Those of you who know me well, will have realised that blogging the other week about the trend that has recently popped up, mainly on YouTube this time, of asking the question 'Is it possible to eat for £1 a day in 2026?' the way so many of us in blogland did it quite a few years back ... would set me off on a mission to see if it was actually possible.
So I decided to do it last week.
My food buying has gotten very erratic recently, what with buying enough food for both me and Alan to eat together at dinner and teatime while he is so busy renovating our bungalow, so I thought that taking a break to concentrate on something like this while still making Alan good but simple meals of his choosing would be a way around things.
I made plans, checked the pricing out online on both the Aldi and Sainsbury's websites and then I visited them both armed with just £7, to see if I could actually manage it with what was available in our small branches. I had to do a mixture of both supermarkets as Aldi sell very few things loose, whereas in Sainsbury's I could weigh out produce to fit exactly into my budget. I did get the baking potatoes from Aldi as there they are priced individually and I could choose the largest ones possible at just 24p each.
The Aldi shopping and my receipt are above.
This is what I managed to pick up from Sainsbury's.
The receipt.
Here is my basic menu plan, the prices of the food and my workings out for the calories, protein and '5 a day' information. I thought that 1282 calories, 50g of protein and 4 of my '5 a day' per day were all quite reasonable for what was going to be just one week of eating.
I wrote out the ingredients list for my very basic recipes, soup, stew, dahl, carrot soup ...
... pizza sauce, lentil soup and slaw.
I decided that I would allow myself the use of minimal amounts of oil for cooking, and anything I needed from my stash of saved sachets ... and of course to keep my sanity intact over the course of the week, and to try and keep myself as human as possible there was always going to be instant coffee allowed.
Then there was only one thing for it ... time to get stuck in and actually eat the food that I had purchased over the next seven days.
I'll be back next time with a round up of the food that I ate and the leftovers ... yes, unbelievably there were leftovers!!
Sue xx
I look forward to seeing how you get on. It's quite a challenge doing this with today's prices but if anyone can do it you can.
ReplyDeleteIt was fun to do a weeks worth of challenge again. But I think it has been a one off.
DeleteThe baking potatoes are very reasonably priced aren’t they?
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing your next post on this 😀
Alison in Devon x
They are really good value as long as you can snaffle the largest ones (it's the same with the individually priced bananas). Buying four potatoes in a pack in either supermarket would have been 79p but they were so small and I needed options.
DeleteI really admire you, but I also think you're crazy! I look forward to seeing the results - you always do these things brilliantly.
ReplyDeleteI've been called crazy before, it's always a compliment ... who wants to be bog standard normal these days. 😄
DeleteNot being able to buy just one or two of something at Aldi is their one disadvantage I think. When it's cheaper to buy more of something and throw away things that go off than to buy less you know the world has gone mad.
ReplyDeleteWell done for giving it a go in 2026 - I didn't even try 10 years ago!
It really is, I think it's just baking potatoes, bananas and garlic that is sold loose. Booths have just announced they are selling more unwrapped produce in their stores. But I doubt I could afford to do this challenge at their prices. 🤔
DeleteWhile I do admire you I couldn't do it, we probably spend £7 on fish for one meal!
ReplyDeleteYes, any fish or meat would have decimated the budget. 🫤
DeleteI've been reading your blog for about a year and have to say I'm impressed! Not just with your savings but your attention to nutrition.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I found out early on during challenges on my Challenging Myself blog, that if I didn't state the exact figures for nutrition I would have lots of people telling me how unhealthy the plan was. I think it's better to nip this in the bud before I get criticised ... and of course, it's interesting. 🙂
DeleteWell done for having a go and I’ll look forward to seeing what meals you enjoyed. Catriona
ReplyDeleteI'll be back tomorrow with the food photos. 😀
DeleteI spy Stokes Sachets - are they from Booths? I love their brown sauce, also their coronation chicken sauce. But only buyit when it's on offer.
ReplyDeleteYes they are, although they are now moving over to bottles in the café. It's better for the environment, so I'm not too disappointed in my stash collection going down. I only buy the Stokes mayo bottles when I'm feeling flush. 😄
DeleteI knew you could do it! I'm looking forward to reading about how your meal plans worked out.
ReplyDeleteHaha, it was an itch I just had to scratch. 😄
DeleteLooking forward to seeing how this goes. I could probably feed the two of us for around $4.00 a day while the garden is producing. After that is anyone's guess, especially as Harvey is a big meat and potatoes man.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I did use two things out of the garden as we are still overrun with spring onions, and a couple of apples fell off the tree, I didn't want to waste them.
DeleteI'm with Frugally Challenged... madness, but interesting. Like Chris, we we buy fish which would blow your budget in one meal. It would be very hard to live on this budget for any length of time and still have a varied and nutritious diet, I suspect. Good on you for trying and experimenting!
ReplyDeleteAh, but happy interesting madness. 😄
DeleteI do think if I ran the weeks on together building up a little store of leftovers, I could maybe incorporate fish into week three. 🤔
You could have done with one of Lidl's buy it quick boxes. I was in the one in Carmarthen the other day and there were a selection with fruit and veg in each box. Fruit for stewing up, and a good selection of veg for soup/stew/curry/veggie cottage pie/pasties etc. I think they are in the £2 region to buy. I only noticed them as I was at the till and didn't want to rejoin the lengthy queue with full trollies.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a Lidl and sadly Aldi have never joined in with this veggie box idea. Imagine how things might have altered with a £2 box of fruit and vegetables, as long as there were some potatoes in it. 😀
DeleteWow, good on you, your subsequent posts will be very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to condense them so you don't have to wait all week to see them all, there's a lot of photos though. It was a good week.
DeleteIf anyone can do this then you can, the undisputed queen of budget food shopping and meticulous meal planning! xxx
ReplyDeleteOh you compliment me so well ... the cheque is in the post. 😄
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