Cooking from scratch more pricey a myth?

gailey_2

With the news stating that a readymeal ie horse lasage is cheaper to buy then making one I think well they must be wrong.

As most osers cook im sure you disagree but baffled why everyone thinks fresh food is so pricey.

If they ate cheaper cuts, veg in season, shopped around even frozen veg can be good made cauli cheese with frozen.
Used frozen herbs.

Eat lost frozen veg.

My lasagne comes ina round 5-6quid when brought ingrediants but 6-9portions so £1 portion.

So why does the media perpetuate this myth?

I used to collect sainsburys feed family for fiver cards and substiute some stuff on list for value and stuff from lidls hich was opposite and make it even cheaper.

Seen so many fab cheap recipies on here.:D

krlyr

You've just said it yourself - your lasagne makes up to 9 portions. Not everyone has the room to freeze the extra 8 portions (along with the 8 portions of chicken curry, homemade Chinese, etc. they've made that week) so if they wanted to make it from scratch they'd have to buy much smaller portions of mince (which cost more), probably indivudual fresh vegetables rather than a whole bag of frozen and so on. That one individual portion of HM lasagne probably costs a lot more than your lasagne per-portion, so it probably would be cheaper to buy a ready-meal that serves 1.

For a real example - my brother and his girlfriend rent a 1 bedroom flat, the kitchen and living room are open-plan with the kitchen just having been separated by a different flooring. All they were provided with was a fridge with a very small freezer shelf at the top (think they've said it just about fits a tub of icecream and an ice cube tray!) - and there's no room in the flat to fit a freezer elsewhere (OK, they could probably cram one in if they ditched the sofa or dining table..but where would they sit!).

Fortunately, they live right near the highstreet so buying their meals daily isn't an issue, but I bet it makes it difficult to cut meal costs down. I know I certainly appreciate having found room for our large chest freezer as it really does help lower the cost of our groceries/meals, to bulk-buy and bulk-cook.

[Deleted User]

I have been cooking for the past 50+ years and have always cooked from scrach and I'm far to frugal to buy ready made stuff.But I am lucky that I have room to store what I have made unlike the above posters brother.
I have found that I can make a meal out of very little in fact and I use every scrap of food that I buy.Its far too expensive to bin for one thing and even left over veg can be made into a tasty lunchtime snack or with a bit of thought even an evening meal. Past its best veg is turned into soup far tastier than tinned stuff and a darn sight cheaper as well with no tin to throw away into landfill. I am not a 'knit your own yoghurt' sort of person just someone who knows the value of a shilling I was brought up during rationing by a canny wee Scots lady (my Mum) who thought it was a mortal sin to bin anything at all edible, so I learned from an early age how to cook and how to streeeetch meals to accomadate more mouths than you think.So no, in my opinion its far more expensive to buy ready made stuff than to make it yourself

thriftwizard

I'm with you, JackieO, though I do see the sense of what kylyr is saying, having worked in sheltered housing where the kitchenettes (and everywhere else) were so tiny my tenants had nowhere to store anything. The architect who designed the flats back in the 70s evidently believed that we'd all be living on vitamin pills by now.

I'm feeding a biggish family & I know I spend far less per person on food than most people do, or even than people think feasible, yet we eat fresh & local & cooked-from-scratch. BUT I work (mostly) from home, so have time to do stuff properly, and shop effectively (i.e. when I'm most likely to pick up good bargains) and we are lucky enough to have quite a bit of storage. Though I am including space under the beds & cabinets in that.

However last year I had a go at running my own shop and ended up working about 18 hours out of every 24. I did resort to ready meals a few times & whilst the shop itself did turn a small profit, my household accounts went completely up the spout & I (and one daughter) put on loads of weight; whether from stress or from something in the ready meals, I can't begin to work out. So in my humble opinion, ready meals may cost you more than just money...

Uniscots97

I think the media has a lot to answer for, many (and I include a friend who used to write articles) will walk into a supermarket and pick up the preprepared veg, all nicely chopped, washed and bagged. Nearby that same prepped veg you'll see the veg in its natural form which needs washing and chopping and will be quarter of the price. I think thats where the myth comes from that HM is more expensive.

u751904

There has been a trend of late from TV chefs to use more expensive ingredients. Take Jamie or Nigellas recipes. Nice books but a lot of their recipes are padded out with extras. We've all seen the delia affect with limes or whatever.. I got a book recently for budget cooking and it has say the basics store cupboard stuff and fresh veg or meat. You don't need balsamic vinegar, imported veg, deli style additions.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

What if you only have a tenner with which to feed yourself once you've paid your rent/council tax/etc?

You've just spent most of that on lasagne that won't keep in the fridge for seven days.


I've got a tabletop freezer. It costs a fortune in electricity. And I couldn't fit right individual portions of lasagne in it. Not to mention I'm not convinced on your costs - mince, cheese, milk, pasta, onion, garlic, tomatoes, herbs, flour, pepper, courgettes, baking dishes, plastic containers and everything else would cost more than your pricing.

katieowl_2

I guess lasagne isn't the top choice if you've only a tenner...but if I make a big pot of food, we are quite happy to eat our leftovers for a few days.

I do think there comes a point when ready meals are cheaper, I used to look after an old dear who said that the pre-prepared veg and instant food even from M&S was loads cheaper than buying whole veg and the makings of the same dinner.

I think if I lived alone, and only had a tenner a week, I'd be eating a lot of stir fried veg, and some rice/eggs.


I think if you are feeding a few people you are probably quids in doing it yourself. And really there is no better way to know what you are eating... LOL as I typed that a horse & rider went past :rotfl:

Kate

Rainbow82

9 out of 10 times I find it loads cheaper to cook from scratch but then I'm also a vegetarian, your lasagne costs between £1 (6 portions) and 75p (8 portions) plus cooking and reheating costs. A sainsburys basics lasagne readymeal costs 76p so not really any different. I can easily see how people who work long hours, live alone and dont like cooking can rely on them. 76p x 7 days = £5.32, loaf of bread 50p, value ham £1, milk £1 basics cornflakes - 35p, a little over £8 for a weeks food, not healthy but people do it.

I wish the supermarket would double the price if them and use the extra profit to lower tge price of fruit veg and chopped tomatoes etc and run classes showing busy people how to cook great cheap meals for one in the ten minutes it takes to heat a ready meal. Most of what I cook costs less than 50p per portion and some stuff considerably less.

gailey_2

I used the lasagne as an example.I do tweak my lsaganes depending what we have so may omit the red wine or bacon ad just use chedder no parmasan.

we lucky we have chset freezer and large fridge but short cupboard space.

sheperds pie come in cheaper.

If I was 1-2people think would just keep to simple but quick meals

jacket potato cheese and beans.Or tuna and sweetcorn.
dried pasta with passatta value herbs, chilli and grated cheese ,chopped ham on top maybe fresh value garlic bread around 35p depending where we shop.

Hm pizza again bread flour-makes quite afew pizzas.
yeast
water

passsatta

whatever toppings have to hand.

hm soups
even just fish , potatoes and peas/salad dead simple.Quite like sainsburys basic salmon.I wrap in foil parcels -value foil dead easy and no mess with slice lemmon garlic, chilli .

1 chicken I can stretch 3meals.

egg on toast

cooked brekkie

omlette or frittattas we eat lots eggs week before payday.

There are so many fab ideas on here for cheap simple from scratch meals so news saying its not possible.
ie £7.00 a week thread.
readymeals are tiny and the non value ones are quite pricey for portion size.

Pitlanepiglet

When I was very skint and lived in a shared house I used to eat "meal of the week", so on a Monday I'd make a big pasta bake, chilli, spag bol or similar and then eat it all week before going home at the weekend. It was a bit tedious but a lot cheaper than ready meals!

I didn't have any freezer space there so it was the only way that I could avoid cooking each night and eat frugally.

In my first flat, I chose to have a freezer rather than a fridge, I could only afford one so went for the freezer as it enabled me to batch cook and save money that way.