The Mission Statement
I find myself in a unique position, my girlfriend has moved out, and for the first time in years I am the master of my own nutrition. I am a bad man who, prior to now, have had the majority of my meals cooked for me, and so I’ve never had to think too hard about what and how much food to buy as long as there was enough for two.
More interestingly, and with my blessing, the girlfriend has taken most of the contents of the larder, on the grounds that she was more likely to eat it than I was.
I have been left with a larder that looks like this:
A fridge that looks like this:
And a freezer that looks like this:
I have no food. A mixed collection of random seasonings, odd half-used pots and other odds and ends, but nothing here that makes a meal. This seems like a great opportunity to see just how cheaply one man by himself can eat for one month.
I’ll set myself some basic rules:
- I’m allowed to eat anything I’ve currently got in my cupboards as part of my meals without it being included in my monetary total. Don’t worry, there isn’t much.
- Other grocery shopping isn’t included in any money totals. This blog is all about the cost of food. I’m not buying ‘Tesco Value’ shower gel or ‘Sainsburys Basics’ Arse Scratching Loo roll. Some standards must be maintained.
- If someone else buys me food or otherwise feeds me, I will give an estimation of what it has cost and add it to my total. In other words I can’t cheat by scrounging off my mates all month, which is just as well because I doubt I’d get more than one meal out of any of them, the miserly shits.
- I must have variation. This means I can’t buy 30 x 9p tins of beans for £2.70 and eat that for 2 weeks. Bleugh. I’ll have to get creative to avoid eating the same meals over and over.
We start on July 1st, I hope you’ll follow my progress and offer me advice on how to prepare and eat cheap meals with maximum nourishment. My target for the month is anything less than about £75, which will give me about £2.40 a day to spend on lovely food and seems more than achievable on paper.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Is this dinner, or breakfast, lunch and dinner, or what?
June 25th, 2008 at 12:22 am
All meals, all food, drink, whatever, for one month.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:10 am
£2 a day, huh? Plan every meal ahead. Keep snacks down to things like tinned fruit and crackers.
Also, I see a cat bowl. Cats hunt, right?
If not, eat the cat.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Good luck! I reckon tinned tomatoes, cheap mince meat/tuna and a few choice herbs and spices, plus pasta = plenty of cheap meals.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Also, stew. Cheap meat and veggies in a pan with some stock.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
You poor bugger
Why are you putting youself through this voluntarily???
I feel like sending you a red cross food parcel!
June 25th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Where you shop should influence your cost a great deal. Baking your own breads might be a good idea. Flour is fairly cheap. The soups and stews are good ideas also.
Good luck!
June 25th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Hmmm.. I shall be watching this closely as I have become a Fat Boy after giving up smoking. I like the idea of sticking to a budget while hetting slimmer! (Voluntarily or not!)
June 25th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Good Luck!
Should be an interesting month.
I’m hoping that over the course of the month you get carried away, resorting to more extreme methods of eating cheaply.
Looking forward to the “got in a fight with a hobo over a thrown away half eaten Big Mac” post.
June 25th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Fantastic. As Ireland is now careening towards another Recession, we’ll all be eating like this soon. I ‘ll follow your progress with interest!
June 26th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
porridge is your friend. big cheap bag of oats from asda, will probably sort out yr breakfast for the duration. filling, healthy and a budgetarian’s dream.
June 28th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
it was mentioned that you’ll be keeping some standards, referencing tesco value shower gel and sainsburys basics loo roll. Is your £75/ month budget only for food? Meaning you can spend as much as you want on non-food items. I highly reccomend staying away from sainsburys basic loo roll… I speak from experience. The food in their basics range is brilliant though. Tinned rice pudding for 19p a can. Bag of 20 frozen sausages for 91p.
Good luck!
June 29th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Here’s one of my favourite poverty recipes - Tomato & Chickpea Soup. 1 tin chickpeas (drained), 1 tin chopped tomatoes, 750m stock (veggie or chicken are good, beef is OK), a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, a little rosemary/chilli/ground coriander (depending on taste and what you’ve been left with) and (if possible) a few tablespoons of olive oil. Simmer in a pan for 15 minutes and either serve chunky or blend then serve. It’s fabulous. It’s easy It’s cheap. It freezes well. Everyone always asks for the recipe.
June 29th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Homemade pancakes, both thin crepes and thicker drop-scones/scotch pancakes are very cheap. When combined with tinned fruit, jam, melted chocolate (Betterbuy of course!) or pretty much anything else, they are are a filling dessert or breakfast, plus the batter can keep in the fridge!
July 6th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
If you want to branch out into the realm of puddings, Iceland do 10 choc ices for a quid!!!!
Remeber, a choch ice a day will help you work, rest, and play
July 25th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Interesting reading, I have copied Clare’s Soup, sounds like one my friend does but with chunks of potatoe (par boiled but finished off in the soup) will be trying it tomorrow i think, thanks for that.
Only a few more days to go eh? have you tried pasta, tin toms, chopped hotdogs (or saugages) it was one of the cheap meals i used to make.