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

weezl74

weezl74 wrote: »

... 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

sorry to harp on! Just realised that carrots are in the same colour category as sweetcorn, and are 4.32p per 80g portion, so that makes it doable for 19.2p per day.

Sorry Nicki I know this isn't hugely of relevance to you or the original OP necessarily, but I was addressing the bit of the debate on this thread about whether 50p a day allows the eating of 5 different fruit/veg. I think that even without an allotment it is do-able

3v3

Kimitatsu wrote: »

Potatoes do not count as a vegetable for the purposes of your five a day.

I admire all of you on this thread but my query would be that there should be fresh fruit and veg included in there - as a guide for the purposes of a financial statement for any financial institution they allow £25 per adult and £15 per child per week for food (not including toiletries and cleaning products) which is deemed to be sufficient to have a healthy balanced lifestyle.

I will be following the thread from the sidelines but I am afraid I wont be joining in your challange :beer:

Those are interesting figures.
Adult @ £25 per week / 7 days and then / by 3 meals per day = £1.19 per meal
Child @ £15 per week / 7 day and then / by 3 meals per day = £0.72p per meal
Teen = starved at either daily amount :rotfl:
Curious to know at which point the "child" allowance morphs into an "adult" allowance?

mark55man

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

Please remember that this isn't your thread - the site belongs to Martin and he asserts copyright over all posts.

And IIRC Polish Big is a Mrs :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Please can we keep this thread friendly, people, or I may need to refer it to abuse. TIA.

Penny. x

I quite agree - it all belongs to Martin - but I set this thread up to help with my challenge so forgive me for feeling slightly possessive.

On the other hand - this was a very specific challenge misguided or not and it relates to eating on a budget - and as such is similar to every other OS thread - so why where these two threads merged - is MSE running out of space? It really has quite spoiled the feel of the thread to have a general discussion on thriftiness vs nutrition added on top of what was intended to be a diary type activity.

To me the two threads are as similar as two completely dissimilar things in a pod (no offence to other OP and good luck with your challenge). I understand the debate between cheap and nutritious - and I will continue to post here because I see that it would be harder to disentangle them now that they have been entangled. However, until it has quieted down, I will just post daily with my totals as I had intended to.

I would add, I am not closed to others opinions - I have listened and acted on posters advice already and will do so again , but I resent being lectured by people who don't know my whole story (because this thread was about one aspect of my spending). Even taking into account the volatile and emotive nature of threads, I think the words "garbage" goes against the friendly nature of OS

OrkneyStar

Just to say I agree with the posters who mention the guideline budget figures.....they are pretty generous where a food budget is concerned, so anyone who is paying off debts and leaving no money for food is either 1. paying more towards their debts than they have to (maybe to pay off quicker), or 2. trying to pay off a debt which is maybe not pay-offable on their income level (and in that case should be seeking advice as to whether this is the most sensible option for them!). Where children are concerned it is important to eat healthily, and although this can be done cheaply, there needs to be some lee-way. I try to stick to a budget but as DS loves his fruit now I tend to buy a lot of it. Ideally I get the whoopsied strawbs etc but I have been known to get the full price ones when there are no reduced ones!
Weezl's posts were inspirational, but even she admits it is not always possible to do things as frugally as you might want to!
And good luck with the next bump btw weezl .

tiff

I think thats great advice and may be something a poster doesnt realise they can do BUT if anyone wants or needs to follow a very tight budget then we should do all we can to help. This forum several years ago had quite a few people who were living on a tight budget and healthily. I dont think it matters if you have 2 portions of the same veg as long as you are having fruit/veg/protein/dairy etc. It may come to more than 50p a day in reality but the point is to keep the cost down as much as you can.

My situation is much better than it once was. I bought value tinned tomatoes, value cheese etc but I also bought fruit and veg and cooked from scratch. That is how we got by for a relatively short period of time in our lives. My children are 12 and 9, both very healthy and have no fillings.

I know a parent at the afterschool club that I run who used to send her children wth pot noodles. I thought this was their snack (we supply fruit and juice) but then found out it was their evening meal. Now that is the sort of thing we should be educating people about!

LegalBlonde

Of all the threads to turn into bad feeling and a row I did not think this would be one!!! I have popped on here now and then to see how Mark is getting on and to get some tips for the odd 50p meal, but missed all this this morning!!!

I have read all the posts briefly and can't believe people are on here nitpicking about his 5 a day and saying oh dear god a child is being fed this. This website is called Money Saving Expert, not healthy expert or judgemental expert. It is completely up to the OP if they eat 5 a day, I eat nowhere near that and am perfectly healthy. It is the Govt who told you to eat 5 a day in the first place anyway, we have all had quite enough of being told what to do without it coming into discussions here. The OP obviously opened the thread to help himself keep track of his challenge, get tips and hope it helps others. I am sure he did not want to be chastitised for his veg choices!

Smiley_Mum

I wonder if any good recipes can be found in this forum that I've come across. :think:

http://www.polishforums.com/food-drink-8/typical-polish-diet-7769/

nikki20022008

I've deleted all my posts from here I will keep a private diary good luck mark and I will watch from the sidelines x

LegalBlonde

Good Luck Nicki some of your ideas really inspired me x

OrkneyStar

Shame you deleted nikki, goodluck, perhaps you could update every so often on this thread, if mark didn't mind :rolleyes:.
Board guides do their best to merge things that seem linkable, they don't always do it perfectly but they are human! I appreciate what they do anyways .
Anyway, lets try to keep on topic and not end up debating lol!