View Full Version : Sainsburys feed the family for a week for £50 - challenge?
I thought I'd start a thread on this as the campaign appears to be widely mis-reported and the press have been keen to pick up every detail and give it a slating. If you haven't seen the campaign it's here (http://www.sainsburys-feed-your-family.co.uk/MealPlan/Detail/1/0).
The types of misleading reporting I'm referring to are the likes of here (http://www.dailyfinance.co.uk/2011/05/05/sainsbury-s-feed-your-family-for-50/) and here (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1383443/Sainsburys-launches-Feed-Family-50-campaign.html). The main comments revolve around there not being enough food. For example, the lunches are reported as being a 'Lunch is a ham, cheese and salad sandwich. Two pieces of bread, halved' which is completely misleading because it omits the fact that a piece of fruit and a yoghurt are included. Admittedly, I'd probably eat more than that but I'm quite active.
That aside, I don't think it's far off. In fact, I think with a little more effort the quantities could be increased, it could be done with free-range meat and eggs, and the general quality of the food could be increased. I'm up for the challenge, if anyone else is?
So I'm going to put together some planned weekly menus, based on two adults sharing for a whole week, for around £25. The tricky bit is that I'm a meat eater and t'other half is veggie, so our bills tend to include a lot of cheese which is more expensive than the meat I buy. I also make a lot of my own stuff like yoghurt, bacon and bread which saves a few £££ each week, so I'll point out where this is the case and allow for the financial difference.
I foresee this will go in a number of directions:
I get a reality check and stand no chance :D
I starve to death
I get scurvy
Everyone sees how bad my diet really is :D
I'll try and keep the manual labour to a minimum, though this will always save a few £££. The other tripping point is the amount I actually eat: as I'm quite active I do need to eat a fair bit. I'll be starting on Sunday, as this is a good opportunity to have a roast and get a carcass on the go for leftovers and stock. Lets see how it goes. Please join in too!
I spend £60 on myself a week for food!!!
I spend £60 on myself a week for food!!!
Ditto!
I can see it being pretty possible to do :)
We spend £55 a week on shopping (and that includes toiletries, washing powder etc) and we eat pretty comfortably. It helps that we do so much from scratch, don't eat much meat (but what we do buy is free range - much prefer less meat but good quality than lots of crap quality meat) and look around for bargains though!
Plus of course if you have a roast chicken on Sunday, you can make loads from the leftovers. Pie, burgers, casserole or curry, soup, stirfry etc.
Will keep a curious eye on this thread though for more ideas :D
much prefer less meat but good quality than lots of crap quality meat
This is the secret to good meat eating. Buy good meat and do something good with it :D
So one of the challenges here is getting the calorie count up. I'm not going to be messing around with low fat anything because the calories have to stretch as far as possible. Full fat milk because it goes further and butter ftw!
Not sure yet how I'm going to deal with buying big bags of stuff. Example: 1.5kg of porridge oats is £1.41 but it has 50 servings in my size. Say I have porridge twice a week, that's nearly a 6 month supply in one hit. I guess with breakfast items it's easy to put them into a set routine. It'll be the dinners that mix things up a bit.
We recently bought a quarter lamb from a friend's field and our twenty-odd pounds provided us with a kilo of mince, a shoulder, a leg, ~8 chump chops, and ~6 'normal' chops.
We (Emma) cooked the leg which resulted in two huge roast dinners, and a lamb jalferezi (about 4 portions) etc so each piece of meat creates a huge amount of food in terms of meals.
Adding up all the individual parts would costs us A LOT more in the supermarket, and going on past experience, would not be half as delicious or remotely sustainable.
As goes for our local butchers - far superior quality, same price or less than the supermarket. Good food does not have to be expensive - it's just not as convenient to source or acquire.
LeperousDust
12-05-2011, 12:19
We recently bought a quarter lamb from a friend's field and our twenty-odd pounds provided us with a kilo of mince, a shoulder, a leg, ~8 chump chops, and ~6 'normal' chops.
We (Emma) cooked the leg which resulted in two huge roast dinners, and a lamb jalferezi (about 4 portions) etc so each piece of meat creates a huge amount of food in terms of meals.
Adding up all the individual parts would costs us A LOT more in the supermarket, and going on past experience, would not be half as delicious or remotely sustainable.
As goes for our local butchers - far superior quality, same price or less than the supermarket. Good food does not have to be expensive - it's just not as convenient to source or acquire.
I would LOOOOOVE to buy half a lamb fresh like that, sounds superb :) I freeze and store so much prepped food as well it would mean i don't eat lamb every day either!
I think we probably spend less than £50 per week on food, for the two of us, and we make most stuff from scratch & buy good quality 'free range/RSPCA approved type' meat. We buy a lot of 'basic' range stuff but only if it's as good as the more expensive branded stuff - for example, I won't eat value beans, simply because I don't like the taste, but we do buy Tesco's or stock up on Heinz or Branston when on offer rather than Heinz at full price because the difference in price is silly and they taste as good (in case of Branston, better!). Pasta/Noodles/ dried goods - value brands are usually just the same. I won't compromise on taste for the sake of saving a few pence but I am finding more and more that the basic brands are better and better. We're VERY good at shopping at a few different places and picking up the offers in each one (BOGOFS, 2for£2 etc) and on stuff we buy regularly, it saves us a fortune really, and it doesn't take much time. Also shop in Costco for things like drinks & crisps if we're buying a lot of them.
It's easy enough to do if you put the time in and compare prices online before you go and buy (as Matthew does ;D - he's like a walking directory of where to get what at the lowest price)
Yup, keeping an eye on the prices and going round a few different places really helps a lot.
We're lucky that we've got Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsburys all within about 20mins of us so we can stock up easily. Usually do the bulk of the shopping in Asda then get other bits and pieces/the bargains wherever it's cheap. That and we've got a fridge/freezer and a chest freezer so plenty of room to do batch cooking and store for later.
On a side note: I never get why people buy branded dried pasta?? I can never tell the difference! 20p bag of spaghetti in Asda is way better value than £1ish for some branded stuff anyhow :D At least until I finally get round to trying out the pasta maker I was given for my birthday.
I would LOOOOOVE to buy half a lamb fresh like that, sounds superb :) I freeze and store so much prepped food as well it would mean i don't eat lamb every day either!
It really is superb - a perk of being socially connected to farmers :D
We generally portion things up and freeze also - such a purchase will last us months as eating lamb (however damn tasty!) isn't the best to do every day!
We buy a lot of 'basic' range stuff but only if it's as good as the more expensive branded stuff
Definately - Marks & Spencer / Waitrose make huge margins on foods from the same source and supplier as Tesco: although I totally agree about the exceptions: NOTABLY BEANS!!
We're lucky that we've got Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsburys all within about 20mins of us so we can stock up easily.
We're soon to have an Asda store joining the Tesco, Lidl and Morrisons already in our tiny town; it's a total overkill but hopefully will result in some price wars :p
On a side note: I never get why people buy branded dried pasta?? I can never tell the difference!
Me neither - fresh pasta vs dried; of course spend more and have the flavour, texture and convenience perks, but otherwise I would wager they come from the same supplier!
Jonny69 be careful having been ill and all :)
BB x
Good point - You need to bring your strength back up Jon :)
I agree entirely about the spending a few £s more on good quality meat. I believe you really can't afford NOT to, also from the ethical point of view - however, I'm a hyprocrite as I love things like Foie Gras and other such things.
I eat a lot of fish, fruit and veg and eggs. Then a lot of poultry too. I do love my red meat but only really have 2 portions a week (a portion for me is fairly sizeable I must admit). Unfortunately meat costs a lot, though fish and poultry is reasonably priced still - but in general less calorific.
Fortunately fruit and veg is still reasonably priced as are dairy products - which whilst I love, I tend to keep to a minimum (except for cheese :p) - though I tend to only have full fat milk as it tastes so damned good.
Typically in a day I'll eat the following:
A couple of smoked mackerel fillets with a couple of poached/fried eggs
Small bowl of porridge or homemade muesli
A fruit of some kind
Then some home made sandwiches (containing, chicken, pork, turkey, salad, cheese etc... inside either homemade bread or multi seed "food doctor" pittas - amounting to about 300-400 calories each) or left overs from the day before (i.e. if I cook too much (on purpose) so that I can take some in to lunch.
About 100g of mixed unroasted unsalted nuts
Fruits
I always have things like fish fingers or frankfurters or small fillets of turkey (quick cook steaks) for a little snack in the evenings or after the gym
A small tub of cottage cheese
At least 500g of meat/fish/poultry
At least 200g of veg
Clearly some days I will have rice/pasta/more carby/starchy based meals too. In the winter I love making cottage/shepperds pies, and fish pies. I also make pancakes often (almost weekly).
I always cook with butter, and like my food rich and flavoursome. That's why I train so hard at the gym! :D
That's typical for me on a day to day basis. It amounts to around 2700-3000 calories sometimes more if I'm having a naughty day! :D
If I was willing to compromise on quality of meats then I probably could spend less - but I just enjoy my food too much.
The best way I found of saving is to see how much stuff I throw away - recently I have literally thrown no food away. So I think I've got the balance just right - I've just about got used to shopping for myself again especially now I'm back at the gym.
We buy a lot of 'basic' range stuff but only if it's as good as the more expensive branded stuff
This is where Sainsburys is a real let down. A lot of their value brand food is just near inedible. Where they've driven the cost down the quality has gone with it, especially the meat. There are the odd exceptions though.
Jonny69 be careful having been ill and all :)
BB x
Thanks for the thought. I'm making sure there are no compromises if I can :)
So far I'm putting a spreadsheet together to work out the costs of the cupboard regulars. Breakfast is what I'm including in this because it's going to be the same pretty much every week, made up of porridge, smoothies, toast and a fry up at the weekend. These items will need to sit in the cupboard or freezer, so for example a pack of oats is 1500g which is 50 of my servings, TTD sausages in packs of 6 can either go in the freezer or be used in meals along the week, cost of servings of 100ml of milk etc etc. I'm also weighing what I'm eating for the next few days to gauge the actual size of portions of fruit, yoghurt, oats etc.
Example: bowl of porridge, 200g:
Oats, 2 tablespoons, 30g - £0.03 (based on 1500g bag of porridge oats @ £1.41)
Milk 150ml - £0.08 (based on 4-pint bottle of whole milk @ £1.25)
Water 20ml - £0.00
Total: £0.11
That is an actual size bowl of porridge I'd eat and rounded up the milk a bit because I used slightly less.
What I need to do next is buy some fruit and veg to gauge the unit costs of things like bananas, apples, potatoes, carrots etc. Then I can work out costs of portion sizes in meals and smoothies and work out what costs what and where :D
If I was willing to compromise on quality of meats then I probably could spend less - but I just enjoy my food too much.
Lol, this won't be for everyone. I think you just eat too much to ever be able to spend as little as me ;D
Well it's not looking good for me so far :p
Working out breakfast options.
Smoothie, soft fruit eg strawberries, blueberries, 300ml
Soft fruit 100g: £1.00
Yoghurt 100g: £0.06
Oats 10g: £0.01
Milk 100ml: £0.06
Total = £1.12
I usually have 5 of those a week so that's half my budget gone :shocked:
Alternatives:
Smoothie, Nesquik, 300ml
Milk powder 60g: £0.24
Nesquik 20g : £0.11
Milk 250ml: £0.14
Total = £0.49
Smoothie, banana, 300ml
Banana: (estimate) £0.30
Yoghurt 100g: £0.06
Oats 10g: £0.01
Milk 100ml: £0.06
Total = £0.42
Better, but still not looking great...
Wow this will be interesting! I budget myself to £100 a month on food and drinks although haven't been strictly sticking to this! Need to get out £100 again each month and put it in my kitty... only way I can do it :)
I've done a test recipe tonight to check the costs and quantities.
Bean casserole with sausages.
Ingredients (serves 2):
1 red pepper
1 orange pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 courgette 150g
1 carton of chopped tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1 tin of cannellini or borlotti beans
4 sausages
salt/pepper/chilli to season
Chop all the veg roughly. Lightly fry the garlic in a little olive oil and add the rest of the vegetables. Add the tomatoes, drain the beans and add them too. Season with salt, pepper and a small pinch of chilli. Simmer for 20-30 minutes depending how soft you like the veg. Grill the sausages. Spoon out into a bowl and get stuck in with a nice thick slice of buttered bread :D
The important bit - the costs.
Ok, so going on Sainsburys prices the total is as follows:
1 red pepper
1 orange pepper
1 yellow pepper = 3/5 Basics pepper pack at £1.35 = 81p
1 courgette 150g = 27p
1 carton of chopped tomatoes = 33p
2 cloves garlic = 1/4 of bulb of Organic 3 pack = 1/12*90p = 7.5p
1 tin of cannellini or borlotti beans = 44p
4 TTD sausages = £1.72
Total: £3.64
My veg came from the market and was substantially cheaper as so:
Red peppers: 4/£1
Orange peppers: 8/£1
Yellow peppers: 9/£1
Courgettes: 5/£1
So my veg costs came to 70p compared to Sainsburys £1.10, not as big difference as I was expecting if I'm honest. My total for tonight was £3.24 and we're both stuffed.
Note that I used Taste The Difference sausages and tinned beans. I could have shaved a bit off that by using cheaper sausages and by cooking the beans myself. This would have needed me to soak them overnight but would have literally come to pennies instead of 44p, because even the fancy dried pulses are dead cheap.
Another test recipe.
Chunky chicken and vegetable soup (2 portions)
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/50-challenge/IMG_6903.jpg
Stock, 500ml (or one Oxo cube @ £0.08)
Carrot, 100g: £0.07
Potato 100g: £0.14
Pearl barley 25g: £0.02
Chicken 125g: £0.54
Total: £0.84
Roughly chop the chicken and vegetables, put everything into a pan and simmer for 30-40 minutes until the pearl barley is soft. Partially blitz it to thicken it up and season with salt and pepper. Dosh it into a bowl and serve with a hunk of buttered bread as per above.
I've been working out the calories as I go as well. There are about 250 calories per serving :)
How much was that slice of bread and butter? :p
Looks scrummy - soup is underrated: Butternut Squash & Chorizo soup is delicious and usually made from leftovers in this household :)
Using pulses certainly seems to be the way to go for cheapness as well as tastiness.
We spent a little while earlier figuring out what we were going to eat for the coming week. Came up with some recipes and reached the grand total of £5.50 for 5 days worth of evening meals :D Although granted one meal is something I made last week and put in the freezer (Quorn Lentil Ragu type thing which worked out as about 50p a meal when I priced it up last) but pretty good going for the rest.
Wouldn't be ideal for some though as there's only one day that involves any meat but that'll be fine for us :)
Love coming up with good ideas for meals, even more so when cheap :D
I've been dreaming about that soup since you posted it. Has to be made.
Lol. Well I was going to give this a go starting yesterday but the weekend has kicked home that because of my virus etc the other week I'm not going to be ready for a few weeks. I'm simply needing too many calories to recover my lost weight :D
Anyway, I can use the time to gather my meal details, weigh things as I cook and generally work out costs :)
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