In the current economic climate, food budgets are going haywire, mine included. Given the availability of a huge range of ’staple’ foods in the UK, we’re used to choosing what to eat purely on the basis of what we fancy. I thought it would be interesting to see how much a portion of different types of carbohydrate cost, to enable cost-conscious decision-making. I can then revert to my former attempts to keep our monthly food budget down to £80. Doable? I don’t know. But it’s worth a try.
So. Here are my findings, based on today’s prices at Tesco.com. Portion sizes all equate to 3 Weight Watchers points for ease of comparison.
- Value pasta (60g dry weight) = 2p
- Bread (2 slices) = 4p to 13p depending on type and thickness of slice (homemade is cheaper still at around 2p)
- Value rice (64g dry weight) = 6p
- Smash (33g powder) = 9p
- Sharwood’s noodles (1 block) = 13p
- Potatoes (300g from 5kg bag) = 14p
I haven’t worked out the cost of home-grown potatoes. If you have, I’d like to know about it. If you have any other carbohydrates to add, please feel free to comment below…
Other handy links for people watching their grocery bills:
Do you have a favourite frugal cookbook? Leave the details in a comment and I’ll see about doing a review of a handful of them in a future post. : )
