Ecconomy Gastronomy

[charlottegrace1]

Did you see it last night, what did you think? I couldn't believe it was still costing them £130 a week to eat a chilli, cottage pie, bolognaise, maccaroni cheese , fried chicken and a beef roast dinner. As I keep banging on - I feed 5 adults on £70.00 a week, so maybe I could show the chefs a thing or two, they obviously don't shop at aldi, lidl and netto lol. Are there really people who just go shopping and buy things, get home and stand looking at it trying to decide what to do with it? As for going shopping without a list, I cann't remember my name somedays let alone 50 or 60 items from the shops. Next weeks family will be an experience as the spend ...
£17,000 a year
on shopping!

That equates to £326 per week, where are they shopping - Harrods or are they flying to Sainsburys in South of France each week and including the cost of the airfare in with that lol.

I think my O/H appreciates my money management a lot more after watching it, and actually so do I. I felt really quite "smug" that I can still beat them on the budget by £60 a week, probably a lot more cos I do buy everything from my £70.00, and theirs' was just food. Go me!

 

[cinderzxx]

Omg!!
Go you!! thats impressive!! I need some lessons lol!!! xx

 

[Busy_mam]

I didn't see it, but I know I can feed my family of 5 for £50 if I wish and needed to, I spend a lot more but I can keep to budget when times are tight, how much waste do these families have?

 

[HellieCopter]

I watched it from part way in.

I totally admire people who feed a family on realtively small amounts of money every week - and manage to do SW!! It takes thought, planning, care, restraint...it's fantastic. There are only two of us and we are lucky to have a relatively generous budget for shopping so I can indulge when OH fancies fancy stuff!

I think this programme wasn't about feeding the family on as little as possible, but to stick to a set budget, that was manageable for them, which was dramatically less than they were previously spending.
Sure, they could have slashed their food budget even further by buying the economy brands, shopping at Aldi/Lidl, scouring the reduced section...but I think they just wanted to get them the first step of changing their eating/cooking/shopping habits first. Once they're in the zone of that, they could go further with reducing their bills if they want/need to.
It was also about getting them to eat proper, fresh food - not microwave meals, less processed foods, real cooking, even baking! I quite liked that although 'eating healthy' wasn't shoved down their throats (pardon the pun!) it was a natural product of reducing the shopping bill.

 

[charlottegrace1]

I think this programme wasn't about feeding the family on as little as possible, but to stick to a set budget, that was manageable for them, which was dramatically less than they were previously spending.
Sure, they could have slashed their food budget even further by buying the economy brands, shopping at Aldi/Lidl, scouring the reduced section...but I think they just wanted to get them the first step of changing their eating/cooking/shopping habits first. Once they're in the zone of that, they could go further with reducing their bills if they want/need to.
It was also about getting them to eat proper, fresh food - not microwave meals, less processed foods, real cooking, even baking! I quite liked that although 'eating healthy' wasn't shoved down their throats (pardon the pun!) it was a natural product of reducing the shopping bill.[/QUOTE]

I agree with what your saying, I just thought £130 a week was a lot for the type of meals they were having, they were pretty basic. I would have liked to see them managing under "normal" circumstances as well, not when they are both off work and theres extra hands on deck. It was good to see them not eating ping meals and take a ways and getting in the kitchen with proper ingredients though and starting to grow their own.

 

[Littleslimmingbee]

When is this programm on hun? x

 

[aliflower]

Next weeks family will be an experience as the spend ...
£17,000 a year
on shopping!

That equates to £326 per week, where are they shopping - Harrods or are they flying to Sainsburys in South of France each week and including the cost of the airfare in with that lol.

Sounds like my boss!!

 

[aliflower]

When is this programm on hun? x

Normally is Weds 8pm on BBC2 but there is a repeat on BBC1 apparently late fri night/sat morning.

Edit: scratch that, repeat doesn't seem to kick in til the following week. looks like will have to be iplayer for anyone who missed last nights!

 

[Roz V]

Oh, I so liked the expression "PING" meals!!! I'm afraid we're a bit guilty of that, but only ones off the reduced counter, which we get at ridiculous prices - hardly covers the cost of the elaborate packaging I often think!

But we're VERY much more selective now since SW. We tend not to buy actual meals, just meat and fish eg tuna and salmon, that we can make SW friendly - Hubby's ALWAYS saying 'you can't have that, too much fat' and does his best to rein me in!

Thanks for making me laugh - hadn't heard that expression before!!!