What should it cost to feed a family for a week?

What should it cost to feed a family for a week?
Interesting article by Conor Pope in today's Irish Times.

One woman ... – [broken link removed], a 31-year-old mother of four – said she fed her children chicken nuggets, hot dogs and burgers because money was so tight.

“Three chicken fillets cost €7.50 and they’re not even big,” she said. “It’s cheaper to buy a packet of 10 chocolate bars for €1 than give them some healthy snacks. Two punnets of strawberries for a fiver, who can afford that?”

Click to expand...

Ray Darcy on TodayFM discussing this at the moment with suggestions.

We are a family of 4 with 2 kids under 12. We would do most of our shopping in Aldi or Lidl with some bits from supervalu and the butchers. Would spend on average 140 a week including all toiletries and all lunches for work/school.

Have noticed prices creeping up. My husband is a good cook and would cook most meals from scratch. Think there should be more emphasis in schools on preparing meals,meal plans and budgeting.

We could reduce our costs if we reduced our meat & fish intake if we had to.

Interesting and amusing. The original article was much discussed on boards.ie, with many comments on the expensive €7.50 3 chicken fillets and the poor nutritional processed nature of a lot of diets. There are people out there who eat a lot of convenience food and have inherited this trait and pass it on to their offspring. This is a major cause of obesity here. I think fresh food is not expensive in Ireland, there is plenty of competition between all the supermarkets. I don't have a family, but for my wife and I, food spending is not a big deal, €50 - €70 a week max. Its not that difficult to eat well at a reasonable cost.

While it is possible to eat healthily and relatively cheaply, it is difficult to make a change from one diet to another when there are children involved. A point made in the article that I think is a major stumbling block for a lot of less well off families is that there is no margin in the food budget - you don't have the luxury of trial and error - if you buy or make something new and your kids don't like it, there's no money for something else.

It's a tough one to change - I agree there really needs to be more education during school so that habits are changed before the next geberation is born - or at least future parents are aware of the issue.

It's a huge, deep rooted cultural issue in my opinion that will take significant effort and time to change.

On the 3 chicken fillets for €7.50. My butcher sells free-range chicken legs incl. thighs for €1 each and he'll skin, bone and dice them for you for no extra charge. Same amount of meat and in my opinion tastes better than dry fillets.

We are a family of 4, with 2 adult male children. Similar to fobs shopping practices, and most meals made from basics.
We spend €400 to €450 in the month on groceries including branded toiletries (no Tesco value, shudder). That includes the occasional bottle of wine, or nice M&S biscuits, so we're not stinting ourselves.

10,13 and 2 adults. We spend about 110-120 euro/week including toiletries.
We generally buy good quality ingredients and make our own meals.

We do a lot of shopping around to gather good ingredients.
We have a Tesco, Dunnes, SuperValu, and Lidl within walking distance (my wife walks a lot but perhaps other would not consider doing that much and would need to drive)
We sometimes buy non perishable food in bulk in N.Irl. as they have a wider choice on non processed foods and usually at better prices.

We have moved to a wholefood style diet and have have meat as a treat.
I don't feel hungry.

2 punnets of strawberries for €5. It's Autumn!! Who can afford to eat strawberries in Autumn? (or want to, tasteless)

Apples and pears are practically being given away now.

The argument that obesity is caused by junk food being so cheap doesn't fully wash with me. What are all the eastern Europeans eating? They're not fat but I doubt they're spending a fortune on groceries. I think it's more a cultural / educational issue where people are stuck in habits and don't know how or what to cook to break out of it. It's hard to figure out a whole new diet that tastes good especially if you are stuck for time and have other pressures in your life. Convenience food is exactly that - it's so convenient! Especially when it comes to the snacks. It is easier to just give a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps to a small child rather than wash / chop up fruit etc. There are plenty of people feeding their kids junk who could well afford something better for this reason.

The point about mobility and its impact on affording a healthy diet is quite interesting. I remember living for a time in a rather deprived area of Dublin and noticing the paucity of anything remotely healthy in the local shop, part of a convenience franchise - it was stocked with what seemed to me an unpalatable array of low quality "convenience" food with a heavy emphasis on stodge, salt and sugar. It also seemed to be the cheapest of processed foods at a premium price. "Fresh" fruit and veg was limited and looked wilted and unappetising, neglected in a corner. It was the first time I realised the luxury I enjoyed of choice in where I spent my money and realised that for some people, especially those with limited means of transport, they would be trapped in a chronic and depressing loop of such sustenance.

Im not sure that point is valid any more socrates. Lidl, and to a lesser extent Aldi have a policy of siting in areas of deprivition, and their fresh fruit and veg is cheap and good quality.

SarahMc said:

Im not sure that point is valid any more socrates. Lidl, and to a lesser extent Aldi have a policy of siting in areas of deprivition

Click to expand...

I have never heard of this before.

Any lack of stores in D4 / D6 / etc. is surely down to a lack of sites, or a lack of affordable sites?

Also, I think they have opened in Ranelagh?? And Terenure?

SarahMc said:

Im not sure that point is valid any more socrates. Lidl, and to a lesser extent Aldi have a policy of siting in areas of deprivition, and their fresh fruit and veg is cheap and good quality.

Click to expand...

No the point is still valid. The people I was looking at going into the shop truly had a very limited ability to transport themselves and food (the ones that struck me most were little old ladies who clearly had physical limitations with regards to mobility and would not necessarily have had the wherewithal to lift and carry much by way of shopping). Lidl et al have made a difference in Ireland, without a doubt, but I doubt that you can so blithely and emphatically state that they have fixed the problem. Even in large or medium population centres there will be people who struggle over what seems entirely surmountable distances to those of use with the time/money/transport to make them of no issue. What of those living out the country or in small villages? What of those living even a mile away from a Lidl - have you ever carried shopping bags a mile? There may be no public transport to speak of in an area, or none that will facilitate you travelling to a supermarket. For some people, generally poor, walking is a major part of their transport - they can only transport what they can carry so it becomes a trade-off between price, weight, distance and time (Don't forget the additional time it takes to walk a mile over driving it). What of young, generally poor mothers, who have no option but to walk and manage children? They cannot always afford to leave their child alone to go and get shopping. They cannot afford a transport option which will allow them to access shopping even in modest bulk. Lidl and Aldi's policy is not a panacaea - if such a policy exists.

We are a family of 5 with 3 kids under 7, One still in nappies. We shop in Lidl every week and the big shop would normally run between 100 and 110 including nappies wipes etc and we would spend about another 20 during the week on extra bread and milk.
We eat very well on it. I make almost everything from scratch. An example of what we eat would for dinners would be stews, shepards pie, pork chops with veg and potatoes, meatballs etc. All reasonably healthy meals. We always have a roast chicken or similar on sundays with all the trimmings. I could cut that bill by reducing the amount of meat we eat if needs be and having one or two veggie days nobodies ever died from eating beans on toast for supper!
With a bit of planning im pretty sure that you could have a pretty good diet for the same price as hotdogs chicken nuggets and burgers which are convenience foods so are nt the cheapest. I have never in my life bought 3 chicken breasts for 7.50 buy a full chicken and use the leftovers for sandwiches for supper. I bought a huge chicken in Lidl last week for 5.99 and we had it for dinner on Sunday and Monday. Buy tinned strawberries if u have to have strawberries. A small bit of common sense has to be used. Another sensationalist story i think.

Totally agree with aprilgirl99.

7 of us under out roof.
We spend around 120 a week on shopping.
A source of constant query with the bank when I fill in a SFS.
I remind them that if you leave out the junk, plan meals and be thrifty,
shopping money goes a long way.

With all the blah blah about 'cost of living expenses', what is the
amount anyone agrees on to feed an adult or child per week?

so-crates said:

No the point is still valid. The people I was looking at going into the shop truly had a very limited ability to transport themselves and food (the ones that struck me most were little old ladies who clearly had physical limitations with regards to mobility and would not necessarily have had the wherewithal to lift and carry much by way of shopping). Lidl et al have made a difference in Ireland, without a doubt, but I doubt that you can so blithely and emphatically state that they have fixed the problem. Even in large or medium population centres there will be people who struggle over what seems entirely surmountable distances to those of use with the time/money/transport to make them of no issue. What of those living out the country or in small villages? What of those living even a mile away from a Lidl - have you ever carried shopping bags a mile? There may be no public transport to speak of in an area, or none that will facilitate you travelling to a supermarket. For some people, generally poor, walking is a major part of their transport - they can only transport what they can carry so it becomes a trade-off between price, weight, distance and time (Don't forget the additional time it takes to walk a mile over driving it). What of young, generally poor mothers, who have no option but to walk and manage children? They cannot always afford to leave their child alone to go and get shopping. They cannot afford a transport option which will allow them to access shopping even in modest bulk. Lidl and Aldi's policy is not a panacaea - if such a policy exists.

Click to expand...

Eehhh, Tesco deliver.

The UK-based blog [broken link removed] is an excellent resource for anyone looking for budget recipes. Most of them are also fairly simple, making lots of use of tinned and frozen stuff, for example, so that even those not used to cooking might find the confidence to give it a go. I think [broken link removed], in particular, which has a link to a short video on the Guardian website gives a good insight into where she's coming from as well as a really, easy, really delicious dish. I've made it two or three times since I found it a few weeks ago.

I might think that there's more to food than just price and so prefer to buy lots of my veg, for example, from a couple of the organic farmers at my local farmers' market, which is definitely more expensive than a discount supermarket, but she has a lot of very valid points to make for those situations where you just don't have the luxury of buying anything but the cheapest of the cheap. For example, that a tin of kidney beans might not be as cheap as buying dried but if you don't have enough money to feed the electricity meter for a long time then the tin will cost less because you don't have to soak and then cook the beans for as long before using them. Or when the only way you have to shop is by walking, dragging your toddler along with you.

2 adults, 1 child.

We pay standing order of €23 a week (99 a month) to local CSA farm (community supported agriculture). For that we get in season veg every week, we get a beef share every two months (equiv. to two meat dinners every week). We get two litres of unpasteurised / unhomogenised raw milk every day. The veg is grown to organic standards. We know the cows and chickens, employ the farmer to grow the veg and raise the animals.

I go to the local centra for own-brand non perishables with are competitive with Lidl twice a month. We go to Lidl too and I always go to the meat counter where they have turkey breasts going for €2 euro because the use by date is coming up.

In August in total we spent €212.50 on groceries including the CSA outlay above. We cook meals using the hob and steamer for veg and have enough left over for lunch the following day.

The chances are good that most if not all the posters here are mobile enough (whether driving, walking or busing) to get to whatever shop they need and have an interest or at least an ability to cook.

It is certainly the case for my family. Yes we have the use of a car, but most of my shopping these days is picked up on the walk home from the crèche (with a 2, 6 and 8 yr old in tow) and thank god for the buggy because all that shopping is heavy.

I also see the knock on effect on my kids. They know what is a "treat" in the shops and they know when they see peppers going into the basket there is a good chance there will be a curry this week, carrots and onions its a stew and a whole chicken is a weeks feast, they start fighting over who's getting the left overs for school lunch before we leave the shop.

But we are incredibly lucky. I work part time and on my days off I cook for the freezer so on those manic days a lasagna, casserole etc comes out of the freezer. I learnt at my mothers cooker. I still use the same recipes and techniques I learnt from her years ago. And see the benefits in what we spend on a weekly basis.

However I have a good friend who is well educated and intelligent and has never cooked a chicken in her life, never mind knowing what to do with any of the cheaper cuts of meat but at least she has the money to buy what she needs.

If you combine a complete lack of food knowledge with a shortage of money where do you find a solution, never mind mixing in a child's complete refusal to try something different.

And to purple who suggests Tesco deliver, that's assuming Tesco is close to you and/or you have either the ability or money to be online!