Eating cheaply
If I were low on funds, I wondered what a week’s food might cost me in Britain if I decided to go cheap. A bag of plain flour and a tub of margarine or lard would make many pies or quiche bases. One egg per quiche and about a third of a pint of milk. Cheapest cheddar cheese to line it and chopped inexpensive vegetables. Bananas are a cheap fruit source, and a small wholemeal loaf would do sandwiches for breakfast. If I cooked for myself, how cheaply might I eat?
I did a realistic breakdown for that kind of limited, self-catering week, based on typical prices at the cheaper end of British supermarkets in Aldi, Lidl, or supermarket ‘value’ ranges.
Store-cupboard basics, bought in bulk, so only partly used during the week, would include plain flour, 1.5kg bag: about £0.75, and I’d use maybe a third of it on pastry. Margarine or lard, would be a 500g tub for about £1.20, again, only part used. Prorated cost for the week: roughly £0.80–£1.00
I’d buy six eggs for about £1.20, using one per quiche, maybe some for breakfast, scrambling on toast. Perhaps 2 pints of milk, about £1.40-£1.50, would covers my quiche milk. The cheapest cheddar, maybe a 400g block: about £2.50, would line several quiches, with extra for sandwiches.
Vegetables could be onions, carrots, or a bag of frozen mixed veg, maybe £1.50-£2.00. Seven bananas might be about £1.50. A small wholemeal loaf for breakfast sandwiches through the week): about £0.90. A bag of porage oats for alternate breakfasts might be about £1-£1.50.
The total for the week might be roughly £10–£13, and this assumes I already have salt, pepper, and maybe a little oil, a negligible per-week cost once bought.
Buying flour and fat in bulk means my first week costs a little more, perhaps closer to £13-£14, but every week after that it drops toward the lower end, since I’m not rebuying the base bag each time.
Frozen vegetables are often cheaper per portion than fresh ones, once I account for waste; and they keep, which suits this kind of batch approach.
The quiche-and-pie strategy is an efficient one because flour and fat are among the cheapest calorie sources going, while eggs, cheese and milk give me my protein, and vegetables fill it out. It's not going to be an exciting week nutritionally, but it provides carbs and fats, protein and micronutrients, and it's a sound structure for eating properly on very little.
I might push the figure down further, swapping some bananas for whatever fruit is on a yellow-sticker reduction, or using tinned tomatoes as a base for the veg element, would probably shave another pound or two off. In the pies I might cook discounted chopped up chicken thighs.
This assumes some cooking ability, but a quick look online will teach you to make pastry and how to cook quiches. And of course, when cooking for more than one, you multiply up.
I suppose the point of this exercise is to show that one can eat healthily and cheaply, given a few basic cooking skills. We don’t need price caps on food; we need to teach people home cooking.
Madsen Pirie