Updated prices Cheap Family Recipes

PhGage

I've recently emailed several people links from MSE about budget meal plans that demonstrate MSErs remarkable ingenuity in stretching grocery budgets: eg, £7.00 per week - menu ideas; MSE's Complete Menu Plans Collection; Weezl and friends' Cheap Family Recipes.

I was a little surprised when a couple of people said that the meal plans were interesting but the the prices were too out of date to be useful. So, I ran Cheap Family Recipes Option 1 Week 1 Shopping List through Asda (My Supermarket) and was surprised how relatively close the prices are after 2 years given some of the substantial fluctuations in food costs since Weezl and friends costed the menus back in July 2010.

There are some changes as pack sizes have changes: eg, the Smartprice lemons are now 5 rather than 7 per pack. I accepted some of the My Supermarket Swap & Save substitutions where they didn't involve a greater outlay because that felt more within the spirit of the shopping list than rigid adherence. Eg, the KTC Cooking Oil is £5 for 5L whereas the original shopping list item is now £1.40 per litre of oil rather than £1 per litre of KTC. If you were willing to swap some of the spices, a Rajah offer of 3 for £1.50 would have saved £0.55 on the prices below but you'd need to review the recipes to decide on acceptable substitutions so I costed the original list. I also made some substitutions that felt in keeping with Weezl and friends' principles for the shopping list (see note below on swapping sultanas for raisins).

I have the itemised list but I haven't included it here as it didn't seem appropriate without permission.

Overall price increase since July 2010 is £2.26 or from £44.25 to £46.51 (I used My Supermarket for the price comparisons: Tesco £55.50; Sainsbury's £61.94; Ocado £67.13; Waitrose £73.33. I imagine some of the equivalents are very different to account for these price differences and I haven't scrutinised the others for any swap and save offers.) This is an increase of just over 5% although there are also some differences in package sizes.

I've included some of the very noticeable price differences below. July 2010 prices in black; 25 July 2012 prices in blue. Notes about pack size changes or cheaper substitutions in italic.

Without most of the substitutions (eg, sticking with Asda's own vegetable oil, buying raisins rather than sultanas, the Value rather than mixed eggs), the original shopping list would cost £51.78 at Asda (Tesco £56.68; Sainsbury's £64.01; Ocado £70.37; Waitrose £71.59). This is an increase of £7.53 or approximately 17%. However, it doesn't feel as if it is in keeping with the ethos of the website to overlook relevant offers.

Summary and extracts from Cheap Family Recipes Option 1 Week 1 Shopping List

Fresh

1 x White Potatoes (2.5Kg) £0.78 £1.35
1 x Lemons (7) £0.87 £0.62 (for 5)

Meat, fish & poultry

1 x Smartprice Smoked Cooking Bacon Pieces (500g) £1.13 £0.74

Dairy

1 x Whole Fresh Milk 6 Pints (3.41L) £2.25 £1.48
1 x Cooks Value Medium Eggs (30) £2.98 £2.50 (swapped to SP mixed weight as cheaper than value medium at £3.10)

Tins, Jars & Cooking

1 x Colman’s Mustard Powder (57g) £0.90 £1.34

Packets & Cereals

1 x Long Grain Rice (1Kg) £0.73 £0.40
1 x Pumpkin Seeds (150g) £0.99 £1.12 (for 2x100g bags as cheaper than current 150g)
2 x Smartprice Salted Peanuts (200g) £0.46 £0.96
2 x Smartprice Raisins (500g) £1.28 £1.68 (substituted sultanas as no SP raisins available and next 'brand' up for raisins would have been more than double the original price at £2.87)

Frozen
1 x Smartprice Peas (907g) £0.76 £1.00

TOTAL COST Original full itemised list £44.25 £46.51

Noticeable items were the increase in the cost of Colman's Mustard Powder, white potatoes, frozen peas and the Smart Price Peanuts as well as the drop in the cost of the Smart Price cooking bacon, rice and milk.

I haven't costed the Option 2 (vegetarian plan with fresh fruit, no battery eggs and no dairy) yet so I've no idea if that might have increased more because of the fluctuation in vegetable prices or is comparable.