, my point was that you dont have to stick to that amount a week in order to pay it back. If you see a specialist then they will get the interest on the debt frozen and a repayment plan made that if nothing else will give you a breathing space and a chance to regroup before you work out what is best for you and how it is best to pay off the debts you have. It is not about shirking your responsibilities because any financial institution would far rather that you took 100 years to pay it than you befell harm and the negative publicity that ensued. The cost to them would be far greater than the original debt.

The point I was trying to make about the allowance for food (and it is designed to be so that people can live on it not just eke out an existence) is that there are many avenues of help out there but many people are not aware of them, and in this day and age in the UK, there should not be anyone who HAS to live on 50p a day for food unless they so choose to. At the end of the day if you took the figures from the CFS as a broad guideline then any money left over you could choose what you did with, knowing that there would not be any comeback from your debtors as you have just been clever with your budgeting.

Phew! Hope that clears that up - Nikki, good for you, it explains a lot about your budget, and it may inspire more people to grow their own and keep chooks. I know ours lay beautiful eggs and they are far cheaoer than the supermarket.