How do people feed families on £40 a week?

Edwardia

dlusman wrote: »

No one is saying you should live on a diet of crisps and crap. But if you enjoy the odd packet now and again - where is the harm in buying them from the cheapest place ?
And Approved Food doesnt just sell crisps

I've been posting on MSE over a year now and although few people actually say that it's OK to eat junk, many many people on MSE do eat complete rubbish, and feed their kids on it too. It is possible to eat very well on not much money but too many people prioritise other things like designer clothes, SKY and holidays above decent nutritious food.

The consequences are already here.. obesity and diabetes epidemic, kids who won't necessarily live as long as their parents, and broadly being able to pick out the middle and upper class kids because they are less likely to be the short fat spotty unhealthy kids with missing teeth and health probs.

We are what we eat. Simples. Aldi 6 rather than Approved Foods crisps is obviously better. All bulk buying crisps does is encourage the buyer to eat more of them.

PasturesNew

My top list of saving money would include:
- make sure you never throw anything out. There's either a use for it - or a reason to not buy it again as you're not using it up.
- make sure you know the £/100g of everything you buy - and compare prices on that basis (if a shop isn't telling me the £/100g and I don't KNOW it's priced well, I walk away).
- if you are making things yourself, see if one ingredient is over-priced and can be dropped without noticing. e.g. peppers in chilli con carne when one pepper can add 50p to the price of the dish
- see if anything you are buying can be made yourself cheaper - e.g. I picked up a Heinz chilli tomato ketchup last week, then put it back and bought the regular/cheapest Tesco ketchup and I mix that with chilli powder.
- continually be aware of prices of everything you buy and make sure you're getting the best price you can.
- set a target of, say, £1/meal/person tops - if a meal's going to cost you more than that ever then think twice about whether it's a special meal/treat or if you can make something different/cheaper instead.

I love Basmati rice, I know it's pricier. If I want a takeaway, I'll skimp and make my own rice, thus justifying it. When I use rice in dishes (I do a baked rice dish), I use the 40p/Kg long grain rice as it'd be a waste of good Basmati.

Chips/chipshops - money unlimited, I'd buy either a pie/chips, chips.curry sauce or chips/mushy peas. What I do instead is buy Pukka pies when they're at £1 in a supermarket and never buy one from a chippy; I get the Asda instant curry sauce (powder) and make my own curry sauce to go with chips; I buy Harry Ramsdens (trying others too) Chip Shop Mushy peas when they're about 3 for £1. That way I can still have great chip shop chips, but I skimp on the other bits I can get in other ways. Generally though, I do find myself picking up a 67p bag of Lidl frozen chips, which make 3 good/piggy portions and even doing without chippy chips (which are £1.50).

paulineb_2

I do cook home cooked meals. Most days, unless I eat out which isnt often. Today I went to Aldi and bought 3 lots of broccoli, 4 lots of leek, 2 bags of potatoes. Im vegan btw and Ive cooked a meal from scratch almost every night for the last year and a half. I cant remember the last time I had a microwaved meal. I cant afford them which is just as well really. But yes, I do shop from approved foods. I said on another post that I tend to use approved foods for buying stuff like spelt, polenta, lentils, pasta, tofu, coconut milk. I also do use it to buy crisps, because Im on a low income and if I didnt buy my crisps from there, I wouldnt be buying any at all.

And that might be better for me in the long run according to other people I suppose, but Im not subsituting crisps for other healthy food, its eaten as well as. Im not sweet toothed, I dont buy biscuits, cakes or chocolate, so a packet of crisps now and then is what I have. I also buy stuff like soya nuts and dried chick peas from approved foods.

The key word is moderation. Im a fitness instructor so I do have some knowledge about nutrition. My brother is also a personal trainer and he'll have the odd chocolate bar here and there or pudding, whereas I can take or leave chocolate.

There would be a problem if all I was doing was existing on those 6 packets of crisps a day but Im certainly not and buying them in packets of 6 doesnt make me eat them one after the other. Im more than capable of having one packet a day or one every other day.

In fact I bought a number of packets of crisps from approved food and it was a few weeks before I opened them, because I just didnt fancy them.

Id rather buy my crisps for 6 for a quid than 70p a packet, thats all.

Fire_Fox

dlusman wrote: »

No one is saying you should live on a diet of crisps and crap. But if you enjoy the odd packet now and again - where is the harm in buying them from the cheapest place ?
And Approved Food doesnt just sell crisps

IME from working in lifestyle healthcare (includes nutrition consultations) and reading around MSE that is the problem: people don't just eat junk every now and again. They put a packet of crisps in their child's lunch box on a daily basis, or have one every workday themselves. And that is far from the only item they have from the sugar added/ fat added/ junky/ processed category. This includes some processed meats, sugary yoghurts, jar sauces, many breakfast cereals, some baked goods, white/ refined carbs.

What Approved Foods doesn't sell AFAIK is anything fresh or frozen and only a limited selection of items with only one or two ingredients, ie. wholefoods. It may be possible to shop healthily from there, but from what I have seen on MSE few do.

SandA wrote: »

I regretfully don't buy any fruit or fresh veg other then the odd carrot because I find buying frozen veg and fruit pots for little one cheaper, although this may change once I have a waltz around aldi.

Frozen veg is healthy, it's absolutely fine to base your eating around that. However if you are literally just buying that and carrots I'd suggest you are not meeting the healthy eating guidelines - eat a wide variety of different foods and from the full rainbow (blue/ purple, red, dark green, yellow/ orange).

Reasonably priced blue/ purple includes whole fresh red cabbage (Aldi is cheapest) and mixed dried fruit (Value/ Smartprice) both of which are longlife. Aubergines, frozen mixed berries and purple potatoes (Albert Bartlett at Asda is cheaper than Sainsburys) are a little more expensive. Try not to have too much pale coloured or white produce, much of it is less nutritious than the bright and dark coloured stuff.

MissAT

SandA wrote: »

My average week, well this week our menu is:

Yesterday: Roast dinner
Today: Sweet and sour using left over chicken (using a jar, bab will have steamed veg and some chicken)
Tomorrow: Pies and croquettes (bab will have omelette)
Wednesday: Toad in the hole, home made with veg
Thursday: Jacket tatas with beans and cheese

I don't think we have anything extravagant, we sometimes have stirfrys, fajitas etc for treats, perhaps one a week usually excluding this week.

Any advice please?

Try no meat days, you have a lot of meat for a week worth of meals and this is oftn the most expensive part of a meal. Use meat as a side not the main part.

Basic ranges are fine, i cannot tell the diffrence, just give it a go.

Good luck cutting your food bill down

SandA

Thanks for all your replies I have definitely took on board some excellent tips and will apply these when I next do the shopping.

To the above poster, I would love to try no meat days, but OH is a meatlover. He has OAS so the amount of veg and fruit I can offer him without him having a reaction is limited. Other then jacket potatoes with beans, which he complains about due to lack of meat, what else could I try?

Thanks

Fire_Fox

SandA wrote: »

To the above poster, I would love to try no meat days, but OH is a meatlover. He has OAS so the amount of veg and fruit I can offer him without him having a reaction is limited. Other then jacket potatoes with beans, which he complains about due to lack of meat, what else could I try?

Thanks

Could you halve the amount of meat and use more beans or lentils to pad out those dishes? Work well in a stew/ casserole and in mince dishes (bolognese or lasagne with red lentils, chilli con carne or meatloaf with kidney beans), small amount of really cheap bacon bits chopped up and put in the jacket potatoes and beans.

Try block creamed coconut in Asian dishes, with that in I can eat a vegan bean or lentil curry and be satisfied. Also sometimes decent quality stock cubes or homemade stock can give a meat flavour to a dish which satisfies without much/ any real meat.

Frozen chicken livers, pigs kidneys, Value/ Smartprice eggs, sardines/ pilchards, mackerel and herring are all reasonably priced alternatives to land animal meat. It is recommended to have fish at least twice a week for health, the omega-3's in oily fish is really important for your baby's development and are powerful anti inflammatories so beneficial for digestive problems and calming the immune system. Sugar and white carbs are the exact opposite, they are pro inflammatory and negatively affect immune function.

paulineb_2

If someone shopped only at approved foods then I would say yes, their diet might be a bit limited, but its down to what you buy. As I said before, Ive bought rice (brown and white), polenta, spelt, pasta (wholemeal), coconut milk, tofu, udon and soba noodles, all at a fraction of what I would have paid for them in the shops. They dont sell fresh fruit or veg but there are other companies who sell short dated foods who do. I worked part time last year. I was on a very low income, even lower than Im on just now, because my boss paid crappy wages and I couldnt find a second job and appproved foods really helped me when I was struggling financially. When you can buy things like coconut milk for 40p rather than £1.49 in the shops and tofu for 33p rather than £1 plus, its an absolute no brainer. I dont have kids, I only feed me (and my cats) so Im not responsible for making food for anyone else. I also use it to buy lentils and broth mix, again they sell it much cheaper than my local supermarket does.

Many people have a liking for junk food, as I said in my previous post, I see people piling up their trolleys in supermarkets with junk, cakes, chocolate, biscuits. Its when the balance of junk v not junk tips in the favour of unhealthy eating then there's a problem.

Ive managed to shop very healthily from approved foods but then Im on a reasonably restricted diet anyway because Im vegan and there's certain foods I wont touch.

We all have choices to make and Im sure my diet will come up unhealthy compared to someone who exists solely on mung beans, alfafa sprouts and brown rice, but Id bet its a lot more healthy than many other peoples out there.

Whatever saves people money in my view should be encouraged because as I said above, we can all choose to put the junk in our shopping basket or we can choose to eat a bit healthier.

I shop at Aldi or Morrisons for my fruit and veg and I suppose like a lot of people what I buy in the supermarket depends on how many pennies I have in my purse on a given day. And to be honest, the savings Ive made from shopping at approved food has given me more money to spend on other stuff such as fruit and veg.

A swift google search will give you tons of vegetarian recipes, if your OH is willing to try them.

DevilsAdvocate1

dandelionclock30 wrote: »

Oysters? I dont know anyone who eats these.
On the subject of sausages I got a big bag of quorn Leek and cheese sausages from Iceland for a £1.00 not so long back.I thought they would be horrible but was surprised as they were really nice.
Where I live there is a local farm shop and you can buy a very large chicken for £3.50, its had a good life running round outside and the legs are very fat with all the exercize.Check if there is anything like this near you.

The oysters are the best bit. And I know I'm not alone in thinking this :T

Edwardia

Unless they're Canadian oysters.. I'm really partial to mussels and clams, langoustines (got frozen £3 box in Morrisons), wild North Atlantic prawns (£6/kg from wholesaler). Seafood mmmmm