Feeding a family on a budget
Replies
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »Buy whole roaster chickens on sale. One chicken will serve you 3 times over. You can eat dinner, use leftover shredded meat for another meal, and then freeze the bones to make homemade chicken stock for soup - just add water, celery, carrots, onions, garlic, salt & pepper, bay leaf and some white cooking wine...so easy, cheap, nutritious and yummy!
Whole chickens are not really that cheap in the UK, and you'll spend tons on electricity or gas to cook it. I think if money is an issue then TO should also take cost of preparing the food into account.
when we are talking about roaster chickens, they usually come precooked-rotesserie chickens. and then they do not need to spend "a ton" of money cooking them
Ah ok. Never seen anything like it in the UK. Ok, you have lots of Chicken shops, basically fastfood shops selling all sorts of chicken things, and while they are very cheap they are not cheap in comparison to shopping at Aldi (Lidl is slight more expensive overall) and cooking fresh food. The cheapest chicken is probably an uncooked one from Aldi for about 4.50 GBP. Amount wise, with bread and for example tzatziki it's enough for two for two days.
the grocery stores often have rotisserie chickens
And it's often a loss leader item in U.S. grocery stores -- sold very cheaply just to get you in the door, in hopes you'll buy other stuff. When they're on sale, they're often cheaper than a raw roasting chicken, although they generally aren't as plump as a raw roaster.
Right, I just get rotisserie chickens when they are on sale as they are small.0 -
OP needs to find food that fits their budget that their family will like not necessarily the cheapest food in the whole country. My experience with picky eaters is they don't like sudden drastic dietary changes so OP might want to consider lower cost foods that her family already eats in some form to begin with. Having a tight budget is already stressful and maybe you don't want every day to be a battle to get your family to eat.
Low budget friendly foods where I live are things like oatmeal, farina, tuna, whole chicken or chicken thighs, dry beans, lentils, rice, pasta, bread, peanut butter, eggs, potatoes, carrots, apples, ground turkey, less lean ground beef, cabbage, onions, canned vegetables and fruits, frozen vegetables, flour, and milk.
Meatless meals can be cheaper. Scrambled eggs, pancakes, lentil soup, beans and rice, pasta with vegetable sauce or cheese sauce, baked oatmeal, grilled cheese sandwiches, baked potatoes, cheesey broccoli and rice casserole, cheese pizza are some ideas.
Buying foods whole and skinning, cutting, shredding it yourself is usually cheaper. Buying foods in larger container can be cheaper per serving than buying individual packaged foods.
Cutting up meat and putting it in a stir fry, casserole, salads, soup or stew can be more economical than serving a slab of meat per person. If your family will eat mixed dishes look at those kind of recipes. If you get a whole chicken take all the meat off the bones right away and divide it for use in 3-4 dishes instead of carving it up for 1 meal.
Buying store brands or generic is usually a lot cheaper than name brand items if you are doing packaged foods.
Looking at store ads or basing meal plans on foods that are likely to be discounted can be helpful.2 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »Buy whole roaster chickens on sale. One chicken will serve you 3 times over. You can eat dinner, use leftover shredded meat for another meal, and then freeze the bones to make homemade chicken stock for soup - just add water, celery, carrots, onions, garlic, salt & pepper, bay leaf and some white cooking wine...so easy, cheap, nutritious and yummy!
Whole chickens are not really that cheap in the UK, and you'll spend tons on electricity or gas to cook it. I think if money is an issue then TO should also take cost of preparing the food into account.
when we are talking about roaster chickens, they usually come precooked-rotesserie chickens. and then they do not need to spend "a ton" of money cooking them
Ah ok. Never seen anything like it in the UK. Ok, you have lots of Chicken shops, basically fastfood shops selling all sorts of chicken things, and while they are very cheap they are not cheap in comparison to shopping at Aldi (Lidl is slight more expensive overall) and cooking fresh food. The cheapest chicken is probably an uncooked one from Aldi for about 4.50 GBP. Amount wise, with bread and for example tzatziki it's enough for two for two days.
the grocery stores often have rotisserie chickens
I stand corrected: it does exist: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/sainsburys-roast-whole-chicken-(approx-900g---1100g)
But it's not very cheap. Ok, it states it's 900gr (2lbs). but that's of course with bones. I'd guess this would last a family of 4 about a dinner. Thus this is a lot of money for something that is not really worth it.
But you also said that the energy for cooking a raw chicken at home would cost "a ton." Perhaps you can do the math and get back to us on which is the better option?
And do we have some reason for believing the OP, who hasn't been back, is in the U.K.?
ETA: sorry about the tone of the first paragraph -- I was trying for something less snarky than "instead of criticizing other people's ideas, maybe you could offer one of your own," but I think I really missed the boat. Is your point that in the U.K., no form of chicken -- raw or cooked -- is budget-conscious, given energy costs?
exactly! You can buy pasta for about 0.25 per 500gr. Tin of tomatoes for about 0.30ish, net of onions for 0.80 and use the rest for whatever you cook in the next days. Few tines of tuna or mince are very cheap. Even a pack of four breaded fishs, oven fries (few minutes cooking) and tinned mushy peas are cheater if you really want to go down that route. Rice, tinned corn, tinned beans, whatever veggie is in season and cheap and again cheap mince is again cheaper than a bird.
You could easily feed a family of 4 on less than a chicken, and don''t use tons of gas or electricity. Plus such a rotisserie chicken needs to be warmed up (cold dinner isn't really a thing). Does TO have a microwave? If not, then warming up such a thing in the oven will again take quite a while.1 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Buy whole roaster chickens on sale. One chicken will serve you 3 times over. You can eat dinner, use leftover shredded meat for another meal, and then freeze the bones to make homemade chicken stock for soup - just add water, celery, carrots, onions, garlic, salt & pepper, bay leaf and some white cooking wine...so easy, cheap, nutritious and yummy!
Whole chickens are not really that cheap in the UK, and you'll spend tons on electricity or gas to cook it. I think if money is an issue then TO should also take cost of preparing the food into account.
Whole chickens are the cheapest meat here in the US - is that not true in the UK?
A 5 pound spatchcocked chicken cooks in only 50 minutes at 425 degrees F.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10706093/spatchcocked-chicken-where-have-you-been-all-my-life
You can't get such big birds here, but using an oven for 50 minutes will be fairly cost effective if using convection (ugh, on a bird?) but cost about 0.60 for a grill function, and possibly more if TO is on prepaid electricity.0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Buy whole roaster chickens on sale. One chicken will serve you 3 times over. You can eat dinner, use leftover shredded meat for another meal, and then freeze the bones to make homemade chicken stock for soup - just add water, celery, carrots, onions, garlic, salt & pepper, bay leaf and some white cooking wine...so easy, cheap, nutritious and yummy!
Whole chickens are not really that cheap in the UK, and you'll spend tons on electricity or gas to cook it. I think if money is an issue then TO should also take cost of preparing the food into account.
Whole chickens are the cheapest meat here in the US - is that not true in the UK?
A 5 pound spatchcocked chicken cooks in only 50 minutes at 425 degrees F.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10706093/spatchcocked-chicken-where-have-you-been-all-my-life
You can't get such big birds here, but using an oven for 50 minutes will be fairly cost effective if using convection (ugh, on a bird?) but cost about 0.60 for a grill function, and possibly more if TO is on prepaid electricity.
I'm really curious about this, because living in the U.S, I spend less money cooking raw chicken by saving the juice/fat to cook other things, and the bones to make stock (also a good reason to save vegetable scraps) . I freeze the stock, which means I dont have to purchase store brands.
It is still not cost effective that way in the UK?1 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Buy whole roaster chickens on sale. One chicken will serve you 3 times over. You can eat dinner, use leftover shredded meat for another meal, and then freeze the bones to make homemade chicken stock for soup - just add water, celery, carrots, onions, garlic, salt & pepper, bay leaf and some white cooking wine...so easy, cheap, nutritious and yummy!
Whole chickens are not really that cheap in the UK, and you'll spend tons on electricity or gas to cook it. I think if money is an issue then TO should also take cost of preparing the food into account.
Whole chickens are the cheapest meat here in the US - is that not true in the UK?
A 5 pound spatchcocked chicken cooks in only 50 minutes at 425 degrees F.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10706093/spatchcocked-chicken-where-have-you-been-all-my-life
You can't get such big birds here, but using an oven for 50 minutes will be fairly cost effective if using convection (ugh, on a bird?) but cost about 0.60 for a grill function, and possibly more if TO is on prepaid electricity.
I'm really curious about this, because living in the U.S, I spend less money cooking raw chicken by saving the juice/fat to cook other things, and the bones to make stock (also a good reason to save vegetable scraps) . I freeze the stock, which means I dont have to purchase store brands.
It is still not cost effective that way in the UK?
Well, if you make stock then you have to cook the bones for quite a while. Which again costs a lot of electricity/gas. Both are fairly expensive in the UK, and people that don't have a lot of money are often on top-up meters, for which electricity/gas is more expensive. So you basically go to a shop/post office with a key, pay money, that money gets put on that key, you put it in your meter. The biggest utility cost in UK households is gas/electricity as most buildings are of such rubbish quality that the heat just escapes through the walls as soon as you switch the heating off. So heating bills will probably be rather high already. Spending more money on extensive cooking is not something I would chose (well, I didn't chose it when I lived on £1200/month including half for rent without any utilities for a 38m^2 flat). Stock blocks on the other hand cost a few pence. And you don't know if TO has a freezer. Many rental properties don't have a freezer but only a small under worktop fridge.0 -
What about slow cookers or crock pots - they are more energy efficient when cooking, right? Plus, you get to keep all the juices (after fishing out the bones) which makes it easy to toss in some rice or pasta at the end of the cooking to stretch the meal.0
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I don't think I could make a budget for $10 a week per person of prepared foods that don't need to be refrigerated, frozen, heated or cooked, but I have some fairly cheap options that do need cooking. I'm a little short of money for January so I'm trying to eat up whatever I have in the cupboard/freezer and make cheaper meals. Go through your cupboards, see what you have on hand and plan some meals with those ingredients.
I like this lentil/rice recipe, but I omit the pine nuts and use whatever variety onions, rice and lentils I have on hand for cost purposes. I already have the spices in my cupboard https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/lebanese-lentils-rice-and-caramelized-onions-mujadara-recipe-1925439
For breakfast, I like oatmeal and/or eggs and/or toast. All are cheap and easy to make, as are things like pancakes, waffles and muffins. I'm gluten free so I bake my own bread when I'm on a strict budget since buying gf bread is insanely expensive and I have a good variety of gf flours/starches in my freezer. If you aren't gf, all you need is some flour, yeast, salt and oil. You can make pizza crust and rolls out of the same ingredients.
For lunch, I can easily bake a loaf of bread with ingredients I have on hand. Tuna or peanut butter make decent sandwiches and are relatively inexpensive. And I can make some soup and chili with dried legumes and whatever vegetables I can get on sale.
Where I live, frozen spinach, fresh cabbage, carrots, celery, romaine lettuce and onions are the cheapest vegetables so I use a lot of those when cutting costs. The aforementioned rotisserie chicken (or a whole raw chicken cooked in the crockpot) is the most versatile meat item for the least cost, but you may be able to find better options depending on what's on sale. I know pork is quite cheap here, but I never buy it. I would never think to eat an entire piece of chicken when cutting costs, but I put small amounts of chicken in other recipes, use the fat for flavoring, and make stock out of the bones with some vegetable scraps to further stretch those food dollars. The stock I make has nutrients in it; a bouillon cube does not.
From a chicken, I can make white bean chicken chili, chicken and shredded cabbage "eggroll" stirfry, chicken and noodles, chicken and dumplings, chicken stew or soup, etc. I can throw together some sort of rice/spinach/chicken casserole. Pasta and tinned tomatoes are usually cheap and can be used to make a filling meal.
Apples and bananas are always cheap where I live. From apples, I can make apple sauce, apple crisp, apple pie and baked apples.
Check what's on sale at stores near you each week. It will probably be cheapest to go to several different stores. For example, I can get 4 lbs of onions for 99 cents this week at one store (1/4 their usual price) and mandarins for $1 per lb at another nearby store so I'll be going to both stores.1 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »Buy whole roaster chickens on sale. One chicken will serve you 3 times over. You can eat dinner, use leftover shredded meat for another meal, and then freeze the bones to make homemade chicken stock for soup - just add water, celery, carrots, onions, garlic, salt & pepper, bay leaf and some white cooking wine...so easy, cheap, nutritious and yummy!
Whole chickens are not really that cheap in the UK, and you'll spend tons on electricity or gas to cook it. I think if money is an issue then TO should also take cost of preparing the food into account.
when we are talking about roaster chickens, they usually come precooked-rotesserie chickens. and then they do not need to spend "a ton" of money cooking them
Ah ok. Never seen anything like it in the UK. Ok, you have lots of Chicken shops, basically fastfood shops selling all sorts of chicken things, and while they are very cheap they are not cheap in comparison to shopping at Aldi (Lidl is slight more expensive overall) and cooking fresh food. The cheapest chicken is probably an uncooked one from Aldi for about 4.50 GBP. Amount wise, with bread and for example tzatziki it's enough for two for two days.
the grocery stores often have rotisserie chickens
I stand corrected: it does exist: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/sainsburys-roast-whole-chicken-(approx-900g---1100g)
But it's not very cheap. Ok, it states it's 900gr (2lbs). but that's of course with bones. I'd guess this would last a family of 4 about a dinner. Thus this is a lot of money for something that is not really worth it.
But you also said that the energy for cooking a raw chicken at home would cost "a ton." Perhaps you can do the math and get back to us on which is the better option?
And do we have some reason for believing the OP, who hasn't been back, is in the U.K.?
ETA: sorry about the tone of the first paragraph -- I was trying for something less snarky than "instead of criticizing other people's ideas, maybe you could offer one of your own," but I think I really missed the boat. Is your point that in the U.K., no form of chicken -- raw or cooked -- is budget-conscious, given energy costs?
You could easily feed a family of 4 on less than a chicken, and don''t use tons of gas or electricity. Plus such a rotisserie chicken needs to be warmed up (cold dinner isn't really a thing). Does TO have a microwave? If not, then warming up such a thing in the oven will again take quite a while.
I've lived in Scotland for most of my life. Rotisserie chickens are often sold hot in places like Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and even if not, I know many people who have a cold dinner sometimes (myself included).
However I do agree that as far as meat goes, there are cheaper options.1 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Buy whole roaster chickens on sale. One chicken will serve you 3 times over. You can eat dinner, use leftover shredded meat for another meal, and then freeze the bones to make homemade chicken stock for soup - just add water, celery, carrots, onions, garlic, salt & pepper, bay leaf and some white cooking wine...so easy, cheap, nutritious and yummy!
Whole chickens are not really that cheap in the UK, and you'll spend tons on electricity or gas to cook it. I think if money is an issue then TO should also take cost of preparing the food into account.
Whole chickens are the cheapest meat here in the US - is that not true in the UK?
A 5 pound spatchcocked chicken cooks in only 50 minutes at 425 degrees F.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10706093/spatchcocked-chicken-where-have-you-been-all-my-life
You can't get such big birds here, but using an oven for 50 minutes will be fairly cost effective if using convection (ugh, on a bird?) but cost about 0.60 for a grill function, and possibly more if TO is on prepaid electricity.
I'm really curious about this, because living in the U.S, I spend less money cooking raw chicken by saving the juice/fat to cook other things, and the bones to make stock (also a good reason to save vegetable scraps) . I freeze the stock, which means I dont have to purchase store brands.
It is still not cost effective that way in the UK?
Well, if you make stock then you have to cook the bones for quite a while. Which again costs a lot of electricity/gas. Both are fairly expensive in the UK, and people that don't have a lot of money are often on top-up meters, for which electricity/gas is more expensive. So you basically go to a shop/post office with a key, pay money, that money gets put on that key, you put it in your meter. The biggest utility cost in UK households is gas/electricity as most buildings are of such rubbish quality that the heat just escapes through the walls as soon as you switch the heating off. So heating bills will probably be rather high already. Spending more money on extensive cooking is not something I would chose (well, I didn't chose it when I lived on £1200/month including half for rent without any utilities for a 38m^2 flat). Stock blocks on the other hand cost a few pence. And you don't know if TO has a freezer. Many rental properties don't have a freezer but only a small under worktop fridge.
I puzzled over "stock blocks" for a bit. Is it a small cube (roughly the size of a die) of salt, herbs, spices, and flavor (beef flavor, chicken flavor, etc.)? We call those bouillon cubes in the U.S.
I mentally collect words that are different in different English-speaking countries, especially food terms (eggplant/aubergine, ground meat/mince, etc.).0 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »Buy whole roaster chickens on sale. One chicken will serve you 3 times over. You can eat dinner, use leftover shredded meat for another meal, and then freeze the bones to make homemade chicken stock for soup - just add water, celery, carrots, onions, garlic, salt & pepper, bay leaf and some white cooking wine...so easy, cheap, nutritious and yummy!
Whole chickens are not really that cheap in the UK, and you'll spend tons on electricity or gas to cook it. I think if money is an issue then TO should also take cost of preparing the food into account.
Whole chickens are the cheapest meat here in the US - is that not true in the UK?
A 5 pound spatchcocked chicken cooks in only 50 minutes at 425 degrees F.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10706093/spatchcocked-chicken-where-have-you-been-all-my-life
You can't get such big birds here, but using an oven for 50 minutes will be fairly cost effective if using convection (ugh, on a bird?) but cost about 0.60 for a grill function, and possibly more if TO is on prepaid electricity.
I'm really curious about this, because living in the U.S, I spend less money cooking raw chicken by saving the juice/fat to cook other things, and the bones to make stock (also a good reason to save vegetable scraps) . I freeze the stock, which means I dont have to purchase store brands.
It is still not cost effective that way in the UK?
Well, if you make stock then you have to cook the bones for quite a while. Which again costs a lot of electricity/gas. Both are fairly expensive in the UK, and people that don't have a lot of money are often on top-up meters, for which electricity/gas is more expensive. So you basically go to a shop/post office with a key, pay money, that money gets put on that key, you put it in your meter. The biggest utility cost in UK households is gas/electricity as most buildings are of such rubbish quality that the heat just escapes through the walls as soon as you switch the heating off. So heating bills will probably be rather high already. Spending more money on extensive cooking is not something I would chose (well, I didn't chose it when I lived on £1200/month including half for rent without any utilities for a 38m^2 flat). Stock blocks on the other hand cost a few pence. And you don't know if TO has a freezer. Many rental properties don't have a freezer but only a small under worktop fridge.
I puzzled over "stock blocks" for a bit. Is it a small cube (roughly the size of a die) of salt, herbs, spices, and flavor (beef flavor, chicken flavor, etc.)? We call those bouillon cubes in the U.S.
I mentally collect words that are different in different English-speaking countries, especially food terms (eggplant/aubergine, ground meat/mince, etc.).
Haha! Then add freestyle as I’m not British, trying to get back into Dutch and feeling bored learning Norwegian confusion 😁2
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