Elliot Jeory created @costoflivingcrisistips on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to help people save in the cost of living crisis. Elliot wanted to pass on his own personal experiences with financial difficulties and show people how to save money in various ways.
Here, he set himself the challenge to do a weekly food shop for under £20. Discover his food diary and top tips below for cooking and eating on a budget, plus our nutritionist’s thoughts on the outcome.
My main focus on my channel is to show people the latest deals and bargains in supermarkets. People are becoming increasingly frustrated with the rising costs of food and it’s sadly getting to the point where even basic foods are becoming a luxury.
When I was younger and I first lived on my own I didn’t have a clue how to budget so I had to learn quickly if I didn’t want to go without a meal. In the UK, supermarkets are dominated by six major companies. Tesco being the largest, followed by Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi, Morrisons and Lidl. Aldi, for a long time, has been the go-to place for budget shopping, but even it has seen steep increases in food prices and people are now turning to lesser-known budget shops such as Farmfoods and Heron Foods, which are able to sell food cheaper than budget supermarkets on certain items due to the products having a shorter best before date.
I went to Farmfoods to see how much food I could buy as cheaply as possible to last me one week. The total cost was £17.93 – find out below what I bought and how I turned it into a week’s worth of meals for one.
What I bought at Farmfoods for the week
Farmfoods is great for bargains, but because it’s mostly frozen and tinned options, you don’t get as much variety in fruit and veg. Some of the deals may sell out quickly due to limited stock, so it’s hit and miss, but a lot of their food is a consistently low price.
- I bought 1kg of porridge oats for £1.19 as well as four litres of milk for £2. This is enough to have a big bowl of porridge every morning to get me through to lunch. Oats are among the cheapest foods you can buy and porridge is a great breakfast option – both filling and full of prebiotic fibres.
- For lunches, I bought an 800g loaf of bread for 99p and 12 large eggs for £1.98. An egg sandwich is a basic yet nutritious lunch and I can stretch that into six meals with bread leftover.
- I bought 4kg of white potatoes, six tins of beans for £2 and a 300g bag of grated mozzarella for £1.75. This way, I can have jacket potato, cheese and beans – a delicious, cheap and filling meal.
- I also purchased four frozen fish steaks for £1.99, and a bag of frozen peas for £1.29. So, with some of the potatoes, I could make fish, chips and peas as an alternative dinner.
- Although Farmfoods is known as a frozen food store, they have some great offers on fruit and veg which is really important for a healthy balanced diet and adding nutrients to meals. I was able to buy 1kg of nectarines for 99p and two packs of 250g of cherry tomatoes for 78p total.
My week of breakfasts, lunches and dinners on a budget
This is based on a single person with no dietary requirements.
Breakfasts and snacks
I usually start the day with either a bowl of porridge, scrambled eggs on toast or an egg sandwich. I’ll also have a nectarine for a mid-morning snack. It can be hard when I’m eating the same kinds of meals, but I’ve never been a fussy eater which helps a lot. I find porridge is a filling way to start the day and protein-rich eggs help to keep you satisfied until lunch.
Lunches and dinners
Lunches for me will typically consist of two eggs on toast (either boiled, poached or even fried), a cheese & tomato sandwich or cheesy chips with beans as a treat. For dinner, I’ll eat a fish steak with homemade chips and peas for some veg, or a jacket potato with cheese and beans for a simple, easy dinner.
I love eggs so I eat them all the time, plus they’ve got lots of health benefits. Think of your favourite healthy foods, then research where you can buy them for the least amount of money. If you can afford to bulk-buy meat, buy it, portion it out and freeze or use it batch-cook meals.
Overall, this week wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t starving and I chose foods that I liked and would fill me up, although this week was not the most versatile. When you’re on a limited budget, I choose foods which are nutritious and can be cooked in different ways so it doesn’t feel like you’re eating the same meal every day. I think of foods I like and then research different ways to cook them – for example, eggs can be boiled, fried, poached and scrambled. The same goes for potatoes – you can boil, bake and roast them, making dishes less repetitive.
Nutritionist’s advice on eating on a budget
Kerry Torrens, registered nutritionist
‘Eating healthily on a budget is certainly a challenge and it’s interesting to see how resourceful Elliot has been. His choice of eggs are nutritionally rich, supplying almost every nutrient you need and frozen fish locks in vitamins and minerals and provides a lean source of protein. That said, a limited variety in your diet is not recommended for the long term and so it’s useful to work towards building a store-cupboard of staples to fall back on.
For example, one week you could add a bag of raisins or sultanas to your shop – just a handful (30g) added to your morning porridge contributes 1 of your 5 a day. In your next weekly shop consider a spice – opt for a good all-rounder like nutmeg, cinnamon or mixed spice – sprinkled on porridge spices top up your weekly plant points. Porridge oats are a great source of fibre and help keep blood sugar levels stable, however, over these 7 days the diet is low in fibre overall – you can boost levels by scrubbing the potatoes rather than peeling them, as well as adding fibre, the skin of the potato holds lots of valuable nutrients.
Fancy a savoury breakfast? Put baked beans in an ovenproof dish, crack in an egg and bake – baked beans count as 1 of your 5 a day and enjoying an egg for breakfast can keep you sustained through the morning. You can ring more changes by mixing up how you use the other ingredients – for example, for a quick lunch smash boiled peas with a fork, spread on toast and top with a poached, boiled or fried egg. Try baking the fish steak with slices of nectarine and serve with a pea and tomato salad for a meal that provides 3 of your 5 a day. Another option would be to make a bread and oat crispy crumb for the fish steak, serve with a cheesy potato gratin, peas and sautéed tomatoes.
Aim to achieve greater variety and balance in your budget diet by building a base of staples that you can fall back on these can include dried, tinned and frozen fruit, vegetables as well as whole-grain cereals, nuts, seeds and spices.’
How can you stretch your budget even further?
If you’re budgeting for the whole family, try batch-cooking meals with affordable basics such as pasta and rice – these are generally budget-friendly. Other low-cost ingredients include tinned tomatoes, onions, garlic and chicken if bought on the bone (such as thighs or wings). It’s worth investing in spices, which cost pennies per portion and will span plenty of meals. Garlic powder, paprika, pepper, turmeric and chilli powder or flakes can make a world of difference to simple ingredients when you’re cooking with a limited budget.
It’s important to make sure you have enough nutrients in your diet to stay healthy and keep you full. Buying frozen fruit and vegetables is often cheaper than buying fresh and will last longer. Eggs will give protein, as well as cheese and milk, which also contain calcium.
If I’m paid weekly, I buy food that will last the week such as a big bag of potatoes, eggs, cheese, milk, butter and cereal, as well as bags of veg like carrots. If I’m paid monthly, I do the same but I freeze a lot, such as milk, bread and butter, then buy frozen food that I know would last me until payday and top up with fresh food whenever I can.
My final piece of advice
Do a little research into food – learn what can keep you feeling fuller for longer, what foods can be bought cheaply that contain essential nutrients, how to plan meals ahead of time for the week by batch-cooking, and how long food can be stored safely.
