MUM’S CHALLENGE: HUNGRY FAMILY OF ONE WEEK, ONE FOUR AND £40...
Think you can feed a family of four for a week on just £40? Reporter Cathy Owen took on the challenge, and this is what happened...
LIKE a lot of people, our grocery shopping habits have changed a lot during lockdown. Information from supermarkets has shown a significant decrease in multiple weekly store visits, with the number of shoppers making three or more visits to stores in a seven-day period decreasing by more than a quarter.
The number of shoppers visiting a store once a week has increased, however, from a quarter to a third.
With two growing boys to feed, we took a look at our shopping habits and bills at the start of the first lockdown.
The amount of times we went into shops just to pick up a pint of milk or a loaf of bread, and came out with a shopping basket full of products we didn’t really need was quite shocking.
During the lockdowns we tried to only shop big once every two weeks, and only top up the bread and milk twice a week.
But the lifting of restrictions has seen the number of visits to different stores increase, so taking on the challenge of trying to feed a family of four for a week for £40 came at the right time.
One of the other major changes to shopping habits since the start of the pandemic is that more people plan their shops and always take a shopping list with them, according to a survey from app Shopmium.
When I went shopping for our week, I worked out what meals I was going to make beforehand and checked what ingredients I had at home before going.
I also picked one of the smaller trolleys at our local Lidl store to help make sure I didn’t buy too much.
It is the store where I have been doing much of my shopping over the past year, and the app has helped me to save around £12 on shops every month.
You get £2 off when you spend more than £100 in a month, and £10 off when you spend more than £200. It means I try to do a big shop at the start of each month to start building up the credit.
On the day I went shopping for the challenge, I had a £10 off voucher to use which helped to bring the cost down.
There are also weekly money-off vouchers on certain products, so I made sure I used those as well.
The store also benefits from offering “Too Good to Waste” fruit and vegetable boxes for £1.50 for 5kg.
They are not always available, but as luck would have it there were several in the store on the day of my shop.
It is pot luck what will be in the box, but the Lidl website has got tips on what to do with all types of fruit and vegetables.
The one that I picked up had a 2.5kg bag of large potatoes, a bag of small salad potatoes, celery, a bunch of bananas, a bag of oranges, sprouting broccoli, a lettuce and aubergines.
The food was all quite close to the best before date and was perfectly edible.
It did need to be used quickly, but with boys aged 16 and 12 to feed, food never lasts long. The only slight disappointment was that the oranges didn’t have much taste, but we were able to use the bananas in a smoothie when they started to go brown halfway through the week.
Aubergines are also not something I would buy as part of our normal shop, but we experimented with them. More of that later. With the shop done and the coupons used it was time to start preparing the first meal. This is how the main meal each day panned out:
DAY ONE
■ Tuna steaks with small potatoes and broccoli
Fish is a firm favourite with all the family, and the broccoli and bag of small potatoes in the Lidl Too Good to Waste box were the ideal accompaniment to the tuna steaks we already had in the freezer.
This was not the meal I had planned before going shopping, but with the small potatoes and broccoli needing to be used quickly, it was an ideal alternative that got the thumbs-up from everyone.
At a total of £5.80 it was not one of the cheapest meals of the week but it was tasty and a nice treat.
Tuna Steaks – £5.50 Potatoes – 15p Broccoli – 15p
Total – £5.80
DAY TWO
Sunday chicken dinner
It was Sunday, so that means we have to have a roast dinner. I always tend to buy an extra large chicken (£3.89 minus 17p with app voucher so it was £3.72) and we use half for the Sunday dinner, and the rest for a meal on Monday. If you add enough vegetables and potatoes there is enough to go round.
I used the potatoes from the vegetable box and served it with carrots, broccoli and cauliflower.
Apple crumble for pudding is also a good way of using up any apples that might not get eaten otherwise. Despite the size it worked out as one of the cheapest meals of the week.
Chicken – £1.86
Potatoes from the food box – 7p Carrots – 4p
Cauliflower – 5p
Gravy – 5p
Two eggs – 43p
Butter – 3p
Flour – 1p
Pudding
Apples – 54p
Flour – 2p
Sugar – 2p
Custard – 38p (didn’t eat all of this, so some left over for next day)
Total – £3.46
DAY THREE
Chicken and chorizo stir-fry
Time to use up the leftover chicken and we added some chorizo so there was enough for everyone. I had a pepper that had been “whoopsed” in our local Tesco store and added carrots and and sweetcorn.
Soy sauce and Worcester sauce were combined to make the sauce.
There was also some left over apple crumble to help fill up the hollow legs. Chicken – £1.86
Chorizo – 74p
Noodles – 59p
Celery – 1p
Carrots – 4p
Pepper – 20p
Sweetcorn – 4p
Apple Crumble – 25p
Total – £3.73
DAY FOUR
Moussaka
The aubergine in the vegetable box inspired me to try a different recipe with disastrous outcomes. It helped to use up the potatoes and aubergine from the box, but was not a big favourite with the boys.
It didn’t stop them finishing off what was on their plates, but if I try it again I think I will stick more closely to the recipe and aubergines are definitely not everybody’s favourite vegetable. Mince – £3.39
Tin of tomatoes – 30p (money off coupon used)
Onion – 30p (money off coupon used)
Aubergines – 15p
Potatoes – 5p
Spices – 5p
Total – £4.24
DAY FIVE
Ham Egg and Chips
It pushed the budget up but we decided to have a a mid-week treat from the local chippy. The servings are always very generous and a large portion is more than enough for the four of us.
It was the most expensive meal of the week but is one of our favourite meals and the boiled ham is usually enough for two separate meals, and we use the stock it was cooked in to make soup.
Ham – £2.44
Egg – 86p
Chips – £3
Peas – 5p
Total – £6.35
DAY SIX
Ham risotto
Using the leftover ham from the day before to make another favourite. We normally add a seafood mix as well but wanted to keep the cost down after splashing out on chip shop chips the day before. The water that we cooked the gammon in makes a perfect stock for this dish, but it does need a lot of time and patience to prepare. The picture doesn’t do it any justice, but it was worth every moment and is both healthy and filling.
Ham – £2.44
Risotto rice – £1.10
Carrots – 5p
Celery – 1p
Tin of tomatoes – 30p (money off voucher used)
Peas – 3p
Sweetcorn – 3p
Spices and garlic – 3p
Total – £3.99
DAY SEVEN Meatballs
Ending off the week with meatballs and spaghetti. The meatballs are from
Lidl and come in a pack of 12. They are also produced in the UK which is another plus point.
We made the sauce ourselves (using tinned tomatoes, herbs and a beef stock cub) instead of a costly ready mix to save money. With plenty of pasta which only costs 35p a packet, this is enough to fill up the whole family. Meatballs – £1.85
Pepper – 20p
Tin of tomatoes – 30p
Onion – 20p
Spaghetti – 35p
Stock cube – 4p
Total – £2.94
TOTAL COST OF MAIN MEALS: £30.51
Other costs
This was only the main meals and left us with just under £10 for breakfast and lunch.
We spent £2.20 on two loaves of bread that made toast for the boys for breakfast and sandwiches at lunchtime, and wraps and tuna add 59p and 55p (money off thanks to the Lidl app).
Scrambled egg is another favourite lunchtime meal and that cost 86p. The rest of the stock from the ham made the basis for a soup that helped to use up some of the vegetables in the fridge, £1.50.
A lot of Weetabix is also eaten in the house. The box we have from Asda of 72 costs £6, meaning we spent 56p on the breakfast cereal during the week.
We go through a lot of milk every week as well and spent £4.16 on eight pints, that included a 20p discount with the Lidl app coupon.
Conclusion
Very nearly made it with a total overall spend of £40.93.
We struck lucky with the fruit and vegetable box, but it is subject to availability, and not always in stores.
You also have to be prepared to make the most of what you are given in the box. The oranges were the only item that we couldn’t make use of.
I would definitely try one again and the supermarket has some handy hints for what to do with the fruit and vegetables.
Also, if I hadn’t buckled over the chip shop chips, we could have brought the total bill under budget.
There were still some potatoes left from the vegetable box so they could have been used as an alternative.
It did make me think as I shopped and kept an eye out for items that had product prices reduced as it came to the end of the day in our local Tesco.
By keeping an eye on offers and using apps and store cards that offer you money off and making sure you keep track of what you are spending, and what coupons you have built up, it can help save on your weekly shop.
We definitely had enough to eat and the majority of it is healthy so, all in all, it was a good experiment to try – even if there was not much room for any treats or drinks in the budget.