When I decided to try feeding us on €50 for a week there were a number of ground rules I put in place – primarily that the meals should be varied, taste good and be nutritious, but also that there would be treats and it wouldn’t all be too much hassle.

Looking back on the week, how did it go and were those requirements met?

Overall I would say yes. I’ve put together some composite pictures of what we ate and glancing over them I don’t think it looks overly boring and while it was definitely cheap it doesn’t look “cheap and nasty”.

Breakfasts pretty much always involved eggs, which might bore some people. They were however tasty and filling – neither of us felt the need to snack before lunch or if we did were happy with a few peanuts.

Lunches were mostly salads or sandwiches, sometimes with sunflower bread, sometimes crisp bread. On other days lunch was reheated dinner leftovers, which is even in a normal week quite often the case.

Dinner was definitely the most time consuming meal to prepare, but then it always is. If I hadn’t cooked ahead before starting and frozen some mince mix and soup, it wouldn’t really have been practical to make most of these meals.

Every dinner was one we would happily eat again, so they passed the taste test.

Although I was hit by a longing for steak mid week, I don’t think this was a reflection of boring or uninteresting food. I can, and regularly do, go weeks without eating a steak or even thinking about one, I just became obsessed with steak because I couldn’t have it!

And there were treats.

The big bag of peanuts lasted the whole week and was a great source of snacks. A galia melon and a punnet of peaches provided fruit and, since these cost less than €2 in total, in retrospect I could have been more generous with the fruit. Or maybe just had more fudge!

The hardest part of eating on a low budget is definitely the amount of planning involved. I found myself obsessed with making sure I had enough for the rest of the week – counting mushrooms and hoarding little pieces of cheese is not my normal behaviour!

Given that the budget was actually underspent if I was doing this regularly I think I’d get a better feel for what food was needed, how to portion it out effectively over a week and how to add more expensive things in here and there. I’m certain that even steak would be a possibility now and then!

Most of the food, about 90%, came from Lidl. I had no issues at all with the quality of anything I bought there, not that I expected I would but since a lot of people still seem to harbour the idea that cheap good value food is bad food I think it’s worth mentioning.

I don’t doubt that with careful shopping you could do exactly the same thing from Aldi or, since they introduced their new prices, Tesco. I seriously doubt it could be done from Superquinn or Dunnes, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong.

Tags: €50 Challenge

Posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 11:42 am in €50 Challenge
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