How cheaply is it possible to eat?

rogerblack

I'm currently on a grocery budget of maybe 60quid a month - I need to work it out accurately.

One of the most enlightening things I've done with regards to bills was working out how to sort an online supermarkets list by price/Kg.

First come stuff like thin bleach, and cat-litter - not very nutritious.
Not much above this comes own-brand white flour - 60p/Kg, potatos at 40p/Kg.
Porridge oats at 70p/Kg, ...
(I note that the time I edited this - flour was 35p/kg, not 60, and that was only last year!)

The key is to go up this list or better a value/calorie list - looking for ingredients you can make cheap tasty healthy food with.

As an extreme example, I'm on 2000 calories/day or thereabouts.

I _could_ live for a moderate period on something like;
2 multivitamins - 1p.
440g flour - 26p (1500kC)
50g vegetable oil - 5p (400kC)
500g vegetables (onions, cabbage, carrots - whatever's cheap) - 25p.

Or a total of 2000 calories, and 56p.

This is around 17 quid a month.

Add 10p for flavorings - cheap stock cubes - artificial vanilla - cheap soy sauce, salt, pepper, sugar and it could be marginally tolerable.
(and still possibly healthier in some ways than 'normal' diet of many in the west)

20 quid.

Adding in a little chicken and milk (130g/200ml) - another 30p/day.

30 quid.

Throwing in a couple of bits of fruit (apple/bananna).
40 quid.

This is a pretty basic diet, and would be quite repetitive.

Something like 1500 cals from carbs, 150 from protein, 400 from fat.

'Luxuries' - can of course horribly quickly blow this budget.

At this point, it would be somewhat unfair not to note that this may be misleading.

An optimistic 1Kwh of electricity usage when cooking the above, along with a small fridge/freezer using another 1Kwh - will boost the bill by 20%.

I'm trying to work out how to get healthier food for the same price or cheaper than I was paying.

I used to eat 2 wheetabix, milk and a little bit of marmalade, for breakfast.
For a total of around 30p.

I now have 40g of oats, 150ml of milk, with 4 dried dates thrown in.
This is half the price - and _much_ nicer.

Throw in a small bowl the day before, stick in the microwave - bang it on for 3 minutes, as I wander past in the morning on the way to the loo, and I have a nice hot breakfast.

Eating cheaper may not mean eating less tasty, or harder to prepare food.

It certainly does involve stopping doing what you're doing, and investigating alternatives.

sonnythecat

Plenty of (cheap) food for thought here, thank you.

Costing meals takes a bit of doing, but I find it really helps.

Sometimes just one ingredient or component can send the cost way up. Somewhere on MSE there's a brilliant and extensive thread where Weezl (???) 'frugalises' different recipes to make them cheaper. Can anybody remember where please?

BitterAndTwisted

I don't do the calorie-counting but I certainly do do the meal-costing (in my mind, not actually on paper).

One of the things I have chosen to do is a bit of long-term planning so I often go on the Approved Food or Big Brands For Less sites and check out what case-deals and whatnot they have on offer, and then place quite a decent-sized order. I've got enough risotto rice and couscous to last me till next Christmas. In fact I think I could most probably survive solely on my hoard alone barring fresh milk, fruit & veg until the end of the year.

rogerblack

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

I don't do the calorie-counting but I certainly do do the meal-costing (in my mind, not actually on paper).

I've found the calorie counting is _really_really_ helpful in working out what I actually am eating.

For obvious reasons, weighing ingredients before using them really gives you a grasp of just how much you're using.

In fact I think I could most probably survive solely on my hoard alone barring fresh milk, fruit & veg until the end of the year.

I'm living off UHT milk - which I find has come on a _--long_ way since it was 'that tastes a bit burned' - of the 80s.

I currently have plenty of milk on hand, and it's been a month since I got any delivered.

I'm currently doing massive orders of what tesco has on BOGOF or half-price.

However!!!
It's really worthwhile actually comparing prices. Sometimes a half-price premium brand is not a bargain!

But for some stuff - half price decent coffee - they are great! I now have a couple of kilos of decent (well, instant, but I like it) in the cupboard, for little more than the price of the truly crap stuff.

phizzimum

www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk is well worth a look at if this sort of thing interests you. this is the culmination of weezl's quest to see if it's poss to feed a family both cheaply and healthily. they spent a long time trying to make the diet as balanced as poss - including such factors as Omega 3, different colours of fruit/veg, calcium intake. So it's not just a subsistence diet that would keep you alive (apparently peanut butter, baked beans and porridge oats will do that)

ETA it works out at about 80p per day per person, but no idea as to calories!

Alison_Funnell

phizzimum wrote: »

www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk is well worth a look at if this sort of thing interests you. this is the culmination of weezl's quest to see if it's poss to feed a family both cheaply and healthily. they spent a long time trying to make the diet as balanced as poss - including such factors as Omega 3, different colours of fruit/veg, calcium intake. So it's not just a subsistence diet that would keep you alive (apparently peanut butter, baked beans and porridge oats will do that)

ETA it works out at about 80p per day per person, but no idea as to calories!

Calories etc are within government guidelines I think. Says so on atleast some of the pages there. Brilliant resource that site, if only as the basic building blocks to work from.