Average price per portion?

mama_bear_3-2

Just wondering what everyone else spends on average per portion of dinner? We eat fairly large portions that I know could be cut down or stretched out with rice or cous cous. For example, we would use a whole 6-7 pack of chicken thighs at dinner between myself, husband and toddler when I know we could manage to stretch the packet over 2 days.

I've started seriously budgeting and am looking for ways to reduce our food shop but it's proving a bit of a challenge. My husband only eats chicken (no ther meat or poultry) so it's mostly chicken portions in some form or else beans/chickpeas in a stew or curry. Today we are having a bean and linda mc cartney sausage slow cooker casserole that will sort us for today and tomorrow with a bit of rice added. The total cost of the whole lot is around €5.20 (£3.75stg) which is 85cent or 60p per portion. Can I do any better on price or is this a fairly typical amount to spend on a meal?

joedenise

I tend to spend more than 60p per portion for most meals. We'll have much cheaper meals some days than others.

If you're looking for some cheap ideas check out some of the online blogs. A couple which come to mind are: https://www.thriftylesley.com; https://www.agirlcalledjack.com and https://www.mortgagefreeinthree.com.

Denise

jackyann

I think that sounds reasonable thrifty, but there are so many other factors: will you use leftovers? As a meal or as a base for something else?
Often very difficult to work it out exactly.

I broadly think that LM sausages are expensive compared to home-made, but would add that my home-made veggie sausages would collapse in a stew, so expenditure has to be considered over a period of time.

We will often spend more on expensive meat / poultry because you can stretch it so much further. I would definitely look to see if you can pick up any game cheaply as that is so tasty.

FairyPrincessk

I think you can do better for an overall average cost, but I don't think that is terrible for one meal. I'd probably class that as one of the higher end of mid-range for our price per portions. Some things we eat are far cheaper, some a bit more expensive, most around there or slightly cheaper but not massively so. I tend to cost out a batch of different meals and then try to rotate. I find the cheaper meals are usually compromising in some way--either they take longer to prepare or they aren't quite as healthy or we don't fancy them as much so I don't aim for every meal to be an 'absolute cheapest' but rather use cheaper meals to balance out the more expensive ones.

Another bit of context though--I tend to use one boneless chicken thigh per person for meal and try to pad it out. It sounds as if this has occurred to you. Bear in mind that 80g of boneless meat is enough and work from there.

You might find A girl called Jack (blog written by a woman who costs her meals out) inspirational. She has a lot of veggie recipes which might suit you. Bear in mind her costings are bare bones and she tends to keep costs as low as possible, but it might give you something to compare to.

[Deleted User]

I can usually cost a meal out to between 60-75p per person, depending on what is involved.I do use a lot of veg and have used my late Mums method for years two courses only either a HM soup starter followed by the main meal or a meal followed by a pudding Sound a bit daft perhaps but it does streetch a meal out a bit.Back in the austerity of the late 1940- 50s when rationing ruled she always did this and I carried on when I grew up and had a home of my own and a family.
I usually use Y/S chicken thighs slow cooked, then into a curry which you can pad out with so many things to expand it a bit Meat is so expensive to buy these days that anything you can do to save a bit does help.With regards to sausages I will only buy really nice ones with a high meat content as I'd rather have one or two at most of meaty sausages, than the cheaper ones.a local farm shop sells nice ones at around £3.50 for 8 so around 44 p odd each but two of them are real filler ups, and sometimes I have trouble eating the last one so I let it cool down and will slice it in with some pasta and maybe left over sweetcorn for a quick lunch. I too recommednt the Girl called Jack blog as she does some amazing things with very little cash and its normally costed out well

Ches

mama_bear wrote: »

Just wondering what everyone else spends on average per portion of dinner? We eat fairly large portions that I know could be cut down or stretched out with rice or cous cous. For example, we would use a whole 6-7 pack of chicken thighs at dinner between myself, husband and toddler when I know we could manage to stretch the packet over 2 days.
QUOTE]

I think to all of a sudden halve the meat content might be unaccepable to your OH so I would buy 2 packets and stretch them over 3 meals.

mama_bear_3-2

Thanks everyone It seems my portion cost is middle of the road so. I must try and improve!

The chicken thighs are the bone-in ones, I sprinkle them with cajun seasoning and bake in the oven and the reason we demolish the whole pack is because they're so bloody delicious!

I've been surprised after working out the cost of some of our meals. I thought that the sausage casserole would be cheaper by portion because the beans etc are inexpensive (I buy the veggie sausages on offer) but it turns out that the mushroom risotto I cook is actually cheaper and I wouldn't cook it very often because arborio rice is quite expensive where I live! Working out the portion prices has really opened my eyes!

mama_bear_3-2

Oh and thanks for the blog links, I'll check them out

krlyr

I don't cost my meals, but I do base them on the weight of the meat. The UK government recommended portion is 100g raw weight of meat per adult (and you should aim for two portions of protein a day - other sources listed here https://www.bupa.co.uk/health-information/Directory/P/portion-size ). I find if I bulk meals out with veggies or beans, I can easily do 100g portions even for OH (who loves his food)

HappyMJ

krlyr wrote: »

I don't cost my meals, but I do base them on the weight of the meat. The UK government recommended portion is 100g raw weight of meat per adult (and you should aim for two portions of protein a day - other sources listed here https://www.bupa.co.uk/health-information/Directory/P/portion-size ). I find if I bulk meals out with veggies or beans, I can easily do 100g portions even for OH (who loves his food)

I read somewhere it was 3 ounces - 85 grams of raw meat per person per day. Young children though don't need so much. Good quality meat usually is £6/kg (well that's what I aim to buy) so about 50p for a portion of meat.

I've always just costed food just on a weekly basis £25 per person per week which comes to £1.20 per portion - some meals are more expensive such as the Sunday roast and some meals are really cheap such as a tomato pasta...but that does include everything including in between snacks and drinks such as squash, tea, coffee, milk and sugar and it's for adult sized portions and 3 meals per day and we eat a well balanced diet including plenty of fruit and vegetables. A toddler wouldn't need to eat that much and a child eating meals at school would only be having 2 meals at home per day. If you're all eating the same food it's cheaper to buy larger packet sizes reducing the cost per portion.

Seakay

You might enjoy the rubber chicken thread - lots of ideas for stretching ingredients and recipes scattered through

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=385066#post385066