Frugal Living - Feeding a Family on a BudgetCheck supermarket prices at mySupermarket.co.uk I began doing meal challenges whilst writing articles for a newspaper in 1999. The column was known as 'The Scottish Pound' and was basically a series of articles about how to feed a family of 4 on £10 per week for the 7 main meals. The following is as a result of those original articles, along with a few recent additions, to reflect the variation in food prices over the past decade or more. I hope you find this both informative and entertaining. It has been slightly updated to reflect current day costs with the prices based on current day, cheapest, 'large supermarket' price. In general, buying cheap groceries is cheaper now than it was in 1999, we can buy far more with our £ than we could then, especially if you have no qualms about 'sell by' or 'best before' dates. Neither of these terms means the food has gone out of date, just that it's more beneficial to have sold them before the specified dates. On the other hand 'use by' dates must always be adhered to, as these are placed on perishable goods. To help with budget cutting on the grocery front, I tend to bulk buy whenever I get the chance of a bargain that will keep and will be used. Most dried goods, tins, preserves and sugar will keep indefinitely as long as there has been no damage to packaging. We have used both Approved Foods and Bargain Foods for online bargain hunting. Discount codes, when available, are listed on the home page. Of course we do hope that Frugaldom will soon be producing as much fresh fruit & veg as we need from one year to the next. For 2010, we already have the year's supply of preserves in the pantry, courtesy of all the lovely free fruit we got last summer & autumn when foraging the hedgerows around the farm. We haven't bought eggs since April 2009 and I haven't bought a single loaf of bread since getting the breadmaker in September 2009. Every penny counts when on a budget and every penny counts when saving for a rainy day. Breakfast - Frugal Porridge with serving of Dried Fruit Assuming nobody minded porridge for breakfast every day during the cold months, the cost would be around £3.50 per week (50p per day) for breakfasts to allow for the addition of a 30g handful of dried raisins or sultanas for each person each morning, as part of their 5-a-day. (Includes 1 of the 5-a-day) [Update - Forum message number 1931, dated 16/02/10, explains the porridge costings. Check supermarket prices at mySupermarket.co.uk Lunch - Frugal Soup & Pudding. Homemade soup, when making it from scratch, is priced on the assumption that the household makes stock from meat & veg leftovers, ensuring a regular supply. I can make 5 litres of soup from the stock produced by a chicken carcass, so that's enough for 20 adult servings in a hungry. I add rice, onions, carrots, some mixed herbs and salt/pepper to taste.The choice of vegetables added on top of this will depend on the season, but it generally costs around £1 for everything that gets added, so 20p for the soup lunch for 4. Pudding would be something like packet custard over fruit loaf, tinned fruit, banana or similar, so it includes 2 of the 5-a-day. Check supermarket prices at mySupermarket.co.uk Main Meal Sample - Frugal Recipes - Oven Baked Stovie Pie. Ingredients: Cooking Instructions:
Total Cost to make, (excluding cooking cost), is around £2.27 for a family of 4. You could reduce overall costs by simply chopping the corned beef and adding it, along with the beans, to the chopped, boiled potatoes & swede similar to stovies or by serving the sliced corned beef alongside the baked beans and turnip/potato mash to save on power if you are watching energy costs as well as food costs. (The beans and the swede account for 2 of the 5-a-day) There are many cheaper alternatives to this nowadays, see food page for a few suggestions, or 100 things to do with eggs. Watch out for my 'Nile Mince' and then there's always rubber poultry - see how far you can stretch a turkey drumstick, a pheasant or a chicken. Check supermarket prices at mySupermarket.co.uk Based on the above, we are looking at £30 per week to ensure everyone gets their 5-a-day. By bulk buying and taking advantage of supermarket offers, this reduces to approximately £1 per person, per day. Soups can be varied depending on what meat the main meals are based around - ham with lentils or split peas, beef with barley & mixed beans etc. Whatever you chose, try to get at least 1 portion of veg and 1 portion of pulses included per person per lunch and try to include a portion of fruit within the pudding part. Here in Frugaldom, there are 3 of us and I am aiming to bring the grocery budget in at around 85% of the previous years' figures by incorporating far more homegrown fruit, veg and eggs produced by our own hens. The budget for 2010 is £900 for the year, which would equate to £100 per month for a family of 4. In 1999, main meal 1 cost 88p to make, so the overall cost has virtually doubled since then. I'll include several more of these main meals soon, but overall costs are based on the ability to bulk buy and keep foodstuffs either in dry store or freezer. I suspect this frugal food budgeting would be close to impossible if based on the premise that you had to buy what was needed on a day to day, or even week to week, 'nipping to the local shop' method. Check supermarket prices at mySupermarket.co.uk Price Comparisons Having kept a few notes from 1999, I thought you might be interested in seeing some of the prices then compared to now, so here are a few of the basic items I used to buy then - a couple of them have been priced out of the current budget, chicken has taken over from tuna, for example, and corned beef has been replaced by mince. The average price increase in foodstuffs since 1999 to 2010 when comparing my 'shopping list' amounts to 43.1% However, 1999 was also the year that the Government introduced National Minimum Wage a rate of £3.60 per hour. 11 years later, we have a minimum hourly rate of £5.80 per hour, an increase of 61%. That means, as a minimum wage earner, food is CHEAPER to buy now than it was 11 years ago. In 1999 it would take your basic wage earner 1 hour and 25 minutes to pay for the following shopping list. Now, in 2010, it would take only 1 hour and 15 minutes to pay for the exact same items.
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