£80 Feeds 5 Challenge

We are now 3 weeks on in our £80 feeds 5 challenge and it seems like a good time to assess how we are managing.

I have managed my money by keeping my weekly budget of £80 cash in a separate 'housekeeping' purse; along with my shopping list and weekly meal plan. This has helped me to keep a track of my spending and panic accordingly as I see it rapidly disappear!

Shopping locally and food provenance is of immense importance to our family and we have had to make quite a few changes to the meals that we eat in order to maintain these values and keep within budget. But it has been possible!

We have at least one (sometimes two) soup nights each week and soups for lunch. Some of the lunch time soups are actually just 'blends'. The leftovers from the previous nights meal blended with stock and perhaps a bit of extra leek or carrot. This works particularly well with creamy gratins, cauliflower cheese or roasted vegetables.

We buy our meat from our local Butcher and Farmers Market and so don't take advantage of supermarket deals. To accommodate this we have had to reduce the quantity that we buy and now use it more as a 'flavour' than a main component. Things like bacon have become particularly useful to add flavour and satisfy our carnivorous taste and much to Marcus' dismay, chickpeas, and beans are frequent partners to the teeny morsels of meat.

On average we seem to be spending around 
£25 on Vegetables and Fruit
£17 on Meat and Fish
£18 on Eggs and Dairy (includes cheese)
£20 on The Rest (includes flour, yeast, sugar, oil, tinned tomatoes, tea, coffee, beans, lentils, etc.)

I would be lying if I said that I was finding it easy because it's not. It is really quite tricky. We are compromising on the amount and the variety of fruit that we buy and our meals are tending to be a good deal more carbohydrate heavy than a few weeks ago. As my store cupboard, with it's array of nuts, seeds and dried fruit starts to diminish, replenishing it is putting further strain on the budget.

On the plus side, Spring is in the air and we are busy sowing our seeds for the allotment. Once they grow and we start harvesting again we should be able to allocate a good £18 - £20 a week to other food stuffs. This will definitely make the time spent weeding and watering feel worth while!