What's your 'cheapest' diet?

[Deleted User]

Hi,

another tasty drink was the water after boiling cabbage, with lashings of black pepper.

Madbat60

Back in the 1980's I was on sickness benefit for a few months. After I'd paid bills I had £7 left to spend on food.  I would make a huge batch of lentil curry and live on it with basmati rice.  Fruit and veg I got from the market in Peckham High Street.  It was a while before I ate lentil curry after that

Toonie

I was a little curious about this as when I split with my ex I regularly only had £10 a week for food (this was 11 years ago) and I managed OK. So, I had a little investigation as to whether I could replicate what my theoretical £10 would get me now. Well, for a start something that was £10 eleven years ago would now cost £13.51 (using the Bank of Englands inflation calculator) so I've given myself a top budget of that. I came up with the following from Sainsbury (my nearest supermarket). Sadly I have a few dietary restrictions, incluidng not being able to eat most vegetable sources of protein, so needed some other protein to add in.

Sainsbury's Fairly Traded Red Label Tea Bags x40 125g 70p

Sainsbury's British Whole Milk 2.27L (4 pint) £1.65

Sainsbury's Self Raising Flour 1.5kg 58p

J.James Free Range Eggs Mixed Weight x10 £1.43

Hubbard's Foodstore Strawberry Jam 454g 39p

Daily's Medium Sliced Wholemeal Bread 800g 39p

Sainsbury's Mixed Dried Fruit 500g 85p

Sainsbury's Lard 250g 60p

Hubbard’s Foodstore Peeled Plum Tomatoes 400g 28p

Sainsbury's Imperfectly Tasty Carrots 1kg 40p

Sainsbury's Imperfectly Tasty Potatoes 2.5kg £1.05

Sainsbury’s Greengrocer Frozen Peas 850g 52p

Sainsbury's British Fresh Skin on Chicken Legs 1kg £1.99

Sainsbury's British 20% Fat Beef Mince 500g £1.79

Total is £12.62.

Breakfast-fruity drop scones/jam and toast

Lunch-egg sandwich/eggy bread/chicken soup

Supper-Chicken stew/cottage pie

RobM99

£10  a week can be done. Might not be faaaaabulously appetising, tried it!