I’m often quoted as saying I spend around £10 a week on my food shopping for me and Small Boy, which is usually met with a mixture of disbelief and shock, and a quick roving eye over my thin but soft-around-the-edges figure.
The latest example of this was when I set up my business account for Bread And Jam, and the bank manager wanted some insight into my spending habits. “£10 a WEEK?” he said. “HOW?”
It’s a question i’m asked a lot, so I thought I’d share the ‘how’. It’s a skill born out of necessity, from the darkest says when I had no money and was choosing to eat a little while I delayed rent payments in the summer just gone. I’m glad to say that my circumstances have improved slightly since then, and while I’m able to pay my rent these days and feed myself, I still haven’t managed to spend much more in the supermarket. You get used to picking up the orange and white labels instead of the Organic range of old, rooting around in the reduced chiller, picking up the smallest vegetables in the crate and questioning every purchase. Even a jar of peanut butter, at 62 pence, feels like an indulgence, because I know I’ll snack on it straight out of the jar with a spoon.
Typical Weekly Shopping list (all items are Sainsburys Basics, or own brand where the Basics range is unavailable). Prices may vary, as the Sainsbury’s Basics range fluctuates all of the time, but these were correct as of yesterday’s food shop.)
Wholemeal bread: 50p
Peanut butter: 62p (lasts 2 weeks at 31p/week)
Frozen berry mix: £1.29 (lasts 2 weeks at 65p/week)
Mixed fruit jam: 29p (lasts 2 weeks at 15p/week)
80 Teabags: 27p. (lasts a month at 7p/week)
Veg stock: 10p
Natural yoghurt: 55p
2 cans Chopped tomatoes: 31p each
3 cans kidney beans: 18p each
Bag of 5 Apples: 82p
Unsweetened soya drink: 59p
2 cans tomato soup: 24p each
Lard: 49p (lasts a month at 12p/week)
6 fromage frais: 39p
Courgette: 48p
Tomato purée: 29p
Bag of 4 lemons: 79p
Spaghetti: 39p (lasts 2 weeks at 20p/week)
Sweet potato: 30p
Rice: 40p (lasts 4 weeks at 10p/week)
Paprika: 95p (lasts 3 months at 7p/week)
Carrot and broccoli mix: 75p
Bag of carrots: 89p (lasts 2 weeks at 45p/week)
So there you have it, at about £8.91 for a weekly shop. I’m assisted by a chilli plant that sits on my window sill, and it’s neighbouring thyme and rosemary plants and home grown garlic.
So what does that get a hungry columnist and a growing toddler? Well, i’ll tell you this weeks menu as an idea, but it varies week to week.
Breakfast tends to be either toast with peanut butter, toast with jam, or a bowl of yoghurt with mixed defrosted berries, and a much needed cup of tea. With 80 tea bags in a box for 24 pence, you can have as much of the stuff as you like.
Lunch is usually tomato soup with bread and an apple, or home made carrot and cumin soup, or if we didn’t have bread for breakfast, a PBJ sandwich with an apple, and a fromage frais for Small Boy- I don’t really care for them myself but he’s been known to help himself to them from the fridge, so I daresay he’s a fan.
Dinner is typically either a home made bean chilli with rice, batch cooked and frozen, or pasta with lemon, courgette, and broccoli, or bean goulash with rice, or pasta with home made tomato sauce and broccoli, or a sweet potato beanie bake with added veg and rice. All recipes can be found on http://www.agirlcalledjack.com
It’s not the same every week – because that would be boring; I’ve also got recipes for avgolemono soup, mushroom chasseur, bourginon, white bean and tomato soup, mushroom chateaubriand with chunky chips… – but I thought I’d finally answer the often-asked ‘how’ and prove that you can eat very well, without having to spend a fortune. And between the berries, the apples, the carrot soup, and the veg with dinner, Small Boy and I still manage to get our recommended five portions of fruit and veg a day.
Last week a friend of mine went on holiday and donated the perishable contents of her fridge to my kitchen, which was a very welcome change! Parma ham, artichokes and a tiny black truffle reminded me of how I used to eat back in the days before my personal financial recession. It was a short-lived risotto that I rustled up out of that lot – still with Sainsburys Basics mushrooms, stock and rice as a base – but a delicious one! And i’m not so committed to my peasant food diet that I’ll turn down the opportunity to be taken out for dinner and proper coffee and cheesecake, instead of bean goulash once in a while… But all in all, I’m quite content with home made chilli, spicy winter soups and copious cups of tea, for less than ten pounds a week… And for the record, Small Boy is a bit pudgy round the edges too, so hardly starving.