Financial food diary: do you know how much your meals really cost?

With food still rising, Piper Terrett kept a financial diary of her meals for a week to find out just how much her family's meals were costing.

You might check your shopping bill each week and try to keep to a certain budget, but do you know how much each of your meals costs to make? 

Thinking about our schedule of meals across the week – sometimes planned, sometimes thrown together at the last minute – and going through the weekly shopping bill, it struck me how the ingredients for some meals were much more expensive than others.  

Trying to reduce the bill, I decided to keep a food diary for a week to find out how much we were spending on individual dishes.  

It was certainly an eye-opener.  

We did not include the cost of energy used to cook the meals in the experiment, however. 

Steak night, date night

I started my diary on a Friday, as I often get the shopping delivered then. 

Friday night is special in our house and has been since Covid. During the pandemic, when we couldn’t go out for a date night, we decided to have ‘steak night, date night’ instead at home. 

This involves giving our son pizza, telly and ice cream, and then packing him off to bed so we can enjoy a quiet romantic meal together. 

Traditionally, it has always been ribeye steak, homemade sweet potato fries, French beans, a Stilton sauce, followed by a Magnum ice cream. 

When I totted up how much this meal was, it was £12 for the steaks, £7 for the wine, around 30p for the fries, £1 for the French beans, £2.50 for the Stilton and £2 for the Magnums (in a box of 6) - £24.80 in total or £12.40 each. 

Expensive for a home-cooked meal, but still much cheaper than eating the same meal out. 

My son's Stellan’s half pizza was only 55p and then £1 for his Magnum, so £1.55.

Still, I hoped we would do better over the weekend. 

Saturday and Sunday 

Saturday morning, we were lazy and had supermarket pain au chocolat, which was £1.90 for a packet of six, so 63.33p each. 

Then, for lunch, I made homemade burgers for three. The mince was £4.10, salad and herbs 50p and the buns £1.40, so the total was £6 or £2 per serving. 

In the evening, my husband cooked and we had gnocchi (£2.63 for 1 ½ packets) with homemade tomato sauce made from chopped tomatoes (50p) and veg (30p), at £1.14 per serving. 

On Sunday, breakfast was muesli, costing around 60p per serving. 

For lunch, we had a recipe from Dr Mosley’s Fast Diet – broccoli (£1.60), asparagus (£1.99), quinoa (50p) and feta cheese (85p).  With a total of £4.94, it came out at £1.65 per serving. 

Dinner was chicken curry, also from the Fast Diet, but with (unapproved) poppadoms, costing £1.  

It made a batch of six servings, costing £5 for the chicken, £1.20 for the red peppers, 75p for the spinach, 30p for the herbs and 25p for the stock cube.

This was £8.50 in total and £1.42 per serving. 

Monday and Tuesday 

Doug and I both work from home most of the time, so during term-time we also eat lunch together at home. 

Lunch on Monday was leftover chicken curry. 

For dinner, I made a chilli, which provided two sets of meals for three, so dinner for Tuesday too.  

The mince cost £4.10, pepper 60p, mushrooms 30p, kidney beans 55p, splash of wine 80p, rice 50p. This came out at £6.85 or £1.14 per serving. 

We had tomato and mozzarella salad for lunch on Tuesday, costing £1 for the tomatoes, £1.40 for the mozzarella and 30p for a handful of basil leaves. This came out at £2.70 or £1.35 per serving for two.  

Wednesday and Thursday

Lunch on Wednesday was cheese on toast, which came to £1.40 or 70p each for two of us. 

In the evening, Stellan had football and it was a rushed dinner, so we had two supermarket pizzas between the three of us, costing £2.92, so 97p each. 

With the fridge ingredients dwindling, lunch on Thursday was baked beans on toast – costing around 80p, or 40p each for two, while dinner was stir-fry noodles (95p) with bacon (49p) and vegetables (£1), costing 81p per serving. 

Cheapest and most expensive meals

Our most expensive dish was steak on date night (£12.40 per serving), and our cheapest meal was baked beans on toast (40p per serving). Meanwhile, the cheapest dinner was stir-fry noodles at 81p per serving. 

Overall, I think we would save more money by going vegetarian and teetotal.  

We could also – and sometimes do – substitute cheaper ingredients for certain meals, such as cheaper steaks for date night or eating something else, such as gnocchi instead every other week. 

My husband once made us cauliflower steaks – far cheaper as a cauliflower is only £1.40, but just not the same!

It was, however, a refreshing way of looking at our shopping plan and meal, and I think we learned a lot from the experiment.  

Slash the cost of your family food bill

If you're worried about the rising cost of your supermarket shop – as more and more families are – it's time to start taking steps to slash your food bill.

This needn't mean drastic steps like skipping meals or ditching your regular favourites. 

Our authoritative guide to slashing your grocery bill has loads of tips and tricks to help you cut costs without cutting back.