Budget Food Shopping Sorted
There’s been a lot of fuss in the news recently about the terrible quality of budget food boxes being sent out to kids who are eligible for free school meals and I wondered, if it were me shopping, what would I buy for one person on a very tight budget?
Now I’ll caveat this with that I didn’t spend hours working out the nutritional value or meal planning, but I put a variety of whole, healthy foods in my online basket, choosing the most affordable options, until I reached around £15.
This is what I came up with in Tesco, and I’m aware other supermarkets might be even cheaper:
- 2 baking potatoes 50p
- 1kg oats 75p
- 6 yoghurts 79p
- large seeded loaf 79p
- 2 x 400g cans baked beans 44p
- 1 litre milk £1.09
- 2 x 145g cans tuna, £1.18
- whole medium chicken £2.95
- 500g whole wheat pasta 53p
- 6 eggs 70p
- 1kg frozen peas 66p
- 1 kg frozen berries £2.39
- carrots, 1.5kg, 53p
- 6 apples 93p
Total £15.35 , not bad eh?
No there’s no treats or snacks, or things you might already have like cooking oils, ketchup, orange squash etc, but this was to see how much I could get of basics to make simple meals with, not fancy extras. It’s for seriously low budgets.
Honestly I don’t personally shop like this and I’m so very thankful I don’t have to. But if I did have to, I don’t think I’d struggle too hard to put together healthy meals.
What I did have to do was think very carefully about what was important and what wasn’t, get a balance of each food groups with no fancy extras, and take time to scroll for the cheaper versions.
(Read this next: 8 tips to finding cheap protein foods)
It took me about 10 minutes. I guess it can be done?
I’ve you’ve got tips yourself on shopping on a low budget I’d love to hear them. I get people from all economic backgrounds coming to me for help and I try and help every single person, even though I’ve neither been super poor or super rich myself – everyone needs support sometimes. Share them in my group here.
p.s. Morrisons have put together a school box that’s got way more food in than you’d think for £15, maybe they add them at wholesale price? Who knows, anyway you can order it even if you don’t get free meals, you just have to pay for it instead. https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/full-list-what-included-morrisons-19750228